Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
back-to-nature
first attested 1915.
Usage examples of "back-to-nature".
Lord Pastern was no refuge as he had sunk into a reverie from which he roused himself from time to time only to throw disjointed remarks at no one in particular, and to attack his food with a primitive gusto which dated from his Back-to-Nature period.
Bosses said the colonists were some kind of artsy-craftsy back-to-nature types.
The back-to-nature communalists achieving their apotheosis, helping to feed and instruct bewildered urban survivors (projected catch-phrase: "If you don't like hippies, next time you're hungry, call a cop").
For the man, fed up to the gills with the stinks of the city and afflicted with the annual back-to-nature bug, it had yellow pine walls with prominent rustic knotholes.