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A Friend of the Earth
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Culture and Agriculture
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“A
healthy farm culture can be based only upon familiarity and can grow
only among a people soundly established upon the land; it nourishes and
safeguards human intelligence of the earth that no amount of technology
can satisfactorily replace. The growth of such a culture was once
a strong possibility in the farm communities of this country: We
now have only the sad remnants of those communities. If we allow
another generation to pass without doing what is necessary to enhance
and embolden the possibility now perishing with them, we will lose it
altogether. And then we will not only invoke calamity – we will
deserve it.”
"We
are currently in the
midst of a crisis of culture and agriculture. We cannot rest
until we have regained a culture and agriculture that is local,
family-scale, and fully integrated with the richness and diversity of
creation."
– Douglas
Tompkins
"Preventing famine and disease are noble goals. Ending injustice
and poverty are noble goals. But none of these will induce an
elusive “demographic transition” to lowered birthrates in time to
prevent widespread biological collapse, a collapse that would not only
intensify human miseries but would further intensify the destruction of
nature. We simply cannot allow the natural environment (which,
after all, is the only environment humanity is adapted to) to
deteriorate any further. In addition, none of these noble goals
will be accomplished by furthering the immaculate misconception that
raising more food by cutting down more tropical forests,
draining more
tropical wetlands, or breeding more bountiful crops will solve the
demographic dilemma. We are running out of wild nature, space,
and water, as we are running out of non-renewable resources.
Meanwhile, the population bomb keeps on ticking, faster and
faster. It needs to be defused now!
The answer to the demographic dilemma is clear
enough: we must abandon the fallacies of agricultural hope, for
it is not a question of raising more food, but of raising fewer
people. If population growth is not curtailed voluntarily, the
dictatorial powers of the state (as by sheer necessity in China) or the
brutal catastrophes of nature (as in Africa’s Sahel and Sudan) will
surely do it for us.
Only an ecologically responsible human society,
living within limits and sternly self-restrained in both resource use
and human reproduction, can give this spaceship world of ours any
realistic hope of bequeathing to our children a beautiful, livable, and
nature-rich earth."
– Hugh Iltis, Professor Emeritus of
Botany and Director Emeritus
of the Herbarium at the University of Wisconsin, The
Impossible Race, Population Growth and the Fallacies of Agricultural
Hope, p. 35
and following
pages.
Quoting Job “Ask now the beasts, and they shall teach
thee; and the fowls of the air, and they shall tell thee: Or
speak to the earth and it shall teach thee; and the fishes of the sea
shall declare unto thee."
Quoting Virgil: "Before we plow an unfamiliar Patch
It is well to be informed about the winds,
About the variation in the sky,
The native traits and habits of the place,
What each locale permits and what denies.
… to be successful in agriculture we need
to know what nature will require of us… Perhaps eventually we can mold
all such economies to nature’s image, letting her be our ultimate
teacher."
– Wendell
Berry, Looking to Nature as the Standard to Solve
the Problem of Agriculture, pages 45-47.
“That everything is
connected to everything else” must be regarded as
the First Law of Ecology. The Second law of Ecology might be
termed
the “limitation of all life by carrying capacity.” Each species,
through evolutionary processes, is adapted to a specific habitat.
This
habitat is a finite resource with limits on the maximum number of a
species that it can maintain over an “infinite span of time.”
This
limitation is termed the carrying capacity. The Third Law of ecology is
“the need for diversity.” I suggest we define the conventional
meaning
of progress to be “those acts of man that enhance the human experience
without impairing the earth’s life support systems.”
– George Cornwell, Ph.D.,
“Man Looks at his Environment” in the Journal
of the Florida Medical Association, October, 1970
Unwanted Chemicals in Man and Environment
(1) How will our population grow?
(2) Where will our technology go?
“Our discussions will be idle
without answers to these
questions.”
– Maurice
W Provost, Ph.D.
Bob's comments : What is the most
shocking in what follows in Dr.
Provost’s paper is the extent of the documented knowledge known then
and the extent of USA responsibility which continues with so much
difficulty in agreement on a course of action of a remedial
nature.
Most interesting is the documented prediction of the beginning of the
melting of the Antarctic ice cap by the year 2000 provided we took no
(beginning) remedial action. Public notice did not result and the
ice
cap did begin to melt on time.
Here, I
perceive a need for extraordinary action intended to propel
this nation and the world into immediate recognition of the peril which
threatens all life on the planet and remedial action by us all.
September
1, 2009
I have been looking for days for a quotation of John
Muir’s
that I thought I had read in his book, The National Parks, but I did
not find it when I finished the entire book this morning. I decided to
go ahead and read the second book, The
Mountains of California.
Scanning that book, I found clippings, the last one of which was a
January 10, 1982 Sunday Times-Union
and Jacksonville Journal article by
Stetson Kennedy reviewing a book on Muir. It was while stumbling
about
in a bog on the Canadian shore of Lake Huron that Muir had an encounter
with a plant. It proved to be the most profound spiritual
experience
of his life. It was the rare orchid, Calypso borealis, two white
flowers in a background of yellow moss – and “utterly useless it seemed
pure enough for the throne of its Creator,” Muir later wrote. “I
felt
as if I were in the presence of superior beings who loved me and
beckoned me to come. I sat down beside them and wept for joy.”
The plant I myself was so concerned about was Kalmia hirsuta,
an entire colony of which was wiped out in the area where the present
Church of Christ and its rear parking area now stands. When I was
at
camp in Carolina at age 11 or 12, I thought that the Passion flower was
so very beautiful but it was very common, whereas, the small Kalmia was
quite rare in my experience as was the Lady lupine and the milkweed, Asclepias humistrata
which now I cannot find and want to recover. I
would likely cry were I to recover any one of the three.
The Beloved Community …we see how
the phrase “to suffer and to
work” refuse sentimentalization, we see how common work, common
suffering, and a common willingness to join and belong are understood
as the conditions that make speech possible in “the dumb abyss” in
which we are divided,…This leads us to as good a definition of the
beloved community as we can hope for: common experiences and
common
effort on a common ground to which one willingly belongs.
The Beloved Community fits an
agricultural community best it
might seem, but why can’t this be a workable goal for a city,
especially in the case of a small city? Small towns may well be a
goal
where people can more easily relate in a way that would be admirable.
– Wendell Berry,
What
Are People For?, page 85. (See A Prosperous Way Down by Odum &
Odum.)
Bob's comments: Our
assumptions are that we have multiple problems with no common cause
antecedent to them. Sure, we have economic problems and
others. We
are in a severe recession and it will get worse as time goes on simply
because we are not addressing the common cause. For example,
there is
much push to drill for more oil. But do we not understand that
oil
brought to the surface then becomes poisonous as it is used. And
to
bring more to the surface, more will certainly be used. We know
that
from previous experience.
We are accustomed to the idea
that every problem can and will be
resolved by some new technology. We are hopeful that new methods
of
technology and invention will enable us to have the same amount of
energy available to us today and in the future as in the past, even
more as we grow in numbers as forecast. We are not accustomed to
limits and plan none.
The facts are otherwise in my
estimation and in that of many others; we
will never get back to the affluence of the past. The past
affluence
of the American way of life is not exportable. We’re going to
have to
curb our appetites for more and more and set limits or reap the wild
wind as predicted by the Union of Concerned Scientist in April 1993
(UCS).
Our current malaise is due to
one thing, i.e., the fact that the
demands of ours put on the Earth, our Mother Nature, have greatly
exceeded her ability to meet those demands. The result is that
our
Mother is ill and therefore unable to meet those demands.
Our current predicament is due
to one common cause, our mistreatment of
each other in the sub-prime mortgage scandal by a few of us on the one
hand and on the other hand, the mistreatment of the natural world
by
most of us as we have demanded too much of it to suit our
whimsies.
Mother Nature’s abilities to satisfy those demands have been
overwhelmed so that the Earth is now gravely ill.
It is common knowledge among
many scientists that our human economy is
entirely dependent upon the Earth’s economy which now suffers from the
abuse over six (6) billion people have heaped on it with the help of
our ingenuity in inventing means to harness the energy of carbon in the
Earth; first in the soil itself, then wood, and now that in coal, oil,
natural gas and nuclear power. We are too many living beyond the
Earth’s means. We must figure a way to cut back our numbers
substantially as well as to find a life-style that is compatible with a
healthy Earth without producing violence and war, pestilence,
starvation and pain. It is a very tall order and it may no longer
be
possible. But we must hope that it is not too late and get to
work
finding how we can coexist with each other and with the plants and
animals who are our fellow travelers and sustainers. It involves
an
entirely new way of thinking for must of us, an entirely new way of
life. It takes time to make such a monumental change, and much
more to
implement the necessary changes. I think that the American people
can
do this if challenged by a man or woman with vision and
knowledge.
First we must talk about it and ask the correct questions.
“Modern day prophet’s task – to
give us the understanding needed
in order to live in ways that make sense.
To pursue the puzzle
further, we must make a conscious choice to do so.
To choose…will require a metanoia—a total
change in mind and heart.
Re: Big Bang - Had the
universe expanded slightly faster, matter could
not have formed; if slower, the universe would have collapsed on
itself. Diversity is as necessary in the spirituality of
humanity’s
many belief systems as it is in the biological species. Community
and
conformity are diametrically opposed.
–
McGregor Smith, Jr.,
Earth Ethics Report, 1991
Pages 329-339
The
following are notes from An
Agricultural Testament by Sir Albert Howard, Oxford Univ. Press,
1943 (First published in England in 1940):
Page 1: The maintenance of the fertility of the soil
is the first condition of any permanent system of agriculture.
Its continuous restoration by means of manuring and soil management is
therefore imperative. Mixed farming is the rule: plants always
found with animals…never any attempt at monoculture: mixed crops
and mixed farming are the rule. Soil protected from direct sun,
rain and wind.
P. 2: The forest manures itself, makes its own humus and supplies
itself with minerals.
P. 3: Minerals obtained from the subsoil by deeper roots.
P. 4: Mother earth never farms without livestock, mixed crops:
takes pains to preserve the soil and to prevent erosion: mixed
vegetables and animal wastes converted into humus.
P. 5: In Peru irrigated staircase farming reached its highest
known development. Terraced fields irrigated by aqueducts from
immense distances. The same is found in terraces of the Hunza in
the NW frontier of India.
P. 7- 9: Initially Rome was built on the most extensive and
immediate mastery of her citizens over the soil. That did not
persist: small holdings ceased to yield well and were merged with
larger estates. Slaves were numerous. A capitalist system
was fundamentally opposed to a sound agriculture. Roman
agricultural history ended in failure due to failure to maintain soil
fertility: the agricultural population came in conflict with the
operations of the capitalist.
P. 10: Holdings in India, China, and Japan were minute.
Food and forage crops were predominant.
P. 11: The primary function of Eastern agriculture is to supply
the cultivators and their cattle with food.
P. 17 -20: Agriculture in the West: to satisfy the hunger of the
rural population, including live stock, the hunger of the growing urban
areas, the hunger of the machine for raw materials.
Introducing slaves, animals – internal combustion engine, electric
motor, no urine or dung to maintain soil fertility. Artificial
manures make farming easier and “a satisfactory profit and loss account
has been obtained.” But machines do nothing to keep the soil in
good heart. Diseases of crops and the animals that feed on them
are on the increase. The agriculture of ancient Rome failed
because it was unable to maintain the soil in a fertile
condition. Western farmers are repeating the mistakes of
Imperial Rome. Now we have a much larger population to feed and
the added hunger of the machine. Can mankind maintain the
fertility of its soil? On this hangs the future of civilization.
P. 22-24: The role of chlorophyll enabling the green leaf to
intercept energy and then manufacture food to synthesize carbohydrates
and protein. There is no alternative. The root hairs and
the myccorrhizal association. Soil bacteria, fungi, and protozoa
and energy from oxidation of humus. Oxygen and ventilation.
P. 25: The wheel of life: growth and decay.
P. 26: humus defined
Chapter 3 The Restoration of Fertility
P. 33: sources of soil organic matter – Roots and turned under
crop residues, algae in the surface soil, temporary leys, the turf of
worn-out grass land, catch crops, and green-manures: 4) urine of
animals: 5) farmyard manure. 6) dustbins 7) processing wastes from
agriculture produce; 8) wastes of urban population: 9) water wells.
P. 37: Chemical manures. Unsound. Takes no account of the
life of the soil, including the mycorrhizal association, “an essential
link in plant nutrition.”
P. 39: The Indore Process (named for the city in India): The
manufacture of humus from vegetable and animal wastes with a base for
neutralizing acidity, and the management of the mass so that the
microorganisms which do the work can function in the most effective
manner.
P. 42: A continuous supply of mixed dry vegetable wastes all
year, in as proper state of division. (bark first destroyed)
Animal residues: urine and dung, kitchen wastes.
P. 43: Chemical activators are frowned on.
P.44: The fermenting mix soon becomes acid and must be
neutralized. Chalk, limestone, wood ashes as calcium or
potassium. Water and air needed, the former throughout, abundant
aeration is essential during the early stages. Half saturation
early; the condition of a pressed-out sponge. Most effective way to
provide water and oxygen together is to use the rainfall, which is
saturated with oxygen, keeping the fermenting mass open at the
beginning so that atmospheric air can enter and the CO2 can escape.
P. 45: Pits vs. Heaps.
Pl 46: Charging the heaps of pits;
P. 48: Turning the compost.
P. 50: Storage; Output
P. 87: Green manuring: enriching the soil with leguminous
crops. “In a few cases, particularly in open, well aerated soils
where the rainfall, after plowing in of the green-manuring experiments,
was well distributed and ample time was given for decay, the results
have been satisfactory. In the majority of cases, however, they
have been disappointing.
P. 88: The chief factors in green-manuring are: the knowledge of
nitrogen cycle plied with freshly made humus and air. Grasses and
legumes which respond to improved soil conditions must then be provided.
P. 95: “The uncertainties of humus manufacture in the soil can be
overcome by growing the green crop to provide material for
composting. It adds to the labour and expense but, in many
countries it is proving a commercial proposition, e.g., in Rhodesia,
crops of hemp are now regularly grown to provide litter, rich in
nitrogen, for mixing with maize stalks so as to improve the
carbon/nitrogen ratio of the bedding used in the cattle kraals.
In this way the burden on the soil is greatly reduced; it is only
called upon to decay what is left of the root system of the green crop
at harvest time. Humus manufacture is shared between the soil and
compost heap.”
P. 98: In the case of a remarkable crop of a green-manure plant,
Crotalaria angyroides, growing in soil rich in humus; its active roots
were heavily infected with mycorrhizal as were other tropical
leguminous plants growing in similar soils. This suggested why
hemp, Lucerne (alfalfa), and other tropical legumes respond so
strikingly to cattle manure, all mycorrhizal formers.
P. 99: Clearly the grass family, like the clover group, is all
mycorrhizal-formers, explaining why both these classes of plants
respond so markedly to humus.
P. 102: There is only one grass-land problem in the world, a
simple one. The soil must be brought back to active life.
Chapter 8: The Utilization of Town Wastes
Chapter 9: Health, Indisposition, and Disease in Agriculture;
soil aeration. Rain is a saturated solution of
oxygen.
Page 117: Three main problems: 1) why grass can be so
injurious to fruit trees, 2) the nature of the weapons by which trees
vanquish grass, and, 3) the reaction of the root system of trees to the
aeration of the soil. Deep vs. superficial tree roots.
P. 127: some varieties of trees were slowly dying of starvation.
P. 146: Forests are an effective agent preventing soil erosion
and in feeding the springs and rivers. The trees and undergrowth
break up the rainfall into a fine spray and the litter on the ground
protects the soil from erosion. The residues of trees and animal
life met within the woodlands are converted into humus which is then
absorbed by the soil underneath, increasing its porosity and
water-holding power.
P. 149: The view that the origin of alkali land is bound up with
defective aeration of soils is supported by recent work in Siberia.
P. 153: Reclamation of alkali land: treat the soil with
sufficient gypsum which transforms sodium clays into calcium clays,
wash out the soluble salts, add organic matter, and then farm the land
properly.
Chapter 11: The Retreat of the crop and the animal before the
parasite
P. 156: When soil is infertile, where an unsuitable variety is
being grown, or where some mistake has been made in its management,
nature at once registers her disapproval through her censors’
department. One or more groups of parasitic insects and fungi –
the organisms that thrive on unhealthy living matter – are told to
point out that farming has failed: the crop is attacked by
disease. A case has arisen for the control of a pest: a
crop must be protected. In recent years another form of
disease—virus disease has made its appearance – proteins exhibit
definite abnormalities, the work of the green leaf is not effective,
the synthesis of albuminoids seems to be incomplete. Another
apparent cause, neither a fungus, an insect, nor a virus- physiological
diseases: troubles arising from the collapse of the normal metabolic
processes.
Sir Howard goes on in
following pages to tell his important discoveries:
P. 159: “In 1905, I was appointed Imperial Economic Botanist to
the government of India at Pusa where “through the support of the
Director, the late Bernard Coventry, had for the first time all the
essentials for work – interesting problems, money, freedom, and last
but not least, 75 acres of land on which I could grow crops in my own
way and study their relation to insect and fungous pests and other
things. My real training in agricultural research then began –
six years after leaving the University with paper qualifications and
academic experience then needed by an investigator … I resolved to
break new ground and try out an idea… to observe what happened when
insect and fungous diseases were left alone and (page 160) allowed to
develop unchecked, and where indirect methods only, such as improved
cultivation and more efficient varieties were employed to prevent
attack… I decided that I could not do better than watch the operations
of these peasants (whose farms were “free from pests of all kinds) and
acquire their traditional knowledge as rapidly as possible. I
regarded them as my professors of agriculture. Another group of
instructors were obviously the insects and fungi themselves (p.
161). By 1910, I had learnt how to grow healthy crops
practically free of disease, without the slightest help from
mycologists, entomologists, bacteriologists, agricultural chemists,
clearing-houses of information, artificial manures, spraying machines,
insecticides, fungicides, germicides, and all the other expensive
paraphernalia of the modern Experiment Station. I then posed to
myself the principles which appeared to underlie the diseases of
plants:
1. Insects and fungi are
not the real cause of plant diseases but only attack unsuitable
varieties or crops imperfectly grown. Their true role is that of
censors for pointing out the crops that are improperly nourished…In
other words, the pests must be looked at as Natures Professors of
Agriculture” as an integral portion of any rational system of farming.”
2. The policy of protecting
crops from pests by means of sprays, powders, etc, is unscientific and
unsound as, even when successful, such procedure merely preserves the
unfit and obscures the real problem – how to grow healthy crops.
3. The burning of diseased
plants seems to be unnecessary destruction of organic matter as no such
provision as this exists in nature, in which insects and fungi all live
and work…This suggested that the birthright of every crop is health and
that the correct method of dealing with disease at an Experiment
Station is not to destroy the parasite, but to make use of it for
tuning up agricultural practice. Applied to oxen.
P. 161: It was necessary to have the work cattle under my own
charge; to design their accommodation, and to arrange for their
feeding, hygiene, and management. At first this was refused but
backed by the late Sir Robert Carlyle, I was allowed six pairs of oxen.
P. 162: Animals were carefully selected, provided with suitable
housing, and with fresh green fodder, silage, and grain, all produced
from fertile land. None of my animals were segregated; none
inoculated, they frequently came in contact with diseased stock, rubbed
noses with diseased stock in which foot and mouth cases occurred.
Nothing happened, no infection took place… work with Lathyrus
sativus; showed that surface rooted plants were always immune; deep
rooted types always heavily infected; intermediate types always
moderately infected…The insect, therefore, was not the cause, but the
consequence of something else.
P. 163: Tobacco plants infected with a virus…malformed
plants. “When care was devoted to the details of growing tobacco
seed, the raising of seedlings in the nurseries, to transplanting and
general soil management, the virus disease disappeared altogether …”
Under favorable conditions other crops likewise did well.
P. 165: It was soon discovered…that the thing that matters most
in crop production is regular supply of well-made farm-yard manure and
that the maintenance of soil fertility is the basis of health.
Humus and disease resistance:
Even at the Experiment Station the supply of farm-yard manure was
insufficient. Hard to increase the supply where cattle-dung had
to be burnt for fuel. After a delay of six years he left and
moved to Indore in 1918 where he worked out the mycorrhizal association
and his manner of producing compost. The apple trees had been
destroyed by caterpillars like condlin mothe. The quality of fruit was
poor. Nothing was done to control these pests beyond the gradual
building up of the humus content of the soil. In three years the
parasites disappeared; the trees were transformed; the foliage and the
new wood now leave nothing to be desired; the quality of fruit is first
class.
Nature has provided a marvelous piece of machinery for conferring
disease-resistance on the crop. The machinery is only active in soil
rich in humus. It is inactive or absent in infertile land and in
similar soils manured with chemicals. The fuel needed to keep
this machinery in motion is a regular supply of freshly prepared humus,
properly made.
P. 167: The reaction of the tree to the various pests of the
apple will answer this question. No soil analysis can tell me as
much as the trees can.
Chapter 12 Soil Fertility and National Heath – P. 171
Chapter 13 A protocol of present day agricultural
research Page 180
P. 207: Sheet Composting: By this is meant the automatic
manufacture of humus in the upper layers of the soil. Material to
be provided: 1) vegetable residues- of stubble and roots of crops like
cereals: 2) temporary leys for plowing up, which must always include
deep-rooting plants and herbs: and 3) green manures; catch crops
and weeds. Also provide reformed farmyard manure. In
addition, we need oxygen, moisture and warmth. If properly
farmed, the soil will neutralize acidity. Oxygen from the
atmosphere, moisture by soil, rain and dew. Warmth by beginning
before the land begins to cool in the late summer or early
autumn. Cover with only a light layer of earth. A deep
covering cuts off the oxygen. If the soil is good, a second
composting is possible by sowing a catch crop on the sheet composted
land. These make the fullest use of solar energy by some kind of
crop (or weeds) in late summer or autumn. Now a useful supply of
humus will be created and ready for the nitrification for the next
year’s crop. Nitrogen fixers require organic matter, oxygen,
moisture and a base such as calcium carbonate to prevent an acid
condition of the soil, chalk or powdered limestone in relation to the
local agriculture; (2) the conditions necessary for rapid growth and
also for the formation of abundant nodules on the roots of the
leguminous crop used for green manuring; (3) the chemical composition
of the green crop at the moment it is plowed in; and, (4) the soil
conditions during the period when decay takes place. These four
factors must first be explored and studied.” See further
explanations.
The
following are from Notes on Soil and
Health, 1947, Sir Albert
Howard Published 1947, paperback 1972:
P. 19: Agriculture is an
interference with Nature, harvesting,
sowing, cultivation. The farmer must obey Nature’s rules.
P. 23 - 26: The soil is pulsating with life, living fungi,
bacteria, and protozoa. These fine fungous threads actually
invade the cells of the plant micro-root and later are absorbed by the
root and are absorbed (mycorrhizal). Undecayed residue of
vegetable and animal wastes plus dead bodies of bacteria and fungi are
fermented by molds and microbes aerobically in the upper layers of
soil, in the lower levels aerobically. Ants, termites, and
earthworms move this up and down or follow the channel of a root.
P. 26 - 29: The presence of humus indicates that undecayed
residue of vegetable and animal waste lying on the surface, combined
with the dead bodies of these bacteria and fungi themselves, when they
have done their work. Forest wastes lie undisturbed, the top
layer very loose, with ample air circulation for several inches
downward aerobically. The lower levels are packed more closely
and the final manufacture of humus is now anaerobic. Sunlight is
tempered and rain broken up by the leaves above. Air circulates
freely protected from the cooling and drying effect of wind. A
cutoff to air and water will restrict 02 and cause an anaerobic
condition. Ants, termites, and earthworms move the humus deeper
and upwards too, or follow the channel of a root. The subsoil of rock
contains minerals, potash, phosphorus and many rarer elements.
P. 21: …the green leaf with its chlorophyll battery: its
efficiency of supreme importance…our sole final source of nutriment…no
alternative supply. The function of the green leaf armed with its
chlorophyll is to manufacture the food the plant needs…two distinct
ways in which the roots…collect materials (they) supply to the
leaf.
P. 22: No food is supplied to the leaf, only raw stuff: the
root hairs pass into the transpiration current of the plants, dissolved
substance in the thin films of water around each particle of earth, the
soil solution, CO2, O2, and chemical substances - nitrates, compounds
of potassium, and phosphorus, etc. Organic matter is continually
reverting to the inorganic state, in the process of decay.
P. 10: Myccorrhizal association: the mechanism by which living
fungous threads (mycelium) invade the cells of young roots and are
gradually digested (conifers and tea shrubs) The earth’s green
carpet is used by Nature to establish for itself a direct connection, a
kind of living bridge, between its own life and the living portion of
the soil.
P. 193: The problem: how best to maintain in health and
efficiency the huge human population which has resulted from the
Industrial Revolution. The removal of food from the farms to
cities with no attempt to return wastes to the land, thus depleting the
soil’s capital; increase the efficiency of the earth’s green
carpet. This involves the solution of the problem of fertilizing.
P. 194: Agriculture as an interference with Nature: the most
elementary act of harvesting is an interruption: the acts of
cultivation, sowing, etc. are even more deliberate intrusions into the
natural cycle; definite duties to the land are best summed up in the
law of return: (one) must also realize the significance of the
stupendous reserves on which the natural machine works and which must
be faithfully maintained… the agriculturalist must understand that he
is a part of Nature; and cannot escape from his environment. He
must therefore obey Nature’s rules…Raising earth-borne crops on an
exclusive diet of water and mineral dope – the so-called science of
hydroponics—is science gone mad.
P. 195: …the art of agriculture depends on the character of the
intervention being comprehended and measures initiated to restore the
natural cycle in a proper way; we must give back what we take
out…increased crop and animal production over the last few generations
of human life ignores the fact that these results depend on the PLUNDER
OF THE CAPITAL OF THE SOIL. How Nature maintains the earth’s
surface in fertility by a slow creating and interchange of soils by
means of weathering the location through the agency of water or
wind. Soils constantly shifted and redistributed thus preventing
soils from becoming static, stale and worn out. There is a
vertical movement whereby the roots of trees draw up the minerals of
the subsoil which then become distributed by the leaf fall. The
constituents of the subsoil are there and, by means of the earthworm,
are continually being added to the topsoil. Other interferences:
settlement of areas for cultivation and allocation of chosen crops,
rotation of crops. Dangers: general neglect of vegetable wastes,
animal wastes, human wastes.
Dispersal of animal wastes.
P. 197: Roots of trees break up the subsoil and search for
minerals such as phosphate, potash, and trace elements.
P. 197: subsoiler to break up the subsoil (Hardpan)
P. 206: Decomposition without putrefaction is the principle of
composting. Adequate oxygen is needed.
P. 207: Substituting the compost heap for the manure heap is
best; Chinese composted animal and vegetable wastes together. A
third method - sheet composting encouragement of the non-symbiotic soil
organisms like Azobacter, to fix nitrogen. Raw materials;
vegetable residues, stubble roots of crops, 2) Temporary leys for
plowing up including deep-rooting plants and herbs (Alfalfa) and 3)
green-manures, catch crops and weeds. The Fullest use of solar
energy is attained by always having the soil in the catch crops and
weeds and by always having the soil in the late summer or autumn under
a crop of some kind or even under weeds. Vegetable matter must
always be made and then converted to humus for the following year.
P. 209: The towns are parasitic on the country. This
will have to stop. Cities need to compost crude sewage plus
vegetable wastes.
The Indore process, pp. 211 and following pages.
P. 209: The city dustbin refuse, rather than being buried or
incinerated, should be turned into compost by the help of the crude
sewage from the mains…The latter can be used as an activator, either
directly or filtered, and then converted (the sludge) into powder, at
the same time rendering the filtrate innocuous by chlorination.
Both this dried sludge and crude sewage are excellent substitutes for
animal activators. A small amount of dried sludge – about 1% of
the dry weight of the vegetable matter used – is sufficient to active
the vegetable wastes. The use of crude sewage is also
practicable; long shallow pits may be filled with several layers of
baled straw and dustbin refuse, which can then be readily moistened and
activated by the sewage without the least nuisance and converted into
compost (excellent in some three months.)
. 210: Summary:
1) The manurial problem can be best solved by
copying the methods of Nature.
2) The circulation of minerals between subsoil and
soil must be restored by means of aforestation and the subsoiler
followed by the use of deep-rooting plants in the temporary ley.
3) The nitrogen problem can be solved
by: (a) the reform of the manure heap: (b) by the sheet
composting of stubbles, green manures, catch-crops, and weeds: (c) by
assisting the fixation of atmospheric nitrogen.
4) An ample supply of compost in the neighborhoods
of towns and cities can be provided by introducing municipal composting
on the lines now successful in S. Africa.
Sheet composting: pp. 207, 208, 210.
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