An Annotated Bibliography of Readings
In the Intellectual History of Radical Agriculture
* Titles we would like very much to add to our library.
Albrecht,
William A. The Albrecht Papers. Edited by Charles Walters, Jr. 3 volumes.
Kansas City: Acres U.S.A., vols 1 and 2,1975. To get an Acres, U.S.A. book catalog
and a free-sample of their journal, contact
the publisher.
Perhaps no single individual did more to combine the rigors
and legitimacy of academic science with the outlook of the agricultural radical.
Albrecht's animal/soil health studies brought him into alignment with Price and Pottenger;
his tireless promotion of better farming gave his work significant impact from the
'40's through the 60's. Unfortunately, Albrecht's willingness to consider nutrients
as nutrients without making moral distinctions regarding "organic" vs chemical
put him relatively out of favor with J.I. Rodale, and thus placed Albrecht somewhat
beyond the ken of contemporary organic gardeners and homesteaders. The Albrecht
Papers are a collection of articles and lectures appearing in forums ranging
from academic journals to dental conventions to health magazines.
* Balfour, Lady Eve. B. The Living
Soil. London: Faber and Faber, 1943.
Associated with the Howardian radicals of her time, Balfour
sets out to muster all available and scientifically reputable evidence, sufficient
to convince both the technically educated and the simpler sorts that organically
raised food is better in every respect, especially health promoting. Perhaps the
best book of its class of its period. Balfour also outlines the beginnings of an
experimental farm run on completely acceptable scientific standards to absolutely
prove her contentions. Donald Hopkin's book points out many flaws in Balfour's experiments.
Bennett, Hugh H. Soil Erosion: A National Menace. USDA Circular No. 33. Washington,
D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1928.
The clarion call for a massive effort to handle the problem
of soil erosion before the agricultural base of American civilization was lost forever.
Clear, concise and damn good writing. Bennett's efforts led to the crusade that founded
the Soil and Conservation Service. Its funding was cinched when, during the congressional
hearings deciding the fate of a new, pending SCS, the dust clouds from the Midwest
rolled into Washington, DC.
* Brink, Wellington. Big Hugh, the
Father of Soil Conservation. New York: Macmillan Company, 1951.
Brink worked for Hugh Bennett's SCS and wrote this brief
picture of one of history's greats near the end of Bennett's career. Stresses not
only the magnitude of the SCS's accomplishments, but especially Bennett's democratic
vision of voluntary farmer co-operation inspired and led by the SCS.
Bovill, E. W. English Country Life 1780-1830. London: Oxford University Press,
1962.
Social history at its most readable. The enclosures in rural
England happened during the period this book addresses; they set the stage for the
modernization of English Agriculture. Bovill's book helps the reader appreciate the
background against which those notable improvers of agriculture were operating. Covers
the social and cultural conditions of the small holders, the cottagers and the squires,
their economic and technical milieu.
Bromfield, Louis. Malibar
Farm. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1947.
Bromfield, a popular American author of fiction, indulged
his deep interest in agriculture and alternative lifestyles by developing a cooperative
farm on several hundred worn-out Ohio acres. There, he worked out improved farming
systems, a "New American Farming" that included the thoughts of Howard,
Bennett, Albrecht and Leibig. He felt comfortable with chemical fertilizers,
crop rotations, lime, organic pesticides whenever possible and building organic matter.
His writing is passionate and intelligent and his book makes a most understandable
case for the New Farming. His farm was a Mecca for the agriculturally aware; his
acquaintances included the major figures of radical and more standard agriculture.
See also, Pleasant
Valley, Out of the Earth, and From My Experience. A sensitively-made
anthology culled from these titles by Charles Little, with the assistance of Wendell
Berry and Bromfield's publisher is in print, and titled Louis
Bromfield at Malibar, Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press, 1988.
Carman, Harry J. Jesse Buel, Agricultural Reformer. New York: Columbia University
Press, 1947.
Buel farmed intelligently near Albany, NY during the early
19th century, worked ceaselessly to introduce the new and revolutionary British "high
farming" to America and was a prime mover behind a farm periodical,The Cultivator.
Carman's book contains miscellaneous speeches and articles from The Cultivator;
the main interest is a complete reproduction of Buel's The Farmer's Companion;
or Essays on the Principles and Practice of American Husbandry etc. Boston: 1839.
This was Buel's main effort to introduce the modern scientific husbandry then being
developed in England. Its explanation of this technology, including complex rotations,
liming, manuring and building soil fertility through natural processes is among the
best and most understandable I've encountered.
Carson, Rachel. Silent Spring. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1962.
At the time of its publication, concerns about concentration
of pesticide residues through the food chain, developed resistances to insecticides
and the serious health hazards from pesticide use were novel and frightening ideas.
This is the book that first made the American public aware of these dangers.
* Carter, Vernon Gill and Dale, Tom. Topsoil
and Civilization. Norman, University of Oklahoma Press, 1974. (first ed., 1954).
A historical review of civilization, patiently showing region
by region and civilization by civilization the repeated pattern of erosion and resulting
ecological degradation leading to the loss of productive capacity and inevitable
decline. No civilization has lasted more than 1,500 or so years except Egypt. Egypt
persists because Egypt's ecology is remarkably resistant to destruction--though the
Aswan high dam seems to have finally broken that ecology down as well. Europe's soils
are more resistant to destruction than the lands of earlier civilizations but Europe
may be approaching the "saturation point" in terms of population and land
use intensity where decisions have to be implemented to save its productive base.
The question is: will it decide intelligently or go the way of other earlier systems.
And the United States is losing its soil faster than any civilization in history.
Lord
Ernle (Prothero). English Farming Past and Present, 6th edition. Chicago:
Quadrangle Books, 1962. First published London: Longmans, Green & Co., Ltd, 1912,
and many subsequent editions.
The Quadrangle reprint contains significant bibliographic
prefaces by G.E. Fussell and O.R. McGregor that bring Ernle's work up to date by
taking account of modern scholarship. A perennial classic in any edition the reader
can find, this is history at its most readable, and though dated and perhaps incorrect
in a few respects, the work lives on because of the quality of its narrative. Though
merely of agriculture, it rests on a philosophical understanding of life the equal
of Gibbon, Beard, Parkman and Braudel. Ernle, a farmer himself, understands the significances
of technological innovation and the interactions between the cultivator, weather
and soil. He brings English agricultural experience and the individuals that shaped
it to life. Worth reading by anyone interested in better farming.
Hamaker,
John. D. The Survival of Civilization. Annotated by Donald A. Weaver.
Michigan/California: Hamaker-Weaver Publishers, 1982.
A broad-ranging and imaginative doom-thesis involving soil
demineralization, human health, the rise and fall of planetary civilization, glaciations,
and etc., containing a remarkable bibliography overlaping much contained in this
annotated list. Though the conclusions are overly emotional, the evidence overly
anecdotal, the impassioned book gives valid grounds for serious consideration.
* Hopkins, Cyril G. Bread From Stones.
Urbana, Illinois: University of Illinois Agricultural Experiment Station, Circular
#168, 1913.
Hopkins was a crusader for the use of unaltered, natural
rock flour fertilizers. Rock phosphate was widely considered useless unless treated
to make it soluble; Hopkins dove into the controversy with many pamphlets, speeches
and etc.
-------------. Soil Fertility and Permanent Agriculture. Boston: Ginn and
Company, 1910.
Hopkins magnum opus points out that chemically treated nutrient
substances cost more than the actual cash benefit they produce, while having dubious
effects on long term yield; manure, phosphate rock, lime, occasionally potassium
supplements and careful recycling of organic wastes result in a stable lasting system
of high yields and health. It is also a complete manual of soil and plant science
as of its date of publication; later compendiums by others may benefit from more
data but evidence far less wisdom.
Howard, Sir Albert. An Agricultural Testament. London & New York: Oxford
University Press, 1943.
A profound synthesis of a brilliant life's work, Howard explains
how the failure to protect soil's health leads to a certain decline in crop health
and vigor, to disease and predation, and to the same for those who consume the produce
grown on sick soil--and perhaps worse, to the perhaps irreversible decline of the
civilization itself. Filled with examples of how restoration of soil organic matter
restores plantations, crops and districts to health; covers the manufacture of "manure"
through composting. Also contains a scathing criticism of our agricultural research
system with its fragmentation and various disciplines; a smart, educated farmer working
on a problem on the land itself is more likely to work out sustainable systems. See
also: The Soil and Health.
* Howard, Louise E. The Earth's Green
Carpet. Emmaus, P.A.: Rodale Press, 1947.
Albert Howard was devastated by the death of his first wife,
Gabrielle, but a man so vital eventually remarried. His second partner, Louise (Gabrielle's
younger sister) herein beautifully summarizes Howard's lifework and the movement
he founded in simple language for the non-specialist. Her very well-written book
will be particularly valuable to those who need an introduction to the entire realm
of organic gardening and farming, as she covers all the basics quite thoroughly.
See also: * Sir Albert Howard in India,
Rodale, 1954, for a thorough biography of Howard's research career and development
of his unique and holistic understanding.
Jackson,
Wes. New Roots for Agriculture. San Francisco: Friends of the Earth, 1980.
Currently in print. Following the footsteps of J. Russell
Smith, Jackson draws a most interesting distinction between trying to solve the problems
in agriculture, which is what most radical agriculturalists do, and solving the problem
of agriculture, which is what this book addresses. The problem of agriculture is
that the plow on most soils causes more erosion than natural soil replacement, resulting
in temporary loci of civilization. And the earth has run out of undegraded places
to start new civilizations. Jackson's focus is on his native eroded Kansas, where
sod was destroyed to grow wheat; his solution, developing perennial grains. The book
contains a most thorough and readable brief review of American radical agricultural
history.
Jenny,
Hans. Factors of Soil Formation: a System of Quantatative Pedology. New
York: McGraw Hill, 1941. A Dover Press paperback reprint is available and affordable.
Thanks, Dover!.
One of the basic texts any thoroughly educated grower will
want to become familiar with. Jenny was the first to fully develop an integrated
system aligning all the factors that go into forming soil from parent material. What
makes this book so valuable is the opportunity it gives the reader to comprehend
Jenny's method of thinking, his style of analysis. The book is completely
readable and understandable to the layman who has already comprehended a basic soils
text and isn't intimiated by a seeing bit of algebra. See also: The Soil Resource,
Origin and Behavior. New York: Springer Verlag, 1980, for a broadened treatment
of his earlier work including the rest of Jenny's research career.
King, F.H. Farmers of Forty Centuries or Permanent Agriculture in China, Korea
and Japan. Emmaus: Rodale Press, original copyright 1911.
An interesting survey of various permanent organic agricultural
systems as well of a fascinating description of a far and strange place at a time
long ago. King, a sharp agricultural observer, traveled through the orient and photographed
and reported on his travels. A classic, and constantly referred to by Howard in his
earlier works as an inspiration.
Koepf,
H.H., B. D. Petterson and W. Shaumann. Bio-Dynamic Agriculture: An Introduction.
Spring Valley, NY: Anthroposophic Press, 1976.
A technical and scientific exposition of the school's ideas
as they relate to mixed farming, showing how BD techniques increase organic matter
and make for a healthy farm. Stresses the closed system idealized in BD agriculture.
Perhaps the best I've read about BD, but still does not viba-rate right with me.
I really see nothing original in the system but for certain mystical sprays and such.
Krasilnikov, N.A. Soil Microorganisms and Higher Plants. Translated by Y.A.
Halperin. Jerusalem: Israel Program for Scientific Translations, 1961.
The key unresolved issue and unproven assertion of the organic
mindset is that food raised on humus/compost is more nutritious and health-providing
than chemically raised stuff. Here, in the magnum opus of a world-class Russian soil
microbiologist, is assembled all data as of 1958, when the book was published by
the Academy of Sciences of the USSR, correlating humus, microlife fertility and food
quality. Krasilnikov pointedly asserts and demonstrates that soil fertility is the
microbe and that plants require the "phytamins" produced by microbes to
make the vitamins they and we need. Anyone that wants to be able to cogently argue
the truth of the organic viewpoint has first to become fully acquainted with this
book.
Lord, Russell and Kate. Forever the Land. New York: Harper & Brothers,
1950.
The Lords became deeply involved with the Friends of the
Land movement and its magazine/journal, The Land. This book introduces the milieu
and the persona of the 1940's--a most energetic and hopeful time in America, when
it seemed that our farm problems could be solved by the efforts of right-thinking
intelligent men and women. Here one meets Hugh Bennett, Louis Bromfield, E. Russell
Smith, Aldo Leopold, Sears, even Dos Pasos, etc.
Lord, Russell. To Hold This Soil. Miscellaneous Publication No. 321, United
States Department of Agriculture, 1938.
A beautifully made, designed and illustrated book by and
for the Soil Conservation Service. Lord passionately and poetically outlines American
agricultural destructiveness, and the cures being instituted by the SCS. It seems
surprising in light of the current nature of our recent national administrations
that a government publication would evidence such fine and humane writing or that
any government bureau could attract people of such quality as Russell Lord.
Loudermilk, Walter C. Palestine, Land of Promise. New York, Harper & Bros.,
1944.
Loudermilk, a prime mover in the SCS, toured Palestine just
prior to WWII. He was most impressed with the creative force of Jewish settlement
and documented the state of the country, both in socioeconomic and agricultural/ecological
areas. The book also tells the sad story of the destruction of an ecosystem through
erosion and the hopeful story of Palestine's rehabilitation by its returning Jewish
settlers.
* The Work of Sir Robert McCarrison.
Edited by H. M. Sinclair. London: Faber and Faber, 1953.
The foundation of the organic farming movement rested on
the work of two men, Albert Howard and Robert McCarrison. While Howard's thoughts
attained the permanency of books and consequently are still widely available today,
McCarrison's writings vanished into the dusty back shelves of old journal holdings.
This book resurrects McCarrison's papers of the 1920's, provides a complete McCarrison
bibliography and introduces the reader to an unadulterated telling of his experiments
at Coonoor where he created extraordinary health and miserable illness in rat populations
by feeding them the national diets of various Indian and European races. This book
will also be of great interest to anyone concerned with natural health. See Also:
McCarrison, Robert. Nutrition and Health. London: Faber & Faber, 1936.
Hard to find.
* Orr, Sir John B. Minerals in Pastures
& their Relation to Animal Nutrition. London: H. K. Lewis & Co. Ltd.,
1929.
It is clear that Albrecht derived much of his information
and interest concerning animal health and soil fertility from Orr's works. This slim
and very readable book is a complete review of all data (as of 1929) linking soil
fertility with grass/pasture mineralization with animal health. Here is incontrovertible
proof that fertility equals health, at least for cows.
Parnes, Robert. Fertile
Soil: A Grower's Guide To Organic and Inorganic Fertilizers. Davis:
AgAccess, 1990.
A practical book, one intermediate in complexity between
a garden book and an University-level ag-school text on soil. Parnes asks the right
questions. He is neither "organic" nor is he "chemical" but transcends
this conflict and arrives at some pretty universal understandings.
Pfeiffer, E.E. The Earth's Face and Human Destiny. London: Faber & Faber,
1947; and Emmaus: Rodale, 1947.
A survey of proper land use and man's proper attitude to
the land, complete with photos and poetic imagery. This small work is Pfeiffer's
least "biodynamic" and perhaps most acceptable to the general reader.
Pfeiffer, E.E. Biodynamic Farming and Gardening. New York: Anthroposophic
Press, 1938.
Without a doubt, his best work. Avoids Steinerfications and
presents a basic organic message, covering a complete method for farm and garden.
* Picton, Dr. Lionel James. Nutrition
and the Soil: Thoughts on Feeding. New York: Devin-Adair,1949.
Why is whole wheat bread the staff of life when supplemented
with dairy, fruits and vegetables produced on healthy soil? Dr. Picton, through his
own patient histories and by summarizing the animal studies of other researchers,
explains how the body needs what is in the germ and bran to properly use the rest.
Thought Picton, in alignment with his friend and much admired associate Albert Howard
also asserts that chemically fertilized food is not health-producing, this vital
portion of the book is weakly documented. Contains the "Medical Testament"
as a single chapter, a much referred to document critical of the state of English
public health that shook up Britain after the War.
Pottenger, Francis
M. Jr., M.D. Pottenger's Cats. Edited by Elaine Pottenger with Robert
T. Pottenger Jr., M.D. La Mesa, California: Price-Pottenger Nutritional Foundation,
1983.
Currently in print. Done over 50 years ago, these simple
studies in cat nutrition and its health consequences have profound implications on
human nutrition and health that modern medical science has done an excellent job
of totally ignoring. Cats, naturally consumers of raw mice, other small mammals and
birds, insects and etc, are genetically unable to properly digest cooked foods. By
a simple alteration from raw to cooked foods, Pottenger caused cats to grossly degenerate
over several generations until they could no longer breed. The forms of degeneration
included anti-social behavior, emotional unbalance, immune system deterioration,
poor dental development and alterations in facial appearance due to improper skeletal
formation, very similar to the gross problems affecting Americans today. If the degeneration
was turned around with proper diet before total infertility ocurred, the population
could begin to recover and after a sufficient number of generations with correct
diet, the cats reasumed healthy form and vigor.
Price, Weston
A. Nutrition and Physical Degeneration. La Mesa, California: Price-Pottenger
Nutrition Foundation, 1970 edition.
Currently in print. Price was a dentist in the twenties interested
in prevention. He determined that the reason none of his studies were conclusive
was that no control group of healthy humans was available. Price set out to discover
if there remained on Earth any groups of people with excellent teeth--and he found
them of every race and continent. In every case, they were so isolated that there
was no store, and no "civilized" food. Additionally, these people lived
either by the sea and made a significant portion of their diet seafoods, or were
agriculturalists on highly mineralized soil bodies. In both cases, their food supply
was maximally nutritious. The book is full of photos showing good vs poor dental/facial
development.
Rodale, J.I. Pay Dirt. Emmaus: Rodale Press, 1945.
Albert Howard commented in his introduction to this book
that Rodale was an audacious man to plunge so enthuaistically into a new field and
educate himself. Rodale was more than audacious, his desire to oversimplify has shaped
the prejudices of "organic" gardeners ever since. This book is a good review
of all Rodale's ideas and the sources that shaped his conceptions. It is clear upon
reading it that his affinities were more with Howard than Albrecht; that he had a
compulsive dislike for chemical fertilizers and would overly condemn them on shallow
grounds as well as solid ones; that he had little sense of agricultural macro-economics.
Well worth reading for those who are unfamiliar with the old Organic Gardening
and Farming magazine. See also * The
Healthy Hunzas. Emmaus: Rodale, 1948.
Russell, Sir E. John. Soil Conditions and Plant Growth. New York: Longmans,
Green & Co., Eighth Edition, 1950.
THE soil's manual in England since 1913, taken through numerous
revisions until 1943 by Sir E. John (for many years director of Rothamstead) and
then carried on by his son. This later edition of the book is most readable and generally
understandable without advanced background in science, focusing on the relations
between soil conditions and the responses of plants to them. Especially good is the
first chapter, a review of the history and development of agricultural chemistry.
Should be carefully studied by anyone that really wants to intelligently relate to
their plants. The very disappointing eleventh edition has been recently rewritten
by a committee of experts and has consequently lost most of the elegant simplicity
and beauty of earlier efforts.
Shaler, Nathaniel Southgate. Man and the Earth. New York: Fox, Duffield &
Co., 1905. avail. in modern reprint, N.Y.: Johnson Reprint Corp., 1971.
The first overall consideration of man as a part of earth's
ecology and our effect on our ecosystem and resource base, with an emphasis on soil
erosion that well anticipated the work of the SCS. Also good, readable writing.
* Schuphan, Werner. Nutritional Values
in Crops and Plants. London: Faber and Faber, 1965.
Every radical agriculturalist knows that organically
raised food is more nutritious. Schuphan most wisely probes this belief and after
much experimentation proves that there are differences in food quality. Unfortunately
for the organic faithful, he contests that food raised with manure/compost and then
additional chemical fertilizers is the best of all. Schupan also carefully defines
the parameters of "quality" and considers other aspects of growing, harvesting
and preserving quality. A most useful book.
Smith,
J. Russell. Tree Crops: a Permanent Agriculture. New York: Harcourt, Brace
and Company, 1929. A Devin-Adair reprint is available.
Currently in print. Anticipating the dustbowls and urgent
movement toward soil conservation that engaged the attentions of agriculturalists
in the coming decade, anticipating Topsoil and Civilization by two decades, anticipating
Wes Jackson's grassland permaculture thrust by five decades, Smith's plea was that
the only responsible system to use on uplands is a system of permaculture food crops,
using trees and pasture, depending on the chestnut, oak, filbert, various tropical
legumes and etc. The book suggests that: tree forage crops yield as much meat/acre
as good grass pastures at similar levels of fertility; tree farming is much less
work; and gently asserts that certain nuts might be better human food than meat,
others like chestnuts as good as the best cereals. Though energy usage and the cost
in energy per calorie produced was not one of Smith's concerns, certainly tree crops
require virtually no machinery and little or no use of oil or other chemicals. Readers
interested in the development of Smith's unique vision might see also his: The
World's Food Resources. New York: Henry Holt, 1919.
Soils & Men: Yearbook of Agriculture, 1938. Washington, D.C.: Govt. Printing
Office, USDA, 1938.
From the viewpoint of the natural farmer/gardener, this particular
yearbook represents the USDA's best. It came out when Washington was concerned with
devastating soil erosion and declines in agricultural productivity and prosperity,
and the "new agriculture" promoted by the Friends of the Land was enthuaistically
going forward. In the volume are articles by Albrecht on organic matter and conservation
and a definitive survey of soil erosion by Hugh Bennett and Loudermilk, as well as
general reviews of most aspects of soil science. It also contains a very complete
bibliography.
* Sykes, Friend. Humus and the Farmer.
Emmaus, Pa: Rodale Press, 1949.
A collection of essays, magazine pieces and various ramblings,
some very readable, some pretty stuffy, that have inspired many. Sykes, was an active
British lecturer and writer of farmer's magazine pieces. Sykes was first and foremost
a famous farmer, noted for his prizewinning livestock, race horses and work as a
breeder. An acquaintance had purchased a worn out though potentially rich farm atop
a limestone-derived soil body and through natural methods, without fertilizer, recessitated
it. Sykes was so impressed, that he sold his rich farm and purchased 750 worn-out
acres atop a chalk bed, and proceeded to restore the place through subsoiling, deep
rooted leys and composting. Sykes was closely involved with other ideologues: Albert
Howard, Eve Balfour and etc. Interestingly, though he took care when setting out
to establish a natural farm to buy atop a highly mineralized limestone subsoil, he
then relentlessly asserted that subsoiling universally brought high fertility; no
soil body needed more than to have its subsoil mineral reserves made accessible.
He did once grudgingly admit that fertilizer might be used to first start the process
of biological increase, or where soil was shallow and without subsoil but that ley,
once started, would develop without further help of only the production of the ley
for the first year or two were returned to build the organic matter level again.
See also: Food, Farming and the Future, Rodale, 1951.
Turner, Frank Newman. Fertility, Pastures and
Cover Crops Based on Nature's Own Balanced Organic Pasture Feeds. San Diego:
Rateaver, 1975, reprinted from: Faber and Faber, 1955. Order direct from B. Rateaver,
who publishes a paperback reprint in the USA.
Turner was associated with Albert Howard and others of the
English natural farming movement of the 40's and 50's. The book demonstrates how
a smart farmer can figure out natural systems that work. His main thesis is that
conventional dairying operations, depending on purchased food concentrates, fertilizer
and medicines is much less profitable than low input systems where soil fertility
builds itself and the health of the animals as well, while the farmer does a minimum
of work. Some interesting features of his work include a definition of fertility
based not on bulk yield, but on bioassay of the animals living from the land itself,
especially in terms of health and ability to breed; the use of deeply rooting herbal/grass
pasture mixes including numerous species that access nutrients below the topsoil;
long rotations with many years in ley, all parts of the rotation but the hay grazed
in place; a simple in-field silage production and feeding system that greatly improves
feed value compared to hay made too late. See also: *
Fertility Farming.
Voisin, André. Soil, Grass and Cancer. New York: Philos. Library, 1959.
The key unanswered questions of radical agriculture are proving
that better soil makes better food and thus healthier people. Though flawed and only
partial, here is that proof, primarily through relating variations in soil fertility
with the laboratory and biological assays of food quality. A wide ranging, open-minded
book. Voisin is better known for his works on pasture management but this effort
is probably his most significant. See also: Grass Productivity and Grass
Tetany.
Waksman, Selman A. Humus: Origin, Chemical Composition and Importance in Nature.
Baltimore: The Williams & Wilkins Company, 1938.
THE comprehensive text on the subject by the master of research
in the area. Waksman's work forms the basis of all scientific facts regarding humus.
Helpful reading for anyone with a fair grounding in science who really wants to understand
soil processes. See also, his: Soil Microbiology for a slightly less advanced
yet thorough and readily readable text on the living soil process, including composting
and humus formation.
Williams, Roger J. Nutrition Against Disease. New York: Pitmann, 1971,
A thorough and very readable introduction for the reader
who feels uncertain about the connections between health and nutrition. Williams
was a university medical researcher more interested in the cellular-level nutritional
causes of disease than in inventing drugs to "cure" diseases.
* Whorton,
James. Before Silent Spring: Pesticides and Public Health in Pre-DDT America.
Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1974.
DDT was by no means the beginning of the poisoning of America;
Arsenic/ lead insecticides were far more dangerous than organophosphates and were
used nearly as widely as DDT later came to be depended on. Whorton shows the development
of pesticide use and the early attempts to limit their damage. This book really sticks
with the reader.
* Wrench, G. T., M.D. The Restoration
of the Peasantries, with especial reference to that of India. London: C. W. Daniel
Co., Ltd., 1939.
Through a review of history and world conditions, including
unique looks at Rome, China, Japan, India and Java, Wrench persuasively makes the
case that capitalistic farming leads only to destruction of the soil, loss of health
and degradation of humans, while peasant farming systems are perpetual and health-producing.
Wrench has a genius and fresh outlook that has unfortunately, not remained of contemporary
interest. See also: The Wheel of Health, 1945, which inquires into the high
state of Hunza health, especially interesting in that it comes from a medical doctor
concerned about preventative medicine and the establishment of health. See also:
* Reconstruction By Way Of the Soil.
London: Faber & Faber, 1946.
HOME PAGE Agriculture
Catalog