Of interest to the serious food gardener
I have learned far more from my own
self-directed studies than my formal education. From time to time I get enthusiastic
about some topic and voraciously read about it. When I started gardening in the early
1970s l quickly devoured everything labeled "organic" in the local public
library and began what became a ten-year subscription to Organic Gardening and
Farming magazine. During the early 1980s the garden books that I wrote all had
the word "organic" in the title.
In the late 1980s my interest turned
to what academics might call 'the intellectual history of radical agriculture.' I
reread the founders of the organic gardening and farming movement, only to discover
that they, like Mark Twain's father, had become far more intelligent since l last
read them fifteen years back. l began to understand that one reason so many organic
gardeners misunderstood Albert Howard was that he wrote in English, not American.
l also noticed that there were other related traditions of agricultural reform and
followed these back to their sources. This research took over eighteen months of
heavy study. l really gave the interlibrary loan librarian a workout.
Herewith are a few of the best titles
l absorbed during that research. l never miss an opportunity to help my readers discover
that older books were written in an era before all intellectuals were afflicted with
lifelong insecurity caused by cringing from an imaginary critical and nattery college
professor standing over their shoulder. Older books are often far better than new
ones, especially if you'll forgive them an occasional error in point of fact. We
are not always discovering newer, better, and improved. Often we are forgetting and
obscuring and confusing what was once known, clear and simple. Many of these extraordinary
old books are not in print and not available at your local library. However, a simple
inquiry at the Interlibrary Loan desk of most libraries will show you how easy it
is to obtain these and most any other book you become interested in.
Albrecht, William A. The Albrecht Papers, Vols 1 &2. Kansas City: Acres,
USA 1975.
Albert Howard, Weston Price, Sir Robert McCarrison, and William Albrecht share equal responsibility for creating this era's movement toward biologically sound agriculture. Howard is still well known to organic gardeners, thanks to promotion by the Rodale organization while Price, McCarrison, and Albrecht have faded into obscurity. Albrecht was chairman of the Soil Department at the University of Missouri during the 1930s. His unwavering investigation of soil fertility as the primary cause of health and disease was considered politically incorrect by the academic establishment and vested interests that funded agricultural research at that time. Driven from academia, he wrote prolifically for nonscientific magazines and lectured to farmers and medical practitioners during the 1940s and 1950s. Albrecht was willing to consider chemical fertilizers as potentially useful though he did not think chemicals were as sensible as more natural methods. This view was unacceptable to J.l. Rodale, who ignored Albrecht's profound contributions.
Balfour, Lady Eve B. The Living Soil. London: Faber and Faber, 1943.
Lady Balfour was one of the key figures in creating the organic gardening and farming movement. She exhibited a most remarkable intelligence and understanding of the science of health and of the limitations of her own knowledge. Balfour is someone any serious gardener will want to meet through her books. Lady Balfour proved Woody Allen right about eating organic brown rice; she died only recently in her late 90s, compus mentis to the end.
Borsodi, Ralph. Flight from the City: An Experiment in Creative Living on the
Land. New York: Harper and Brothers, 1933.
A warmly human back-to-the-lander whose pithy critique of industrial civilization still hits home. Borsodi explains how production of life's essentials at home with small-scale technology leads to enhanced personal liberty and security. Homemade is inevitably more efficient, less costly, and better quality than anything mass-produced. Readers who become fond of this unique individualist's sociology and political economy will also enjoy Borsodi's This Ugly Civilization and The Distribution Age.
Brady, Nyle C. The Nature and Properties of Soils, Eighth Edition. New York:
Macmillan, 1974.
Through numerous editions and still the standard soils text for American agricultural colleges. Every serious gardener should attempt a reading of this encyclopedia of soil knowledge every few years. See also Foth, Henry D. Fundamentals of Soil Science.
Bromfield, Louis. Malibar Farm. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1947.
Here is another agricultural reformer who did not exactly toe the Organic Party line as promulgated by J.l. Rodale. Consequently his books are relatively unknown to today's gardening public. If you like Wendell Berry you'll find Bromfield's emotive and Iyrical prose even finer and less academically contrived. His experiments with ecological farming are inspiring. See also Bromfield's other farming books: Pleasant Valley, In My Experience, and Out of the Earth.
Carter, Vernon Gill and Dale, Tom. Topsoil and Civilization. Norman: University
of Oklahoma Press, 1974. (first edition, 1954)
This book surveys seven thousand years of world history to show how each place where civilization developed was turned into an impoverished, scantily-inhabited semi-desert by neglecting soil conservation. Will ours' survive any better? Readers who wish to pursue this area further might start with Wes Jackson's New Roots for Agriculture.
Ernle, (Prothero) Lord. English Farming Past and Present, 6th edition. First
published London: Longmans, Green & Co., Ltd., 1912, and many subsequent editions.
Chicago: Quadrangle Books, 1962.
Some history is dry as dust. Ernle's writing lives like that of Francis Parkman or Gibbon. Anyone serious about vegetable gardening will want to know all they can about the development of modern agricultural methods.
Foth, Henry D. Fundamentals of Soil Science, Eighth Edition. New York: John
Wylie & Sons, 1990.
Like Brady's text, this one has also been through numerous editions for the past several decades. Unlike Brady's work however, this book is a little less technical, an easier read as though designed for non-science majors. Probably the best starter text for someone who wants to really understand soil.
Hall, Bolton. Three Acres and Liberty. New York: Macmillan, 1918.
Bolton Hall marks the start of our modern back-to-the- land movement. He was Ralph Borsodi's mentor and inspiration. Where Ralph was smooth and intellectual, Hall was crusty and Twainesque.
Hamaker, John. D. The Survival of Civilization. Annotated by Donald A. Weaver.
Michigan/ California: Hamaker-Weaver Publishers, 1982.
Forget global warming, Hamaker believably predicts the next ice age is coming. Glaciers will be upon us sooner than we know unless we reverse intensification of atmospheric carbon dioxide by remineralization of the soil. Very useful for its exploration of the agricultural use of rock flours. Helps one stand back from the current global warming panic and ask if we really know what is coming. Or are we merely feeling guilty for abusing Earth?
Hopkins, Cyril G. Soil Fertility and Permanent Agriculture. Boston: Ginn and
Company, 1910.
Though of venerable lineage, this book is still one of the finest of soil manuals in existence. Hopkins' interesting objections to chemical fertilizers are more economic than moral.
--- - - - - - - The Story of the Soil: From the Basis of Absolute Science and
Real Life. Boston: Richard G. Badger, 1911.
A romance of soil science similar to Ecotopia or Looking Backward. No better introduction exists to understanding farming as a process of management of overall soil mineralization. People who attempt this book should be ready to forgive that Hopkins occasionally expresses opinions on race and other social issues that were acceptable in his era but today are considered objectionable by most Americans.
Jenny, Hans. Factors of Soil Formation: a System of Quantitative Pedology.
New York: McGraw Hill, 1941.
Don't let the title scare you. Jenny's masterpiece is not hard to read and still stands in the present as the best analysis of how soil forms from rock. Anyone who is serious about growing plants will want to know this data.
McCarrison, Sir Robert. The Work of Sir Robert McCarrison. ed. H. M. Sinclair.
London Faber and Faber, 1953.
One of the forgotten discoverers of the relationship between soil fertility and human health. McCarrison, a physician and medical researcher, worked in India contemporaneously with Albert Howard. He spent years "trekking around the Hunza and conducted the first bioassays of food nutrition by feeding rat populations on the various national diets of India. And like the various nations of India, some of the rats became healthy, large, long-lived, and good natured while others were small, sickly, irritable, and short-lived.
Nearing, Helen & Scott. Living the Good Life: How to Live Sanely and Simply
in a Troubled World. First published in 1950. New York: Schocken Books, 1970.
Continuing in Borsodi's footsteps, the Nearings homesteaded in the thirties and began proselytizing for the self-sufficient life-style shortly thereafter. Scott was a very dignified old political radical when he addressed my high school in Massachusetts in 1961 and inspired me to dream of country living. He remained active until nearly his hundredth birthday. See also: Continuing the Good Life and The Maple Sugar Book.
Parnes, Robert. Organic and Inorganic Fertilizers. Mt. Vernon, Maine: Woods
End Agricultural Institute, 1986.
Price, Weston A. Nutrition and Physical Degeneration. La Mesa, California:
Price-Pottenger Nutrition Foundation, reprinted 1970. (1939)
Sits on the "family bible" shelf in my home along with Albrecht, McCarrison, and Howard. Price, a dentist with strong interests in prevention, wondered why his clientele, 1920s midwest bourgeoisie, had terrible teeth when prehistoric skulls of aged unlettered savages retained all their teeth in perfect condition. So he traveled to isolated parts of the Earth in the early 1930s seeking healthy humans. And he found them-- belonging to every race and on every continent. And found out why they lived long, had virtually no degeneration of any kind including dental degeneration. Full of interesting photographs, anthropological data, and travel details. A trail-blazing work that shows the way to greatly improved human health.
Rodale, J.I. The Organic Front. Emmaus: Rodale Press, 1948.
An intensely ideological statement of the basic tenets of the Organic faith. Rodale established the organic gardening and farming movement in the United States by starting up Organic Gardening and Farming magazine in 1942. His views, limitations and preferences have defined "organic" ever since. See also: Pay Dirt.
Schuphan, Werner. Nutritional Values in Crops and Plants. London: Faber and
Faber, 1965.
A top-rate scientist asks the question: "Is organically grown food really more nutritious?" The answer is: "yes, and no."
Smith, J. Russell. Tree Crops: A Permanent Agriculture. New York: Harcourt,
Brace and Company, 1929.
No bibliography of agricultural alternatives should overlook this classic critique of farming with the plow. Delightfully original!
Solomon, Steve. Growing Vegetables West of the Cascades. Seattle, Washington:
Sasquatch Books, 1989.
My strictly regional focus combined with the reality that the climate west of the Cascades is radically different than the rest of the United States has made this vegetable gardening text virtually unknown to American gardeners east of the Cascades. It has been praised as the best regional garden book ever written. Its analysis of soil management, and critique of Rodale's version of the organic gardening and farming philosophy are also unique. I founded and ran Territorial Seed Company, a major, mail-order vegetable garden seed business; no other garden book has ever encompassed my experience with seeds and the seed world.
--------Waterwise Gardening. Seattle, Sasquatch Books, 1992.
How to grow vegetables without dependence on irrigation. Make your vegetables able to survive long periods of drought and still be very productive. My approach is extensive, old fashioned and contrarian, the opposite of today's intensive, modern, trendy postage-stamp living.
Turner, Frank Newman. Fertility, Pastures and Cover Crops Based on Nature's Own
Balanced Organic Pasture Feeds. reprinted from: Faber and Faber, 1955. ed., San
Diego: Rateaver, 1975.
An encouragement to farm using long rotations and green manuring systems from a follower of Albert Howard. Turner offered a remarkably sensible definition for soil fertility, in essence, "if my livestock stay healthy, live long, breed well, and continue doing so for at least four generations, then my soil was fertile."
Voisin, Andre. Better Grassland Sward. London: Crosby Lockwood and Sons, Ltd.,
1960.
The first half is an amazing survey of the role of the earthworm in soil fertility. The rest is just Voisin continuing on at his amazing best. No one interested in soil and health should remain unfamiliar with Voisin's intelligence. See also: Grass Tetany, Grass Productivity, and Soil, Grass and Cancer.