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Re: David Leonard's definition of what is organic



Dear B Rateaver,

I find your style too vituperative and personally insulting for a 
semi-professional newsgroup like this.   You obviously didn't read my posted 
apology for my poor choice of words which unfortately gave the impression to 
some that I am an organic "basher" (not the case).   I would say to you what 
you have said to me:

>You should be more careful in your choice of words

Regards

David Leonard






In article <4m4v3k$dic@newsbf02.news.aol.com> brateaver@aol.com (BRateaver) 
writes:


>How dare you call slash and burn an organic method! 

> Outrageous!

>That is pure slander against a well knonw-well understood term: organic,
>utilized by Sir Albert Howard and J.I. Rodale.

>I grew up where slash and burn was the only way the inhabitants knew how
>to grow anything other than rice.  My father showed real organic
>method--making compost in huge pits, large enough for whole trees, and
>with using manure, etc.  The inhabitants never were willing to go to that
>much trouble, trying to re-use burned over land with true organic methods
>that he demonstrated.

>It was easier to just burn off more forest--the marvelous Madagascar
>forest that has more indigenous plants than anywhere else.

>Even in the semi-arid south of the island, he demonstrated organic method.
>Right alongside the river, he built up a berm of soil, strengthening it
>with reeds. Inside that bulwark, he had a "sunken" garden, (where the soil
>was dug out to make the berm), where he grew spectacular crops. I was 19
>and still able to curl up inside the outer cabbage leaves.

>For fruit trees, he dug cone-shaped pits  (the point of the cone down) and
>planted the tree at the bottom of that hole. Around the perimeter of the
>cone, he inserted cuttings that would quickly root, grow leafy and shade
>the tree down below.  He had so much of vegetables, that he could send
>them out to the coastal town of Ft. Dauphin, where anyone could almost
>effortlessly have a good garden.

>Slash and burn is the worst possible destruction in the tropics, as it
>engenders terrific soil erosion.

>Organic method does everything possible to protect soil, to build it up
>with massive amounts of valuable soil organisms.

>You should be more careful with what you say. 

>B. Rateaver




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