What an incredibly interesting website! - Found this site while browsing The Sustainable Farming Connection at: http://metalab.unc.edu/farming-connection Rural Writings Menu http://metalab.unc.edu/farming-connection/ruralwri/home.htm - Their homepage: Soil and Health Library http://www.soilandhealth.org/index.html I. - Here's the URL for this page: http://www.soilandhealth.org/01%7F%7F%7Faglibrary/01aglibwelcome.html Welcome To The Holistic Agriculture Library Faulkner, William. Plowman's Folly. New York, Grosset & Dunlap. 1943. Published originally by arrangement with the University of Oklahoma Press. Because it is a small book it downloads as a single document. (286kb) Every time I read Plowman's Folly I am struck into incredulosity that such an imperfect book as this could have (1) ever been published and (1a) having been published could have sold so well, and (2) could have had such a powerful effect on a whole generation of radical farmers and gardeners and (3) could have been so correct about some things whilst being so wrong about others.It is here in the library because, despite its errors, it formed the intellectual background for the generation when so much other truth of holistic agriculture was discovered.Much of Faulkner's data was deduced by his ideosyncratic style of logic. Fortunately, the key insights of the book were observed from his experience. But observation from personal experience was too limited and deduction carried to absurdity at times. Thus, I suggest you read it with caution and take it with several "grains" of salt. Fukuoka, M. One Straw Revolution. A most ineresting book that is not available through normal publishing channels in North America. If you'd like to find out how to obtain a copy of this title or of Fukuoka's Natural Way of Farming, click the link. Hopkins, Cyril. The Story of the Soil. Boston, Richard G. Badger, 1910. WARNING. This book expresses views on race that in its day were considered quite acceptable but in our day are viewed as quite incorrect, perhaps even shocking. Those who cannot view such expressions as "historical documents," should not read The Story of the Soil. However, the book has massively-redeeming values. This is one of the best "made-simple" soil manuals ever written, all wrapped up as a romance about a bright young man with a solid ag-school education, going out to buy a farm and falling in love. Hopkins, Donald P. Chemicals, Humus and the Soil. Brooklyn, NY: Chemical Publishing Company, 1948. Hopkins makes the point that chemical fertilizers are effective and positive to the degree that humus remains in the soil; that the real problem with chemicals has been with some who suggest that chemicals can replace farmyard manure. Hopkins takes on the Howardites point by point and demolishes many of their positions. The book's arguments are cogent and largely correct, though Hopkins "scientific" biases distort his objectivity in areas relating to human health.This book should by carefully read by anyone that considers themselves "organic." Howard, Sir Albert. Farming and Gardening For Health or Disease. Faber and Faber, 1945. Better known in the United States when published a few years later by Rodale as Soil and Health. This is Howards final statement, a summation of his life's work. Contains a discussion of the connections between soil fertility and human health. Howard, Sir Albert. An Agricultural Testament. Oxford University Press, 1943. This is the book that set off the organic farming and gardening revolution. Unfortunately, it has been out of print for some time. Reproduced here with all the photographic plates and drawings. Contains Howard's professional life story in semi-autobiographical form. Howard, Albert, and Wad, Yeshwant D. The Waste Products of Agriculture: Their Utilization as Humus. Oxford University Press, 1931. Uncritical readers of Howard's later polemical works may receive the impression that he was the sole creator of the Indore process and that Howard, virtually alone, discovered composting. Actually, there were a number of investigators actively publishing in the area at the time. Selman Waksman the great soil microbiologist was perhaps the most significant. This book by Howard-the-scientist outlines Howard's research at Indore, and provides a most detailed explanation of the various considerations relating to composting vs. sheet composting and green manuring and explains how and why the compost pile is the most thrifty way to preserve and increase biologically accumulated nitrogen. This is Howard at his best. McDonald, Angus. Early American Soil Conservationists. Soil Conservation Service Misc. Pub. No. 449, October, 1941. Don't sneer at this because it is government publication. During the Roosevelt administration, many uniquely-talented people worked through the Federal Government trying to improve life in this country. In this short, well-written "book" you can meet the people who forsaw the catastrophe of soil erosion and foresaw how to solve it. And learn a few things about farming, past and present. Turner, Newman. Fertility Farming.London: Faber and Faber, 1951. Turner, Albert Howard's contemporary and disciple, and successful British farmer, wrote three oganic farming manuals during the first half of the 1950s. Among the noteworthy aspects of his books are its total acceptance of a natural hygienist viewpoint on handling animal disease and a focus on farming that evaded two huge farming money-wasters--buying much capital equipment and unnecessary hand labor.Turner knew how to turn a profit--reduce your expenditures and labor while not attempting to increase your production to unsustainable levels.He also created the kind of perfect health in his animals that Albert Howard spoke of creating in his livestock in India. All this was accomplished without buying any feed or fertilizer other than lime, and entirely without the assistance of an animal doctor. Readers who have difficulty understanding Turners paradigm of health and disease (and his use of words like toxemia and catarrh) should also read Tilden's Toxerma Explained in the Hygiene Library. Turner co-discovered (along with Bromfield and others of his era) how to maximize the soil's release of nutrients by opening the subsoil, drawing up those nutrients and increasing the organic matter. Turner was a great farmer and his advice should be sought by anyone seeking to farm and his experiences adsorbed by anyone seeking to understand how to create health through better nutrition. Voisin, Andre. Grass Tetany. London: Crosby Lockwood. "Ill-advised fertilizer ratios, mineral or organic, produce a pathological condition in the soil. The pathology of the soil creates the pathology of the animal."..... In this book Voisin presents a definitive analysis of a livestock disease called Grass Tetany as an example of metabolic disease caused by the imbalances created in the soil by the methods of cultivation applied. The lessons learned herein can be applied both to human and to animal health. We all owe a great debt to Charla Hamell for scanning and so expertly rendering this very difficult-to-format work. Widtsoe, John A. Dry Farming. New York: MacMillan, 1911. Between the paragraphs of this book one can see how farmer's lack of ethics and greed led them to ignore Widtsoe's warnings, making the Great Plains dustbowls inevitable. I also found the dry-gardening insights here to complete my own book Gardening Without Irrigation. There are lots of clues for someone seeking to reduce their dependence on the water pump and grow their own food strictly on natural rainfall. This rendition is somewhat abridged: the original had many unnecessary (decorative) illustrations and a few too many tables containing evidence to support Widtsoe's contentions that today seem unnecessary. Why This Library Radical agriculture is a study of, and program for, handling the close connection between the health of the soil and the health of those organisms that feed from that soil. Those "organisms" include human beings. Modern, industrial agriculture primarily focuses on the size and volume of the crop harvested (bulk yield), and the commercial aspects of that production (profit). It tends to pay small attention to the nutritional content of the food we grow. Aside from obsessive cancerfearmongering connected with pesticide residues in our food, popular consciousness pays far to little attention to the mass degeneration resulting from eating the industrial food we grow. This degeneration includes a lot of human misery and sickness, a greatly shortened lifespan and an enormously lowered level of civilization, because, simply, we don't live long enough to get enough smart. As industrial agriculture began to prevail, certain far-sighted individuals asked worrysome questions about the wisdom of managing farms for bulk yield and profit. Their concerns coalesced into various movements and "schools" including (but not limited to) the "Organic" school and the "Biodynamic" school. And there were some mavericks whose understanding was so unique, so independent and so non-dogmatic that it did not appeal to true-believing authoritarian mindsets like J.I. Rodale. These remarkable individuals have been largely ignored by the mainstream that controls "alternative" thought today. The purpose of the Holistic Agriculture Library is to bring all these thinkers together into one place and to preserve this wisdom. These wisdoms still have not been applied. Other Reading An Annotated Bibliography of Readings In the Intellectual History of Radical Agriculture This bibliography, coupled with those titles made available above, constitutes a curricula for an advanced degree in the "intellectual history of radical agriculture." Anyone who studied all these titles and followed their bibliographies back as far as seemed interesting could honestly award themselves a Ph.D. in the subject. The reader is welcome to make other suggestions or comments for addition. Where any of these titles are available in print, the bibliography will usually tell you or directly link you to a source for purchase. It is the policy of the Soil and Health Library to not reproduce any book that is in print. Doing this would also violate U.S. copyright law. PLEASE LOAN US BOOKS! Many of the titles in this bibliography should be part of this library. If you possess any of these titles, allowing us to have access to it for a few weeks would be a very charitable act. WE WILL PROMPTLY RETURN ANY TITLES LOANED and will, if necessary, pay postage both ways. An Agricultural Dictionary A light-hearted compilation of definitions derived from interesting sourcebooks connected with the intellectual history of radical agriculture. The dictionary is still incomplete and could use quite a few contributions from others. Please feel free to submit your own quotes and new terms. Public domain. II. - An Annotated Bibliography of Readings In the Intellectual History of Radical Agriculture Here's the URL for this page: http://www.soilandhealth.orgaglibrary/0103Agribib.html An Annotated Bibliography of Readings In the Intellectual History of Radical Agriculture 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. Soil Fertility and Animal Health. Webster City, Iowa: Fred Hahne Printing Co., 1958. Reprinting a connected series of articles first appearing in the Aberdeen-Angus Journal, here in less than 250 pages is to be found the most concise, complete and technically thorough statement of Albrecht's life work and view. This little book is hard to find. 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 Devon 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 and dyspeptic sounding belchings, some very readable, some pretty stuffy. An active British lecturer and writer of farmer's magazine pieces. Sykes was first 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 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.