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Subject: Re: Why grow organic food?
From: "Hidden" <No@thank.you.com>
Organization: RoadRunner - Central Florida
Date: Thu, 11 Jan 01 01:44:27
Message-ID: <MOD$010111.23118@rec.gardens.ecosystems>
References: <MOD$010110.10363@rec.gardens.ecosystems>



"Bill Robinson" wrote in message
news:MOD$010110.10363@rec.gardens.ecosystems...
>
> Hidden
> or controlling pests, disease or weeds by cultural practices
> rather than pesticides was "old fashioned gardening". He contends
> that there is no documentation to support that claim.
Please don't make an argument where one does not exist. I did not
contend that there was "no documentation" (as one could see if you followed
the custom of quoting relevant portions of the post to which you are
replying), I stated that I had not found any that mentioned techniques like
yours (fish meal for preventing mildew), or any of the various techniques
(besides manuring) that we normally think of as "Organic".

> Here's one:
I inhale....

> "Before the days of artifical fertilizers there was an ancient
> principle embodied in all farm leases. The rules of good
> husbandry decreed that there were certain things the tenant
> might not take off the farm: the hay and the straw had to be
> fed to the animals and their manure put back on the land. If
> they were carried off and sold the land suffered. No one knew
> that essential potassium went with them. No one knew about
> potassium at all." "The Principles of Gardening" by Hugh Johnson,
> ISBN 0671508059, p. 24

...I exhale. Manuring... I think I mentioned this in a couple of posts.

I note in passing that a quote from a book printed in 1984 does -not-
document that practice, it merely -claims- the use of that practice. Perhaps
Mr. Johnson is merely parrotting the pervasive myth? A copy of an actual
lease would -document- the actual practice (but again, of manuring only).

> Isn't it established that vigorously growing crops have a greater
> measure of resistance to pests and disease?
Yes, and I don't think that anyone denied that, but as to specific
methods (besides deforestation, manuring and flooding, which I have
previously excepted), I still await information confirming their ancient
use. Until I have factual information of actual practices, logic refutes the
idea that (for example) people who could barely read their only book, a
Bible, and who struggled to make it through a winter without starving, would
intimately know the life cycles and prevention methods of insects, pests,
and diseases they encountered on a new continent. The most likely scenario
is that they hacked down the trees, plowed a row, and hoped. Nature smiled
upon them in that the soil was rich enough and the seasons mild enough. At
first.

> Couldn't this be
> considered an ancient cultural practice that prevents or controls
> pest or disease problems?
Right, one (1), and one that I mentioned as being the -only- one I could
find.

Please, I am not saying that all Organic methods are bunk or that they
should not be used, I've used them myself for these last 30 years. I simply
wanted to point out that many of the myths surrounding them are... well...
myths. One of those myths is that some putative "ancient" farmers were all
holistic and somehow better informed as to the nature of plant and pest life
than we diminished modern peoples could ever be. Posh. For the most part
each family's knowledge was whatever they could observe for themselves while
crops died and they starved. The ones who didn't die passed on superstitions
about the things that happened -just-before- they didn't die. Some of those
things were actually beneficial, some of them were not.

Look up planting by the moon if you want a good example.