Click here for the review.
Bookmark this on Delicious
Tuesday, 21 December 2010
"A River Runs Through It" by Norman Maclean
Here is review of a Christian memoir "A River Runs Through It" by Norman Maclean, who published this, his first book, at age 74, and several more after it!
Click here for the review.
Bookmark this on Delicious
Click here for the review.
Bookmark this on Delicious
Sunday, 19 December 2010
The Seven Storey Mountain by Thomas Merton
Here is an interesting review of
The Seven Storey Mountain by Thomas Merton
Click for review
Bookmark this on Delicious
The Seven Storey Mountain by Thomas Merton
Click for review
Bookmark this on Delicious
Thursday, 19 August 2010
Thursday, 5 August 2010
Amazon.co.uk seller site is down -- Aug 5, 2010, 20:48
Amazon.co.uk seller site is down -- Aug 5, 2010
One can get to the main seller dashboard, but, none of the links there work.
Hope this won't be long --
Bookmark this on Delicious
One can get to the main seller dashboard, but, none of the links there work.
Hope this won't be long --
Bookmark this on Delicious
Friday, 16 July 2010
Thursday, 15 July 2010
Amazon Prime -- Free for Students
Amazon Prime
Free for Students
Amazon Prime is now free for university students. Just go to Amazon
, and find any book.
Under it will be a link saying Free shipping for students. Click it, enter your school and major, and
free two day shipping is yours.
, and find any book.Under it will be a link saying Free shipping for students. Click it, enter your school and major, and
free two day shipping is yours.
Friday, 9 July 2010
Politics and the English Language by George Orwell (Eric Bell)
Politics and the English Language
by
George Orwell
Five Examples
(1) I am not, indeed, sure whether it is not true to say that the Milton who once seemed not unlike a seventeenth-century Shelley had not become, out of an experience ever more bitter in each year, more alien (sic) to the founder of that Jesuit sect which nothing could induce him to tolerate. PROFESSOR HAROLD LASKI (Essay in Freedom of Expression) (2) Above all, we cannot play ducks and drakes with a native battery of idioms which prescribes such egregious collocations of vocables as the Basic put up with or tolerate or put at a loss or bewilder. PROFESSOR LANCELOT HOGBEN (Interglossa) (3) On the one side we have the free personality; by definition it is not neurotic, for it has neither conflict nor dream. Its desires, such as they are, are transparent, for they are just what institutional approval keeps in the forefront of consciousness; another institutional pattern would alter their number and intensity; there is little in them that is natural, irreducible, or culturally dangerous. But on the other side, the social bond itself is nothing but the mutual reflection of these self-secure integrities. Recall the definition of love. Is not this the very picture of a small academic? Where is there a place in this hall of mirrors for either personality or fraternity? ESSAY ON PSYCHOLOGY in Politics (New York (4) All the "best people" from the gentlemen's clubs, and all the frantic fascist captains, united in common hatred of Socialism and bestial horror of the rising tide of the mass revolutionary movement, have turned to acts of provocation, to foul incendiarism, to medieval legends of poisoned wells, to legalize their own destruction of proletarian organizations, and rouse the agitated petty-bourgeoisie to chauvinistic fervor on behalf of the fight against the revolutionary way out of the crisis. COMMUNIST PAMPHLET (5) If a new spirit is to be infused into this old country, there is one thorny and contentious reform which must be tackled, and that is the humanization and galvanization of the B.B.C. Timidity here will bespeak canker and atrophy of the soul. The heart of Britain new Britain LETTER IN Tribune.
Each of these passages has faults of its own, but quite apart from avoidable ugliness, two qualities are common to all of them. The first is staleness of imagery; the other is lack of precision.Political prose is designed "to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind." Its primary characteristics vagueness and meaninglessness intended to hide the truth. This unclear language is this then imitated by those who, far from trying to hide the truth, merely wished to speak and write as their political leaders did,
Thought corrupts Language
“In our time, political speech and writing are largely the defense of the indefensible. Things like the continuance of British rule in India, the Russian purges and deportations, the dropping of the atom bombs on Japan, can indeed be defended, but only by arguments which are too brutal for most people to face, and which do not square with the professed aims of political parties. Thus political language has to consist largely of euphemism, question-begging and sheer cloudy vagueness. Defenseless villages are bombarded from the air, the inhabitants driven out into the countryside, the cattle machine-gunned, the huts set on fire with incendiary bullets: this is called pacification. Millions of peasants are robbed of their farms and sent trudging along the roads with no more than they can carry: this is called transfer of population or rectification of frontiers. People are imprisoned for years without trial, or shot in the back of the neck or sent to die of scurvy in Arctic lumber camps: this is called elimination of unreliable elements. Such phraseology is needed if one wants to name things without calling up mental pictures of them.
[...]The great enemy of clear language is insincerity. When there is a gap between one's real and one's declared aims, one turns as it were instinctively to long words and exhausted idioms, like a cuttlefish spurting out ink.”
However, even more insidious is Orwell’s next observation:
Language corrupts Thought
Orwell says “the temptation to use meaningless or hackneyed phrases was like a "packet of aspirins always at one's elbow." In particular, they are always ready to form the writer's thoughts for him to save him the bother of thinking, or writing, clearly.” To see this for yourself, consider how easy it is to use jargon, stock phrases, and large words to talk at great length, with little thought, or content.
Propagation of vague meaningless language
Orwell said that this decline was self-perpetuating. Vague language was spreading by imitation, reinforcing the effect of its original political and economic causes. This obscured mental laziness, which in turn made it easier to get away with not bothering to think properly.
“A man may take to drink because he feels himself to be a failure, and then fail all the more completely because he drinks [...] English [...] becomes ugly and inaccurate because our thoughts are foolish, but the slovenliness of our language makes it easier for us to have foolish thoughts.”
I returned and saw under the sun, that the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, neither yet bread to the wise, nor yet riches to men of understanding, nor yet favour to men of skill; but time and chance happeneth to them all.
—into "modern English of the worst sort,"
Objective considerations of contemporary phenomena compel the conclusion that success or failure in competitive activities exhibits no tendency to be commensurate with innate capacity, but that a considerable element of the unpredictable must invariably be taken into account.
So what can one do?
Six Simple Rules
2. Never use a long word where a short one will do.
3. If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out.
5. Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word, or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent.
but finally,
6. Break any of these rules sooner than say anything barbarous.
These rules sound elementary, and so they are, but they demand a deep change of attitude in anyone who has grown used to writing in the style now fashionable. One could keep all of them and still write bad English, but one could not write the kind of stuff that I quoted in these five specimens at the beginning of this article.I hope I have not broken too many of these rules. However, even Orwell conceded he has no doubt violated some of them in this very essay
Now have some fun and find a political speech and take Orwell’s red pen to it! Or try this blog post, or one of your own.
Thursday, 8 July 2010
Giovannino Guareschi, creator of the beloved priest Don Camillo
One of my favourite authors. Guareschi writes about serious things, friendship, power, revenge, love, justice, and God in a playful spirit. Even those who disagree with him will enjoy these stories. Here is a link to a reasonably priced hardback collection of Don Camillo stories on Amazon, a biography of Guareschi from Wikipedia, and a note on Don Camillo. I'd be interested in any other Guareschi information you may have. Please leave a comment :)
Giovannino Guareschi
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Giovannino Guareschi (May 1, 1908 - July 22, 1968) was an Italian journalist, cartoonist and humorist whose most famous creation is the priest Don Camillo.
Giovannino Guareschi was born in Fontanelle di Roccabianca in the Province of Parma into a middle-class family. In 1926 his family went bankrupt and he could not continue his studies. After unsuccessful studies in the University of Parma and various minor jobs, he started to write for a local newspaper. In 1929 he became editor of the satirical magazine Corriere Emiliano and from 1936 to 1943 he was the chief editor of a similar magazine called Bertoldo.
During World War II, he criticized Benito Mussolini's government. In 1943 he was drafted into the army, which apparently helped him to avoid trouble with the fascist authorities. He ended up as an artillery officer.
When Italy signed the armistice with Allied troops in 1943, he was arrested and imprisoned in prison camps in Poland for three years alongside other Italian soldiers. He later wrote about this time in Diario Clandestino (Clandestine Diary).
After the war, Guareschi returned to Italy and founded a monarchist satirical magazine, Candido. After Italy became a republic, he began to support Democrazia Cristiana. He criticized and satirized the Communists in his magazine, famously drawing a Communist as a man with an extra nostril. When the Communists were soundly defeated in the 1948 Italian elections, Guareschi did not put his pen down but criticized Democrazia Cristiana as well.
In 1954 Guareschi was charged with libel after he had published two facsimile wartime letters from resistance leader and former Prime Minister Alcide De Gasperi requesting the Allies to bomb the outskirts of Rome in order to demoralize Germancollaborators. The legitimacy of the letters was never established by the court but after a two month trial it found in favour of De Gasperi. Guareschi declined to appeal the verdict and spent 409 days in Parma's San Francesco jail, and another six months on probation at his home.[1]
By 1956 his health had deteriorated and he began to spend time in Switzerland for health reasons. In 1957 he retired from the post of editor of Candido but remained a contributor. In 1968 he suffered a fatal heart attack.
Don Camillo, modelled after the historical Roman Catholic priest, WWII partisan and detainee of the concentration camps of Dachau and Mauthausen Don Camillo Valota[1], is a fictional priest, one of the two protagonists in Giovanni Guareschi's gentle stories of a postwar Italian town with the Catholic priest and a Communist mayor locked in rivalry. The first Don Camillo story appeared in Guareschi's satirical magazineCandido in 1946. During the 1950s, Guareschi wrote a series of Don Camillo novels, which enjoyed an international following. Several films were produced based on them. A decade later, during his last years, Guareschi came out with two more Don Camillo novels.
Don Camillo, modelled after the historical Roman Catholic priest, WWII partisan and detainee of the concentration camps of Dachau and Mauthausen Don Camillo Valota[1], is a fictional priest, one of the two protagonists in Giovanni Guareschi's gentle stories of a postwar Italian town with the Catholic priest and a Communist mayor locked in rivalry. The first Don Camillo story appeared in Guareschi's satirical magazineCandido in 1946. During the 1950s, Guareschi wrote a series of Don Camillo novels, which enjoyed an international following. Several films were produced based on them. A decade later, during his last years, Guareschi came out with two more Don Camillo novels.
Thursday, 1 July 2010
Free e-book from Aubible and Amazon for iPod and iPhone
Free e-book from Aubible and Amazon
for ipod and iPhone
You can get a free e-book from Audible for your iPod or iPhone from
www.audible.co.uk/amazon18
Expires Aug 31, 2010.
Tuesday, 29 June 2010
Amazon.com is down, Order from Amazon.ca pay only US shipping!
Amazon.com is down,
Order from Amazon.ca
Pay only US shipping!
Alas this is not true! If Amazon were LL Bean, which is truly the most customer centric company on the planet, it would be true. I do still enjoy shopping at Amazon.
Amazon.com is down, June 29, 2010, 7.00pm EDT
Amazon.com is down, June 29, 2010, 7.00pm EDT
UPDATE
The site is still not working properly for me.
However searches are working.
Items are shown as available.
But seller functions are not working.
Desperate to buy a book? Consider Abebooks or Amazon UK
with free UK shipping!
JUne 29, 2010, 3:40 pm EDT, Amazon.com is coming back up!
Great news for book buyers (and sellers). Amazon.com seems to be coming back. I still get
error messages, but searches are producing books that are available for purchase.
Check back for updates.
Amazon.com is down! June 29, 2010, 3:30pm EDT
Amazon.com is down! June 29, 2010, 3:30pm EDT
What is happening!
Amazon.com is NOT down June 29, 2010
Technically Amazon.com is NOT down June 29, 2010
Amazon states
|
Amazon.com is down! June 29, 2010
The Amazon.com website is down. Most books I'm looking for are listed as unavailable.
Is there a service that lets one know by email when a site is back up? Thanks!
Monday, 28 June 2010
The Book of the Farm by Henry Stephens
The Book of the Farm
by
Henry Stephens
This 3 volume work is frequently referred to in the BBC series "Victorian Farm". Anyone with an interest in the practical aspects of farming in the Victorian era would enjoy picking up any of these volumes and reading a few pages, and studying the diagrams.
Stephen's starts by describing the hardships facing a young farmer. He states that the purpose of the book was to be a guide to the young farmer. The task of compiling such a text required a "highly qualified agriculturalist, able to indite lucid instructions for conducting a farm" and "a clear-headed mechanician, to describe with minute distinctness the principles and construction of agricultural implements" and "an accomplished man of science to explain to conviction the rationale of every operation". This was too much to ask on one person, but Stephens took it on single-handedly, and produced a remarkable 2000 page 3 volumes set that became the bible of farming for over 50 years.
His approach was to lay a foundation in the first volume, then in the latter two cover the tasks of the farm in each season. No doubt, during each season he wrote of the work needed on the farm and developed it.
It was reprinted repeatedly -- as a 3 volumes, 2 larger volumes, 6 smaller volumes, in the UK and in America, and edited reorganised by Paul MacDonald.
Here a few of the section headings:
On the Evils of Attendant on Landowners Neglecting to Learn Practical Agriculture. A critique of absentee landlords.
On Experimental Farms as a Place of Learning. An idea well ahead of his time.
Drawing and Storing Turnips (Winter) A topic that warranted 20 pages.
Feeding Sheep on Turnips (Winter) Another 35 pages and 30 illustrations.
Draining and Hedging
His approach was to lay a foundation in the first volume, then in the latter two cover the tasks of the farm in each season.
Friday, 14 May 2010
An Agricultural Testament by SIR ALBERT HOWARD
An Agricultural Testament by
SIR ALBERT HOWARD, C.I.E., M.A. Formerly Director of the Institute of Plant Industry Indore , and Agricultural Adviser to States in Central India and RajputanaVictorian England discovered the wonders of the industrial revolution and applied science. This led to "chemical farming" and, at least in the short term great improvements in the productivity of agriculture. We now are moving back to organic methods in commercial agriculture as well as in our vegetable gardens.
Sir Albert Howard (1873-1947) was an English botanist, an organic farming pioneer, and a principal figure in the early organic movement. He is often referred to as the father of modern organic agriculture.
He went to India as a scientific adviser, but he observed the traditional Indian methods results in healthier soil, which produced healthier crops, which in turn results in healthier livestock and local inhabitants. He he discusses this in detail in this book, and carefully describes the "Indore Process", a traditional method of composting plant, animal and human waste, and its enhancements. Finally he explains how these ideas could be used in the England of his day.
In many ways his work was similar to that of Dr. Weston Price on human nutrition (see my previous post). Both observed the superiority of traditional methods over industrial methods, both were active in the first half of the 20th century, and both were well before their time. Howard, unlike Price, has attaacted no serious critics.
Here is a link to the book on Amazon, the table of contents, and the beginning of the book. Happy reading and composting!
Contents
PART I THE PART PLAYED BY SOIL FERTILITY IN AGRICULTURE
II. THE NATURE OF SOIL FERTILITY
III. THE RESTORATION OF FERTILITY
V. PRACTICAL APPLICATIONS OF THE INDORE PROCESS
VI. DEVELOPMENTS OF THE INDORE PROCESS
VII. DEVELOPMENTS OF THE INDORE PROCESS
VIII. DEVELOPMENTS OF THE INDORE PROCESS
PART III HEALTH, INDISPOSITION, AND DISEASE IN AGRICULTURE
XI. THE RETREAT OF THE CROP AND THE ANIMAL BEFORE THE PARASITE
XII. SOIL FERTILITY AND NATIONAL HEALTH
XIII. A CRITICISM OF PRESENT-DAY AGRICULTURAL RESEARCH
XIV. A SUCCESSFUL EXAMPLE OF AGRICULTURAL RESEARCH
PART V CONCLUSIONS AND SUGGESTIONS APPENDICES
PREFACE
Since the Industrial Revolution the processes of growth have been speeded up to produce the food and raw materials needed by the population and the factory. Nothing effective has been done to replace the loss of fertility involved in this vast increase in crop and animal production. The consequences have been disastrous. Agriculture has become unbalanced: the land is in revolt: diseases of all kinds are on the increase: in many parts of the world Nature is removing the worn-out soil by means of erosion. The purpose of this book is to draw attention to the destruction of the earth's capital--the soil; to indicate some of the consequences of this; and to suggest methods by which the lost fertility can be restored and maintained. This ambitious project is founded on the work and experience of forty years, mainly devoted to agricultural research in the West Indies, India , and Great Britain Indore During the last nine years the Indore Process has been taken up at many centres all over the world. Much additional information on the role of humus in agriculture has been obtained. I have also had the leisure to bring under review the existing systems of farming as well as the organization and purpose of agricultural research. Some attention has also been paid to the bio-dynamic methods of agriculture in Holland and in Great Britain, but I remain unconvinced that the disciples of Rudolph Steiner can offer any real explanation of natural laws or have yet provided any practical examples which demonstrate the value of their theories. The general results of all this are set out in this my Agricultural Testament. No attempt has been made to disguise the conclusions reached or to express them in the language of diplomacy. On the contrary, they have been stated with the utmost frankness. It is hoped that they will be discussed with the same freedom and that they will open up new lines of thought and eventually lead to effective action. It would not have been possible to have written this book without the help and encouragement of a former colleague in India Many who are engaged in practical agriculture all over the world and who have adopted the Indore Process have contributed to this book. In a few cases mention of this assistance has been made in the text. It is impossible to refer to all the correspondents who have furnished progress reports and have so freely reported their results. These provided an invaluable collection of facts and observations which has amply confirmed my own experience. Great stress has been laid on a hitherto undiscovered factor in nutrition--the mycorrhizal association--the living fungous bridge between humus in the soil and the sap of plants. The existence of such a symbiosis was first suggested to me on reading an account of the remarkable results with conifers, obtained by Dr. M. C. Rayner at Wareham in Dorset in connexion with the operations of the Forestry Commission. If mycorrhiza occurs generally in the plantation industries and also in our crops, an explanation of such things as the development of quality, disease resistance, and the running out of the variety, as well as the slow deterioration of the soil which follows the use of artificial manures, would be provided. I accordingly took steps to collect a wide range of specimens likely to contain mycorrhiza, extending over the whole of tropical and temperate agriculture. I am indebted to Dr. Rayner and to Dr. Ida Levisohn for the detailed examination of this material. They have furnished me with many valuable and suggestive technical reports. For the interpretation of these laboratory results, as set out in the following pages, I am myself solely responsible. I am indebted to a number of Societies for permission to reproduce information and illustrations which have already been published. Two other organizations have allowed me to incorporate results which might well have been regarded as confidential. The Royal Society of London has permitted me to reprint, in the Chapter on Soil Aeration, a precis of an illustrated paper which appeared in their Proceedings. The Royal Society of Arts has provided the blocks for the section on sisal waste. The Royal Sanitary Institute has agreed to the reproduction in full of a paper read at the Health Congress, held at Portsmouth Southern Rhodesia , which is given in Appendix B. In making the Indore Process widely known, a number of journals have rendered yeoman service. In Great Britain The Times and the Journal of the Royal Society of Arts have published a regular series of letters and articles. In South Africa Costa Rica Certain of the largest tea companies in London India and Ceylon In the work of reducing to order the vast mass of correspondence and notes on soil fertility' which have accumulated, and in getting the book into its final shape, I owe much to the ability and devotion of my private secretary, Mrs. V. M. Hamilton. A. H. BLACKHEATH, 1 January 1940 I. INTRODUCTION
The maintenance of the fertility of the soil is the first condition of any permanent system of agriculture. In the ordinary processes of crop production fertility is steadily lost: its continuous restoration by means of manuring and soil management is therefore imperative. In the study of soil fertility the first step is to bring under review the various systems of agriculture which so far have been evolved. These fall into four main groups: (1) the methods of Nature--the supreme farmer--as seen in the primeval forest, in the prairie, and in the ocean; (2) the agriculture of the nations which have passed away; (3) the practices of the Orient, which have been almost unaffected by Western science; and (4) the methods in vogue in regions like Europe and North America to which a large amount of scientific attention has been paid during the last hundred years. NATURE'S METHODS OF SOIL MANAGEMENT Little or no consideration is paid in the literature of agriculture to the means by which Nature manages land and conducts her water culture. Nevertheless, these natural methods of soil management must form the basis of all our studies of soil fertility. What are the main principles underlying Nature's agriculture? These can most easily be seen in operation in our woods and forests. Mixed farming is the rule: plants are always found with animals: many species of plants and of animals all live together. In the forest every form of animal life, from mammals to the simplest invertebrates, occurs. The vegetable kingdom exhibits a similar range: there is never any attempt at monoculture: mixed crops and mixed farming are the rule. The soil is always protected from the direct action of sun, rain, and wind. In this care of the soil strict economy is the watchword: nothing is lost. The whole of the energy of sunlight is made use of by the foliage of the forest canopy and of the undergrowth. The leaves also break up the rainfall into fine spray so that it can the more easily be dealt with by the litter of plant and animal remains which provide the last line of defence of the precious soil. These methods of protection, so effective in dealing with sun and rain, also reduce the power of the strongest winds to a gentle air current. The rainfall in particular is carefully conserved. A large portion is retained in the surface soil: the excess is gently transferred to the subsoil and in due course to the streams and rivers. The fine spray created by the foliage is transformed by the protective ground litter into thin films of water which move slowly downwards, first into the humus layer and then into the soil and subsoil. These latter have been made porous in two ways: by the creation of a well-marked crumb structure and by a network of drainage and aeration channels made by earthworms and other burrowing animals. The pore space of the forest soil is at its maximum so that there is a large internal soil surface over which the thin films of water can creep. There is also ample humus for the direct absorption of moisture. The excess drains away slowly by way of the subsoil. There is remarkably little run-off, even from the primeval rain forest. When this occurs it is practically clear water. Hardly any soil is removed. Nothing in the nature of soil erosion occurs. The streams and rivers in forest areas are always perennial because of the vast quantity of water in slow transit between the rainstorms and the sea. There is therefore little or no drought in forest areas because so much of the rainfall is retained exactly where it is needed. There is no waste anywhere. The forest manures itself. It makes its own humus and supplies itself with minerals. If we watch a piece of woodland we find that a gentle accumulation of mixed vegetable and animal residues is constantly taking place on the ground and that these wastes are being converted by fungi and bacteria into humus. The processes involved in the early stages of this transformation depend throughout on oxidation: afterwards they take place in the absence of air. They are sanitary. There is no nuisance of any kind--no smell, no flies, no dustbins, no incinerators, no artificial sewage system, no water-borne diseases, no town councils, and no rates. On the contrary, the forest affords a place for the ideal summer holiday: sufficient shade and an abundance of pure fresh air. Nevertheless, all over the surface of the woods the conversion of vegetable and animal wastes into humus is never so rapid and so intense as during the holiday months--July to September. The mineral matter needed by the trees and the undergrowth is obtained from the subsoil. This is collected in dilute solution in water by the deeper roots, which also help in anchoring the trees. The details of root distribution and the manner in which the subsoil is thoroughly combed for minerals are referred to in a future chapter. Even in soils markedly deficient in phosphorus trees have no difficulty in obtaining ample supplies of this element. Potash, phosphate, and other minerals are always collected in situ and carried by the transpiration current for use in the green leaves. Afterwards they are either used in growth or deposited on the floor of the forest in the form of vegetable waste--one of the constituents needed in the synthesis of humus. This humus is again utilized by the roots of the trees. Nature's farming, as seen in the forest, is characterized by two things: (1) a constant circulation of the mineral matter absorbed by the trees; (2) a constant addition of new mineral matter from the vast reserves held in the subsoil. There is therefore no need to add phosphates: there is no necessity for more potash salts. No mineral deficiencies of any kind occur. The supply of all the manure needed is automatic and is provided either by humus or by the soil. There is a natural division of the subject into organic and inorganic. Humus provides the organic manure: the soil the mineral matter. The soil always carries a large fertility reserve. There is no hand to mouth existence about Nature's farming. The reserves are carried in the upper layers of the soil in the form of humus. Yet any useless accumulation of humus is avoided because it is automatically mingled with the upper soil by the activities of burrowing animals such as earthworms and insects. The extent of this enormous reserve is only realized when the trees are cut down and the virgin land is used for agriculture. When plants like tea, coffee, rubber, and bananas are grown on recently cleared land, good crops can be raised without manure for ten years or more. Like all good administrators, therefore, Nature carries strong liquid reserves effectively invested. There is no squandering of these reserves to be seen anywhere. The crops and live stock look after themselves. Nature has never found it necessary to design the equivalent of the spraying machine and the poison spray for the control of insect and fungous pests. There is nothing in the nature of vaccines and serums for the protection of the live stock. It is true that all kinds of diseases are to be found here and there among the plants and animals of the forest, but these never assume large proportions. The principle followed is that the plants and animals can very well protect themselves even when such things as parasites are to be found in their midst. Nature's rule in these matters is to live and let live. If we study the prairie and the ocean we find that similar principles are followed. The grass carpet deals with the rainfall very much as the forest does. There is little or no soil erosion: the run-off is practically clear water. Humus is again stored in the upper soil. The best of the grassland areas of North America carried a mixed herbage which maintained vast herds of bison. No veterinary service was in existence for keeping these animals alive. When brought into cultivation by the early settlers, so great was the store of fertility that these prairie soils yielded heavy crops of wheat for many years without live stock and without manure. In lakes, rivers, and the sea mixed farming is again the rule: a great variety of plants and animals are found living together: nowhere does one find monoculture. The vegetable and animal wastes are again dealt with by effective methods. Nothing is wasted. Humus again plays an important part and is found everywhere in solution, in suspension, and in the deposits of mud. The sea, like the forest and the prairie, manures itself. The main characteristic of Nature's farming can therefore be summed up in a few words. Mother earth never attempts to farm without live stock; she always raises mixed crops; great pains are taken to preserve the soil and to prevent erosion; the mixed vegetable and animal wastes are converted into humus; there is no waste; the processes of growth and the processes of decay balance one another; ample provision is made to maintain large reserves of fertility; the greatest care is taken to store the rainfall; both plants and animals are left to protect themselves against disease In considering the various man-made systems of agriculture, which so far have been devised, it will be interesting to see how far Nature's principles have been adopted, whether they have ever been improved upon, and what happens when they are disregarded. THE AGRICULTURE OF THE NATIONS WHICH HAVE PASSED AWAY The difficulties inherent in the study of the agriculture of the nations which are no more are obvious. Unlike their buildings, where it is possible from a critical study of the buried remains of cities to reproduce a picture of bygone civilizations, the fields of the ancients have seldom been maintained. The land has either gone back to forest or has been used for one system of farming after another. In one case, however, the actual fields of a bygone people have been preserved together with the irrigation methods by which these lands were made productive. No written records, alas, have come down to us of the staircase cultivation of the ancient Peruvians, perhaps one of the oldest forms of Stone Age agriculture. This arose either in mountains or in the upland areas under grass because of the difficulty, before the discovery of iron, of removing the dense forest growth. In Peru United States Peru Peru These terraced fields had to be irrigated. Water had to be led to them over immense distances by means of aqueducts. Prescott These ancient methods of agriculture are represented at the present day by the terraced cultivation of the Himalayas, of the mountainous areas of China and Japan , and of the irrigated rice fields so common in the hills of South India, Ceylon Conway 's description, published in 1894, of the terraces of Hunza on the North-West Frontier of India Some other systems of agriculture of the past have come down to us in the form of written records which have furnished ample material for constructive research. In the case of Rome in particular a fairly complete account of the position of agriculture, from the period of the monarchy to the fall of the Roman Empire , is available; the facts can be conveniently followed in the writings of Mommsen, Heitland, and other scholars. In the case of Rome the Servian Reform (Servius Tullius, 578-534 B.C.) shows very clearly not only that the agricultural class originally preponderated in the State but also that an effort was made to maintain the collective body of freeholders as the pith and marrow of the community. The conception that the constitution itself rested on the freehold system permeated the whole policy of Roman war and conquest. The aim of war was to increase the number of its freehold members. 'The vanquished community was either compelled to merge entirely into the yeomanry of Rome, or, if not reduced to this extremity, it was required, not to pay a war contribution or a fixed tribute, but to cede a portion, usually a third part, of its domain, which was thereupon regularly occupied by Roman farms. Many nations have gained victories and made conquests as the Romans did; but none has equalled the Roman in thus making the ground he had won his own by the sweat of his brow, and in securing by the ploughshare what had been gained by the lance. That which is gained by war may be wrested from the grasp by war again, but it is not so with the conquests made by the plough; whilst the Romans lost many battles, they scarcely ever on making peace ceded Roman soil, and for this result they were indebted to the tenacity with which the farmers clung to their fields and homesteads. The strength of man and of the State lies in their dominion over the soil; the strength of Rome These splendid ideals did not persist. During the period which elapsed between the union of Italy and the subjugation of Carthage, a gradual decay of the farmers set in; the small-holdings ceased to yield any substantial clear return; the cultivators one by one faced ruin; the moral tone and frugal habits of the earlier ages of the Republic were lost; the land of the Italian farmers became merged into the larger estates. The landlord capitalist became the centre of the subject. He not only produced at a cheaper rate than the farmer because he had more land, but he began to use slaves. The same space which in the olden time, when small-holdings prevailed, had supported from a hundred to a hundred and fifty families was now occupied by one family of free persons and about fifty, for the most part unmarried, slaves. 'If this was the remedy by which the decaying national economy was to be restored to vigour, it bore, unhappily, an aspect of extreme resemblance to disease' (Mommsen). The main causes of this decline appear to have been fourfold: the constant drain on the manhood of the country-side by the legions, which culminated in the two long wars with Carthage; the operations of the Roman capitalist landlords which 'contributed quite as much as Hamilcar and Hannibal to the decline in the vigour and the number of the Italian people' (Mommsen); failure to work out a balanced agriculture between crops and live stock and to maintain the fertility of the soil; the employment of slaves instead of free labourers. During this period the wholesale commerce of Latium Italy Italy Italy Constantinople . The situation had to be saved by a migration to fresh lands. In their new capital the Romans relied on the unexhausted fertility of Egypt as well as on that of Asia Minor and the Balkan and Danubian provinces. Judged by the ordinary standards of achievement the agricultural history of the Roman Empire ended in failure due to inability to realize the fundamental principle that the maintenance of soil fertility coupled with the legitimate claims of the agricultural population should never have been allowed to come in conflict with the operations of the capitalist. The most important possession of a country is its population. If this is maintained in health and vigour everything else will follow; if this is allowed to decline nothing, not even great riches, can save the country from eventual ruin. It follows, therefore, that the strongest possible support of capital must always be a prosperous and contented country-side. A working compromise between agriculture and finance should therefore have been evolved. Failure to achieve this naturally ended in the ruin of both. THE PRACTICES OF THE ORIENT In the agriculture of Asia we find ourselves confronted with a system of peasant farming which in essentials soon became stabilized. What is happening to-day in the small fields of India and China Andes . The agricultural practices of the Orient have passed the supreme test--they are almost as permanent as those of the primeval forest, of the prairie or of the ocean. The small-holdings of China The holdings are minute. Taking India If we turn to the Far East, to China and Japan China , the examples quoted by King reveal a condition of affairs not unlike that in Japan Shantung Province United States Food and forage crops are predominant. The primary function of Eastern agriculture is to supply the cultivators and their cattle with food. This automatically follows because of the pressure of the population on the land: the main hunger the soil has to appease is that of the stomach. A subsidiary hunger is that of the machine which needs raw materials for manufacture. This extra hunger is new but has developed considerably since the opening of the Suez Canal in 1869 (by which the small fields of the cultivator have been brought into effective contact with the markets of the West) and the establishment of local industries like cotton and jute. To both these hungers soil fertility has to respond. We know from long experience that the fields of India Suez Canal has only been in operation for seventy years. The first cotton mill in India was opened in 1818 at Fort Gloster , near Calcutta Bengal has grown up within a century. Jute was first exported in 1838. The first jute mill on the Hoogly began operations in 1855. These local industries as well as the export trade in raw products for the use of the factories of the West are an extra drain on soil fertility. Their future well-being and indeed their very existence is only possible provided adequate steps are taken to maintain this fertility. There is obviously no point in establishing cotton and jute mills in India, in founding trading agencies like those of Calcutta and in building ships for the conveyance of raw products unless such enterprises are stable and permanent. It would be folly and an obvious waste of capital to pursue such activities if they are founded only on the existing store of soil fertility. All concerned in the hunger of the machine--government, financiers, manufacturers, and distributors--must see to it that the fields of India The response of India The chief food crops in order of importance are rice, pulses millets, wheat, and fodder crops. The money crops are more varied; cotton and oil seeds are the most important, followed by jute and other fibres, tobacco, tea, coffee, and opium. It will be seen that food and fodder crops comprise 86 per cent. of the total area under crops and that money crops, as far as extent is concerned, are less important, and constitute only one-seventh of the total cultivated area. TABLE 1 Agricultural Statistics of British India, 1935-6Area, in acres, under food and fodder crops Rice 79,888,000Millets 38,144,000Wheat 25,150,000Gram 14,897,000Pulses and other food grains 29,792,000Fodder crops 10,791,000Condiments, spices, fruits, vegetablesand miscellaneous food crops 8,308,000Barley 6,178,000Maize 6,211,000Sugar 4,038,000 Total food and fodder crops 223,397,000 Area, in acres, under money crops Cotton 15,761,000Oil seeds, chiefly ground-nuts,sesamum, rape, mustard and linseed 15,662,000Jute and other fibres 2,706,000Dyes, tanning materials, drugs,narcotics, and miscellaneous 1,458,000Tobacco 1,230,000Tea 787,000Coffee 97,000Indigo 40,000Opium 10,000 Total money crops 37,751,000 One interesting change in the production of Indian food crops has taken place during the last twenty-five years. The output of sugar used to be insufficient for the towns, and large quantities were imported from Java , Mauritius , and the continent of Europe . To-day, thanks to the work at Shahjahanpur in the United Provinces, the new varieties of cane bred at Coimbatore and the protection now enjoyed by the sugar industry, India Mixed crops are the rule. In this respect the cultivators of the Orient have followed Nature's method as seen in the primeval forest. Mixed cropping is perhaps most universal when the cereal crop is the main constituent. Crops like millets, wheat, barley, and maize are mixed with an appropriate subsidiary pulse, sometimes a species that ripens much later than the cereal. The pigeon pea (Cajanus indicus Spreng.), perhaps the most important leguminous crop of the Gangetic alluvium, is grown either with millets or with maize. The mixing of cereals and pulses appears to help both crops. When the two grow together the character of the growth improves. Do the roots of these crops excrete materials useful to each other? Is the mycorrhizal association found in the roots of these tropical legumes and cereals the agent involved in this excretion? Science at the moment is unable to answer these questions: she is only now beginning to investigate them Here we have another instance where the peasants of the East have anticipated and acted upon the solution of one of the problems which Western science is only just beginning to recognize. Whatever may be the reason why crops thrive best when associated in suitable combinations, the fact remains that mixtures generally give better results than monoculture. This is seen in Great Britain Australia Great Britain Melbourne A balance between live stock and crops is always maintained. Although crops are generally more important than animals in Eastern agriculture, we seldom or never find crops without animals. This is because oxen are required for cultivation and buffaloes for milk. (The buffalo is the milch cow of the Orient and is capable not only of useful labour in the cultivation of rice, but also of living and producing large quantities of rich milk on a diet on which the best dairy cows of Europe and America would starve. The acclimatization of the Indian buffalo in the villages of the Tropics--Africa, Central America, the West Indies in particular--would do much to improve the fertility of the soil and the nutrition of the people.) Nevertheless, the waste products of the animal, as is often the case in other parts of the world, are not always fully utilized for the land. The Chinese have for ages past recognized the importance of the urine of animals and the great value of animal wastes in the preparation of composts. In India China India India India Leguminous plants are common. Although it was not till 1888, after a protracted controversy lasting thirty years, that Western science finally accepted as proved the important part played by pulse crops in enriching the soil, centuries of experience had taught the peasants of the East the same lesson. The leguminous crop in the rotation is everywhere one of their old fixed practices. In some areas, such as the Indo-Gangetic plain, one of these pulses--the pigeon pea--is also made use of as a subsoil cultivator. The deep spreading root system is used to promote the aeration of the closely packed silt soils, which so closely resemble those of the Holland Division of Lincolnshire in Great Britain Cultivation is generally superficial and is carried out by wooden ploughs furnished with an iron point. Soil-inverting ploughs, as used in the West for the destruction of weeds, have never been designed by Eastern peoples. The reasons for this appear to be two: (1) soil inversion for the destruction of weeds is not necessary in a hot climate where the same work is done by the sun for nothing; (2) the preservation of the level of the fields is essential for surface drainage, for preventing local waterlogging, and for irrigation. Another reason for this surface cultivation has recently been pointed out. The store of nitrogen in the soil in the form of organic matter has to be carefully conserved: it is part of the cultivator's working capital. Too much cultivation and deep ploughing would oxidize this reserve and the balance of soil fertility would soon be destroyed. Rice is grown whenever possible. By far the most important crop in the East is rice. In India India Taking Burma as an example of an area exporting rice beyond seas, during the twenty years ending 1924, about 25,000,000 tons of paddy have been exported from a tract roughly 10,000,000 acres in area. As unhusked rice contains about 1.2 per cent. of nitrogen the amount of this element, shipped overseas during twenty years or destroyed in the burning of the husk, is in the neighbourhood of 300,000 tons. As this constant drain of nitrogen is not made up for by the import of manure, we should expect to find a gradual loss of fertility. Nevertheless, this does not take place either in Burma or in Bengal , where rice has been grown on the same land year after year for centuries. Clearly the soil must obtain fresh supplies of nitrogen from somewhere, otherwise the crop would cease to grow. The only likely source is fixation from the atmosphere, probably in the submerged algal film on the surface of the mud. This is one of the problems of tropical agriculture which is now being investigated. Where does the rice crop obtain its nitrogen? One source in all probability is fixation from the atmosphere in the submerged algal film on the surface of the mud. Another is the rice nursery itself, where the seedlings are raised on land heavily manured with cattle dung. Large quantities of nitrogen and other nutrients are stored in the seedling itself; this at transplanting time contains a veritable arsenal of reserves of all kinds which carry the plant successfully through this process and probably also furnish some of the nitrogen needed during subsequent growth. The manuring of the rice seedling illustrates a very general principle in agriculture, namely, the importance of starting a crop in a really fertile soil and so arranging matters that the plant can absorb a great deal of what it needs as early as possible in its development. There is an adequate supply of labour. Labour is everywhere abundant, as would naturally follow from the great density of the rural population. Indeed, in India It will be observed that in this peasant agriculture the great pressure of population on the soil results in poverty, most marked where, as in India THE AGRICULTURAL METHODS OF THE OCCIDENT If we take a wide survey of the contribution which is being made by the fields of the West, we find that they are engaged in trying to satisfy no less than three hungers: (1) the local hunger of the rural population, including the live stock; (2) the hunger of the growing urban areas, the population of which is unproductive from the point of view of soil fertility; and (3) the hunger of the machine avid for a constant stream of the raw materials required for manufacture. The urban population during the last century has grown out of all knowledge; the needs of the machine increase as it becomes more and more efficient; falling profits are met by increasing the output of manufactured articles. All this adds to the burden on the land and to the calls on its fertility. It will not be without interest to analyse critically the agriculture of the West and see how it is fitting itself for its growing task. This can be done by examining its main characteristics. These are as follows: The holding tends to increase in size. There is a great variation in the size of the agricultural holdings of the West from the small family units of France and Switzerland to the immense collective farms of Russia and the spacious ranches of the United States and Argentina Canada Monoculture is the rule. Almost everywhere crops are grown in pure culture. Except in temporary leys, mixed crops are rare. On the rich prairie lands of North America even rotations are unknown: crops of wheat follow one another and no attempt is made to convert the straw into humus by means of the urine and dung of cattle. The straw is a tiresome encumbrance and is burnt off annually. The machine is rapidly replacing the animal. Increasing mechanization is one of the main features of Western agriculture. Whenever a machine can be invented which saves human or animal labour its spread is rapid. Engines and motors of various kinds are the rule everywhere. The electrification of agriculture is beginning. The inevitable march of the combine harvester in all the wheat-producing areas of the world is one of the latest examples of the mechanization of the agriculture of the West. Cultivation tends to be quicker and deeper. There is a growing feeling that the more and the deeper the soil is stirred the better will be the crop. The invention of the gyrotiller, a heavy and expensive soil churn, is one of the answers to this demand. The slaves of the Roman Empire have been replaced by mechanical slaves. The replacement of the horse and the ox by the internal combustion engine and the electric motor is, however, attended by one great disadvantage. These machines do not void urine and dung and so contribute nothing to the maintenance of soil fertility. In this sense the slaves of Western agriculture are less efficient than those of ancient Rome Artificial manures are widely used. The feature of the manuring of the West is the use of artificial manures. The factories engaged during the Great War in the fixation of atmospheric nitrogen for the manufacture of explosives had to find other markets, the use of nitrogenous fertilizers in agriculture increased, until to-day the majority of farmers and market gardeners base their manurial programme on the cheapest forms of nitrogen (N), phosphorus (P), and potassium (K) on the market. What may be conveniently described as the NPK mentality dominates farming alike in the experimental stations and the country-side. Vested interests, entrenched in time of national emergency, have gained a stranglehold. Artificial manures involve less labour and less trouble than farm-yard manure. The tractor is superior to the horse in power and in speed of work: it needs no food and no expensive care during its long hours of rest. These two agencies have made it easier to run a farm. A satisfactory profit and loss account has been obtained. For the moment farming has been made to pay. But there is another side to this picture. These chemicals and these machines can do nothing to keep the soil in good heart. By their use the processes of growth can never be balanced by the processes of decay. All that they can accomplish is the transfer of the soil's capital to current account. That this is so will be much clearer when the attempts now being made to farm without any animals at all march to their inevitable failure. Diseases are on the increase. With the spread of artificials and the exhaustion of the original supplies of humus, carried by every fertile soil, there has been a corresponding increase in the diseases of crops and of the animals which feed on them. If the spread of foot-and-mouth disease in Europe and its comparative insignificance among well fed animals in the East are compared, or if the comparison is made between certain areas in Europe , the conclusion is inevitable that there must be an intimate connexion between faulty methods of agriculture and animal disease. In crops like potatoes and fruit, the use of the poison spray has closely followed the reduction in the supplies of farm-yard manure and the diminution of fertility. Food preservation processes are also on the increase. A feature of the agriculture of the West is the development of food preservation processes by which the journey of products like meat, milk, vegetables, and fruit between the soil and the stomach is prolonged. This is done by freezing, by the use of carbon dioxide, by drying, and by canning. Although food is preserved for a time in this way, what is the effect of these processes on the health of the community during a period of, say, twenty-five years? Is it possible to preserve the first freshness of food? If so then science will have made a very real contribution. Science has been called in to help production. Another of the features of the agriculture of the West is the development of agricultural science. Efforts have been made to enlist the help of a number of separate sciences in studying the problems of agriculture and in increasing the production of the soil. This has entailed the foundation of numerous experiment stations which every year pour out a large volume of advice in the shape of printed matter. These mushroom ideas of agriculture are failing; mother earth deprived of her manurial rights is in revolt; the land is going on strike; the fertility of the soil is declining. An examination of the areas which feed the population and the machines of a country like Great Britain United States , Canada , Africa, Australia , and New Zealand Great Britain United States The agricultural record has been briefly reviewed from the standpoint of soil fertility. The main characteristics of the various methods of agriculture have been summarized. The most significant of these are the operations of Nature as seen in the forest. There the fullest use is made of sunlight and rainfall in raising heavy crops of produce and at the same time not only maintaining fertility but actually building up large reserves of humus. The peasants of China Rome Roman Empire , however, were only called upon to assuage the hunger of a relatively small population. The demands of the machine were then almost non-existent. In the West there are relatively more stomachs to fill while the growing hunger of the machine is an additional burden on the soil. The Roman Empire lasted for eleven centuries. How long will the supremacy of the West endure? The answer depends on the wisdom and courage of the population in dealing with the things that matter. Can mankind regulate its affairs so that its chief possession--the fertility of the soil--is preserved? On the answer to this question the future of civilization depends. BIBLIOGRAPHY Agricultural Statistics of India , 1, Delhi HOWARD, A., and HOWARD, G. L. C. The Development of Indian Agriculture, Oxford University KING, F. H. Farmers of Forty Centuries or Permanent Agriculture in China , Korea , and Japan , London LYMINGTON, VISCOUNT. Famine in England , London MOMMSEN, THEODOR. The History of Rome , transl. Dickson, London WRENCH, G. T. The Wheel of Health, London II. THE NATURE OF SOIL FERTILITY
What is this soil fertility? What exactly does it mean? How does it affect the soil, the crop, and the animal? How can we best investigate it? An attempt will be made in this chapter to answer these questions and to show why soil fertility must be the basis of any permanent system of agriculture. The nature of soil fertility can only be understood if it is considered in relation to Nature's round. In this study we must at the outset emancipate ourselves from the conventional approach to agricultural problems by means of the separate sciences and above all from the statistical consideration of the evidence afforded by the ordinary field experiment. Instead of breaking up the subject into fragments and studying agriculture in piecemeal fashion by the analytical methods of science, appropriate only to the discovery of new facts, we must adopt a synthetic approach and look at the wheel of life as one great subject and not as if it were a patchwork of unrelated things. All the phases of the life cycle are closely connected; all are integral to Nature's activity; all are equally important; none can be omitted. We have therefore to study soil fertility in relation to a natural working system and to adopt methods of investigation in strict relation to such a subject. We need not strive after quantitative results: the qualitative will often serve. We must look at soil fertility as we would study a business where the profit and loss account must be taken along with the balance-sheet, the standing of the concern, and the method of management. It is the 'altogetherness' which matters in business, not some particular transaction or the profit or loss of the current year. So it is with soil fertility. We have to consider the wood, not the individual trees. The wheel of life is made up of two processes--growth and decay. The one is the counterpart of the other. Let us first consider growth. The soil yields crops; these form the food of animals: crops and animals are taken up into the human body and are digested there. The perfectly grown, normal, vigorous human being is the highest natural development known to us. There is no break in the chain from soil to man; this section of the wheel of life is uninterrupted throughout; it is also an integration; each step depends on the last. It must therefore be studied as a working whole. The energy for the machinery of growth is derived from the sun; the chlorophyll in the green leaf is the mechanism by which this energy is intercepted; the plant is thereby enabled to manufacture food--to synthesize carbohydrates and proteins from the water and other substances taken up by the roots and the carbon dioxide of the atmosphere. The efficiency of the green leaf is therefore of supreme importance; on it depends the food supply of this planet, our well-being, and our activities. There is no alternative source of nutriment. Without sunlight and the green leaf our industries, our trade, and our possessions would soon be useless. The chief factors on which the work of the green leaf depends are the condition of the soil and its relation to the roots of the plant. The plant and the soil come into gear by means of the root system in two ways--by the root hairs and by the mycorrhizal association. The first condition for this gearing is that the internal surface of the soil--the pore space--shall be as large as possible throughout the life of the crop. It is on the walls of this pore space, which are covered with thin water films, that the essential activities of the soil take place. The soil population, consisting mainly of bacteria, fungi and protozoa, carry on their life histories in these water films. The contact between the soil and the plant which is best understood takes place by means of the root hairs. These are prolongations of the outer layer of cells of the young root. Their duty is to absorb from the thin films of moisture on the walls of the pore space the water and dissolved salts needed for the work of the green leaves: no actual food can reach the plant in this way, only simple things which are needed by the green leaf to synthesize food. The activities of the pore space depend on respiration for which adequate quantities of oxygen are essential. A corresponding amount of carbon dioxide is the natural by-product. To maintain the oxygen supply and to reduce the amount of carbon dioxide, the pore spaces must be kept in contact with the atmosphere. The soil must be ventilated. Hence the importance of cultivation. As most of the soil organisms possess no chlorophyll, and, moreover, have to work in the dark, they must be supplied with energy. This is obtained by the oxidation of humus--the name given to a complex residue of partly oxidized vegetable and animal matter together with the substances synthesized by the fungi and bacteria which break down these wastes. This humus also helps to provide the cement which enables the minute mineral soil particles to aggregate into larger compound particles and so maintain the pore space. If the soil is deficient in humus, the volume of the pore space is reduced; the aeration of the soil is impeded; there is insufficient organic matter for the soil population; the machinery of the soil runs down; the supply of oxygen, water, and dissolved salts needed by the root hairs is reduced; the synthesis of carbohydrates and proteins in the green leaf proceeds at a lower tempo; growth is affected. Humus is therefore an essential material for the soil if the first phase of the life cycle is to function. There is another reason why humus is important. Its presence in the soil is an essential condition for the proper functioning of the second contact between soil and plant--the mycorrhizal relationship. By means of this connexion certain soil fungi, which live on humus, are able to invade the living cells of the young roots and establish an intimate relation with the plant, the details of which symbiosis are still being investigated and discussed. Soil fungus and plant cells live together in closer partnership than the algal and fungous constituents of the lichen do. How the fungus benefits has yet to be determined. How the plant profits is easier to understand. If a suitable preparation of such roots is examined under the microscope, all stages in the digestion of the fungous mycelium can be seen. At the end of the partnership the root consumes the fungus and in this manner is able to absorb the carbohydrates and proteins which the fungus obtains partly from the humus in the soil. The mycorrhizal association therefore is the living bridge by which a fertile soil (one rich in humus) and the crop are directly connected and by which food materials ready for immediate use can be transferred from soil to plant. How this association influences the work of the green leaf is one of the most interesting problems science has now to investigate. Is the effective synthesis of carbohydrates and proteins in the green leaf dependent on the digestion products of these soil fungi? It is more than probable that this must prove to be the case. Are these digestion products at the root of disease resistance and quality? It would appear so. If this is the case it would follow that on the efficiency of this mycorrhizal association the health and well-being of mankind must depend. In a fertile soil the soil and the plant come into gear in two ways simultaneously. In establishing and maintaining these contacts humus is essential. It is therefore a key material in the life cycle. Without this substance the wheel of life cannot function effectively. The processes of decay which round off and complete the wheel of life can be seen in operation on the floor of any woodland. This has already been discussed. It has been shown how the mixed animal and vegetable wastes are converted into humus and how the forest manures itself. Such are the essential facts in the wheel of life. Growth on the one side: decay on the other. In Nature's farming a balance is struck and maintained between these two complementary processes. The only man-made systems of agriculture--those to be found in the East--which have stood the test of time have faithfully copied this rule in Nature. It follows therefore that the correct relation between the processes of growth and the processes of decay is the first principle of successful farming. Agriculture must always be balanced. If we speed up growth we must accelerate decay. If, on the other hand, the soil's reserves are squandered, crop production ceases to be good farming: it becomes something very different. The farmer is transformed into a bandit. It is now possible to define more clearly the meaning of soil fertility. It is the condition of a soil rich in humus in which the growth processes proceed rapidly, smoothly, and efficiently. The term therefore connotes such things as abundance, high quality, and resistance to disease. A soil which grows to perfection a wheat crop--the food of man--is described fertile. A pasture on which meat and milk of the first class are produced falls into the same category. An area under market-garden crops on which vegetables of the highest quality are raised has reached the peak as regards fertility. Why does soil fertility so markedly influence the soil, the plant, and the animal? By virtue of the humus it contains. The nature and properties of this substance as well as the products of its decomposition are therefore important. These matters must now be considered. What is humus? A reply to this question has been rendered easier by the appearance in 1938 of the second edition of Waksman's admirable monograph on humus in which the results of no less than 1311 original papers have been reduced to order. Waksman defines humus as 'a complex aggregate of brown to dark-coloured amorphous substances which have originated during the decomposition of plant and animal residues by micro-organisms, under aerobic and anaerobic conditions, usually in soils, composts, peat bogs, and water basins. Chemically, humus consists of various constituents of the original plant material resistant to further decomposition; of substances undergoing decomposition; of complexes resulting from decomposition either by processes of hydrolysis or by oxidation and reduction; and of various compounds synthesized by micro-organisms. Humus is a natural body; it is a composite entity, just as are plant, animal, and microbial substances; it is even much more complex chemically, since all these materials contribute to its formation. Humus possesses certain specific physical, chemical, and biological properties which make it distinct from other natural organic bodies. Humus, in itself or by interaction with certain inorganic constituents of the soil, forms a complex colloidal system, the different constituents of which are held together by surface forces; this system is adaptable to changing conditions of reaction, moisture, and action by electrolytes. The numerous activities of the soil micro-organisms take place in this system to a large extent.' Viewed from the standpoint of chemistry and physics humus is therefore not a simple substance: it is made up from a group of very complex organic compounds depending on the nature of the residues from which it is formed, on the conditions under which decomposition takes place, and on the extent to which the processes of decay have proceeded. Humus, therefore, cannot be exactly the same thing everywhere. It is bound to be a creature of circumstance. Moreover it is alive and teems with a vast range of micro-organisms which derive most of their nutriment from this substratum. Humus in the natural state is dynamic, not static. From the point of view of agriculture, therefore, we are dealing not with simple dead matter like a sack of sulphate of ammonia, which can be analysed and valued according to its chemical composition, but with a vast organic complex in which an important section of the farmer's invisible labour force--the organisms which carry on the work of the soil--is temporarily housed. Humus, therefore, involves the element of labour; in this respect also it is one of the most important factors on the farm. It is essential at this point to pay some attention to the manysided properties of humus and to realize how profoundly it differs from a chemical manure. At the moment all over the world field trials--based on mere nitrogen content--are in progress for comparing, on the current crop, dressings of humus and various artificial manures. A mere glance at the properties of humus will show that such field trials are based on a fundamental misconception of what soil fertility implies and are misleading and therefore useless. The properties of humus have been summed up by Waksman as follows: 1. Humus possesses a dark brown to black colour. 2. Humus is practically insoluble in water, although a part of it may go into colloidal solution in pure water. Humus dissolves to a large extent in dilute alkali solutions, especially on boiling, giving a dark coloured extract; a large part of this extract precipitates when the alkali solution is neutralized by mineral acids. 3. Humus contains a somewhat larger amount of carbon than do plant, animal, and microbial bodies; the carbon content of humus is usually about 55 to 56 per cent., and frequently reaches 58 per cent. '4. Humus contains considerable nitrogen, usually about 3 to 6 per cent. The nitrogen concentration may be frequently less than this figure; in the case of certain high-moor peats, for example, it may be only 0.5-0.8 per cent. It may also be higher, especially in sub-soils, frequently reaching 10 to 12 per cent. '5. Humus contains the elements carbon and nitrogen in proportions which are close to 10:1; this is true of many soils and of humus in sea bottoms. This ratio varies considerably with the nature of the humus, the stage of its decomposition, the nature and depth of soil from which it is obtained, the climatic and other environmental conditions under which it is formed. 6. Humus is not in a static, but rather in a dynamic, condition, since it is constantly formed from plant and animal residues and is continuously decomposed further by micro-organisms. 7. Humus serves as a source of energy for the development of various groups of micro-organisms, and during decomposition gives off a continuous stream of carbon dioxide and ammonia. 8. Humus is characterized by a high capacity of base-exchange, of combining with various other soil constituents, of absorbing water, and of swelling, and by other physical and physico-chemical properties which make it a highly valuable constituent of substrates which support plant and animal life.' To this list of properties must be added the role of humus as a cement in creating and maintaining the compound soil particles so important in the maintenance of tilth. The effect of humus on the crop is nothing short of profound. The farmers and peasants who live in close touch with Nature can tell by a glance at the crop whether or not the soil is rich in humus. The habit of the plant then develops something approaching personality; the foliage assumes a characteristic set; the leaves acquire the glow of health; the flowers develop depth of colour; the minute morphological characters of the whole of the plant organs become clearer and sharper. Root development is profuse: the active roots exhibit not only turgidity but bloom. The influence of humus on the plant is not confined to the outward appearance of the various organs. The quality of the produce is also affected. Seeds are better developed, and so yield better crops and also provide live stock with a satisfaction not conferred by the produce of worn-out land. The animals need less food if it comes from fertile soil. Vegetables and fruit grown on land rich in humus are always superior in quality, taste, and keeping power to those raised by other means. The quality of wines, other things being equal, follows the same rule. Almost every villager in countries like France In the case of fodder a very interesting example of the relation between soil fertility and quality has recently been investigated. This was noticed in the meadows of La Crau between Salon and Aries in Provence France and are even exported to Newmarket The origin of these irrigated meadows would provide an interesting story. Did they arise as the result of a set of permanent manurial experiments on the Broadbalk model or through the work of some observant local pioneer? I suspect the second alternative will be found to be nearer the truth. A definite answer to this question is desirable because in a recent discussion at Rothamsted, on the relation between a fertile soil and high-quality produce, it was stated that no evidence of such a connexion could be discovered in the literature. The farmers of Provence The effect of soil fertility on live stock can be observed in the field. As animals live on crops we should naturally expect the character of the plant as regards nutrition to be passed on to stock. This is so. The effect of a fertile soil can at once be seen in the condition of the animals. This is perhaps most easily observed in the bullocks fattened on some of the notable pastures in Great Britain Resistance to insect and fungous disease is also conferred by humus. Perhaps the best examples of this are to be seen in the East. In India Soil fertility not only influences crops and live stock but also the fauna of the locality. This is perhaps most easily seen in the fish of streams which flow through areas of widely differing degrees of fertility. An example of such difference is referred to at the end of Chapter V of Isaac Walton's COMPLEAT ANGLER the following words: 'And so I shall proceed next to tell you, it is certain, that certain fields near Leominster, a town in Herefordshire, are observed to make sheep that graze upon them more fat than the next, and also to bear finer wool; that is to say, that in that year in which they feed in such a particular pasture, they shall yield finer wool than they did that year before they came to feed in it, and coarser again if they shall return to their former pasture; and again return to a finer wool, being fed in the fine wool ground. Which I tell you, that you may the better believe that I am certain, if I catch a trout in one meadow he shall be white and faint, and very likely to be lousy; and as certainly if I catch a trout in the next meadow, he shall be strong and red and lusty and much better meat: trust me, scholar. I have caught many a trout in a particular meadow, that the very shape and enamelled colour of him hath been such as hath joyed me to look on him: and I have then with much pleasure concluded with Solomon, "Everything is beautiful in his season".' Soil fertility is the condition which results from the operation of Nature's round, from the orderly revolution of the wheel of life, from the adoption and faithful execution of the first principle of agriculture--there must always be a perfect balance between the processes of growth and the processes of decay. The consequences of this condition are a living soil, abundant crops of good quality, and live stock which possess the bloom of health. The key to a fertile soil and a prosperous agriculture is humus. BIBLIOGRAPHY RAYNER, M. C. Mycorrhiza: an Account of Non-pathogenic Infection by Fungi in Vascular Plants and Bryophytes, London ---------'Mycorrhiza in relation to Forestry', Forestry, viii, 1934, p. 96; x, 1936, p. 1; and xiii, 1939, p. 19. WAKSMAN, S. A. Humus: Origin, Chemical Composition, and Importance in Nature, London III. THE RESTORATION OF FERTILITY
The moment mankind undertook the business of raising crops and breeding animals, the processes of Nature were subjected to interference. Soil fertility was exploited for the growing of food and the production of the raw materials--such as wool, skins, and vegetable fibres--needed for clothing. Up to the dawn of the Industrial Revolution in the West, the losses of humus involved in these agricultural operations were made up either by the return of waste material to the soil or by taking up virgin land. Where the return of wastes balanced the losses of humus involved in production, systems of agriculture became stabilized and there was no loss of fertility. The example of China The constant exploitation of new areas to replace worn-out land has also gone on for centuries and is still taking place. Sometimes this has involved wars and conquests: at other times nothing more than taking up fresh prairie or forest land wherever this was to be found. A special method is adopted by some primitive tribes. The forest growth is burnt down, the store of humus is converted into crops, the exhausted land is given back to Nature for reafforestation and the building up of a new reserve of humus. In a rough and ready way fertility is maintained. Such shifting cultivation still exists all over the world, but like the taking up of new land is only possible when the population is small and suitable land abundant. This burning process has even been incorporated into permanent systems of agriculture and has proved of great value in rice cultivation in western India It is an easy matter to destroy a balanced agriculture. Once the demand for food and raw materials increases and good prices are obtained for the produce of the soil, the pressure on soil fertility becomes intense. The temptation to convert this fertility into money becomes irresistible. Western agriculture was subjected to this strain by the very rapid developments which followed the invention of the steam-engine, the internal combustion engine, electrically driven motors, and improvements in communications and transport. Factory after factory arose; a demand for labour followed; the urban population increased. All these developments provided new and expanding markets for food and raw materials. These were supplied in three ways--by cashing-in the existing fertility of the whole world, by the use of a temporary substitute for soil fertility in the shape of artificial manures, and by a combination of both methods. The net result has been that agriculture has become unbalanced and therefore unstable. Let us review briefly the operations of Western agriculture from the point of view of the utilization of wastes in order to discover whether the gap between the losses and gains of humus, now bridged by artificials, can be reduced or abolished altogether. If this is possible, something can be done to restore the balance of agriculture and to make it more stable and therefore more permanent. Many sources of soil organic matter exist, namely: (1) the roots of crops, weeds, and crop residues which are turned under in the course of cultivation; (2) the algae met with in the surface soil; (3) temporary leys, the turf of worn-out grass land, catch crops, and green-manures; (4) the urine of animals; (5) farmyard manure; (6) the contents of the dustbins of our cities and towns; (7) certain factory wastes which result from the processing of agricultural produce; (8) the wastes of the urban population; (9) water-weeds, including seaweed. These must now be very briefly considered. In later chapters most of these matters will be referred to again and discussed in greater detail. THE RESIDUES TURNED UNDER IN THE COURSE OF CULTIVATION. It is not always realized that about half of every crop--the root system--remains in the ground at harvest time and thus provides a continuous return of organic matter to the soil. The weeds and their roots ploughed in during the ordinary course of cultivation add to this supply. When these residues, supplemented by the fixation of nitrogen from the atmosphere, are accompanied by skilful soil management, which safeguards the precious store of humus, crop production can be maintained at a low level without the addition of any manure whatsoever beyond the occasional droppings of live stock and birds. A good example of such a system of farming without manure is to be found in the alluvial soils of the United Provinces in India Soil algae are a much more important factor in the tropics than in temperate regions. Nevertheless they occur in all soils and often play a part in the maintenance of soil fertility. Towards the end of the rainy season in countries like India Asia in the cultivation of the soil. TEMPORARY LEYS, CATCH-CROPS, GREEN-MANURES, AND THE TURF OF WORN-OUT GRASS LAND are perhaps the most important source of humus in Western agriculture. All these crops develop a large root system; the permanent and temporary leys give rise to ample residues of organic matter which accumulate in the surface soil. Green-manures and catch-crops develop a certain amount of soft and easily decomposable tissue. Provided these crops are properly utilized a large addition of new humus can be added to the soil. The efficiency of these methods of maintaining soil fertility could, however, be very greatly increased. THE URINE OF ANIMALS. The key substance in the manufacture of humus from vegetable wastes is urine--the drainage of the active cells and glands of the animal. It contains in a soluble and balanced form all the nitrogen and minerals, and in all probability the accessory growth-substances as well, needed for the work of the fungi and bacteria which break down the various forms of cellulose--the first step in the synthesis of humus. It carries in all probability every raw material, known and unknown, discovered and undiscovered, needed in the building up of a fertile soil. Much of this vital substance for restoring soil fertility is either wasted or only imperfectly utilized. This fact alone would explain the disintegration of the agriculture of the West. Although FARM-YARD MANURE has always been one of the principal means of replenishing soil losses, even now the methods by which this substance is prepared are nothing short of deplorable. The making of farm-yard manure is the weakest link in the agriculture of Western countries. For centuries this weakness has been the fundamental fault of Western farming, one completely overlooked by many observers and the great majority of investigators. DUSTBIN REFUSE. Practically no agricultural use is now being made of the impure cellulose and kitchen wastes which find their way into the urban dustbin. These are mostly buried in controlled tips or burnt. ANIMAL RESIDUES. A number of wastes connected with the processing of food and some of the raw materials needed in industry are utilized on the land and find a ready market. The animal residues include such materials as dried blood, feathers, greaves, hair waste, hoof and horn, rabbit waste, slaughter-house refuse, and fish waste. There is a brisk demand for most of these substances, as they give good results on the land. The only drawback is the limited supplies available. The organic residues from manufacture consist of damaged oil-cakes, shoddy and tannery waste, of which shoddy, a by-product of the wool industry, is the most important. These two classes of wastes, animal and industrial, are applied to the soil direct and, generally speaking, command much higher prices than would be expected from their content of nitrogen, phosphorus, and potash. This is because the soil is in such urgent need of humus and because the supply falls so far short of the demand. It is probable that a better use for these wastes will be found as raw materials for the compost heaps of the future, where they will act as substitutes for urine in the breaking down of dustbin refuse in localities where the supply of farm-yard manure is restricted. WATER WEEDS. Little use is made of water weeds in maintaining soil fertility. Perhaps the most useful of these is seaweed, which is thrown up on the beaches in large quantities at certain times of the year and which contains iodine and includes the animal residues needed for converting vegetable wastes into humus. Many of our sea-side resorts could easily manufacture from seaweed and dustbin refuse the vast quantities of humus needed for the farms and market gardens in their neighbourhood and so balance the local agriculture. Little or nothing, however, is being done in this direction. In some cases the seaweed collection on pleasure beaches is taken up by the farmers with good results, but the systematic utilization of seaweed in the compost heap is still a matter for the future. The streams and rivers which carry off the surplus rainfall also contain appreciable quantities of combined nitrogen and minerals in solution. Much of this could be intercepted by the cultivation of suitable plants on the borders of these streams which would furnish large quantities of easily decomposable material for humus manufacture. THE NIGHT SOIL AND URINE of the population is at present almost completely lost to the land. In urban areas the concentration of the population is the main reason why water-borne sewage systems have developed. The greatest difficulty in the path of the reformer is the absence of sufficient land for dealing with these wastes. In country districts, however, there are no insurmountable obstacles to the utilization of human wastes. It will be evident that in almost every case the vegetable and animal residues of Western agriculture are either being completely wasted or else imperfectly utilized. A wide gap between the humus used up in crop production and the humus added as manure has naturally developed. This has been filled by chemical manures. The principle followed, based on the Liebig tradition, is that any deficiencies in the soil solution can be made up by the addition of suitable chemicals. This is based on a complete misconception of plant nutrition. It is superficial and fundamentally unsound. It takes no account of the life of the soil, including the mycorrhizal association--the living fungous bridge which connects soil and sap. Artificial manures lead inevitably to artificial nutrition, artificial food, artificial animals, and finally to artificial men and women. The ease with which crops can be grown with chemicals has made the correct utilization of wastes much more difficult. If a cheap substitute for humus exists why not use it? The answer is twofold. In the first place, chemicals can never be a substitute for humus because Nature has ordained that the soil must live and the mycorrhizal association must be an essential link in plant nutrition. In the second place, the use of such a substitute cannot be cheap because soil fertility--one of the most important assets of any country--is lost; because artificial plants, artificial animals, and artificial men are unhealthy and can only be protected from the parasites, whose duty it is to remove them, by means of poison sprays, vaccines and serums and an expensive system of patent medicines, panel doctors, hospitals, and so forth. When the finance of crop production is considered together with that of the various social services which are needed to repair the consequences of an unsound agriculture, and when it is borne in mind that our greatest possession is a healthy, virile population, the cheapness of artificial manures disappears altogether. In the years to come chemical manures will be considered as one of the greatest follies of the industrial epoch. The teachings of the agricultural economists of this period will be dismissed as superficial. In the next section of this book the methods by which the agriculture of the West can be reformed and balanced and the use of artificial manures given up will be discussed. BIBLIOGRAPHY CLARKE, G. 'Some Aspects of Soil Improvement in relation to Crop Production' Proc. of the Seventeenth Indian Science Congress, Asiatic Society of Bengal, Calcutta, 1930, p. 23 HALL, SIR A. DANIEL. The Improvement of Native Agriculture in relation to Population and Public Health, Oxford University Press, 1936. HOWARD, A., and WAD, Y. D. The Waste Products of Agriculture: Their Utilization as Humus, Oxford University MANN, H. H., JOSHI, N. V., and KANITICAR, N. V. 'The Rab System of Rice Cultivation in Western India ', Mem. of the Dept. of Agriculture in India Manures and Manuring, Bulletin 36 of the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries, H.M. Stationery Office, 1937.
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