Organic Gardener's Composting Part 20

Pfeiffer, E.E. _Biodynamic Farming and Gardening. _Spring Valley, New York: Anthroposophic Press, 1938.

Poincelot, R.P. _The Biochemistry and Methodology of Composting.

_Vol. Bull. 727. Conn. Agric. Expt. Sta., 1972. A rigorous but readable review of scientific literature and known data on composting through 1972 including a complete bibliography.

Russell, Sir E. John. _Soil Conditions and Plant Growth._ Eighth Ed., New York: Longmans, Green & Co., 1950. The best soil science text I know of. Avoid the recent in-print edition that has been revised by a committee of current British agronomists. They enlarged Russell's book and made more credible to academics by making it less comprehensible to ordinary people with good education and intelligence through the introduction of unnecessary mathematical models and stilted prose. it lacks the human touch and simpler explanations of Russell's original statements.

Schaller, Friedrich. _Soil Animals. _Ann Arbor: University of Michigan, 1968. Soil zoology for American readers without extensive scientific background. Shaler was Kuhnelt's student.

Stout, Ruth. _Gardening Without Work: For the Aging, the Busy and the Indolent._ Old Greenwich, Connecticut: Devin Adair, 1961. The original statement of mulch gardening. Fun to read. Her disciple, Richard Clemence, wrote several books in the late 1970s that develop the method further.

Of interest to the serious food gardener

I have learned far more from my own self-directed studies than my formal education. From time to time I get enthusiastic about some topic and voraciously read about it. When I started gardening in the early 1970s l quickly devoured everything labeled "organic" in the local public library and began what became a ten-year subscription to _Organic Gardening and Farming_ magazine. During the early 1980s the garden books that I wrote all had the word "organic" in the t.i.tle.

In the late 1980s my interest turned to what academics might call 'the intellectual history of radical agriculture.' I reread the founders of the organic gardening and farming movement, only to discover that they, like Mark Twain's father, had become far more intelligent since l last read them fifteen years back. l began to understand that one reason so many organic gardeners misunderstood Albert Howard was that he wrote in English, not American. l also noticed that there were other related traditions of agricultural reform and followed these back to their sources. This research took over eighteen months of heavy study. l really gave the interlibrary loan librarian a workout.

Herewith are a few of the best t.i.tles l absorbed during that research. l never miss an opportunity to help my readers discover that older books were written in an era before all intellectuals were afflicted with lifelong insecurity caused by cringing from an imaginary critical and nattery college professor standing over their shoulder. Older books are often far better than new ones, especially if you'll forgive them an occasional error in point of fact. We are not always discovering newer, better, and improved. Often we are forgetting and obscuring and confusing what was once known, clear and simple. Many of these extraordinary old books are not in print and not available at your local library. However, a simple inquiry at the Interlibrary Loan desk of most libraries will show you how easy it is to obtain these and most any other book you become interested in.

Albrecht, William A. _The Albrecht Papers, Vols 1 &2._ Kansas City: Acres, USA 1975.

Albert Howard, Weston Price, Sir Robert McCarrison, and William Albrecht share equal responsibility for creating this era's movement toward biologically sound agriculture. Howard is still well known to organic gardeners, thanks to promotion by the Rodale organization while Price, McCarrison, and Albrecht have faded into obscurity.

Albrecht was chairman of the Soil Department at the University of Missouri during the 1930s. His unwavering investigation of soil fertility as the primary cause of health and disease was considered politically incorrect by the academic establishment and vested interests that funded agricultural research at that time. Driven from academia, he wrote prolifically for nonscientific magazines and lectured to farmers and medical pract.i.tioners during the 1940s and 1950s. Albrecht was willing to consider chemical fertilizers as potentially useful though he did not think chemicals were as sensible as more natural methods. This view was unacceptable to J.l.

Rodale, who ignored Albrecht's profound contributions.

Balfour, Lady Eve B. _The Living Soil._ London: Faber and Faber, 1943.

Lady Balfour was one of the key figures in creating the organic gardening and farming movement. She exhibited a most remarkable intelligence and understanding of the science of health and of the limitations of her own knowledge. Balfour is someone any serious gardener will want to meet through her books. Lady Balfour proved Woody Allen right about eating organic brown rice; she died only recently in her late 90s, compus mentis to the end.

Borsodi, Ralph. _Flight from the City: An Experiment in Creative Living on the Land._ New York: Harper and Brothers, 1933.

A warmly human back-to-the-lander whose pithy critique of industrial civilization still hits home. Borsodi explains how production of life's essentials at home with small-scale technology leads to enhanced personal liberty and security. Homemade is inevitably more efficient, less costly, and better quality than anything ma.s.s-produced. Readers who become fond of this unique individualist's sociology and political economy will also enjoy Borsodi's _This Ugly Civilization _and _The Distribution Age._

Brady, Nyle C. _The Nature and Properties of Soils, _Eighth Edition.

New York: Macmillan, 1974.

Through numerous editions and still the standard soils text for American agricultural colleges. Every serious gardener should attempt a reading of this encyclopedia of soil knowledge every few years. See also Foth, Henry D. _Fundamentals of Soil Science._

Bromfield, Louis. _Malibar Farm._ New York: Harper & Brothers, 1947.

Here is another agricultural reformer who did not exactly toe the Organic Party line as promulgated by J.l. Rodale. Consequently his books are relatively unknown to today's gardening public. If you like Wendell Berry you'll find Bromfield's emotive and Iyrical prose even finer and less academically contrived. His experiments with ecological farming are inspiring. See also Bromfield's other farming books: _Pleasant Valley, In My Experience,_ and _Out of the Earth._

Carter, Vernon Gill and Dale, Tom. _Topsoil and Civilization.

_Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1974. (first edition, 1954)

This book surveys seven thousand years of world history to show how each place where civilization developed was turned into an impoverished, scantily-inhabited semi-desert by neglecting soil conservation. Will ours' survive any better? Readers who wish to pursue this area further might start with Wes Jackson's _New Roots for Agriculture._

Ernle, (Prothero) Lord. _English Farming Past and Present,_ 6th edition. First published London: Longmans, Green & Co., Ltd., 1912, and many subsequent editions. Chicago: Quadrangle Books, 1962.

Some history is dry as dust. Ernle's writing lives like that of Francis Parkman or Gibbon. Anyone serious about vegetable gardening will want to know all they can about the development of modern agricultural methods.

Foth, Henry D. _Fundamentals of Soil Science, _Eighth Edition. New York: John Wylie & Sons, 1990.

Like Brady's text, this one has also been through numerous editions for the past several decades. Unlike Brady's work however, this book is a little less technical, an easier read as though designed for non-science majors. Probably the best starter text for someone who wants to really understand soil.

Hall, Bolton. _Three Acres and Liberty. _New York: Macmillan, 1918.

Bolton Hall marks the start of our modern back-to-the-land movement.

He was Ralph Borsodi's mentor and inspiration. Where Ralph was smooth and intellectual, Hall was crusty and Twainesque.

Hamaker, John. D. _The Survival of Civilization. _Annotated by Donald A. Weaver. Michigan/ California: Hamaker-Weaver Publishers, 1982.

Forget global warming, Hamaker believably predicts the next ice age is coming. Glaciers will be upon us sooner than we know unless we reverse intensification of atmospheric carbon dioxide by remineralization of the soil. Very useful for its exploration of the agricultural use of rock flours. Helps one stand back from the current global warming panic and ask if we really know what is coming. Or are we merely feeling guilty for abusing Earth?

Hopkins, Cyril G. _Soil Fertility and Permanent Agriculture.

_Boston: Ginn and Company, 1910.

Though of venerable lineage, this book is still one of the finest of soil manuals in existence. Hopkins' interesting objections to chemical fertilizers are more economic than moral.

_The Story of the Soil: From the Basis of Absolute Science and Real Life. _Boston: Richard G. Badger, 1911.

A romance of soil science similar to Ecotopia or Looking Backward.

No better introduction exists to understanding farming as a process of management of overall soil mineralization. People who attempt this book should be ready to forgive that Hopkins occasionally expresses opinions on race and other social issues that were acceptable in his era but today are considered objectionable by most Americans.

Jenny, Hans. _Factors of Soil Formation: a System of Quant.i.tative Pedology._ New York: McGraw Hill, 1941.

Don't let the t.i.tle scare you. Jenny's masterpiece is not hard to read and still stands in the present as the best a.n.a.lysis of how soil forms from rock. Anyone who is serious about growing plants will want to know this data.

McCarrison, Sir Robert. _The Work of Sir Robert McCarrison. _ed. H.

M. Sinclair. London Faber and Faber, 1953.

One of the forgotten discoverers of the relationship between soil fertility and human health. McCarrison, a physician and medical researcher, worked in India contemporaneously with Albert Howard. He spent years "trekking around the Hunza and conducted the first bioa.s.says of food nutrition by feeding rat populations on the various national diets of India. And like the various nations of India, some of the rats became healthy, large, long-lived, and good natured while others were small, sickly, irritable, and short-lived.

Nearing, Helen & Scott. _Living the Good Life: How to Live Sanely and Simply in a Troubled World._ First published in 1950. New York: Schocken Books, 1970.

Continuing in Borsodi's footsteps, the Nearings homesteaded in the thirties and began proselytizing for the self-sufficient life-style shortly thereafter. Scott was a very dignified old political radical when he addressed my high school in Ma.s.sachusetts in 1961 and inspired me to dream of country living. He remained active until nearly his hundredth birthday. See also: _Continuing the Good Life_ and _The Maple Sugar Book._

Parnes, Robert. _Organic and Inorganic Fertilizers. _Mt. Vernon, Maine: Woods End Agricultural Inst.i.tute, 1986.

Price, Weston A. _Nutrition and Physical Degeneration. _La Mesa, California: Price-Pottenger Nutrition Foundation, reprinted 1970.

(1939)

Sits on the "family bible" shelf in my home along with Albrecht, McCarrison, and Howard. Price, a dentist with strong interests in prevention, wondered why his clientele, 1920s midwest bourgeoisie, had terrible teeth when prehistoric skulls of aged unlettered savages retained all their teeth in perfect condition. So he traveled to isolated parts of the Earth in the early 1930s seeking healthy humans. And he found them--belonging to every race and on every continent. And found out why they lived long, had virtually no degeneration of any kind including dental degeneration. Full of interesting photographs, anthropological data, and travel details. A trail-blazing work that shows the way to greatly improved human health.

Rodale, J.I. _The Organic Front._ Emmaus: Rodale Press, 1948.

An intensely ideological statement of the basic tenets of the Organic faith. Rodale established the organic gardening and farming movement in the United States by starting up _Organic Gardening and Farming_ magazine in 1942. His views, limitations and preferences have defined "organic" ever since. See also: _Pay Dirt._

Schuphan, Werner. _Nutritional Values in Crops and Plants. _London: Faber and Faber, 1965.