OUR VANISHING SOIL
Netboy, Anthony
Our Vanishing Soil NATURAL PRINCIPLES OF LAND USE, by Edward H. Graham, Oxford University Press. $3.50. PRACTICAL FARMING FOR THE SOUTH, by Benjamin F. Bullock, University of North Carolina Press....
...Bullock covers virtually all phases of farming —plant growth and reproduction, the home garden, home orchard, field crops, feeding and care of animals, the farm woodlot, etc...
...In addition, he enters into the problems of housing, farm credit, and other strictly economic matters...
...Reviewed by Anthony Netboy IN MANY WAYS agricultural technology is far behind industry, and this shows up in the poverty of so many of our farmers...
...for under it, cash crops with their accompanying methods of exploitation are grown at the expense of food and feed crops and programs of soil conservation...
...Prof...
...The complex is finely balanced and when man, in his ignorance or greed, destroys that balance, he suffers...
...The traditional credit system of the South," he says, "is helping to destroy the fertility of the soil just as surely as any condition of soil erosion and leaching...
...And not only is the fertility of our soils being lost under such a system, but the qualities of true manhood are being idestroyed in both the creditor and debtor—the former being tempted to resort to unfair and unjust methods of dealing with his fellow men, and the latter, often robbed of the just rewards of his labor, losing spirit and frequently becoming a shiftless, worthless citizen...
...Bullock's Practical Farming for the South is a different but related sort of book...
...2.50...
...Perhaps the most original concept developed by this interesting and simply-written book is that we must look upon the land not as just soil to be cultivated for food, or forest to be cropped for timber and other products, but rather that farm land, forest, range, water, and the animal life drawing their sustenance from then, are inextricably inter-related...
...The crux of the situation is the credit system...
...Prof...
...This book is important because it is the first regional farming manual published—a tribute to the enterprise of the University of North Carolina Press, which has done much to stimulate thinking and writing about the harassed social and economic problems of the South...
...Thus speaks an honest Southerner of the South...
...You cannot get the most out of the land if violence is done to the forest, if waterways are not controlled, and if snimal life is regarded as pestiferous rather than as a teeded part" of the biological complex...
...The author makes fully evident how depressed and exploited is the Southern farmer compared with his Northern or Western counterpart...
...In recent years a relatively new science has come to the fore—ecology—to help the farmer and other land users to make the most of their basic resource...
...Whoever farms in the South can find here plenty of practical guidance and knowledge that represents the latest thoughts on the subject...
...The land becomes unproductive...
...Graham's book, Natural Principles of Land Use, is a popularization of the new science...
...AWORK like Principles of Land-Use tries to disseminate such ideas in a wise and pragmatic spirit...
...Graham shows how far we have drifted from the simple common sense of the early Americans, such as the Philadelphia Society for Promoting Agriculture, which in 1791 offered prizes for examples of good husbandry, such as crop rotation, prevention of damage to crops ty insects, "recovering of old gullied fields to a hearty state," etc...
...All these things are as yet but imperfectly understood, but scientists are slowly exploring tie darkness and coming back with knowledge that is valuable to those who are dependent on the land for their livelihood in any way whatsoever...
...He has collected • some of the best ideas and facts on the subject, and the result is, I should say, required reading for those who are indifferent to the staggering loss of soil through man-made erosion, the criminal destruction of our forests without conscious regard to future crops, the fearful toll of game by pistol-packin' hunters, and the destruction of our mountains in the reckless building of scenic highways...
...It offers concrete, hard-headed advice to the three million farmers in the Balkan ized part of the United States, most of them trying to scratch out a bare living on poor soil and meager acreage...
Vol. 8 • December 1944 • No. 50
