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THE LIVING SOIL Evidence of the Importance to Human Health of Soil Vitality, with Special Reference to National Planning by E

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THE LIVING SOIL Evidence of the Importance to Human Health of Soil Vitality, with Special Reference to National Planning by E Soil and Health Library This document is a reproduction of the book or other copyrighted material you requested. It was prepared on Wednesday, 30 August 2006 for the exclusive use of Jaime-E. Garcia-Gonzalez, Dr.sc.agr., whose email address is [email protected] This reproduction was made by the Soil and Health Library only for the purpose of research and study. Any further distribution or reproduction of this copy in any form whatsoever constitutes a violation of copyrights. To A.A. A.E. and E.D. THE LIVING SOIL evidence of the importance to human health of soil vitality, with special reference to national planning by E. B. BALFOUR FABER AND FABER LTD 24 Russell Square London First published in mcmxliii by Faber and Faber Limited 24 Russell Square, London W. C. 1 Second edition February mcmxliv Third edition June mcmxliv Fourth edition January mcmxlv Fifth edition August mcmxlv Sixth edition March mcmxlvi Seventh edition June mcmxvii Eighth edition March mcmxlviii Revised edition mcmxlviii All rights reserved CONTENTS FOREWORD TO THE REVISED EDITION INTRODUCTION I. PRELIMINARY SURVEY Soil erosion. Nature of soil. Law of Return. The case outlined. II. MEDICAL EVIDENCE The Medical Testament. Decline in health. McCarrison Experiments. Orr's Experiment. Primary cause of disease. Papworth. McMillan Nursery School. Mount Pleasant. III. HUMUS Deterioration in food. Deterioration in animal health. Deterioration in plant food. Liebig Theory. Decline infertility. The Law of Return. Definition of Humus. Humus Manufacture. Indore process. Sheet composting. Compost v. muck. Howard's Experiments. IV. DIRECT EVIDENCE Mycorrhizal Association. Soil Ecology. In search of a starting point. Rayner Experiments. The complexity of compost action. Compost v. equivalent salts. Mycorrhizal responses. Inoculation experiments. Conclusions. Lawson's Cypress. V. CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCE Facts proved at Wareham. Wider application. A. new light. Mycorrhizal Association in crop plants. A report on cotton. Function of Mycorrhiza. Neilson-Jones investigation. Toxicity in soil. Soil aeration. The fungus in cultivated soils. Cellulose decomposition. Indirect effect of compost action. Fungus nutrition. Soil fertility and the fungus. VI. INDICATIONS I. PLANTS Plant diseases. Results of compost treatment. Parasitic larvae. Predacious fungi. Soil ecology. Earthworms. Insect parasites. II. ANIMALS Animal feeding experiments. Vitamin B. Dr. Rowland. Soil-less culture. Sir John Russell. Satisfying quality of humus-grown food. Foot-and-mouth. Rabbits. Scour in pigs. Baker and Martin. Animal preference. Palatability. 'Fertility' bread. 'Quality'. III. MAN Human feeding experiments. Africa. England. New Zealand. Singapore. Personal experience. Results in Cheshire. VII. WHOLE DIETS Health. Wholeness, Fragmentation. Hunza. Value of skin. Hunza diet. Hunza farming. Hunza to-day. Faroe Islanders. Icelanders. An experiment in Denmark. Polar Eskimos. Tristan da Cunha. North American Indian. Rural China. The common factor. VIII. THE HAUGHLEY RESEARCH TRUST AND THE SOIL ASSOCIATION Need for proof. Pioneering and the individual. Alice Debenham. Need for a clear-cut issue. The Problem. The programme. The Haughley Research Trust. The Soil Association IX. FACING THE IMPLICATIONS Revolution in outlook. Practical first steps. Repercussions of soil erosion. Switching labour. Humus mines. Utilization of town wastes. Cost of farm composting. Machinery as labour. Necessity for mixed farming. Rural housing. The Pollitt Plan. Fertility stored in vegetation. The value of weeds. Agriculture a service. Interests of town and country do not conflict. Education. Need for control. Public v. private ownership. X. POSTSCRIPT TECHNICAL REFERENCES BIBLIOGRAPHY GLOSSARY FOREWORD TO THE REVISED EDITION When, on the occasion of this book's debut in America, I lightheartedly agreed to revise it and bring it up to date, I had no idea how formidable a task I had undertaken. When the book was first published I sent a copy to a friend, warning him that it contained very little original work. He was kind enough, in his reply, to say that while most of my bricks might have been made by others, the mortar which held them together and the design of the building were both essentially mine. I have told this story only because I want to use his metaphor to explain my difficulties with the present edition and to excuse the results of my labours. One repercussion of the 'building's' first appearance was that people from all over the world began sending me more bricks. Some of them were so important or interesting that I felt compelled to add them to my building. So an extra gable here or an added bow window there kept appearing every time a new edition went to print. Sometimes my collection of new bricks even necessitated building outhouses. My plan, when I undertook to rebuild and modernize, therefore, was to pull down parts of the building and re-design them to incorporate all these afterthoughts--these tacked-on excrescences--into the main structure, together with the newest lot of bricks. When I began, however, I found I had forgotten the landscape. My building was erected in 1942 surroundings, and do what I would I could not design a 1948 building that would tone with them. So I was faced with two alternatives; either I had to demolish the whole structure, cart the materials away and rebuild from the foundation in a 1948 setting, or I had to be content to compromise by pulling down the many extensions and, with the addition of some of the newest bricks, rebuilding them into a modem wing while leaving the main structure unaltered. I chose the latter course. The result is a house of mixed periods--like so many that exist in England. Parts now tone with the landscape and parts do not. Every now and then the levels of the floors alter with an odd step up or down--up to 1948 and down again to 1942. If this proves to be a little more confusing to a new-comer, than a house that is all of a piece, I can only hope that it will not be less interesting on that account. The fact is--to drop the metaphor--that I wrote this book, not only in wartime, but at that period of the war when the invasion of this country seemed--and indeed was--a daily possibility; when large parts of London had been destroyed, and when the drone of enemy aircraft overhead was still our nightly lullaby. While the war is only rarely mentioned in the book, it was the background to my thoughts when I wrote it, and as such coloured the style of the writing. I found that to try to bring the whole book up to date, merely by altering dates and correcting tenses simply did not work, it only resulted in making the sentences, and the sentiment behind them, seem unreal. So in the end all I have been able to do, is to incorporate the various afterthoughts into the main text, and to bring, as far as possible, my facts up to date while leaving their setting unchanged. After all, even the facts won't stay up to date for long, so rapidly is new knowledge being acquired on this most dynamic and vital of subjects--the Living Soil. E.B.B. Haughley, January 1948. INTRODUCTION In this book I have attempted something which my friends tell me cannot be done. I have tried to write for both the specialist and the layman. If I have failed, if what I have written proves to be unintelligible and boring to the layman, and at the same time trite and superficial to the specialist, I shall be unable to plead that I was not warned, but my only alternative was not to write at all--a depressing one for the would-be author suffering from the belief that he has something important to say. At any rate I have refused to accept such defeatism, preferring to attempt the supposedly impossible. For there is a good reason why this book could not be written for a limited section of the reading public. My subject is food, which concerns everyone; it is health, which concerns everyone; it is the soil, which concerns everyone--even if he does not realize it--and it is the history of certain recent scientific research linking these three vital subjects. Now since it concerns health, and food, and soil, and science, it also concerns post-war planning, and because it concerns all these things, it concerns the legislator, the politician, the voter, the tax- and rate-payer; the farmer, the gardener, the veterinary surgeon, the doctor; the sanitary inspector, the public health authority, the school teacher, the priest; 'Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Sailor . .'--in fact, the Citizen. So there was no third choice; I had to write for everyone or not at all. I have, however, tried to arrive at a compromise, whereby what I have written will, I hope, be acceptable both to the citizen who is also a specialist, and to the citizen who--perhaps because of our modern tendency to urbanize everything--goes by the name of 'the man in the street'. I have avoided as much as possible the inclusion of too much technical detail in the main text, but have included, in a special section at the end of the book, additional technical data on most of the subjects dealt with. To these the specialist can refer should he want more precise detail concerning the evidence presented. As it has been impossible to avoid entirely the use of technical and scientific terms, particularly in Chapters IV and V, I have provided a glossary for the benefit of those to whom these terms may be unfamiliar. It is my earnest hope that by these means I shall have confounded the pessimists, for it is quite impossible to overestimate the importance of the subject.
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