Healthy soil and sustainable growing

["TradingPostPaul" <tradingpost@riseup.net>]

See the rest of the page at
http://www.gardenorganic.org.uk/about_us/history.php

paul tradingpost@lobo.net
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The history of HDRA

The Henry Doubleday Research Association (HDRA) began in 1954 as a result
of the inspiration and initiative of one man, Lawrence Hills. As an
horticulturalist he had a keen interest in organic growing, but he earned
his living as a freelance journalist writing for The Observer, Punch and
The Countryman. Whilst researching a book called Russian Comfrey, he
discovered that the plant grown widely in Britain today was introduced in
the nineteenth century by a Quaker smallholder named Henry Doubleday

When Doubleday came across comfrey he was so intrigued by its possibilities
as a useful crop that he devoted the rest of his life to popularising it.
Hills took up his crusade and before long requests were coming from far and
wide for plants and additional information.

Eventually Hills was able to raise £300 to rent an acre of land at
Bocking, near Braintree in Essex, and he began to experiment with comfrey.
By 1958 the enterprise had reached a point where it had to become official
or be dropped altogether So he decided to set up a charitable research
association to study the uses of comfrey and - more significantly - to
improve ways of growing plants organically. He named the association after
his pioneering Victorian mentor.
The Association at Bocking

HDRA was conceived as a membership organisation - a club for experimenting
gardeners. Because space at Bocking was limited, members were encouraged to
do experiments in their own gardens and report their findings back to
headquarters. Cherry Hills, Lawrence's wife, proferred advice on nutrition
and health long before it became fashionable to do so. Many of the current
concerns, such as the link between aluminium and Alzheimer's disease, were
first suggested in early HDRA newsletters.

For ten years, Lawrence Hills received no pay whatsoever, funding the work
from his Observer articles. The Association grew slowly through the '60s,
and by the end of the decade had a loyal band of around 1,700 members.
Mainstream scientists, however, looked on it as being cranky and luddite.
The '70s changed all that as the first stirrings of the environmental
movement started to gain momentum.

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