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livingontheland - Re: [Livingontheland] Cyril Hopkins

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Subject: Healthy soil and sustainable growing

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  • From: "TradingPostPaul" <tradingpost@riseup.net>
  • To: "E. E. Mitchamore Jr" <emitch@att.net>, livingontheland@lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [Livingontheland] Cyril Hopkins
  • Date: Sat, 13 Jan 2007 19:31:29 -0700


Once again, as I said, it was not always sustainable. What Coleman said was
"the ideal" has been understood for ages - not necessarily the science.The
science we have now wasn't needed for the "Farmers of Forty Centuries", or
many other indigenous cultures to survive agriculturally for centuries. And
that is significant. But for out modern world, I'll concede that it's going
to take science - and a lot more - to dodge the bullet in this century.
I'll be surprised if we have enough topsoil and freshwater left in
populated regions to avoid continuous genocidal wars over scarce resources
in the next thirty years. At my age I won't be around to see it, so they
can't tell me I was off by five or ten years.

paul tradingpost@lobo.net

*********** REPLY SEPARATOR ***********

On 1/13/2007 at 10:39 AM E. E. Mitchamore Jr wrote:

>I don't think that "understood" adequately expresses the situation.
>Previous generations did not have the visibility regarding the negative
>effects of agriculture, nor the scientific understanding of soil
>microorganisms' relationships to the overall ecology. It would be wrong
>to dismiss science because it has been so often misused in the past.
>
>The conclusions may be similar, but the underlying understandings are
>considerably advanced in current literature. For me, the best examples
>are relatively new understandings about the relationships between
>bacterial-dominance for annuals and grasses, vs. fungal-dominance for
>trees and perennials, as well as the carbon sequestration capability of
>fungi. There are ramifications to our agricultural choices resulting from
>these new scientific observations. The recent posting "Lessons from the
>Land Institute" is an example. Agriculture evolved for 10,000 years based
>on annual crops (for good reasons - read Guns, Germs and Steel ), but
>those are not the best crops for long-term sustainability. The ability to
>do something about that is new science.
>
>E. E. "Mitch" Mitchamore
>www.hillcountrynatives.biz
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: TradingPostPaul
> To: livingontheland@lists.ibiblio.org
> Sent: Saturday, January 13, 2007 9:27 AM
> Subject: [Livingontheland] Cyril Hopkins
>
>
>
> Going through Eliot Coleman's New Organic Grower, I see a point that
>needs
> repeating: "The ideal of sustainable soil fertility has been understod
>for
> ages and expressed by many writers". Coleman reminds us that ideas about
> sustainability are not new. All the new books and websites about
> sustainable agriculture ultimately come from writers and farmers
>practicing
> methods that worked down through the ages. And all agriculture before
the
> 20th century was organic, though not always practiced sustainably. We
can
> improve materials and methods and always learn more, but we don't have
to
> reinvent the wheel.
>
> Coleman brings up Cyril Hopkins of Illinois in the early 20th century.
> Hopkins' book used starts about $70, so I located it online at Cornell.
> Might be worth printing out.
>
> Soil fertility and permanent agriculture, Hopkins, Cyril G, 1910
> http://chla.library.cornell.edu/cgi/t/text/text-idx?c=chla;idno=3057996
>
>
> paul tradingpost@lobo.net
>







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