permaculture

["Lawrence F. London, Jr." <venaurafarm@bellsouth.net>]

Recommended reading on organic agriculture and farming in general.

Barry Lia wrote:
Lord Northbourne
Look to the Land
Northbourne seems to have first coined the term "organic farming" in 1940.

Sir Albert Howard
An Agricultural Testament
Farming and Gardening For Health or Disease
The Soil and Health

BIODYNAMICS
Rudolph Steiner
Ehrenfried Pfeifer
Wolf Storl
Herbert Koepf

Masanobu Fukuoka
One Straw Revolution
zero till farming, let the weeds grow and plant within them, SEEDBALLS

F.H. King
Farmers of 40 Centuries
The Soil

Lady Eve Balfour
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lady_Eve_Balfour
Images: 
http://www.google.com/images?q=Lady+Eve+Balfour&oe=utf-8&client=firefox-a&rlz=1R1GGLL_en___US365&um=1&ie=UTF-8&source=univ&ei=H975S_DTN4GC8gbd_pHTCg&sa=X&oi=image_result_group&ct=title&resnum=4&ved=0CDcQsAQwAw
Lady Evelyn Barbara "Eve" Balfour (1899-1990) was an English farmer, 
educator, organic farming pioneer, and a founding figure in the organic 
movement. She was one of the first women to study agriculture at an 
English university, graduating from the University of Reading.
The daughter of the second Earl of Balfour, she began farming in 1920, 
in Haughley Green, Suffolk, England. In 1939, with her friend and 
neighbor Ryan Nelson, she launched the Haughley Experiment, the first 
long-term, side-by-side scientific comparison of organic and 
chemical-based farming.
In 1943, she published the organics classic, "The Living Soil", a book 
combining her research with the initial findings at Haughley.
In 1946, she co-founded and became the first president of the Soil 
Association, an international organization claiming to promote 
sustainable agriculture (and the main organic farming association in the 
UK today). She continued to farm, write and lecture for the rest of her 
life.

Louis Bromfield
Malabar Farm

J.I. Rodale
The Healthy Hunzas
Pay Dirt
The Organic Front

W.R. Thompson (The Pasture Man)
The Pasture Book
pps. 8-9:
Calendar of pasture activities (fascinating and diverse activities - LL)
April
7. Move livestock from kudzu-crimson or kudzu-winter pea area.
8. Set kudzu crowns
September
13. Harvest Dallis grass seed.

P. Aquatias
Formerly French Gardener to A.J. Molyneux, Esq.
Intensive Culture of Vegetables on the French System
London, 1913
(The Bible, along with the works of Chadwick, Jeavons, Coleman and 
others - LL)

MM. Vilmorin-Andrieux
of Paris
The Vegetable Garden
Illustrations, Descriptions and Culture
of
The Garden Vegetables
Of Cold and Temperate Climates
London, 1885

Edward Faulkner
Plowman's Folly

Liberty Hyde Bailey

Andrew Jackson Downing

Books by:
Richard Langer
Gene Logsdon

Cyril Hopkins
Soil Fertility and Permanent Agriculture
Country Life Education Series
Chapter: Theories Concerning Soil Fertility
P. 341Fertility of Soil
Artificial Fertilizers Said To Be All Wrong
Special Correspondence.
Washington, Nov. 17
"Artificial fertilizers - phosphates and nitrates, chiefly -
act upon the soil as drugs act upon the human body, according to
investigations just completed by the Bureau of Soils of the Department 
of Agriculture.
Although there are some experiments and some tabulation of results yet 
to be made, the scientists have gone far enough to evolve a theory that 
may upset present-day methods of agriculture.
The new theory is based on a series of experiments that have been 
conducted during the summer and for several years prior to this season.
They intend to show that there are natural agencies at work in the soil 
that will replenish worn-out 'soil tissues' just as the worn out tissues 
of the body in man are replaces by agencies inside.
Only in the case of man there is usually a limit to this process, 
whereas, in soils, the scientists have observed some wonderful results 
from soils long ago abandoned as useless.
Sensible rotation of crops will produce much better and more lasting 
results than the artificial fertilization of soils, say the experts."
-- Freport (Illinois) Daily Bulletin, November 19, 1909

[He seems to be advocating polyculture, culture of annual, perennial, 
orchard and forest crops and crop rotation within farming systems 
utilizing permaculture methods - LL]

Founders of the Permaculture movement:
Bill Mollison:
Permaculure Designer's Manual
The Permaculture Book of Ferment and Human Nutrition
David Holmgren

Eliot Coleman
Books on home, market and all seasons gardening (all classics)

John Jeavons
How To Grow More Vegetables (a classic)

Firman Bear
Earth: The Stuff Of Life

Charles Piper
Forage Plants and Their Culture
The Rural Text-Book Series Edited by L.H. Bailey
See a few scanned pages from this book,
http://picasaweb.google.com/venaura/BOOKS#
notably pictures of pigs on kudzu in a pasture: 
http://picasaweb.google.com/venaura/BOOKS#5469848478333184642
http://picasaweb.google.com/venaura/BOOKS#

Newman Turner
Fertility Pastures

Peter Tompkins & Christopher Bird
The Secret Life of Plants
Secrets of the Soil