“Joseph Russell Smith, c. 1908.” Picture: American Philosophical Society Digital LIbrary, 2013.
Excerpt from Tree Crops: A Permanent Agriculture by Joseph Russell Smith
"The creation of soil by the weathering of rock is a very, very slow process. Years may have passed in making soil that, if unprotected, may be washed away in an hour. Therefore, today an observer in the Old World might see myriad landscapes once rich with farms where now only poverty-stricken men creep about over the ruined land, while their sheep and goats, scavengers and destroyers, pick the scanty browse that struggles for life in the waste. A handful of men are now living uncomfortably where once there were prosperous villages. Similar examples, even of large areas, can be found in almost any hill country with a long history of occupation by agricultural man.
Syria is an even more deplorable example than China. Back of Antioch, in a land that was once as populous as rural Illinois, there are now only ruin and desolation. The once prosperous Roman farms now consist of wide stretches of bare rock,2 whence every vestige of soil has been removed by rain. Greece, once so great, is shockingly ruined by soil wash. In parts of Europe people even pound stone to get a little bit of loose material in which plant roots can work.
In our own South millions of acres are already ruined, and the same destructive agency has caused ruin and abandonment of land in Ohio, Illinois, Indiana - indeed, in every one - agriculture is based primarily on cereals that came to us from of our states. The total of this destruction has been estimated at 16,600 square miles, equal to the cultivated area of England. And yet, as human history goes, we came to America only yesterday.
If we think of ourselves as a race, a nation, a people that is to occupy its country generation after generation, we must change some of our habits or we shall inevitably experience the steadily diminishing possibility of support for man."
Tree Crops: A Permanent Agriculture - 1929
A downloadable PDF file here, as the book is considered public domain.
Page 9
Chapter 2: The Idea
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