http://www.soilandhealth.org/index.html -- -------------------------------------------------------------- Lawrence F. London, Jr. - Dragonfly Market Gardens mailto:london@sunSITE.unc.edu - mailto:llondon@bellsouth.net http://sunSITE.unc.edu/InterGarden http://sunSITE.unc.edu/InterGarden/permaculture.html --------------------------------------------------------------Title: Soil and Health Library
Soil And Health Library
Health begins in the soil; Healing begins with hygiene;
Liberty begins with freedom.
- An interesting experiment with on-line publishing of in-print-on-paper books. The Soil and Health Library is now publishing two copyrighted, in-print paperback books (with the agreement of their publishers) as an experiment. To find out about why we are doing this, click here.
- The books we provide are deciphered by Caere's Omni-Page Professional software driving an Agfa StudioScanIIsi flatbed scanner. After spotting the dubious scans as they are automatically indicated by Omni-Page, the copy is spell-checked in MS Word, and then read and cross-read several times for errors. Still, there will almost certainly be some remaining. If you find any, or anything that even seems it might be an error, please let us know exactly what and where it is. Be specific, please. We will check it and fix it. Errors
- The Soil and Health Organization maintains links to other sites that support its aims and goals
The Purpose Of The Soil And Health Organization
I prefer to learn by going back to the originators of knowledge,
to study the underlying documents, the original theses, because those who follow
in the footsteps of the founders of knowledge are rarely trailblazers of equivalent
depth. Even when the earliest works in a field contain errors because their authors
lacked some bit of data or had a fact wrong, their books contain enormous wisdom.
If nothing else, study of older books lets us discover that the conditions that prevail
today aren't the way things always were--while on some levels, nothing ever changes
at all.
However, there are powerful tendencies on Earth causing the
foundations of knowledge to be lost in obscurity. That would be okay if there were
better knowldege and wiser wisdoms coming on line to replace them. But usually the
opposite is the case. I have observed this tendency in every area of study I've taken
up seriously: history, agriculture, natural medicine, even investing. As the sort
of person Sir Albert Howard called "the laboratory hermit" increasingly
dominates ever-wider areas of scholarship, the focus of scholarship gets ever narrower.
Often, the results of modern scholarship are more and more foolish, with highly destructive
social consequences.
Despite all the so-called advances of "scientific"
agriculture, the nutritional content of our basic foodstuffs is actually declining.
There's a little-appreciated "law" about this: nutritional value drops
in direct relationship to the increase in bulk production. Or, in agriculture at
any rate, "quality" is the opposite of "quantity."
Industrial agriculture has also devastated the self-sufficient,
independent lifestyles enjoyed by so many Americans merely one century ago. In 1870,
90 percent of all Americans lived on farms or in villages. And in consequence, enjoyed
enormously greater personal liberty than we do today. The current decline in personal
rights is NOT the result of there being more people in America dividing up a fixed
and limited amount of total possible liberty into smaller and smaller slices.
I think what happened was that as the industrial food system
became ever more "efficient" it made the price of basic agricultural
commodities lower and lower. Consequently most Americans sold their self-sufficient
birthright for a paying job, moved to town and soon became wage slaves. Only free
persons can forthrightly demand their liberties. Wage slaves, like any other kind
of slave, feel insecure and think that they have to shuck and jive.
The industrial system's focus is on efficiency, but the apparent
cheapness of modern agricultural production does not reflect a true accounting of
costs. Despite the statistical increase in average lifespan, our average health and
feelings of wellness have been declining. Look around you at your fat neighbors whose
mental awareness also seems wrapped in fat. Americans are disdained world wide for
being hugely obese. We spend ever-larger portions of our productivity on the treatment
and cure of disease. This constitutes enormous pain and suffering whose source is
almost entirely unappreciated.
It is impossible to prove this last contention to an "open-minded"
person. However, Dr. Isabelle Moser, who spent 25 years conducting a clinical practice
using holistic approaches, noted that what she termed the "constitution"
of her older patients was typically much stronger than the constitution of her younger
ones. Each generation got a poorer start than the one before it as each generation
got their "start" from foods produced on ever-more degraded soils grown
ever-more "scientifically,." and more and more consisting of processed,
denatured fodder. (The full text of Dr. Moser's book is in the Health Library.) (For
a good discussion of the concept of "start," read Wrench's Wheel of
Health in the Longevity Library.)
Maybe someone will write in and tell me who it was that so
wisely quipped, "if they can stop you from asking the right questions, you'll
never come up with the right answers." This sage was probably a rock and roll
poet. In this library you will encounter individuals who DID ask the right questions
and even came up with some of the answers.
I've observed that modern higher education points people's
attention away from the Truth and toward an ever-increasing confusion created by
too much data. So I am making it my personal work to restore the availability of
key books written by amazing individuals, books that offer major illumination
to those who can already see, can still speak the truth to those who can already
hear.
How You Can Help
If you admire what is being done here and wish to assist
this effort, there are several things I can envision you doing.
Who Is Creating This Site?
My name is Steve
Solomon. Click here, go to my home page and find out about me.
Click here to communicate via email at ssolomon@yelmtel.com
Write via ordinary mail to:
Soil and Health Organization
P.O. Box 7530, Suite 1
Yelm, WA 98597
The materials on this site are NOT copyright by Soil and
Health Organization. If anything available here is copyrighted by another that fact
will be plainly made known at the opening of the work, just as in any other book
printed on paper. Reproduction and dissemination of uncopyrighted materials on this
site is encouraged, so long as no alterations are made in the material and the documents
herein are maintained complete and entire. Under the rules regarding "Fair Use
(as interpreted by this Library)," a library, including this electronic one,
can make a copy of any book it cannot purchase on the retail market. However, further
reproduction and dissemination of copyrighted materials by the patrons of this library
is prohibited by U.S. Copyright Law. Saving downloaded copyrighted material on
your own hard disk constitutes copying. So if you wish to remain within the law
(as we interpret it) read copyrighted books while online. Enjoy!