Dirt: The Erosion of Civilizations - Kootenay Local Agricultural Society

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alternative farming—even as the scientific basis of agrochemistry helped explain traditional practices. Nineteenth-century experiments showed that grazing animals process only a quarter to a third of the nitrogen in the plants they ingest. So their dung is full of nitrogen. Still, manure does not return all the nitrogen back to the soil. Without fertilizers, periodically cultivating legumes is the only way to retain soil nitrogen and still harvest crops over the long run. Native cultures around the world independently discovered this basic agricultural truth. In 1838 Jean-Baptiste Boussingault demonstrated that legumes restored nitrogen to the soil, whereas wheat and oats could not. Here at last was the secret behind crop rotations. It took another fifty years to figure out how it worked. In 1888 a pair of German agricultural scientists, Hermann Hellriegel and Hermann Wilfarth, published a study showing that in contrast to grains, which used up the nitrogen in the soil, legumes were symbiotic with soil microbes that incorporated atmospheric nitrogen into organic matter. By the time the pair of Hermanns figured out the microbial basis for the nitrogen restoring properties of beans, peas, and clover, the agrochemical philosophy was already entrenched, spurred on by the discovery of large deposits of guano off the Peruvian coast. Peruvians had known of the fertilizing effects of guano for centuries before the conquistadors arrived. When scientific explorer Alexander von Humboldt brought a piece collected from the Chincha Islands back to Europe in 1804 the curious white rock attracted the attention of scientists interested in agricultural chemistry. Situated off the arid coast of Peru, the Chincha Islands provided an ideal environment where huge colonies of nesting seabirds left tons of guano in a climate rainless enough to preserve it. And there was a lot—in places the Chincha guano deposits stood two hundred feet thick, a mountain of stuff better than manure. Phosphaterich guano also has up to thirty times more nitrogen than most manures. Recognition of the fertilizing properties of guano led to a nineteenthcentury gold rush on small islands composed almost entirely of the stuff. The new system worked well—until the guano ran out. By then the widespread adoption of chemical fertilizers had shifted agricultural practices away from husbandry and nutrient cycling in favor of nutrient application. The first commercial fertilizer imported to the United States inaugurated a new era in American agriculture when John Skinner, the editor of the American Farmer, imported two casks of Peruvian guano to Baltimore in 1824. Within two decades, regular shipments began arriving in New York. dirty business 185
186 Figure 24. Lithograph of mountainous Chincha Islands guano deposit, circa 1868 (American Agriculturist [1868] 27:20). The guano business boomed. England and the United States together imported a million tons a year by the 1850s. By 1870 more than half a billion dollars’ worth of the white gold had been hauled off the Chincha Islands. As much as conservative agricultural societies scoffed at the notion that bird droppings could revive the soil, farmers who tried it swore by the results. Given the cost and difficulty of obtaining the stuff, the steady spread of guano from Maryland to Virginia and the Carolinas attests to its dirty business
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Dirt
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Dirt the erosion of civilizations D
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For Xena T. Dog, enthusiastic field
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acknowledgments This book could nev
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2 Yet what is dirt? We try to keep
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4 discovered ways to enhance soil f
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6 quent centuries, nutrient depleti
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two Skin of the Earth We know more
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villa in Gloucestershire lay undete
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When we behold a wide, turf-covered
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Soil not only helps shape the land,
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ter and mineral soil. Billions of m
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Topography also affects the soil. T
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Wind can pick up and erode dry soil
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Combinations of soil horizons, thei
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much. This leaves the issue in a po
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28 Ice Age was not a single event.
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30 For much of the last century, th
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32 Abu Hureyra sat on a low promont
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34 wheat dating from 10,000 years a
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36 Domesticated livestock not only
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38 inated the southern Mesopotamian
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40 of a high load of dissolved salt
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42 direct water to particular place
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44 by the color of dirt eroded from
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46 out the region, he concluded tha
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four Graveyard of Empires To Protec
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the constitution, proposed a ban on
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Figure 7. Parthenon. Albumen print
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est soils from hillsides disturbed
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Figure 8. Map of Roman Italy. follo
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the Roman heartland became increasi
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ically let a piece of ground lie fa
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foot thick, it probably took at lea
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into densely planted olive farms—
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families a few centuries earlier. T
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classic, supporting three editions
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on the edge of the Arabian Desert a
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When Moses and company arrived, Can
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urned before the onset of the rains
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sion in the Mayan of the Petén not
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Archaeological records from this pe
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The contrast between how the Pueblo
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84 forest soils as it went, agricul
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86 to a thousand years. Soil profil
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88 land and birch forest. Following
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90 Figure 10. Miniature from an ear
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92 the early 1300s to about two mil
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94 the Danes improved their sandy d
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96 layers, ’till we arrive to the
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98 recipe for degrading soil fertil
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100 vived on vegetables, gruel, and
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102 French Alps lost a third to mor
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104 Despite such profiteering, by 1
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106 from the smallest rill to the g
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108 A potato blight that arrived fr
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110 uries such as sugar, coffee, an
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112 Subsequent foreign investment o
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six Westward Hoe Since the achievem
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A few miles in from the forest edge
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wherein one man by his owne labour
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Particularly in the South, the read
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worn out, and washed and gullied, s
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explained that American farmers had
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marle County Agricultural Society i
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purchased a farm in the 1820s. A de
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Figure 14. Charles Lyell’s illust
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Traveling through much of the South
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Page 148 and 149: But this still doesn’t explain th
Page 150 and 151: Figure 16. North Carolina gully sys
Page 152 and 153: more than three thousand years and
Page 154 and 155: settlements for several thousand ye
Page 156 and 157: seven Dust Blow One man cannot stop
Page 158 and 159: land-hungry settlers. From 1878 to
Page 160 and 161: without the least reference to the
Page 162 and 163: Figure 18. Breaking new land with d
Page 164 and 165: Figure 19. Dust storm approaching S
Page 166 and 167: taxes, and other unavoidable expens
Page 168 and 169: Figure 21. Plowing a steep hillside
Page 170 and 171: tion of heavy machinery and agroche
Page 172 and 173: Soil erosion rapidly became a major
Page 174 and 175: egion. There are few reliable measu
Page 176 and 177: ing with the Germans, Kalmyks were
Page 178 and 179: grazing animals doubled; the human
Page 180 and 181: years. Present rates of erosion, ho
Page 182 and 183: land was being exhausted. Although
Page 184 and 185: In 1958 the Department of Agricultu
Page 186 and 187: eplacing water-holding capacity los
Page 188: ing on access to fresh land or find
Page 191 and 192: 180 our way in that the backyard wo
Page 193 and 194: 182 Figure 23. Chinese farmers plow
Page 195: 184 less, he experimented with agri
Page 199 and 200: 188 fiscated the remaining lands th
Page 201 and 202: 190 Hilgard rightly dismissed the p
Page 203 and 204: 192 important was the mix of silt,
Page 205 and 206: 194 ping would exhaust the natural
Page 207 and 208: 196 atmospheric nitrogen. On July 2
Page 209 and 210: 198 increases in crop production.
Page 211 and 212: 200 Estimates for when petroleum pr
Page 213 and 214: 202 ground—turning our dirt into
Page 215 and 216: 204 greater tonnage of machinery pe
Page 217 and 218: 206 may prove our best hope for mai
Page 219 and 220: 208 tilizers, hosts the longest ong
Page 221 and 222: 210 soil fertility and exporting po
Page 223 and 224: 212 No-till farming is very effecti
Page 225 and 226: 214 It is no secret that if agricul
Page 227 and 228: 216 some consumed their future and
Page 229 and 230: 218 Pollen preserved in lake sedime
Page 231 and 232: 220 washed off the slopes now bury
Page 233 and 234: 222 ply. So topsoil loss retarded f
Page 235 and 236: 224 different fates. Tikopia develo
Page 237 and 238: 226 where vegetation stabilizes the
Page 239 and 240: 228 0 50 100 km inhabitants. Two ce
Page 241 and 242: 230 pushes peasants from hillside s
Page 243 and 244: 232 gardens grew up throughout the
Page 245 and 246: 234 Credible scientists also disagr
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236 notice the problem. Like a dise
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238 asters. Larger societies, with
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240 before plants have all they can
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242 faster than it is replaced dest
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244 figuring the downstream end of
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246 Meeting this challenge would al
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248 10. Marsh 1864, 9, 42. 11. Lowd
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250 6. USDA 1901, 31. 7. Whitney 19
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252 Schwartzman, D. W., and T. Volk
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254 Beach, T., S. Luzzadder-Beach,
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256 and human response. In Environm
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258 Lang, A. 2003. Phases of soil e
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260 Cronon, W. 1983. Changes in the
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262 Bennett, H. H., and W. R. Chapl
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264 Saiko, T. A. 1995. Implications
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266 Jackson, W. 2002. Farming in na
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268 ———. 1925. Soil and Civil
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270 and economic costs of soil eros
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272 agricultural practices (continu
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274 Columella, Lucius Junius Modera
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276 farm subsidy programs: conventi
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278 Joppa Town, Maryland, 140 Judso
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280 nitrogen fertilization (continu
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282 Sea of Galilee (Lake Kinneret),
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284 technological innovation (conti
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Dirt: The Erosion of Civilizations - Kootenay Local Agricultural Society

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