Dirt: The Erosion of Civilizations - Kootenay Local Agricultural Society

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greater tonnage of machinery per man than any other nation. Our agricultural
population has proceeded to use that machinery to the end of
destroying the soil in less time than any other people has been known to
do in recorded history.” 12 Faulkner also considered reliance on mineral fertilizers
unnecessary and unsustainable.
Like most heretics’, Faulkner’s unconventional beliefs were grounded in
experience. He inadvertently discovered in his backyard garden that he
could greatly increase crop yields by not tilling when he began growing
corn in soil he considered better suited for making bricks. From 1930 to
1937 he introduced organic matter into his backyard plot by digging a
trench with a shovel and mixing in leaves at the bottom of the trench to
emulate the standard practice of plowing under last year’s crop stubble.
Like conventional plowing, this buried the organic-rich surface material to
a depth of six or eight inches. In the fall of 1937 he tried something different.
He mixed the leaves into the surface of the soil.
The next year his soil was transformed. Previously he had been able to
grow only parsnips in the stiff clay soil; now the soil texture was granular.
It could be raked like sand. In addition to parsnips, he harvested fine crops
of carrots, lettuce, and peas—without fertilizer and with minimal watering.
All he did was keep the weeds down.
When the Soil Conservation Service staff were unimpressed with his
backyard experiment, Faulkner took up the challenge and leased a field for
a full-scale demonstration. Instead of plowing before planting, he disked
the standing plants into the surface of the soil, leaving the ground littered
with chopped-up weeds. Skeptical neighbors forecast a poor harvest for the
careless amateur. Surprised and impressed when Faulkner’s crop exceeded
their own, they were unsure what to think about his mysterious success
without plowing, fertilizers, or pesticides.
After several years of repeated success on his leased field, Faulkner began
to advocate rebuilding surface layers of organic material. He was confident
that with the right approach and machinery, farmers could recreate good
soil wherever it had existed naturally. “Men have come to feel ...that centuries
are necessary for the development of a productive soil. The satisfying
truth is that a man with a team or a tractor and a good disk harrow can
mix into the soil, in a matter of hours, sufficient organic material to
accomplish results equal to what is accomplished by nature in decades.”
What farmers needed to do was stop tilling the soil and begin incorporating
organic matter back into the ground. “Everywhere about us is evidence
that the undisturbed surface of the earth produces a healthier growth than
dirty business