Ploughman's Folly Ploughman's Folly - EcoPort

conducted from below to the roots of the plants, without the customary interruption at the ploughsole some six to
eight inches under the surface of the soil. (This interruption, something which does not exist in nature, consists of
the blotter-like layer of organic matter which the mouldboard plough sandwiches in between the subsoil and the
disturbed upper layers.) We were copying as closely as possible the natural environment in which plants always
seem to thrive; but our behaviour was so odd to anyone schooled in the customary ways of managing crops that it
became disturbing to observers.
Much more might be said in support of this new conception of soil and the proper handling of it, but the reader will
perhaps realize by now that Browning was right.
"God's in his heaven --
All's right with the world!"
There is nothing wrong with our soil, except our interference, deliberate though unknowing, with the natural
provisions for growing plants. Nothing is more obvious than the vigorous way in which nature takes over when land
has been abandoned by farmers. All through the South, farmers have for generations "rested" their land for a
number of years between periods of cropping. This practice used to be criticized severely as an evidence of
laziness, but agriculturists have discovered that it really has merit, and that soil so treated is considerably
rejuvenated and will again produce satisfactory crops. The benefits to be derived from allowing land to lie idle are
directly proportionate to the abundance of wild plants that spring up. Southern farmers of the old school never kept
their crops so free from weeds that there would not be plenty of seed to germinate on any land that was left to itself
for a season or two. The second and third seasons' growth of weeds registered, by their increased height and
vigor, the benefit the new plants received from the decaying material produced the previous year. The longer the
fields lay idle, the more completely they were restored to normal productiveness. If many years intervened
between plantings, however, a young forest might have to be cleared off the land again, so farmers usually
renewed cropping after three or four fallow seasons.
Such processes of soil renewal really should not be construed as idleness for the soil. In reality the so-called idle
soil is working vigorously to re-establish a non-erosive surface. If there are enough weed seeds in the soil when it
is abandoned, only a few years will be required for the surface to be properly "nailed down" again, so that runoff
water will not be so plentiful or so effective in moving the soil minerals.
Many of the ills of the soil are those which we humans have induced. We could have avoided all of the trouble we
have had with the soil. But that we should have made precisely those mistakes which are now part of history is
logical, when it is considered that the plough -- now the worst curse of the land -- was at the time it was invented a
life-saver for the population. The reverential regard we have for it stems from those early days when people
escaped the starvation then threatening only because the plough enabled them to handle larger areas of crops.
This is more fully discussed in Chapter 4. It should be understood, however that, while this book condemns
ploughing without reservation, it is in no sense an indictment of the men who have recommended it throughout the
years. The motives back of such recommendations were as deeply rooted in their natures as are the religious
teachings of one's youth. It was my own good fortune to be compelled to make soil where none existed. The
solution of this problem pointed unmistakably to the solution of most of our soil problems.
It is safe to say that if the invention of the disc harrow had preceded that of the mouldboard plough, and if planting
and cultivating equipment had been designed to operate in the surface of plant residues it would have left, there
would never have been a mouldboard plough. It should be clear that the immaculately clean material we now have
on most of our farms cannot be called soil except by the most liberal literary license. Our ideal of the soil includes
of necessity that it must be easy to work, free from obstructions. It must be tidy. The fact is that untidiness to an
extreme -- a surface covered or filled with abundance of decaying plant tissues -- is really the proper condition. We
must, therefore, revise our ideas as to the nature of the material upon which we can depend for sustenance. We
certainly cannot depend upon the almost white soils we now cultivate with the plough.
Ch. 3: Soil is not Eroded
IN a very important sense, soil does not erode, for the more or less pure minerals that are left after all the organic
matter has disappeared from the land are not, properly speaking, soil at all. They are merely the raw materials
from which soil was originally made and from which it can be made again. Erosion begins only after the soil
surface has become virtually non-absorbent -- a condition induced by the compactness resulting from the loss of
highly absorbent, cellular organic matter present in nearly all undisturbed soils.
In native meadow or forest, rainfall -- even the most torrential -- strikes the spongy mass of humus and is held, with
little or no run-off. Wherever there is run-off, the movement is retarded and ultimately halted by the successive
areas of absorbent organic matter over which the water moves. In a tight soil, free from organic matter, erosion is
almost inescapable because the very tightness of the soil defeats the gravitational movement of water.