An Agricultural Testament by Albert Howard

After the first complete account of the Indore Process was published in 1931, the adoption of the method at a number of centres followed very quickly. The first results were summarized in a lecture which appeared in the issue of the Journal of the Royal Society of Arts of December 8th, 1933. About 2,000 extra copies of this lecture were printed and distributed during the next two years. By the end of 1935 it became evident that the method was making very rapid headway all over the world: an increasing stream of interesting results were reported. These were described in a second lecture on November 13th, 1935, which was printed in the Journal of the Society of November 22nd, 1935. This lecture was then re-published in pamphlet form. In all 6,425 extra copies of this second lecture have been distributed. During 1936 still further progress was made, a brief account of which appeared in the Journal of the Royal Society of Arts of December 18th, 1936; 7,500 copies being printed. Two translations of the 1935 lecture have been published. The first in German in Der Iropenpflanzer of February 1936, the second in Spanish in the Revista del Instituto de Defensa del Cafe de Costa Rica of March 1937.

These papers did much to make the Indore Process known all over the world and to start a number of new and active composting centres. The position, as reached by July 1938, was briefly sketched in a paper which was published in the Journal of the Ministry of Agriculture of Great Britain of August 1938.