Explore "An Agricultural Testament" by Albert Howard on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
In the previous chapter we have seen how Nature, by means of soil erosion, removes any area of worn-out land and recreates new soil in a fresh place. Mismanagement of the land is followed later on by a New Deal, as it were, somewhere else. A similar rule applies to crops: the diseased crop is quietly but effectively labelled prior to removal for the manufacture of humus, so that the next generation of plants may benefit.
Mother earth has provided a vast organization for indicating the inefficient crop. Where the soil is infertile, where an unsuitable variety is being grown, or where some mistake has been made in management, Nature at once registers her disapproval through her Censors' Department. One or more of the groups of parasitic insects and fungi--the organisms which thrive on unhealthy living matter--are told off to point out that farming has failed. In the conventional language of to-day the crop is attacked by disease. In the writings of the specialist, a case has arisen for the control of a pest: a crop must be protected.