Farming and Gardening for Health or Disease

In the last two chapters the relation between soil fertility and the health of crops and of livestock was discussed. But what of the effect of a fertile soil on human health? How does the produce of an impoverished soil affect the men and women who have to consume it? The purpose of this chapter is to show how an answer to these questions is being obtained.

When discussing how crops and livestock are influenced by an impoverished or by a murdered soil, the subject is obviously restricted to the solid portion of the earth's crust, because cultivated plants and domesticated animals are nourished by what the earth's green carpet produces. But when we consider mankind, we have to include the liquid portion of this planet -- oceans, lakes, and rivers -- which provide a proportion of our food. We must also take note of the produce of the large area of uncultivated land in the shape of forests, prairies, and so forth, which produce some fraction of our nourishment. These additional sources of food have not been sensibly altered by homo sapiens. He has so far not seriously attempted to increase the harvest of the sea by means of chemical manures or to interfere with the natural produce of the forest or the prairie. These have escaped the attention of agricultural science and their crops are now what they have been for centuries -- Nature's unspoilt harvest.