Albert Howard > Quotes

“The soil is, as a matter of fact, full of live organisms. It is essential to conceive of it as something pulsating with life, not as a dead or inert mass. There could be no greater misconception than to regard the earth as dead: a handful of soil is teeming with life. The living fungi, bacteria, and protozoa, invisibly present in the soil complex, are known as the soil population. This population of millions and millions of minute existences, quite invisible to our eyes of course, pursue their own lives. They come into being, grow, work, and die: they sometimes fight each other, win victories, or perish; for they are divided into groups and families fitted to exist under all sorts of conditions. The state of a soil will change with the victories won or the losses sustained; and in one or other soil, or at one or other moment, different groups will predominate.”
― Albert Howard, The Soil and Health: A Study of Organic Agriculture

“The most important possession of a country is its population. If this is maintained in health and vigour everything else will follow; if this is allowed to decline nothing, not even great riches, can save the country from eventual ruin.”
― Albert Howard

“The health of soil, plant, animal and man is one and indivisible.”
― Albert Howard

“The first duty of the agriculturalist must always be to understand that he is a part of Nature and cannot escape from his environment. He must therefore obey Nature's rules.”
― Albert Howard, The Soil and Health: A Study of Organic Agriculture

“The appearance of a pest should be regarded as a warning from Mother Earth to put our house in order.”
― Albert Howard, The Soil and Health: A Study of Organic Agriculture

“Never does Nature separate the animal and vegetable worlds. This is a mistake she cannot endure, and of all the errors which modern agriculture has committed this abandonment of mixed husbandry has been the most fatal.”
― Albert Howard, The Soil and Health: A Study of Organic Agriculture

“Our industries, our trade, and our way of life generally have been based first on the exploitation of the earth's surface and then on the oppression of one another--on banditry pure and simple. The inevitable result is now upon us. The unsuccessful bandits are trying to despoil their more successful competitors. The world is divided into two hostile camps: at the root of this vast conflict lies the evil of spoliation which has destroyed the moral integrity of our generation. While this contest marches to its inevitable conclusion, it will not be amiss to draw attention to a forgotten factor which may perhaps help to restore peace and harmony to a tortured world. We must in our future planning pay great attention to food--the product of sun, soil, plant, and livestock--in other words, to farming and gardening.”
― Albert Howard, The Soil and Health: A Study of Organic Agriculture

“Neither in theory nor in practice does one farmer in a hundred realize how important it is to cultivate, cultivate, and cultivate.”
― Albert Howard, The Soil and Health: A Study of Organic Agriculture

“... an ever-recurring cycle, a cycle which, repeating itself silently and ceaselessly, ensures the continuation of living matter. This cycle is constituted of the successive and repeated processes of birth, growth, maturity, death, and decay. An eastern religion calls this cycle the Wheel of Life and no better name could be given to it. The revolutions of this Wheel never falter and are perfect. Death supercedes life and life rises again from what is dead and decayed.”
― Albert Howard, The Soil and Health: A Study of Organic Agriculture

“All the great agricultural systems which have survived have made it their business never to deplete the earth of its fertility without at the same time beginning the process of restoration.”
― Albert Howard, The Soil and Health: A Study of Organic Agriculture

“Why is the forest such an effective agent in the prevention of soil erosion and in feeding
the springs and rivers? The forest does two things: (1) the trees and undergrowth break up
the rainfall into fine spray and the litter on the ground protects the soil from erosion; (2)
the residues of the trees and animal life met with in all woodlands are converted into
humus, which is then absorbed by the soil underneath, increasing its porosity and waterholding
power. The soil cover and the soil humus together prevent erosion and at the same
time store large volumes of water. These factors -- soil protection, soil porosity, and water
retention -- conferred by the living forest cover, provide the key to the solution of the soil
erosion problem. All other purely mechanical remedies such as terracing and drainage are
secondary matters, although of course important in their proper place. The soil must have
as much cover as possible; it must be well stocked with humus so that it can drink in and
retain the rainfall. It follows, therefore, that in the absence of trees there must be a grass
cover, some cover-crop, and ample provision for keeping up the supply of humus." (An Agricultural Testament)”
― Sir Albert Howard

“The study of plant diseases for their own sake is proving an increasingly intricate game, to which modern scientists have devoted many wasted hours. Such studies would be amusing if they were not tragic, for no disease in plant, animal, or man can properly be viewed unless it is looked on as an interference with, or to speak more plainly, as the distortion or negation of that positive aspect of the growing organism which we call health.”
― Albert Howard, The Soil and Health: A Study of Organic Agriculture

“But the purpose of agriculture is quite different from that of a factory. It has to provide food in
order that the race may flourish and persist. The best results are obtained if the food is
fresh and the soil is fertile. Quality is more important than weight of produce. Farming is
therefore a vital matter for the population and ranks with the supply of drinking water,
fresh air, and protection from the weather. Our water supplies do not always pay their
way; the provision of green belts and open spaces does not yield a profit; our housing
schemes are frequently uneconomic. Why, then, should the quality of the food on which
still more depends than water, oxygen, or warmth be looked at in a different way? The
people must be fed whatever happens. Why not, then, make a supreme effort to see that
they are properly fed? [...] The
financial system, after all, is but a secondary matter. Economics therefore, in failing to
insist on these elementary truths, has been guilty of a grave error of judgement.”
― Sir Albert Howard

“1. Insects and fungi are not the real cause of plant diseases but only attack unsuitable
varieties or crops imperfectly grown. Their true role is that of censors for pointing
out the crops that are improperly nourished and so keeping our agriculture up to the
mark. In other words, the pests must be looked upon as Nature's professors of
agriculture: as an integral portion of any rational system of farming.
2. The policy of protecting crops from pests by means of sprays, powders, and so
forth is unscientific and unsound as, even when successful, such procedure merely
preserves the unfit and obscures the real problem -- how to grow healthy crops." (An Agricultural Testament)”
― Sir Albert Howard

“...erosion control in Japan is like a game of chess. The forest
engineer, after studying his eroding valley, makes his first move, locating and building
one or more check dams. He waits to see what Nature's response is. This determines the
forest engineer's next move, which may be another dam or two, an increase in the former
dam, or the construction of side retaining walls. After another pause for observation, the
next move is made and so on until erosion is checkmated." (An Agricultural Testament)”
― Sir Albert Howard

“The prophet is always at the mercy of events; nevertheless, I venture to conclude this book with the forecast that at least half the illnesses of mankind
will disappear once our food supplies are raised from fertile soil and consumed in a fresh condition.”
― Sir Albert Howard

“Why is the forest such an effective agent in the prevention of soil erosion and in feeding
the springs and rivers? The forest does two things: (1) the trees and undergrowth break up
the rainfall into fine spray and the litter on the ground protects the soil from erosion; (2)
the residues of the trees and animal life met with in all woodlands are converted into
humus, which is then absorbed by the soil underneath, increasing its porosity and waterholding
power. The soil cover and the soil humus together prevent erosion and at the same
time store large volumes of water. These factors -- soil protection, soil porosity, and water
retention -- conferred by the living forest cover, provide the key to the solution of the soil
erosion problem." (An Agricultural Testament)”
― Sir Albert Howard

“The conventional method would be to stimulate the crop by the addition of factory-made and imported fertilizers such as sulphate of ammonia. There are weighty objections to such a course. [...] Increased crops would indeed be obtained for a few years, but at what a cost -- lowered soil fertility, lowered production, inferior quality, diseases of crops, of animals, and of the population, and finally diseases of the soil itself, such as soil erosion and a desert of alkali land! To place in the hands of the cultivator such a means of temporarily increasing his crops would be more than a mere error of judgement: it would be a crime.”
― Sir Albert Howard