Fasly-Kam

What’s the difference between dirt and soil? Well, dirt is the stuff we wash out of our clothes. Soil is the loose surface layer of the earth’s crust in which plant roots develop. Quoting Ralph Inge, “All of nature is a conjugation of the verb ‘to eat.’” And, ultimately, the soil eats us all. We must learn to value our soil. All life is tied to the thin layer of topsoil covering the land. Soil chemistry determines whether civilization can be supported or not. Some civilizations apparently became extinct because they did not understand the importance of their soils. Lierre Keith, in her book “The Vegetarian Myth,” refers to topsoil as “fossil soil” to emphasize the fact that this precious resource takes millennia to form. According to the U. S. Department of Agriculture’s Natural Resources Conservation Service, it takes 500 years to form an inch of topsoil. And like fossil fuel, we’re using it up at an unsustainable rate. According to the USDA, one-third of U.S. agricultural land is ero...

Temperature, humidity, soil, sunlight, electricity, vital force, express themselves primarily in vegetable existence that furnishes the basis of that animal life which yields sustenance to the human race. What a man, a community, a nation can do, think, suffer, imagine or achieve depends upon what it eats. The primary form of food is grass. Grass feeds the ox: the ox nourishes man: man dies and goes to grass again; and so the tide of life, with everlasting repetition, in continuous circles, moves endlessly on and upward, and in more senses than one, all flesh is grass. From “In Praise of Bluegrass,” an address by John James Ingalls (1833-1900) Senator from Kansas from 1873 to 1891. Originally printed in the Kansas Magazine in 1872. We frequently forget that the law of unintended consequences still rules. Our actions, like medications, have multiple effects. Some effects are desirable, some are undesirable. Without a thoughtful consideration of all of these effects, we cannot make intel...