Tree Crops: A Permanent Agriculture   Import  Single ASIN  Import  Muleiple ASIN ×Product customization Go Pro General

5 reviews for Tree Crops: A Permanent Agriculture   Import  Single ASIN  Import  Muleiple ASIN ×Product customization Go Pro General

1. 

   Rated 5 out of 5

   Francesca – 16 February 2023

   Fondamentale sembra scotto dal nostradamus dell’agricoltura
   L’unica cosa che rimpiango di questo libro è che non ci sia la versione in italiano ma è un testo fondamentale per chiunque voglia rivedere il suo modo di fare agricoltura.1 mole documentale enorme da corpo a un pensiero sistematico che merita di disturbare le convinzioni ottuse degli agricoltori contemporanei.Delle volte caustico nelle sue valutazioni assume a più di settant’anni di distanza e il tono profetico di un Nostradamus con la sola differenza che ci ha beccato in pieno

2. 

   Rated 5 out of 5

   TCWW – 20 March 2023

   Such a great book!
   Great book. Valuable knowledge the world needs to repair the damaged eco system. An essential read!

3. 

   Rated 5 out of 5

   N. Anderson – 5 September 2013

   Fantastic
   This is a bit of a rarity in alternative agriculture books: well documented, evidence based assertions. While promulgating the idea that we need to move more to tree-crop supported agriculture, Smith gives average yields, processing tips, climactic considerations, cost analysis (a bit dated since it was written in 1929), and examples of success. Too often in this kind of book you read bare assertions without data. Granted, given Smith’s job working for the USDA, data and examples are to be expected, but it is no less pleasing to see.The book starts with three chapters arguing for tree-based agriculture instead of our annual-plant based system. The basic idea is that constantly planting and tilling results in extracting more nutrients from the soil than can be replaced, it causes erosion, with the loss of nutrient filled topsoil into rivers and streams, and eventually, the nutrients and topsoil will be gone, and a desert results. Smith gives examples of this process from around the world. The solution, he argues in chapter three, is to plant hilly areas with trees, which limit erosion, replace nutrients, and when chosen well can provide crops as nourishing and useful as those we get from grasses. This takes about 30 pages. Pages 33 through 312 in my copy are devoted to specific examples of trees, with the cultivation techniques, expected yields, and so forth that I referred to above. Pages 313-360 give examples of farms combining multiple tree crops and their successes. Pages 360-388 discuss “the current state of research” (in 1929, remember) and the book closes with several appendices of climate conditions and crop choices. It is a masterpiece of research, literally a life’s work in one volume.Highly recommended.

4. 

   Rated 5 out of 5

   Earth Angel – 5 August 2021

   Inspiring, information-rich,with scientifically proven theories.
   I love this book. Acorn Tree or A Corn Tree ? Have we been tearing up the earth’s skin to grow food that we already had dropping on our heads ? It seems so. Living on tree crops may be the best chance we have of freeing ourselves and other species from the many hardships and horrors of annual grain production. This author persuaded me to start experimenting with what already grows here in England, and start planting more nuts and acorns.

5. 

   Rated 5 out of 5

   Michael Foley – 18 September 2009

   a visionary book
   This is an amazing book! Published in 1950, it is the second, enlarged edition of a book originally written in, I think, 1939. It reflects a lifetime of research around the world and personal trials on the author’s farm in Virginia on the uses of tree crops for animal and human food. It anticipates the permaculture literature in advocating a “two-storey” agriculture, with tree crops (primarily nuts) as the primary source of animal fodder on sloping and hilly land. It documents the incredible productivity of tree crops and their traditional uses as fodder for pigs, goats, cattle, and poultry. I was particularly struck by the evidence from southern Europe, where extensive chestnut forests produce(d) some of the finest pork in the region. But there is evidence from around the globe, attesting to not only the uses of tree crops but their potential for breeding to build on that potential.Following up on Smith’s advice, I went to my local garden shop recently to inquire about honey locusts. Oh yes, I was told, we sold quite a few to the city as shade trees. No, no, I said, I want a messy variety, one that drops bushels of pods. She looked it up. Apparently the breeders have indeed been at work since Smith wrote — eliminating the seeds from a tree that could provide nutritious feed to replace the corn and soy beans whose production has been ravishing the planet for decades! The book should be in every permaculturalist’s library but in every rural public library, as well, and regularly taught in our terrible agricultural colleges.