Farmers of Forty Centuries by F.H. King

We have not yet gathered up the experience of mankind in the tilling of the earth, yet the tilling of the earth is the bottom condition of civilisation…..The first condition of farming is to maintain the fertility of the soil. This condition the peoples of the Orient have met and they have solved it in their way. The newer Countries may never reach the densities of population as have Japan and China but nevertheless we must learn the first lesson in the conservation of natural resources, which are the resources of the land. This is the message that Professor King has brought home from the East.  L. H. Bailey.

The research of King, captured in these pages from 1926 attracted the attention of Howard  who wrote The Waste Products of Agriculture, 1934, who deliniated the research of the Chinese with their exacting process of thermophilic composting. This title attracted the attention of Higgins who has re written this title naming it The Lost Science of Organic Cultivation, 2017. wherein this ancient Science is now becoming once again an important feature of modern fertility making and sustainability.         (with additions from India and France, 1996)