Customer Reviews

Farmers of Forty Centuries: Or Permanent Agriculture in China, Korea and Japan

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I first read this in the Small Farm Journal. It recounts the ingenuity and hard work that Chinese employ to make the most of resources. Some of the grainy photographs were included there, but this republication does not include the photographs which I think are important.

This was a well written book that provided a lot of knowledge not just about ancient farming knowledge but even ancient conservation techniques. If you like organic or natural farming then you will find this book a good read.

First published in 1911, with a preface by Dr. L. H. Bailey, Farmers of Forty Centuries is the kind of book that would be of interest to farmers and historians alike.

This book was written at time in society when 'better living through chemistry' was just starting to take hold as mainstream thinking. Reductionist science, pesticides, and fertilizer were gaining strength and agriculture was changing from a point of view that works with the natural processes to a system that conquers and controls plants natural impulses. Taking into account the time when this book was written, and one can see that it is an important book in the history of agriculture and an excellent reference for modern farmers that might have been lost if not for the dedication of people who converted it to e-text.

The preface by Dr Bailey, discusses where American agriculture stands at the turn of the last century (1900). It mentions how farming in the North America is very successful, and acknowledged that this is primarily because the population density of the continent is sparse and people have been cultivating the soil for a relatively short time. Bailey mentions that in order to properly conquer the land and turn it to our needs (common attitude of the time)we must be careful not to strip it of fertility. Chemical farming alone will do this over time; however, by examining agricultural practices that have sustained themselves for long periods without loosing soil fertility - then american farming can be even more productive (shame this wasn't taken to heart at the time).

The book itself is examines agricultural practices in some of the most densely populated areas of the world at the time in hopes of gleaming some useful information.

Given where we are now with industrialized farming, this book might just be what we need to help understand how we can regain some of the waste farmland that now has very little or no agricultural use thanks to poor management practices over the last 100 years.

The kindle version has no interactive menus, no way of quick navigation and no pictures. But there are no obvious errors in the text.

This book is perfect for both small farmers and large scale agri-business.