Best of
Agriculture

1995

Storey's Guide to Raising Chickens: Care / Feeding / Facilities


Gail Damerow - 1995
    This revised third edition contains a new chapter on training chickens and understanding their intelligence, expanded coverage of hobby farming, and up-to-date information on chicken health issues, including avian influenza and fowl first aid.

Seed to Seed: Seed Saving and Growing Techniques for Vegetable Gardeners


Suzanne Ashworth - 1995
    This book contains detailed information about each vegetable, including its botanical classification, flower structure and means of pollination, required population size, isolation distance, techniques for caging or hand-pollination, and also the proper methods for harvesting, drying, cleaning, and storing the seeds.Seed to Seed is widely acknowledged as the best guide available for home gardeners to learn effective ways to produce and store seeds on a small scale. The author has grown seed crops of every vegetable featured in the book, and has thoroughly researched and tested all of the techniques she recommends for the home garden.This newly updated and greatly expanded Second Edition includes additional information about how to start each vegetable from seed, which has turned the book into a complete growing guide. Local knowledge about seed starting techniques for each vegetable has been shared by expert gardeners from seven regions of the United States-Northeast, Mid-Atlantic, Southeast/Gulf Coast, Midwest, Southwest, Central West Coast, and Northwest.

The Farm


Wendell Berry - 1995
    

Living Energies: Viktor Scahuberger's Brilliant Work with Natural Energy Explained


Callum Coats - 1995
    Schauberger's insights into Nature pivoted on the essential characteristics of water as a living and pulsating substance that energizes all of life, both organic and inorganic. He frequently asserted, "Water is a living substance!"--an ideal to which many philosophers have subscribed. With his ground-breaking concepts on energy, biomagnetism and the true function of trees, he showed how a world that exploited its resources rather than cherishing them was doomed to destroy itself. Above all, he demonstrated how Nature's abundance is the result of a complex interaction of energies that actually create matter, not the other way around as orthodox science believes. For him energy was primary, and physical form the secondary effect.

Another Turn of the Crank


Wendell Berry - 1995
    Provocative, intimate, and thoughtful, Another Turn of the Crank reaches to the heart of Wendell Berry's concern for our nation, its communities, and their future.

The Great Book of Hemp: The Complete Guide to the Environmental, Commercial, and Medicinal Uses of the World's Most Extraordinary Plant


Robert A. Nelson - 1995
    Materials made from hemp fiber have been discovered in tombs dating back to 7000 B.C. During the Middle Ages hemp was used to treat fevers, insomnia, and malaria. Columbus's ships had sails of hemp, and during colonial times it was universally grown because its strong fibers made superior ropes, sails, cloth, and paper. In fact, hemp was used for money in most of the Americas from 1631 until the early 1800s, and the original drafts of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution were written on hemp paper.As a food, the oil from hemp seeds has the highest percentage of essential fatty acids and the lowest percentage of saturated fats. Britain and Canada have recently lifted bans on growing industrial hemp and today it is reappearing in the marketplace in an amazing array of products: from lip-salve, jeans, salad oil, and cheese to paper products, composite fiberboard, and biomass fuel.This illustrated, easy-to-read guide covers all aspects of hemp:• The history of its cultivation worldwide • Its role as a source of renewable energy and as an alternative for paper manufacturing and fossil fuels• Its versatility as a fiber• Its many nutritional and medicinal uses• Examines the physiological and psychological effects of marijuana use in recreation and therapy• A comprehensive resource section includes information on organizations involved in legalizing hemp, product suppliers, and an annotated bibliography.

Rogue Primate: An Exploration of Human Domestication


John A. Livingston - 1995
    Winner of the 1994 Governor General's Award "If you buy only one book this decade let it be Rogue Primate."- The Toronto Star (1994)

Grassland: The History, Biology, Politics and Promise of the American Prairie


Richard Manning - 1995
    Taking a critical look at this little-understood biome, award-winning journalist Richard Manning urges the reclamation of this land, showing how the grass is not only our last connection to the natural world, but also a vital link to our own prehistoric roots, our history, and our culture. Framing his book with the story of the remarkable elk, whose mysterious wanderings seem to reclaim his ancestral plains, Manning traces the expansion of America into what was then viewed as the American desert and considers our attempts over the last two hundred years to control unpredictable land through plowing, grazing, and landscaping. He introduces botanists and biologists who are restoring native grasses, literally follows the first herd of buffalo restored to the wild prairie, and even visits Ted Turner's progressive--and controversial--Montana ranch. In an exploration of the grasslands that is both sweeping and intimate, Manning shows us how we can successfully inhabit this and all landscapes.

Lost Crops of Africa: Volume I: Grains


National Research Council - 1995
    Some observers question whether this continent can ever hope to feed its growing population. Yet there is an overlooked food resource in sub-Saharan Africa that has vast potential: native food plants.When experts were asked to nominate African food plants for inclusion in a new book, a list of 30 species grew quickly to hundreds. All in all, Africa has more than 2,000 native grains and fruits?lost species due for rediscovery and exploitation.This volume focuses on native cereals, including:African rice, reserved until recently as a luxury food for religious rituals. Finger millet, neglected internationally although it is a staple for millions. Fonio (acha), probably the oldest African cereal and sometimes called hungry rice. Pearl millet, a widely used grain that still holds great untapped potential. Sorghum, with prospects for making the twenty-first century the century of sorghum. Tef, in many ways ideal but only now enjoying budding commercial production. Other cultivated and wild grains. This readable and engaging book dispels myths, often based on Western bias, about the nutritional value, flavor, and yield of these African grains.Designed as a tool for economic development, the volume is organized with increasing levels of detail to meet the needs of both lay and professional readers. The authors present the available information on where and how each grain is grown, harvested, and processed, and they list its benefits and limitations as a food source.The authors describe next steps for increasing the use of each grain, outline research needs, and address issues in building commercial production.Sidebars cover such interesting points as the potential use of gene mapping and other high-tech agricultural techniques on these grains.This fact-filled volume will be of great interest to agricultural experts, entrepreneurs, researchers, and individuals concerned about restoring food production, environmental health, and economic opportunity in sub-Saharan Africa.Selection, Newbridge Garden Book Club

Marschner's Mineral Nutrition of Higher Plants


Horst Marschner - 1995
    The second edition of this book retains the aims of the first in presenting the principles of mineral nutrition in the light of current advances.

The Concise Guide to Self-Sufficiency


John Seymour - 1995
    Follow practical know-how: from creating an urban organic garden and making wine and beer, to ploughing fields or harnessing natural energy.