"MAN LIVES ON LIFE"

Evening Post, Volume CXXX, Issue 26, 30 July 1940, Page 4

"MAN LIVES ON LIFE"

MANAGEMENT OF THE SOIL

"Cultivation of the soil is one of the oldest of the arts, yet one about which we probably know least," said Mr. J. W. Matthews in an address to members of the Garden Circle of the Pioneer Club who assembled recently for their monthly meeting. The speaker went on to say that a fundamental truth generally overlooked is that "man lives on life"—that everything man eats had been a living unit. The secret of successful gardening lay in conditioning the soil so that it became a suitable environment for micro-organisms, for without variety and quantity of microbial life, plants would not grow healthily. "As we take our yearly crops of fruit, flowers, and vegetables," said Mr. Matthews, "we must return to. the soil what we have taken out of it —that is, we must replace the lost humus-making material by means of the compost heap." The speaker quoted Sir Albert Howard, the great pioneer of the "Back-to-Nature movement" in agriculture, as saying that it was the mismanagement of the soil which caused plant troubles, and the first step to correct this condition was to make the soil "live" by seeing that the supply of humus was maintained. Soil health meant plant health, and, through the medium of vegetables, human health.