"The chief product of the farm and of agriculture is persons," says Johnson D. Hill in Roots In The Soil. "Farming is not simply an economic 'money wage' activity; it is a way of life.... The farmer's work on the soil,as a aparticipation in nature's creative processes, must proceed in accord with nature's laws in order to be beneficial and successful. Learning in farm life... occurs by means of striking defeats, Nature is a serious and exacting master over its creatures. Discipline, patience, obedience, responsibility, and self-reliance are among the morally-worthy traits the farmer's mission engenders in him."
Native peoples, closer to the soil than western society, know this instinctively. "We are part of the earth and it is part of us... What befalls the earth befalls all the sons of the earth," said Chief Seattle in 1852.
It is part of a deep instinctive knowing that we all have and either respond to or shun out of ignorance or fear. But it gets you in the end. "The soil is the great connector of our lives, the source and destination of all." - Wendell Berry
Native peoples, closer to the soil than western society, know this instinctively. "We are part of the earth and it is part of us... What befalls the earth befalls all the sons of the earth," said Chief Seattle in 1852.
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