Word: kellogg
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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Funeral services for Professor Theodore Spencer will be held at Christ Church at 12 noon today. Rev. Frederick B. Kellogg and Dean Sperry will officiate...
...others, "nature's rich, black topsoil" has almost mystical value; once lost, it can never be restored. The fact is, explains Dr. Kellogg, that many virgin soils, especially in the forested eastern U.S., were not productive originally; they had to be nursed to fertility. Some highly productive soils never had a dark upper layer...
Plowless Folly. Nor does Dr. Kellogg think much of "plowless farming," a fad promoted by Edward Faulkner's Plowman's Folly. Sometimes, Kellogg says, it is a good idea to avoid plowing, so as to leave a layer of litter on the surface, but the plowless method works only in special cases. "Some farmers and gardeners," says he, "in the eastern part of the U.S.-especially city gardeners-took the doctrine literally and planted corn in fields of Bermuda grass-corn that got a few inches high, turned yellow, and finally perished...
Another agricultural cult popular with city gardeners is "organic farming." Organic matter is an important component of soils, says Dr. Kellogg, "but the advocates of the organic matter doctrine go very far. They insist that ... the usual chemical fertilizers are downright poisonous to soils; that the liberal use of compost gives special qualities to plants-they will be free of insects and diseases; and that animals, or even people, will be ever so much more healthy by eating plants grown 'the organic way.' " Most of this is silly, says Dr. Kellogg politely. Organic compost is no cureall...
...Kellogg does not believe, as some theorists do, that soil deterioration caused the fall of older civilizations. When soil goes to pot, the causes lie deeper than farming practices, he says. "Generally, when a rural population becomes poverty-stricken, it fails to maintain its soil. An exploited people pass on their suffering to the land. Low prices, disease and wars are all important causes. Things get on a hand-to-mouth or year-to-year basis . . . Where farmers can take a long view of production, there are very few instances of conflict between those practices that give most return...