Natural Farming

A Practical Guide

Natural Farming carries a simple but widely overlooked message: healthy soil makes healthy plants, which in turn make healthy animals and healthy people. The book explores the consequences in the soil of applications of superphosphate and other artificial fertilisers over decades, and explains soil chemistry in terms that every farmer can understand. It describes the exact role of each mineral and vitamin, both in the soil and in the body. And it explains how to prevent expensive disease outbreaks and minimise the use of costly artificial sprays and fertilisers.

The prescriptions are simple and can be applied to any farming enterprise -- market gardens, orchards, broadacre crops and pasture -- to restore the natural balance and fertility of the land, improve soil health, and increase productivity. The book is enlivened with accounts of spectacular successes in regenerating degraded land and curing animals that, in many cases, had been given up for dead.

There is detailed information on soil analysis, managing pasture, treating soil, alternatives to fertilisers and chemical sprays, significance of weeds, strategies for drought, diagnosis of disease and deficiencies in stock, remedies for common diseases and rearing orphan animals.