Foxfire Memory: Soil Fertility

Appalachian Mountain Farm Photo credit: National Park Service 

Esco Pitts shared this memory in the Firefox 11 book of farming in Appalachia in the early 1900's:

" We didn't use any fertilizer in those days. The ground was fertile, and it grew good crops--produced well. It won't do it today. This old world is getting older, and erosion has taken off a lot of the good topsoil--put it down in the valley and washed it into the ocean. I don't know why it is, but it's that way. You can go into the mountains and clear up a brand-new ground--cut all the trees, dig up all the stumps, and plant stuff where nothing has ever been planted before--and it won't produce like it used to. We didn't have any insects back then. Nothing to bother anything. You didn't have to spray your apple trees. You didn't have to spray your beans or corn, nothing like that. It all grew and produced good, big, heavy crops." 

--Source: Foxfire 11, page 33.

It's hard to say whether this is really true, or just a case of "the older I get, the better life was..."

But it's nice to know that even people who worked hard every day just to eat still have fond memories of growing up on the farm, and are willing to share them with us.