Hall, Bolton. Three Acres and Liberty. New York:  Macmillan, 1918.

Bolton Hall marks the start of our modern back-to-the-land movement.  He was Ralph Borsodi’s mentor and inspiration.  Where Ralph was smooth and intellectual, Hall was crusty and Twainesque.

Hamaker, John.  D. The Survival of Civilization. Annotated by Donald A. Weaver.  Michigan/ California:  Hamaker-Weaver Publishers, 1982.

Forget global warming, Hamaker believably predicts the next ice age is coming.  Glaciers will be upon us sooner than we know unless we reverse intensification of atmospheric carbon dioxide by remineralization of the soil.  Very useful for its exploration of the agricultural use of rock flours.  Helps one stand back from the current global warming panic and ask if we really know what is coming.  Or are we merely feeling guilty for abusing Earth?

Hopkins, Cyril G. Soil Fertility and Permanent Agriculture. Boston:  Ginn and Company, 1910.

Though of venerable lineage, this book is still one of the finest of soil manuals in existence.  Hopkins’ interesting objections to chemical fertilizers are more economic than moral.

The Story of the Soil:  From the Basis of Absolute Science and Real Life. Boston:  Richard G. Badger, 1911.

A romance of soil science similar to Ecotopia or Looking Backward.  No better introduction exists to understanding farming as a process of management of overall soil mineralization.  People who attempt this book should be ready to forgive that Hopkins occasionally expresses opinions on race and other social issues that were acceptable in his era but today are considered objectionable by most Americans.

Jenny, Hans. Factors of Soil Formation:  a System of Quantitative Pedology. New York:  McGraw Hill, 1941.

Don’t let the title scare you.  Jenny’s masterpiece is not hard to read and still stands in the present as the best analysis of how soil forms from rock.  Anyone who is serious about growing plants will want to know this data.

McCarrison, Sir Robert. The Work of Sir Robert McCarrison. ed.  H. M. Sinclair.  London Faber and Faber, 1953.

One of the forgotten discoverers of the relationship between soil fertility and human health.  McCarrison, a physician and medical researcher, worked in India contemporaneously with Albert Howard.  He spent years “trekking around the Hunza and conducted the first bioassays of food nutrition by feeding rat populations on the various national diets of India.  And like the various nations of India, some of the rats became healthy, large, long-lived, and good natured while others were small, sickly, irritable, and short-lived.

Nearing, Helen & Scott. Living the Good Life:  How to Live Sanely and Simply in a Troubled World. First published in 1950.  New York:  Schocken Books, 1970.

Continuing in Borsodi’s footsteps, the Nearings homesteaded in the thirties and began proselytizing for the self-sufficient life-style shortly thereafter.  Scott was a very dignified old political radical when he addressed my high school in Massachusetts in 1961 and inspired me to dream of country living.  He remained active until nearly his hundredth birthday.  See also:  Continuing the Good Life and The Maple Sugar Book.