Historical Agriculture Literature--Free books to download from Cornell

This site is a treasure trove of farming information from before the corrupt petrochem/agrobiz conspiracy took over the ag schools and the USDA.

from the site wrote:The Core Historical Literature of Agriculture (CHLA) is a core electronic collection of agricultural texts published between the early nineteenth century and the middle to late twentieth century. Full-text materials cover agricultural economics, agricultural engineering, animal science, crops and their protection, food science,forestry, human nutrition, rural sociology, and soil science. Scholars have selected the titles in this collection for their historical importance. Their evaluations and 4,500 core titles are detailed in the seven volume series The Literature of the Agricultural Sciences

Look at these titles!

Cornell reading-course for farmers. Reading-lesson New York State College of Agriculture. Ithaca, N.Y. : New York State College of Agriculture, (1898 - 1904)

Green manures and manuring in the tropics: including an account of the economic value of leguminosae as sources of foodstuffs, vegetable oils, drugs, &c Sornay, P. de; Flattely, Frederic William. London, J. Bale, sons & Danielsson, ltd., 1916.

The propagation of hardy trees and shrubs Taylor, G. C; Knight, Francis Philip. London, Dulau & Co., Ltd., 1927.

I get the feeling these old-timers forgot more than any modern plant geneticist ever knew about actually growing things in real, unadulterated soil.

Did I mention free downloads? If you find something particularly useful at this site, shout it out. Otherwise, it's going to be like heading down a rabbit hole, entertaining perhaps but easy to get overwhelmed.

Ann Torrence wrote:This site is a treasure

+1, the Cornell online library is a good one for sure! Please do share any winners y'all dig up out of the archives. I've spent so much time wondering lost through the electron hallways of Cornell's cyber collection, it really all just boggles the mind.

Ann Torrence wrote:
I get the feeling these old-timers forgot more than any modern plant geneticist ever knew about actually growing things in real, unadulterated soil.

I wouldn't be so quick to diss modern scientists. The old-timers really didn't have a clue about all the species of soil fauna and didn't know anything about biochar. The science they did was very empirical and they had very incomplete information about soil biology. Which is why, when chemists came along and said all you need to know are three letters, N, P, and K, they couldn't really argue with them. Now we know better. We have a more complete picture of what lives in the soil and the ecology of soils and plant communities. It seems it was necessary for civilization to go through a phase of adulterating the soil to grasp the benefits of real, unadulterated soil. Kind of like my education.

And thanks for posting the link. I always like to find a new cache of stuff to dig into.

John Elliott wrote:I wouldn't be so quick to diss modern scientists.

I live with a highly successful academic, well-funded by your tax dollars. I managed federal research for two decades. I respect and admire many individual scientists. But doing academic research on anything other than corporate ag models, especially in the 1990s and 2000s, would have been like trying to grow OP soybeans in a field surrounded by Monsanto-tainted seed stocks. You could do it, but it would wreck your career, 99 out of 100 times. Bless the ones who hung on somehow. We see the same closer to home in the biosciences. If it ain't mouse genetics or a ticket to big pharma, you ain't getting tenure without a fight.

I agree that the old stuff needs to be vetted carefully through a lens of what we know today, but I do suspect that a lot of what's new in academic journals is really a failure to read the old literature.

Ann Torrence wrote:

I agree that the old stuff needs to be vetted carefully through a lens of what we know today, but I do suspect that a lot of what's new in academic journals is really a failure to read the old literature.

I could easily go off on a tangent here and start my tirade about how the technology of acetone-butanol fermentation has been lost because of scientists who are captured by the fossil fuel industry. In a manner completely similar to what you say about Big Pharma and Big Ag. Did you know that back in World War I days, the bulk of acetone and butanol production was done by fermentation of biomass? I have a feeling once Peak Oil has shut down oil refineries, we are going to be back to making liquid fuel for internal combustion engines by acetone-butanol fermentation.

But no, I'm not going to rant on and on.