Be it deep or shallow, red or black, sand or clay, the soil is the link between the rock core of the earth and the living things on its surface. It is the foothold for the plants we grow. Therein lies the main reason for our interest in soils. – Roy Simonson, USDA Yearbook of Agriculture, 1957

The soil is the great connector of our lives, the source and destination of all. – Wendell Berry, The Unsettling of America

Gardening is civil and social, but it wants the vigor and freedom of the forest and the outlaw. – Henry David Thoreau