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

How can I stand on the ground every day and not feel its power? How can I live my life stepping on this stuff and not wonder at it? Science says that an acre of soil produces one horsepower every day. But you could pour gasoline all over the ground forever and never see it sprout maple trees. – William Bryant Logan, Dirt: The Ecstatic Skin of the Earth

Earth is here so kind, that just tickle her with a hoe and she laughs with a harvest. – Douglas William Jerrold, about Australia, A Land of Plenty

I never had any other desire so strong, and so like to covetousness, as that one which I have had always, that I might be master at last of a small house and a large Garden. – Abraham Cowley, The Garden, 1666