The soil is the great connector of our lives, the source and destination of all. – Wendell Berry, The Unsettling of America
Laying out grounds… may be considered as a liberal art, in some sort like poetry and painting…. it is to assist Nature in moving the affections… the affections of those who have the deepest perception of the beauty of Nature… – William Wordsworth, letter to George Beaumont, 1805 October 17th [Author trivia:
By the time one is eighty, it is said, there is no longer a tug of war in the garden with the May flowers hauling like mad against the claims of the other months. All is at last in balance and all is serene. The gardener is usually dead, of course. – Henry Mitchell, The Essential Earthman, 1981
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