694.  Living at Nature's Pace.  by Logsdon.  A very interesting book which opens one's eyes to what is happening to this country.  Between politics and ignorant bureaucrats much damage has been done to farm land.  This has direct effect on not just the countryside but land itself and city life.  As one deteriorates so does the other.  Industrial techniques have been applied to farming with huge equipment, gigantic farms, low wage employees (this- low wage employees is a problem in and of itself).  This has resulted in using increasingly dangerous chemicals to fertilizes the soil.  It was once the case that a farmer had any combination of cows or pigs or sheep or chickens or all of these.  Their manure was spread on the fields.  Consequently no fertilizer was needed in the artificial sense.  Crops were rotated in a far more elegant and sophisticated manner.  This reduced the amount of plowing, gave the land time to recover for the next rotation.  This method also prevented the growth and increase of insects.  Insects never have time with this method to grow to uncontrollable numbers.  However, with industrial methods, there is little crop rotation and consequently as insects have grown in numbers, more and more pesticide is used.  A whole host of problems have flowed from this- pollution in the streams, loss of bird populations (as plants with industrial farming have become more uniform there has been a drop in diversity of animals living off of or near that land) and damaged soil.  No-till has also added its own set of problems.  It does not prevent erosion as promised and requires immense chemicals to produce a crop and huge tractors to do this, tractors which are so heavy that they cause soil compaction.  All of this has also required those who have bought into all of this to go heavily into debt.  For this expensive equipment makes production from an acre of land to cost more, thus a farmer borrows more to add more land to try to increase profit. Consequently the expansion is endless until the economy changes and then these farms are in big trouble.  Of course with the advent of industrial farming has come investment from monied people who are looking for an investment.  They have the pull necessary to sway members of congress (most of which know little or nothing about gardening let alone farming and soil) to subsidize these modern farming practices.  Against all of this talk that this is the only way to do it,  Logsdon offers the Amish who farm with horses, raise a variety of animals,  rotate crops on a grand scale, keep costs down, produce as much per acre as the industrial farmers, make more money and lead happier lives.  I highly recommend this book.  Logsdon also points out with great care that the Amish are not backwards but have used and adapted modern or old equipment in such a way that the equipment does not run their life but only enhances it.