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With winter vacation round the corner, let’s prepare ourselves not just to relax and rejuvenate but also to utilize the time in creative and constructive ways. Spend some time reading storybooks, newspapers, watching interesting and informative programmes.
Here is the “Winter Activity” just for you. Let your little finger dance around with ink, pen, papers, scissors, paints and colours. So get ready for your treasure hunt…
➢ To make your work look attractive and neat, make sure that you do it on coloured A-4 size sheets.
➢ Don’t forget to write the topic and put the name tag.
➢ Compile the sheets, punch and put them together.
➢ When the school reopens bring back your treasure….
My Dream City! The UAE is building several sustainable cities that conserve energy and harness renewable energy using technology and architectural designs. The main aim is to reduce the use of energy and water and the generation of waste. It uses a combination of technology, architectural designs and solar power to run. Using minimum energy is one of its primary steps to conserve the environment.
Make an attractive brochure on the theme: ‘My Dream City’
- Brochure must depict UAE as a sustainable and smart city by 2025.
- The brochure must include relevant data and pictures related to sustainable buildings, sanitation, low carbon transport, green spaces, waste management and renewable energy.
Evaluation Criteria
- Presentation: 3 marks
- Creativity: 3 marks
- Neatness: 2 marks
- Punctuality: 2 marks
Skills to be assessed
- Reading
- Writing
- Grammar
UAE SUSTAINABILITY INITIATIVES
Objective - Understand the basic principles of sustainable planning and building, and identify opportunities to make UAE more sustainable and inclusive.
Research Work
- How UAE SET GOALS for the country to shape its future to be more sustainable. How this has changed over time, and the predictions until 2030. List down the Math involved setting these goals.
- Research the number and size of public parks in Al Ain and calculate the total area of ‘green space’ and compare the data.
RUBRICS
- Creativity - 1 ½ Marks
- Presentation - 1 ½ Marks
- Originality - 1 ½ Marks
- Timely submission - ½ Marks
Guidelines
- Design the cover page.
- Research work must be handwritten on A4 size paper.
- Your work should be attractive and colorful with related pictures.
Submission Date - 08-01-2020
1. **SUSTAINABLE ACTIONS MAKE A DIFFERENCE**
With the motive to save our resources for future, let us all join together and create a working model using waste material on any one of the following topics.
- Producing bio fuel
- Water treatment plant
- Waste management
- Hydro energy
- Solar city
2. **Research Work**
Collect information about a recycling plant in UAE and create a flip book.
(To be done in the notebook)
**Evaluation Criteria**
- Presentation - 2 marks
- Creativity - 4 marks
- Neatness - 2 marks
- Punctuality - 2 marks
Submission date: 08/01/2020
Every student has to compulsorily undertake a project on the following Topic. The Project Report should be handwritten by the students themselves with appropriate pictures with caption.
**PROJECT WORK**
Create a brochure or Chart on the topic
**GOAL 11 Sustainable cities and communities**
1. What does it mean to be a sustainable city?
2. Why are sustainable cities important?
3. What is the most sustainable city in the world?
4. How is Masdar a sustainable city?
5. What is UAE doing for sustainable development?
The project has been carefully designed so as to –
a) Create awareness in learners
b) Enable them to understand and co-relate all aspects of selected topic
c) Relate theory with practice
d) Relation of different aspects with life
e) Provide hands-on experience.
**Submission date:** 8/1/2020
**RUBRICS**
- **PROJECT LAYOUT** - 2 MARKS
- **MODULE CONTENT** - 3 MARKS
- **PROCESS OF PROJECT COMPLETION; INITIATIVE, PARTICIPATION AND PUNCTUALITY** - 2
- **CREATIVITY AND PRESENTATION** - 3
**Web Links:**
UAE Rethinks Sustainability with 'Sustainable Cities' | Pulitzer ...
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Barbara Arrowsmith-Young is the Director of Arrowsmith School and Arrowsmith Program. She holds a B.A.Sc. in Child Studies from the University of Guelph, and a Master's degree in School Psychology from the University of Toronto (Ontario Institute for Studies in Education). Arrowsmith-Young is recognized as the creator of one of the first practical applications of the principles of neuroplasticity to the treatment of learning disorders. Her program is implemented in 40 schools internationally.
I want to share a little secret, which I hope will not be a secret by the end of the talk. I am truly, madly, deeply, passionate about the human brain. Science has taught us that our brain shapes us, that it makes us uniquely who we are. And if we think about our brain it has 200 billion neurons. Think about the world’s population - that is a mere 7 billion and we have hundreds of trillions of connections in our brain. If we imagine all the stars in the Milky Way galaxy, there are more connections in our brain than all of those stars combined. So this incredibly complex organ that we carry with us everywhere we go, it does shape who we are.
It is a filter. It filters our perceptions and our understanding of ourselves, of others, of our world and of our place in that world. And what is incredibly amazing is no two brains are exactly alike. If you look at the person next to you and you note all the physical differences between you - the shape of your nose, the color of your eyes, your height - there are more differences between your two brains than all of those physical differences in combination. So, our brain does make us uniquely us. I am here today to share with you my story; and it is a story of how I came to learn that, not only does our brain shape us, but we can actually shape our brain. And my story began at Grade one.
In Grade one I was identified as having a mental block. I was told I had a defect and I was told I would never learn like other children. And really the message at that time was loud and clear. I was told I needed to learn to live with those limitations. This was 1957 and it was the time of the unchangeable brain. And childhood was a profound struggle for me. I couldn’t tell time. I couldn’t understand the relationship between an hour hand and a minute hand on a clock.
I couldn’t understand language. Most of what I read or heard was really as intelligible as The Jabberwocky.
I could understand concrete things. If somebody said to me the man is wearing a black coat, I could paint a picture in my head and I could understand that. But what I couldn’t do was understand concepts or ideas or relationships. So lots of things were confusing. I pondered how my aunt could also be my mother’s sister and what did that fraction 1/4 really mean? Any kind of abstract concept was hard for me. Irony and jokes - that was impossible for me. So I learned to laugh when other people did. Cause and effect - it did not exist in my world.
There were no reasons behind why things happened. My world was a series of disconnected bits and pieces, of unrelated fragments, and eventually my fragmented view of the world ended up causing a very fragmented sense of myself.
And that wasn’t all. This whole left side of my body was like an alien being, unconnected to the rest of me. I would bang and bump into things on the left side of my body. If I picked up anything in this left hand I would drop it. If I put this left hand on a hot burner I would feel pain, but I had no idea where it was coming from. I was truly a danger to myself. My mother was convinced I would be dead by the age of five – and then if that wasn’t enough, I had a spatial problem.
I couldn’t imagine three-dimensional space. I couldn’t create maps in my head. I would constantly get lost, even in my friend’s house. Crossing the street instilled terror. I could not judge how far away was that car. Geometry was a nightmare. I felt incredible shame. I felt there was something horribly, horribly wrong with me and in my child’s mind, when I had heard that diagnosis of having a mental block, I actually thought I had a wooden cube in my head that made learning difficult.
And I didn’t have a piece of wood in my head. But I wasn’t far wrong. I had blockages, as I was later to learn, in very critical parts of my brain. I tried all the traditional approaches. They were all about compensation and about working around the problem – finding a strength to support a weakness. They were not about trying to address the source of the problem. And they took heroic effort and led to rather limited results for me. »
Then in Grade eight I hit the wall. I could not imagine how I could go on to high school and handle more complex curriculum. The only option I could see was ending my life. So, I decided to end the pain and the next morning when I woke up after my failed suicide attempt, I berated myself for not even being able to get that right. So, I soldiered on. And part of what kept me going was an attitude that I learned from my father. He was an inventor and he was passionate about the creative process and he taught me that if there is a problem and there is no solution, YOU go out and create a solution. And the other thing that he taught me was that before you can solve the problem, you have to identify its nature. So I continued my hunt. I went on to study psychology to try to understand what was wrong with me, what was the source of my problem. And then, in the summer of 1977, something life-altering happened. I met a mind like my own - a Russian soldier Levar Zazetsky, the only difference being his mind was shaped by a bullet and mine had been that way since birth. I met Zazetsky on the pages of a book, “The Man with a Shattered World” written by the brilliant Russian neuropsychologist Alexander Luria.
As I read Zazetsky’s story, he couldn’t tell time, he described living in a dense fog. All he got was fragments, bits and pieces. This man was living my life. So now, at the age of 25 in 1977, I knew the source of my problem. It was a part of my brain in the left hemisphere that wasn’t working.
And then I came across the work of Mark Rosenzweig and he showed me a solution. Rosenzweig was working with rats and he found that rats in an enriched and stimulating environment were better learners. Then when he looked at their brains, their brains had changed physiologically to support that learning. This was neuroplasticity in action. Neuroplasticity simply put - the brain’s ability to change physiologically and functionally as a result of stimulation. So now I knew what I had to do. I had to find a way to work, to exercise my brain, to strengthen those weak parts and this was the beginning of my transformation and of my life's work. I had to believe that humans must have at least as much neuroplasticity, and hopefully more, than rats.
So I went on to create my first exercise and I used clocks, because clocks are a form of relationship and I had never been able to tell time. So I started with the two-handed clock to force my brain to process relationships and then I added a third hand and then a fourth hand, because I wanted to make my brain work harder and harder and harder, to pull together concepts and understand their connection. And in about three to four months I knew something significant had changed. I had always wanted to read philosophy and had never been able to understand it and I just happened to have access to a philosophy library. So I went in and I pulled a book off the shelf and I opened it to a page at random and I read that page and I understood it as I was reading it. This had never happened in my entire life. Then I thought maybe it is a fluke, maybe that was just an easy book. So I pulled another book off the shelf, opened it, read it and understood it. And by the time I was finished, I was surrounded by a pile of a hundred books and I had been able to read and understand each page. So I knew that something had changed.
My experiment had worked. The human brain was capable of change. Then I decided to create an exercise for that alien part of my body and for that I knew I had to work on an area in the right hemisphere, the somatosensory cortex, that registers sensation.
I created an exercise for that and I am no longer a danger to myself. Then I decided that spatial problem - because I was really tired of getting lost - and so I created another exercise for that and I don’t get lost. I can actually read maps. I don’t like GPS’s because I like to read maps now, because I can. So I knew now that the brain could change. I was living proof of human neuroplasticity and what really breaks my heart, is that I still meet people today – children, individuals that are struggling with learning problems. They are still being told what I was told in 1957 - that they need to learn to live with their limitations.
They don’t dare to dream. And what I have learned since 1977 when I met Zazetsky and Luria and Rosenzweig is that yes, our brain does shape us. It impacts how we can engage and participate and be in the world, and every single one of us has our own unique profile of cognitive strengths and weaknesses. If there is a limitation we don’t necessarily have to live with it. We now know about neuroplasticity and we can harness the brain’s changeable characteristics to create programs, to actually strengthen and stimulate and change our brain. In 1966 Rosenzweig threw down a gauntlet. He said his challenge was “let’s take what he learned with rats and apply it to human learning”. We need to embrace that challenge.
We need to also challenge current practices that are still operating out of that paradigm of the unchangeable brain.
We need to work together to take what we know now about neuroplasticity and develop programs that actually shape our brains, to change the future of learning. My vision is of a world that we create in which no child has to live with the ongoing struggle and pain of a learning disability. My vision is that cognitive exercises become just a normal part of curriculum. My vision is that school becomes a place that we go to strengthen our brain, to become really efficient and effective learners engaged in a learning process, where not only as learners can we dare to dream, but we can realize our dream. And to me this is the perfect marriage between neuroscience and education.
Barbara Arrowsmith-Young, founder of the Arrowsmith Program, and Director of Arrowsmith School Toronto and Arrowsmith School Peterborough, tells her story in her 2012 TEDx Toronto presentation of how she used neuroplasticity to change her brain and leave her learning disabilities behind.
In 2012, Barbara Arrowsmith-Young’s book *The Woman Who Changed Her Brain* was released in Canada, the US, the UK, and Australia. In *The Woman Who Changed Her Brain, A Note to Readers*, Barbara shared her sources of inspiration and continued determination with her readers:
“In my new book *The Woman Who Changed Her Brain*, I combine my own personal journey with case histories from three decades as a researcher and educator, unraveling the mystery of how our brain mediates our functioning in the world. This book details the brain’s incredible ability to change and overcome learning problems and deepens our understanding of the workings of the brain and its profound impact on how we participate in the world. My work has been and continues to be a labour of love and I am honored to share with you through this book my journey and life’s work. I sincerely hope you enjoy this book and that it will inspire you to change the way you think about the mind.”
Barbara Arrowsmith-Young will return to Australia and New Zealand in summer and fall 2013, to present at events and conferences, including the Mind and Its Potential Conference, and the Brisbane Writers Festival.
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BROWN William Sydney
Name: William Sydney Brown
Born: 19 December 1916
Rank: Storeman
Service Number: 5953948
Regiment/Unit: 5th Battalion Beds & Herts, A Company
Died: Not applicable
Wartime experience:
Billy, as he is known, was called up in April 1940 in Norwich, Norfolk. He moved around the country to several camps, even changing to the 5th Battalion, before he eventually reported to Captain Corner and was given a job as a Technical store man attached to Motor Transport in charge of petrol pumps. He then went to Merrivale Park, Atherstone, Warwickshire, where the petrol pumps were at the junction with railway station. There were three tanks, holding 1,800 gallons of petrol – the down side was, he was always on call, but the upside was he had no parades. He was then moved to Whittington Barracks, Lichfield, Staffordshire then on October 1941 he went on embarkation leave to Norwich. Following which he went to Birkenhead to go overseas. On 29 October 1941 Billy, embarked on SS Reini Pacifico in convoy to Halifax, Nova Scotia. On 9 November he transferred to USS West Point and sailed for Cape Town, South Africa via East Coast USA & Trinidad. 6 December to 13 December he went on to Bombay where they spent three weeks acclimatising and training.
19 January 1942, Billy set sail again on the USS West Point and on 29 January 1942 they arrived in Singapore. On 30 January he went to Birdwood Camp, MT and took up position in the area between the Naval Base and Seletar Airfield. Billy retreated to Hill 105 via the, by now, deserted Seletar Airfield. He was involved in the McRichie Reservoir incidents – he was with a mate called Billings when Japanese planes came over, Billy chose to take cover in a ditch whereas Billings took cover with some Chinese in a ‘go-down’ (warehouse), which received a direct hit. Another time when Billy was in a ditch, with a Scot, Pt Sutherland, they were both climbing out, when there was a burst of machine gun fire passed between them. Again on another occasion, he was with a driver, in the second of two lorries, when the first lorry, with Rackley and Phillips in, was hit by mortar fire. Rackley was killed and Phillips who was injured, lost a leg. Billy was given an anti-tank gun with loader to cover a bridge – he had never used one before and, luckily, the only tank he was an Allied one.
COFEPOW is a registered charity, number 1074474. Reproduction of the COFEPOW Album Pages without the express consent of COFEPOW, or reproduction of all or any of the information contained herein without the express consent of the family of the FEPOW concerned, is prohibited. For further information, contact www.cofepow.org.uk
Singapore fell on 15 February 1942 and Billy was taken prisoner at Hill 105, near McRitchie reservoir. He was marched to Changi Barracks where they were put up in tents in the old prison beside Changi. He had to clear some of the plantation houses for Japanese occupation. All the books and furniture had to be destroyed. There was a roster here where prisoners went with a Japanese soldier on a day job into Singapore. Billy went with friendly Japanese lorry driver who had a POW assisting as labourer for the day going to local villages - he was trying to learn English.
Billy was moved to Bukit Timah where he worked on the Japanese Shrine steps with Australian POWs. He was then moved by train to Ban Pong then on to Kanchanaburi where he and his comrades were marched across the river while it was in flood – Billy couldn’t swim! They weren’t there long, before they were marched to Chungkai. There was no transport. The first job was to clear the crag; Billy was put to work on the ‘hammer and tap’ (boring holes for explosives) and putting ballast under sleepers. He was moved to Wampo (Wang Po) to work on the double viaduct, where he joined the tree felling party. Japanese marked the trees which had to be felled in one day, once felled they were dragged off site by elephants. From there Billy was moved to Rintin, near the waterfall. 17 October 1943 the railway was finished and he was moved back to Singapore by railway.
Early January 1944 Billy boarded the Hell ship Osaka Maru for Japan, with the Hofoko Maru in convoy. They anchored off Borneo for one night; stopped in Manila for three days taking on coal for boilers, then ran into a hurricane which broke the back of the Osaka Maru. She grounded on a small island and the next day the crew and POWs were picked up by two Japanese destroyers and the voyage continued and they landed in Moji on 23 August 1944. Billy was put on a train to Tamano, Osaka where he worked on a lathe in an engineering factory.
On 15 August 1945 the Japanese surrendered and the war was over. The Allies dropped supplies into camp by parachute. On one occasion, a POW was hit in the chest by a case of fruit that broke loose. His name was Aldous and worked at Fieldings on Prince of Wales Road, Norwich, before the war. A Japanese doctor stitched his chest up from throat to stomach. The rice supplies from camp also helped to feed starving Japanese women and children living near the camp.
Billy’s journey home – train to Wakayama; USHS Sanctuary to Okinawa; There was a storm in Manila and he was transferred to HMS Glory. Stopped off in Hawaii, disembarked in Victoric BC, where they stopped for three weeks. Then by train from Vancouver to Jasper, onto Ottawa to New York then aboard the Queen Mary to Southampton.
**Civilian life after return:**
Billy returned home to his wife, Alice, and son, Michael. He resumed his pre-war job working for Harmers Clothing Manufacturers on Havers Road, Norwich. He has been in the same flat all of his life and, since the death of Alice, lives quietly with his books and music. He has probably read almost every book connected with the fall of Singapore and is keenly interested in collecting Toby Jugs and UK first day cover stamps. He has one son; two granddaughters; two great grandchildren and three great, great grandchildren.
*Above: Billy on his 100th birthday with his telegram from the Queen*
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Quarterly Newsletter of the Truckee Donner Railroad Society
Snowshed
Keeping Truckee’s Railroad History Alive!
This Issue
President’s Letter by Jerry Blackwill p. 2
Truckee’s First Logging Railroads by Dan Cobb p. 3
Truckee River Railroad by Bob Bell p. 5
Volunteer Opportunities p. 6
Event Calendar
Holiday Volunteer Event at The Museum of Truckee History Dec 12, 5:00-6:30 PM
Truckee Winter Carnival at the Truckee Community Arts Center and Truckee River Regional Park. Feb 2-4
President’s Letter
Jerry Blackwill
Summer is over and we had a busy season. The Truckee River Railroad ran the train in the regional park nine times this season.
Nelson Van Gundy, one of the society’s two founders has moved from Truckee to the Sparks area. We want to thank Nelson for all his work over the years. Nelson was instrumental in organizing the society in 1999 and has been a board member all these years. Nelson explored the Little Truckee Valley above Boca reservoir and was able to identify the location of the old logging railroads. He used this knowledge to develop the popular trestle tours that are done each summer. Dan Cobb is now leading these tours.
Nelson had been a one-room schoolteacher before moving to Truckee and continued his interest in teaching children about trains. When steam locomotive 844 visited Truckee, he taught the children to explain to their parents how steam engines worked. He also gave railroad presentations to local elementary school students. Here are comments from some fourth and fifth grade students thanking Nelson:
“Thank you for coming to our school to show and tell us about trains. I like the scale models of the snowplow and the locomotive.”
“Thank you for taking the time to come to our school …. P.S. I was the one who had to try to give the report on why the rotary is better than the cyclone.”
“My favorite thing that you taught us was about the history of the logging railroads. Those topics that you gave us to search on Google really taught me a lot about the transcontinental railroad… I was amazed at the cleverness of the rotary plow and how it worked.”
“I learned a lot from you, I learned that a spike is the nail like thing in a train rail. And a lot of other things but I forget but I told it to my mom.”
“I really enjoyed learning about the steam locomotives. I would also like to thank you for giving us those really cool railroad spikes …”
“It was fun showing us how the rotary and other designs of trains work… I really liked the spike from the mining railroad. Unfortunately I lost the spike.”
Nelson will still live near Truckee and we look forward to seeing him in the future.
We continue to need more volunteers. The railroad museum has been closed on a number of weekends because we didn’t have enough docents for staffing. It would greatly help if you could see your way clear to give us even a single three-hour shift at the museum or help with the Truckee River Railroad. If you can help, please send me a note at email@example.com.
Jerry Blackwill
Truckee’s First Logging Railroads
Dan Cobb
Two decades before Sierra Nevada Wood & Lumber, Boca and Loyalton, and Verdi Lumber built their logging railroads north of Truckee, the Pacific Lumber & Wood Company (PL&W) built and operated two narrow-gauge roads to harvest timber to the south and east of Martis Valley.
The story began in 1868 during the construction of the Transcontinental Railroad, when Thomas Jones built a steam-powered sawmill and log pond at Clinton (a.k.a. Camp 18), a Central Pacific construction camp on the Truckee River about 10 miles downstream from Truckee at the mouth of Juniper Creek. Initially the mill processed timber cut in the lower Prosser Creek and Little Truckee River drainages, which was floated down those streams and the Truckee River to the mill. In 1870, Jones sold the mill to partners Charles Bragg and Gilman Folsom, who were soon joined by Fred Burkhalter, a prominent Truckee merchant.
In the early 1870s, the partnership began logging on the Juniper Plateau, south of the mill and several hundred feet higher. Teams of oxen dragged logs to a 1600 foot chute that sent them at great speed down the face of
the bluff to the mill pond, where they arrived with a huge splash. By 1878, logging had progressed up the drainage to the point that dragging logs by oxen was no longer cost-efficient, and the partners determined that a narrow-gauge railroad was needed. Casting about for a low-cost, local solution, they were able to purchase a little-used 0-4-0 narrow-gauge Porter tank engine from the Sutro Tunnel Company in Nevada. They added a wooden cab and a new stack, a few home-built flat cars, and a couple of miles of lightly-built track, and the railroad was up and running by the end of that summer. Ultimately, the “Clinton Narrow Gauge,” as it was known, extended about 6 miles up Juniper Creek to a point just south of the Placer County line, with a short spur and switchback at East Juniper Creek.
By 1890, PL&W’s timber stands in the Juniper Creek drainage were largely depleted. Adjacent to the PL&W’s timber operation, in the headwaters of the east fork of Martis Creek, was a large uncut stand of timber owned by the Truckee Lumber Company. Truckee Lumber had been in business since 1867 and operated a large mill on the south side of the river in Truckee but owned no railroad equipment. The fact that the Burkhalters’ daughter Carolyn was married to William Spaulding, Vice President and General Manager of Truckee Lumber, probably helped bring the two companies together. In any case, Truckee Lumber contracted PL&W to build a railroad from the Martis Creek timber to the mill in Truckee. PL&W’s track and rolling stock were teamed over the ridge separating the Juniper Creek and East Martis Creek drainages, and the new “Donner and Tahoe Railroad” was built from Klondike Meadow, down East Martis Creek, across Martis Valley and into Truckee. Spurs were built to Dry Lake (Lake Ella) and Monte Carlo Meadow.
PL&W acquired two additional locomotives in the 1890s, both wood-burning 0-6-0 Baldwin saddle tankers. The fate of the original Porter mine locomotive is unknown. PL&W cut timber and hauled logs to the Truckee
Lumber mill for almost 10 years, pushing further into the headwaters of Martis Creek, nearly to the ridge separating Martis Valley from the Tahoe Basin.
In an interesting side note to the Donner and Tahoe Railroad story, there was considerable speculation in the late 1890s about the companies extending the railroad over Martis Ridge to Hot Springs (Brockway) to serve the growing commercial and tourist trade at Lake Tahoe. This plan never came to fruition, perhaps because the business opportunity was preempted by the completion of the Lake Tahoe Railway & Transportation.
Photo of PL&W log train, 1890s. from TDHS collection.
Company’s narrow-gauge line from Truckee to Tahoe City in 1900.
Lumbering in the Klondike Meadows and Martis Peak area came to a close in 1900 when all the timber had been cut. After having moved about 100 million board feet of timber over more than two decades, the Pacific Lumber & Wood Company ceased railroad operations that year and sold its equipment to Truckee Lumber. Rails were torn up and repurposed elsewhere in the area along with the engines and rolling stock. The two Baldwin locos were used for a few years for shuttling loads around the mills in Truckee and for logging operations in Ward Valley, and then moved to Oroville around 1910 to take part in an ill-fated logging operation that ultimately brought about the downfall of Truckee Lumber as a going concern. But that’s a story for another article.
Material sourced from The Pacific Lumber and Wood Company, by David Spohr in Western Railroader, Spring 1990, and Railroads of Nevada and Eastern California, Vol I, by David Myrick.
Truckee River Railroad
Bob Bell
We concluded our 8th (I think) successful season of running the Truckee River Railroad, our 1 1/2" scale miniature train at our Regional Park. We had 9 runs (one rain out) and hosted 3400 rides for our community and visitors. These train days required the help of 360 volunteer hours plus many more hours, mostly by Tom Smith, to keep the trains and track maintained and running. Also, we completed two special runs with Operation Lifesaver railroad safety theme for about 120 school kids. We received a fantastic donation from longtime friend Fred Twigg in Reno that consisted of a 1 1/2" scale battery powered GP38, two riding cars, 400
feet of aluminum track with ties, and 6 switches for future track expansion. This addition to our fleet was a significant addition to our train capacity and operations after the retiring of Tom Smith's steam Forney that he graciously used for our benefit for so many years. We have another engine, engineer cars, and accessories promised in the near future, that I will write about soon, that will further expand our operations capacity and facilities. Of course, without our volunteer crew members none of this would have been possible. So, a big THANK YOU goes out to Nelson and Edna VanGundy, Tom and Teri Smith, Will Eber, Dave and Judy DePuy, Tina Waterfield, Ed Larson, Durk Stelter, Barbara Czerwinski, Jerry Blackwill, Greg Zirbel, Dan and JoAnn Cobb, Ben Bloomfield, Robert Forren, Bill Ramsey, Jay Jacobs, Bobby Carter, and Dave Gregory. We always need more help so please consider coming out next year. If the weather cooperates, we will plan a Santa Christmas run in early December. As the saying goes, Keep Up Your Steam, and more to come.
Photo of park train with riders, July 1, 2023. (Photo by Dan Cobb.)
Volunteer Opportunities
The Railroad Society could use your help in the following areas:
**Truckee River Railroad (ride-on train)** – Issue tickets, load the train, run the crossing gates, operate the trains as engineer or conductor, and help keep our riders safe. Training is provided and new volunteers are always welcome.
**Museum Volunteer** – Learn and share your knowledge of Truckee’s history and local railroading in the Truckee Railroad Museum (caboose) or the Museum of Truckee History. Volunteers work as individuals or pairs in three-hour shifts. Training is provided.
**Newsletter Contributor** – Contribute articles on local railroad history or other topics of interest for publication in our Snowshed newsletter.
Cosmetic Restoration of Railroad Equipment – We’ll hire professionals to do hazardous materials abatement and restore our wrecking crane to its full mid-century glory, but we can use some help with detailing and ongoing maintenance of the crane and the rotary snow plow.
Model Railroad – We need additional railroad modelers and builders to construct modular benchwork, install track and wiring, design and build structures and create scenery. Join our committee and build “Truckee 1927”!
To volunteer, drop us a line at firstname.lastname@example.org. To join or donate, see https://tdrrs.org/membership.
**Board of Directors**
Jerry Blackwill — President
Bob Bell — Executive Vice President and Treasurer
Dan Cobb — Vice President, Strategic Planning and Historian
Ed Czerwinski — Secretary
Nelson Van Gundy — Historian Emeritus
Chip Huck — Rolling Stock Restoration & Preservation
Judy DePuy — Publicity
Tom Smith — Truckee River Railroad
Jay Jacobs — Webmaster
Bill Ramsey
Steve Edelman – Newsletter Editor
**Our History**
Railroads of the Truckee area played a significant role in founding and developing the town of Truckee. From the blasting of black powder in the granite over Donner Lake, to the hissing of the first steam engines coming into town, to the whistles of lumberjacks in the mountains, to the crack of ice being loaded in the reefers, to the tourists flocking to enjoy the beauty of the area, Truckee’s story is very much the story of its railroads.
**Our Mission**
Our mission is to preserve, interpret, and educate the public about railroading life and history in the Truckee region including its contribution to Truckee and the nation. We will accomplish this through the acquisition, preservation, and restoration of relevant equipment and artifacts and the display of exhibits in our Truckee museums.
The Truckee Donner Railroad Society is a 501(c)(3) non-profit, tax-exempt organization. EIN 91-1917864. | 205cbc48-47b6-4af9-81fb-524b3a86632c | CC-MAIN-2024-30 | https://tdrrs.org/newsletters/snowshed%20vol%2016%20num%203%2011-2023.pdf | 2024-07-24T14:26:44+00:00 | crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2024-30/segments/1720763518304.14/warc/CC-MAIN-20240724140819-20240724170819-00682.warc.gz | 474,857,369 | 2,735 | eng_Latn | eng_Latn | 0.97924 | eng_Latn | 0.998168 | [
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The Little Shasta River is a tributary to the Shasta River—historically one of the most productive salmon streams in the Klamath Basin—with spring driven flows providing cold water that could support salmon and steelhead during the hot and arid summer months. Anecdotally, in the mid to late 1800’s, community members would use pitchforks to harvest hundreds of salmon each year as the fish were making their trip upstream to spawn.
However, around this same time, agricultural users began to use this cold spring water year-round for the irrigation of pasture and hay production and to provide water for livestock, often using leaky and inefficient earthen ditches to transport the water. This year-round water use, coupled with the increased demand for water over time, has resulted in the Little Shasta River becoming disconnected on an annual basis. Unsurprisingly, this lack of water limits the ability of salmon and steelhead to return and thrive.
In 2017 the Hart Ranch, in partnership with California Trout, began the planning, design, and implementation of an irrigation efficiency and stockwater improvement project. The project included the installation of new mainline systems, improved stockwater troughs, and a new well. The new mainline system was installed to replace the old, inefficient earthen ditches and to provide more efficient water delivery to the fields. The improved stockwater troughs were installed throughout the ranch to provide greater grazing flexibility and improved management practices. The new well was installed to provide a reliable source of water for the ranch.
Figure 1. Improved stockwater trough. Approximately 15 were installed throughout the ranch to provide greater grazing flexibility and improved management practices.
Figure 2. New mainline system
project to improve irrigation practices and permanently improve conditions in the Little Shasta.
The goal of this project was to replace some of the ranch’s leakiest ditches with pipeline so that the landowner could irrigate pastures and deliver water to livestock more effectively, thus enabling the ranch to return some of the conserved water back to the river for the benefit of fish and wildlife.
California Trout, along with its partners, wrote, secured, and managed multiple state and federal grants in support of this project; in doing so negotiating and executing agreements with the landowner and subcontractors; securing permits; and overseeing several years of implementation.
Installation of the irrigation pipelines occurred in 2018, enabling the ranch to improve its irrigation practices and productivity. In early 2023, construction of the new stockwater system was completed, a testament to the hard work and efforts by the project partners and implementation team, all of whom remained committed throughout the lengthy project schedule and COVID-related delays.
As a result of improved irrigation and stockwater systems, the Hart Ranch was able to use CA Water Code section 1707 to change its water rights and permanently dedicate 0.5 cfs of water year-round for the benefit of fish and wildlife, as well as permissively dedicate the remainder of its water rights, approximately 18 cfs. Additionally, the upgraded on-farm infrastructure has allowed the ranch to more efficiently utilize its water resources and improve its ranch management practices—demonstrating that fish, stream ecology, and private property owners can all benefit from a properly designed project.
Funding for this project was provided by the State of California Wildlife Conservation Board, US Fish and Wildlife Service, United States Department of Agriculture’s Natural Resource Conservation Service, and the United States EPA through an agreement with the CA State Water Resources Control Board, as well as contributions from The Nature Conservancy. | 82c75139-99b1-497c-8bd1-833686c40ef5 | CC-MAIN-2024-30 | https://www.tu.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/Little-Shasta-Stockwater-and-Irrigation-Efficiency-Projects-final.pdf | 2024-07-13T01:07:14+00:00 | crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2024-30/segments/1720763514459.28/warc/CC-MAIN-20240712224556-20240713014556-00653.warc.gz | 874,070,562 | 724 | eng_Latn | eng_Latn | 0.996296 | eng_Latn | 0.996895 | [
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Desert Holes
By Madison Barasha
“What made that hole?” Is probably a question you have asked yourself while hiking at Pinnacle Peak Park. There can be various answers to this question, but we will try and help guide you in becoming a “Desert Holes Expert.”
When you identify a hole start with observing your surroundings. Are you in a flat, open area? Is there a lot of vegetation or no vegetation? How many holes are in the area, is there one or many? If there are many holes that are about 1 ½ inch to 2 ½ inches in diameter it was either created by a round-tailed ground squirrel or a Harris’ antelope squirrel. The difference between these squirrels’ holes is that the Harris’ antelope squirrels prefer to dig at the base or underneath vegetation, whereas the round-tailed ground squirrel prefers open terrain. Next, look at the entrance shape of the hole and where it is facing. If it shaped like a crescent moon (has a flat bottom and domed top), ½ inch or more in diameter, and facing south it is a whiptail lizard or a collared lizard hole. Their holes face south so they can sun themselves in the morning. Then, look at the angle of the hole, does it go straight down or spiral? If the hole spirals down, the diameter of the hole is about ¾ to 1 inch, has twigs and a film of silk around the entrance this was created by a wolf spider. Spiders use the film of silk to communicate with the outside world; they use the vibrations to “see” unsuspecting prey or hostile predators.
There are animals, like snakes, who do not make their own holes since the ground is too hard for their noses. Instead, they rest in shallow, round or oval depressions or they invade a hole of another animal. Gila Monsters, who spend about 90% of their life underground, also invade or borrow holes, preferring rocky and south facing burrows.
Do not forget to look up because holes can be elevated! The carpenter bee creates their holes in dead sotol, agave stalk, or a yucca that is ½ inch in diameter and oval. Gila woodpeckers and gilded flickers make their homes in Saguaroos. The entrance hole is 2 to 2 ½ inches in diameter, while inside the cactus the nest is 8 to 15 inches deep and 6 to 8 inches wide. Once the Saguaro dies, a “boot” that formed around the nest cavity forms.
Next time you are hiking, make sure to observe what is around you. You never know what you will see! Also, remember to stay on the trail when searching for desert holes. This information is brought to you by Pinau Merlin’s book, A Field Guide to Desert Holes.
Introducing Teresa Abernethy
By Yvonne Massman
Let us introduce you to our new staff, Teresa Abernethy! She may be new to the staff roster, but not to the Peak. Teresa has been hiking here since the park first opened both with friends, family, her husband
Craig, and their children when they were elementary and middle school age.
When not at the park, Teresa and Craig keep busy as the owners of the Franciscan Renewal Center bookstore and gift shop named Books and Blessings. As a fun hobby she makes jewelry that is also sold at the gift shop.
Teresa is a native to Arizona and a twin! She grew up with her family of four sisters and one brother in Central Phoenix. She left Phoenix and became a Scottsdale girl 25 years ago. Her motivation was to be close to Old Town for the party scene as a young single woman! Seriously, though, the beauty of the Scottsdale Greenbelt was the lure that really drew her in, and it was a good location for her job as a manager with the check printing company Clarke American. Teresa has remained in Scottsdale because she is very close to her family; of course she has also stayed for the sunshine, weather, and outdoor opportunities, which pretty much aligns with the rest of us!
An extraordinary park experience that recently occurred for Teresa was the opportunity to hike in the SNOW, on January 25th! Pinnacle Peak is of course her number one favorite hiking trail, with the many trails found in the McDowell Sonoran Preserve running a close second. If you are at the park and see Teresa on the trail or keeping busy at the trailhead, be sure to say “hello!” You will most definitely be greeted with a beautiful smile and sweet, “hello!” back!
Oh, and one more thing worth mentioning. If she dare catches you spitting out your gum on the trail, forget the sweet smile, you will have a whole different Teresa to contend with! Just saying!
**Four Peaks Geology Summary**
*By Chad Kwiatkowski*
Rising to 7,657 feet, the jagged mountain looming on the horizon 31 miles to the east is the aptly named Four Peaks, which is such a prominent landmark that it has earned its place on the Arizona license plate! The geology of Four Peaks can be thought of as ‘quartzite teeth in granite gums’, specifically your lower four front teeth. The gentle lower slopes (gums) are made of multiple intrusions of granite, crystallized from magma, that vary in age from 1.7 to 1.4 billion years old. The youngest of these is about the same age as the granite at Pinnacle Peak! The high, craggy peaks (teeth) are composed of 1.6-billion-year-old quartzite, one of Earth’s most tenacious rocks, formed by the metamorphism of sandstone at elevated heat and pressure inside Earth’s crust. A younger metamorphosed mudstone unit, 1.5 billion years old, is exposed on the east side of Four Peaks. Both of these rock units, originally deposited as horizontal layers of mud and sand at Earth’s surface, have been compressed by tectonic forces and folded into a large, half-mile wide ‘U’-shaped fold called a syncline. The multiple intrusions of granite which formed 6-8 miles deep in the crust, with sedimentary rocks deposited at Earth’s surface directly on top of them in intervening times, tell a story of repeated sedimentary burial, intrusion of magma, then uplift and erosion along a former collisional tectonic plate boundary. What a great geologic story Four Peaks has to tell!
**Female Eagle Scout Project at Pinnacle Peak Park**
*By Yvonne Massman*
History was made at Pinnacle Peak Park on Saturday, August 8, 2020 when 17-year-old Victoria Rader from Troop 3030 became one of the very first female Scouts to complete her Eagle Scout Project in our nation! Her Eagle Scout project consisted of fabricating a gabion bench at the end of the Pinnacle Peak trail.
The Boy Scouts of America changed their charter in February 2019 to allow female participation, while also changing their name to “Scouts of America.” This change allowed Victoria the opportunity to complete over 21 merit badges from that date working towards the Eagle status with a project that she completed for the park!
Victoria did an amazing job researching and preparing for her gabion bench project with a concrete sitting slab. Some of the prep included a test of the concrete to see how fast it would set and how much tint was needed to match the existing landscape, reaching out to concrete experts to learn the best methods and practices to prevent cracking and making a proper form, preparing a cost assessment of the entire project, soliciting the donation of many of
Over a Barrel (Cactus)
By Bob Scalia
Barrel cacti are members of two genera: *Ferocactus* and *Echinocactus*, and they are found in the southwestern deserts of North America. Their stems range from globular to columnar, are pleated, usually unbranched, and vary from less than a foot tall in some species to as much as 10 feet tall in others. There are 25 known species of *Ferocacti* and 6 of *Echinocacti* in the world.
*Ferocacti* are characterized by many heavy spines growing along prominent ribs. They include the large barrel cacti that grow in the hottest deserts of Arizona and California, although there are far more varieties of Ferocacti further south in Mexico.
The Arizona Barrel Cactus (*Ferocactus wislizeni*), is also known as the Fishhook Barrel or Compass Barrel. Usually 2-4 feet tall, they are barrel-shaped, can reach up to 10 feet tall, have hooked spines, and are generally found in South/Central Arizona and Northern Sonora. Some botanists consider the Twisted Barrel (*Ferocactus herrerae*), with its spiraled ribs, to be included in *Ferocactus wislizeni*.
The California Fire Barrel (*Ferocactus cylindraceus*), is also known as the Spiny Barrel or Compass Barrel. It is columnar rather than barrel-shaped, and can grow up to 10 feet tall, although they usually mature at less than half that height. Were it not for its curved spines, one could easily mistake this cactus for a young saguaro, which has straight spines.
The reason for the name Compass Barrel is the fact that the larger plants often lean (or point) toward the southwest. One prevailing theory for that phenomena is that the intense heat of the afternoon sun stunts their growth on the southwest side, with the growth disparity causing them to lean in that direction.
*Echinocacti* resemble some of the *ferocactus* species. They are spherical or barrel shaped, have dense and/or thick spines arranged along ribs, and may be single or clustered. They do not reach the great heights of the *ferocacti*, and are known by the common name of stout spined cactus. Only three species are found naturally in the Southwest.
The Many-Headed Barrel Cactus (*Echinocactus polycephalus*), aka the Cottontop Cactus, is found in the driest parts of the Sonoran and Mojave Deserts. It is the only barrel cactus in our region that branches under normal conditions, and the 8 inch diameter heads can form clusters of up to 200, in mounds up to 3 feet high.
While the Many-Headed Barrel is the most common *echinocactus*, many people will be more familiar with the Mexican species Golden Barrel Cactus (*Echinocactus grusonii*), since it is so commonly used as a landscaping plant.
A common desert survival misconception is that barrel cacti, among others, are an easy source of emergency drinking water. Well, for starters, many species cause diarrhea and/or vomiting at best, and have toxic levels of oxalic acid and/or alkaloids at worst. If that is not daunting enough, the liquid is extremely hard to access. Here’s a quote from an article referenced below by Mark A. Dimmitt, who stated: “But most city dwellers, including most aspiring survivalists, could not get water from any cactus if their lives depended on it (pun intended).”
To learn more, check out Cactaceae (cactus family) by Mark A. Dimmitt, to be found on the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum web site, as well as several articles on the American Southwest web site. These sites contain excellent information and were the primary resources for this article.
Pinnacle Peak Park Scheduled Activities:
Sat., 2/6/21 6:45PM - Astronomy Talk
Fri., 3/5/21 7:00PM - Astronomy Talk
Sat., 4/3/21 7:30PM - Astronomy Talk
Fri., 5/7/21 8:00PM - Astronomy Talk
Fri., 9/3/21 7:30PM - Astronomy Talk
Fri., 10/1/21 7:00PM - Astronomy Talk
Sat., 10/30/21 6:30PM - Astronomy Talk
Fri., 11/26/21 6:00PM - Astronomy Talk
Thur., 12/30/21 6:15PM - Astronomy Talk
Sat., 1/22/21 6:30PM - Astronomy Talk
* Call the Pinnacle Peak Park main number at (480) 312-0990 to make reservations for the Astronomy Talk
** This program has been redesigned with COVID safe precautions. Registration for each program begins 2 weeks prior to the event.
Friends of Pinnacle Peak Park
PMB 288
8711 E. Pinnacle Peak Rd.
Scottsdale, AZ 85255
www.foppp.com
firstname.lastname@example.org
Board Members
Lisa Levey, President
Rick McNerney, Vice President
Dick Luther, Secretary
Tom Eye, Treasurer
Brian Carson
Domenica Corbo
Paul Diefenderfer
Robert Scalia
Eric Repec
Ex Officio:
Enzo Bonnette
John Loleit
Yvonne Massman
Editor/Designer: Challie Facemire
Contributors: Madison Barasha, Chad Kwiatkowski, Yvonne Massman, and Bob Scalia | 8426f538-331c-4ec7-b393-3e810fa1da6a | CC-MAIN-2021-43 | http://nebula.wsimg.com/1739065e5ff9a68bc8b4250e7b3790a6?AccessKeyId=D2F0CD3927A17B86576D&disposition=0&alloworigin=1 | 2021-10-22T01:34:18+00:00 | crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2021-43/segments/1634323585449.31/warc/CC-MAIN-20211021230549-20211022020549-00546.warc.gz | 58,295,632 | 2,805 | eng_Latn | eng_Latn | 0.905904 | eng_Latn | 0.997852 | [
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Title: Polar Year [or Polar Days, Polar Nights]
Author/illustrator: Roxie Munro
Ages: 5-9 (grades K-4)
Format:
A 32-page (11" x 9" trim, portrait) nonfiction informational STEM picture book with an introduction and back matter. Teaches STEM subjects like time/months/seasons, geography, weather/climate, animal life/nature, ecosystems/biomes/habitats, more. PDF dummy attached. Paper dummy available.
Description:
The Introduction discusses what and where the North and South Poles are; info on climate and the particular ecosystem; unique issues, history, myths, and stories; a sampling of the creatures found there; and more fun facts.
The book begins with January in the North Pole and the South Pole, and goes through the year, month by month, to December - the polar summers and polar winters.
On each spread, the Arctic (top of spread) and the Antarctic (lower illustration) ecosystems are shown with lush, dramatic, realistic illustrations and pithy text. The book starts in January with a solitary Arctic fox pouncing on a seal hiding under the ice in the dark of the Arctic night. The bottom illustration has the vibrant bright Antarctic summer with the great blue whale in the sea and a wandering albatross flying over, with the rugged landscape behind. Turn the page and, in February, you see the bowhead whale of the Arctic at the top, text referring to it and the Arctic, and in the lower painting fur seals and their pups on the ice in Antarctica. Then, in March at the North Pole, a glimmer of light on the horizon and creatures like harp seals and narwhales. In Antarctica - it's full daylight, with humpback whales cavorting. In April in the Arctic, the mom polar bear has left her den with her two cubs, while way down south Adelie penguins are building their nests. In May in the Land of the Midnight Sun you find migratory birds like terns, and gulls, geese, and puffins. At the South Pole, Weddell seals stick their muzzles out of ice holes to breathe. In June, walruses socialize in the North,
and Emperor penguins huddle over their eggs in the dark cold Antarctic. Beluga whales swim by in July in the Arctic, and a leopard seal predator watches a group of crabeater seals on the Antarctic ice floes. August brings a snowy owl, lemmings, and an arctic rabbit out in the North, while way down in the south seas Orcas team up. Reindeer start huge many-mile migrations in September in the North, and chinstrap penguins meet to mate down south. A solitary bearded seal prepares itself for winter in October, now dark in the Arctic, while a sperm whale arrives to spend the summer in Antarctica. In November, the pregnant mom polar bear makes her den, and the birds arrive at the South Pole for the summer. In December, the North Pole is dark and cold and very quiet, but the Antarctic is full of life - many flying birds, big whales, 18 penguin species, 6 kinds of seals, and other creatures, enjoy the Antarctic summer.
Back matter: 5 pages with more information on each species shown (scientific name, size, habits, etc.); Author's Note (or Essay) on Global Warming/Preserving our Polar Regions; Glossary/Words to know; Bibliography (To learn More...). Full color maps of the two poles from above on Endpapers (or on Intro spread).
Note: Munro's recent nature/ecosystem/STEM books received 5 starred reviews:
*Rodent Rascals* (2018; 21 species of rodents by size; Starred reviews in *Publishers Weekly*, *Kirkus*, and *Booklist*);
*Dive In* (2020; on coral reef creatures; unfortunately came out exact day, April 7, that USA/NYC had most pandemic deaths ever; Bank Street Best Book of 2021 List);
*Anteaters, Bats & Boas* (out August 2021, about the Amazon rainforest and its creatures; Starred reviews in *School Library Journal* and *Booklist*).
Recent books (both, Holiday House) include *Lizards at Large* and *A Day in the Life of the Desert*.
**Attached:**
1. Pdf B&W dummy w/illustration roughs
2. Suggested content for Introduction
3. Interior text (incomplete)
4. Back matter outline including ID's/animal info [TK]; Author's note/Essay re Climate Change/Preserving Polar Regions; Glossary/Words you should know [TK]; Bibliography/To learn more [TK]; Index [TK].
**Competition:**
There are several books focusing on just polar bears or penguins (plus fictional stories). Most of the below are paperback and/or "survey" books.
*Who Lives Here? Polar Animals* by Deborah Hodge (Kids Can Press, 2008)
*Amazing Arctic Animals* by Jackie Glassman (Penguin Paperback, 2002)
*Arctic Animals* (Speedy Publishing, 2014)
*All About the North & South Poles (Habitats)*, by Christine Gardeski (Capstone, 2014)
*North Pole, South Pole: Pole to Pole a Flip book* by Michael Bright (Words & Pictures, 2020). A "survey book," browseable nonfiction with somewhat simplified illustrations. No unifying theme. Very little on opposing pole's winter/summer, day/night.
**Marketing:**
Roxie Munro is an award-winning nonfiction author with a long track record. She prepares and executes lively highly-illustrated programs about the book for school visits and conferences, online or in person. She appears at many children's book festivals (she created the poster for the 2019 Chappaqua Children's Book Festival).
Roxie Munro’s Studio Newsletter (targeted mailing list of 1,900 teachers and librarians) is sent out quarterly. She does a lot of social media (see end of Bio for links: Facebook [5 pages total]; Pinterest; X(Twitter) [2 total]; Threads; a dedicated YouTube channel; Instagram; LinkedIn; and more [PublishersMarketplace webpage, Amazon Author page, Goodreads, etc]). Munro has an extensive professional website with reviews, activities and free downloadables, school and conference visit info, videos, etc. She creates a dedicated webpage for each of her recent books, with videos, interviews, free coloring sheets to download, activity guides, reviews, etc. Munro makes bookmarks for appearances, sending one for each child in the class at school visits and library talks.
Munro also has half a dozen online programs based upon her books. There will be new videos and Powerpoint/Keynote programs on the book made for educators, students, and for other appearances on the research, content, and the book's creative process. A short lively book trailer with visuals, sounds, and music will be created which will be premiered on KidLit TV, published on Munro's YouTube Channel, put on her website, offered to the publisher, and presented extensively on social media (the last four book trailers for Munro's books were featured on Shelf Awareness as "Trailer of the Day"). Munro is an Advisory Board Member of KidLit TV and can guarantee at least one other feature, besides the trailer Premiere - a Read Aloud, an author interview with Rocco Staino, and/or a Ready Set Draw! episode.
**Bio/Awards:**
Author/Illustrator ([www.roxiemunro.com](http://www.roxiemunro.com))
Roxie Munro has published more than 45 nonfiction and concept books, many using "gamification" to encourage reading, learning, and engagement. She has also created 12 interactive apps and all of the KIWi Storybooks (giant Kids Interactive Walk-in Storybooks). Her books have been translated into French, Italian, Dutch, Chinese, and Japanese. Education: University of Maryland, College Park, MD; The Maryland Institute College of Art, Baltimore, MD; University of Hawaii, Honolulu, HI (BFA in Painting); Ohio University, Athens, OH (Graduate Fellowship/Painting) and a Yaddo Resident Fellowship in Painting, Saratoga Springs, NY. Munro has done editorial work for the Washington Post, the New York Times, the New Republic, Associated Press, CBS, others, and has had fourteen New Yorker magazine covers published. She lives in midtown Manhattan in New York City, and has a studio in Long Island City, just across the East River.
Munro's art is in numerous public, private, and corporate collections, including her children's book art in the following specialized collections: the New York Public Library; the Zimmerli Museum (solo show, Roger Duvoisin Gallery), Rutgers University, NJ; The Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art, Amherst, MA (solo show); Portland Children's Museum, Portland, OR; Kerlan Collection, University of Minnesota (Minneapolis, MN); De Grummond Children's Literature Collection, University of Southern Mississippi (Hattiesburg, MS); National Museum of Women in the Arts (Washington, DC); Barnes & Noble (New York, NY); Enoch Pratt Free Library, Baltimore, MD; Mazza Museum, University of Findlay (OH); New York University (New York, NY); Dell Children's Medical Center, Austin, TX, and many more.
For articles on and interviews with Munro: https://www.roxiemunro.com/articlesinterviews.html
Book Awards (selected) and Book Clubs:
*The Inside-Outside Book of New York City*: *New York Times* Best Illustrated Children's Book Award; *TIME* Magazine's Best Children's Book of the Year; NCTE Books That Invite Talk, Wonder, and Play; Library of Congress Children's Literature Center Books for Children List
*Anteaters, Bats & Boas*: Starred reviews: *School Library Journal; Booklist*
*Dive In*: Bank Street College Best Books of 2021
*Rodent Rascals*: Starred reviews from *Kirkus, BookList, Publishers Weekly*; Cybils Award Nominee in Nonfiction; Bank Street Best Book of the Year List for STEM
*Masterpiece Mix*: Bank Street Best Books of 2018; *Wall Street Journal's* Best New Children's Book
*EcoMazes: 12 Earth Adventures*: Starred review, *School Library Journal*; CYBIL Nominee; *Smithsonian*: Great Science Books for Children
*Busy Builders*: Cook Prize Silver Medal for STEM Bank Street Center for Children’s Literature
*Hatch!: Children's Book of the Month Club; CBC "Go Green!" Summer Reading List; CYBILS Award Nominee for Nonfiction; Eric Carle Museum Best Book List; Outstanding Science Trade Book for Students K-12, National Science Teachers Association (NSTA) & Children’s Book Council (CBC); Society of School Librarians International Honor Book Award; Bank Street College Best Books, with Outstanding Merit; Arkansas Diamond Primary Book Award Finalist
*Christmastime in New York City* and *Blimps*: *New York Times* Best Children's Books List
*Blimps*: NSTA-CBC Outstanding Science Trade Books for Children; *New York Times* Best Picture Book of the Year
*Market Maze*: *Kirkus* Starred Review; Reading Rockets (WETA) Summer Reading List 2015
*Gargoyles, Girders & Glass Houses: Magnificent Master Builders* and *Crocodiles, Camels, & Dugout Canoes: Eight Adventurous Episodes*: CBC Notable Children's Trade Books in the Field of Social Studies
*The Inside-Outside Book of Washington DC*: IRA/CBC Books Means Business List; *Horn Book* Star; NCSS-CBC Notable Children's Trade Book in the Field of Social Studies
*Mazescapes*: *School Library Journal* Starred Review; *Parenting* magazine Pick of the Month; Scholastic Book Club
*The Inside-Outside Book of Libraries*: *School Library Journal* Starred Review; *School Library Journal* Best Book of the Year; *Smithsonian* Notable Books for Children; American Booksellers Pick of the Lists; *Horn Book* Guide Starred Review; Finalist: Nevada Young Readers Award; Rhode Island Children’s Book Award nomination; Lasting Connections, ALA; Texas Reading Club; *San Francisco Sunday Examiner & Chronicle* “Editor’s Choice”; Bank Street College Best Book Choice; Children's Crown Award Nominee
*Feathers, Flaps & Flops: Fabulous Early Fliers*: *School Library Journal* Starred Review; *School Library Journal* Best Book of the Year; Center for Children's Books Best Book of the Year List
*Doors*: *Child* Magazine Best Book of the Month; *Horn Book* Best Summer Reading List; Children’s Book of the Month Club; Bank Street College Best Children's Books of the Year Selection; Tumblebooks Pick; Best New Book selection, *Scholastic Parent & Child*
*Ranch*: 2006 NAPPA (National Parenting Publication) Family Honors Award; CBOM Club Selection; Texas Reading Club 2009
*Rodeo*: Ten Best Texas Books of the Year Choice, *Houston Chronicle*; Finalist, Texas Institute
of Letters, Friends of the Austin Public Library Award for Best Children's Book
*Mazeways: A to Z*: 2008 Edition of Bank Street College of Education’s Best Children's Books of the Year; Chicago Public Library Children's Books for Year Round Giving List
*Inside-Outside Dinosaurs*: Kansas National Education Association Reading Circle Recommendation; ReadKiddoRead: Ultimate Summer Reading List 2010
*Amazement Park*: *Washington Post* "Best Books for Boys" pick; *Horn Book* Summer Reading List; "Reading Rockets" Summer Vacation List; Children’s Book of the Month Club
*Gargoyles, Girders & Glass Houses: Magnificent Master Builders*: Bank Street College Best of the Year List
*Wild West Trail Ride Maze*: Bronze Medal, Interactive Children's Books (IPPY, Independent Publishers)
Other book awards include American Bookseller Pick of the Lists, *Booklist* and *Publisher's Weekly* starred reviews; NYPL: 100 Titles for Reading and Sharing; works from *The Inside-Outside Book of New York City; The Inside-Outside Book of Paris; The Great Bridge-Building Contest*; and others chosen for The Original Art Exhibit, Society of Illustrators, NYC.
Book Clubs, selected:
Children's Book of the Month Club: *Hatch!; Inside-Outside Dinosaurs; Amazement Park; Doors; Circus* and *Ranch*
Scholastic Book Clubs: *Mazescapes*
Texas Reading Book Club: *Ranch*
Science Book Club: *Desert Days, Desert Nights*
**Social Media:**
WEBSITE: [http://www.roxiemunro.com/](http://www.roxiemunro.com/)
KIDLIT TV (selected videos): [https://www.kidlit.tv/?s=roxie+munro](https://www.kidlit.tv/?s=roxie+munro)
X(TWITTER): [https://twitter.com/roxiemunro](https://twitter.com/roxiemunro)
THREADS: [https://threads.net/roxiesstudio/](https://threads.net/roxiesstudio/)
FACEBOOK: [http://; https://www.facebook.com/RoxieMunroStudio](http://; https://www.facebook.com/RoxieMunroStudio)
INSTAGRAM: [https://www.instagram.com/roxiesstudio/](https://www.instagram.com/roxiesstudio/)
PINTEREST: [https://www.pinterest.com/roxiemunro/](https://www.pinterest.com/roxiemunro/)
YOUTUBE CHANNEL: [https://www.youtube.com/roxiemunro/videos](https://www.youtube.com/roxiemunro/videos)
PUBLISHERS MARKETPLACE PAGE: [publishersmarketplace.com/members/roxiemunro/](https://publishersmarketplace.com/members/roxiemunro/)
BLOG: [http://roxiemunro.wordpress.com/](http://roxiemunro.wordpress.com/)
SCHOOL TUBE CHANNEL: [schooltube.com/channel/roxie_munro_author/](https://schooltube.com/channel/roxie_munro_author/)
AMAZON PAGE: [amazon.com/author/roxiemunro](https://www.amazon.com/author/roxiemunro)
For articles on and interviews with Munro: [https://www.roxiemunro.com/articlesinterviews.html](https://www.roxiemunro.com/articlesinterviews.html)
Anteaters, Bats & Boas
The Amazing Rainforest from the Treetops Down to the Forest Floor
Dive In
with the Captain at Don Juan Strait
EcoMazes
12 Earth Adventures
Inside-Outside Dinosaurs
Rodent Rascals
From Tiny to Tremendous—21 Clever Creatures at Their Actual Size
Slithery Snakes
Busy Builders
Hatch!
A Day in the Life of the Desert
6 Habitats, 112 Creatures and How to Save Them
Lizards at Large
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Poultry Press
Promoting the compassionate and respectful treatment of domestic fowl
Celebrating 33 years of dedicated activism for domestic fowl
United Poultry Concerns
PO. Box 150
Machipongo, VA
23405-0150
(757) 678-7875
email@example.com
Visit Our Web Site:
www.upc-online.org
Sponsor a Precious UPC Sanctuary Resident
www.upc-online.org/sponsor
Photo of Lucetta by Rich Cundari, September 21, 2022 at United Poultry Concerns
Rituals of Spectacular Humiliation and Violence
By Karen Davis, PhD, President, United Poultry Concerns
Recreational rampages against other animals have been part of human society forever.
In England, for example, bull-baiting, bull-running, badger-baiting, bear-baiting, dog fights, cockfights, cock-throwing, bird-shooting parties, fox hunting and other animal-abusing sports were routine and in some rural enclaves today undoubtedly still are. In rural America, sadistic entertainments such as “hog bagging” are proudly hailed by communities steeped in traditions of explicit animal torture for which people are invited to “spend the day and bring the kids.”
Socializing children into compliance with their parents and the adult community is an important part of these events in which child abuse and animal abuse converge. Children with violent tendencies are encouraged to be vicious while sensitive children are bullied into submission with the animals. The adults do to their children what their own enforcers did to them, displacing their fear of “their fellow man” and nature onto creatures they Do Not want to be identified with for fear of Other People – the adults who were themselves cowered, baited, bullied and rewarded into submission to “community standards.”
Robert W. Malcolmson in *Popular Recreations in English Society 1700-1850* notes that “Human beings, it seems, have always had a strong disposition to manipulate animal life for ‘sporting purposes.’” For example, he quotes an 18th-century description of cock-throwing, which consisted of hurling cudgels and broomsticks – “scails” – at roosters tied to a stake, an activity that was part of the pre-Lent saturnalia of Shrovetide (Mardi Gras), the carnival season:
And thus their legs are broken and their bodies bruised in a shocking manner . . . and wonderful it was that men of character and circumstance should come to this fine sight and readily give their children a cock for this purpose.
Cockfighting was already established in England by the time the Romans took over in the first century CE. “There is nothing more diverting,” according to an 18th-century enthusiast quoted by Malcolmson. Rituals of animal abuse such as cockfighting have frequently been justified not only as acceptable outlets for human aggression; they have been sentimentally defended as social levelers in which Men of All Ranks could join together in a common enterprise etched in “the inner recesses of the masculine psychic life,” say Page Smith and Charles Daniel in *The Chicken Book*. Whatever else might have brought men together on English social occasions in the past, Malcolmson writes that the “common denominator was particularly noticeable in the practice of animal sports.”
In *An Unnatural Order: Uncovering the Roots of Our Domination of Nature and Each Other*, Jim Mason identifies two basic types of animal abusing entertainment: “rituals of spectacular violence” and “rituals of spectacular humiliation.” These rituals overlap, but in terms of emphasis, whereas rituals of spectacular violence “reinforce myths about vicious animals and evil nature,” rituals of spectacular humiliation “reinforce myths of animal stupidity, inferiority, and willingness to submit to human domination.”
Viewed thus, cockfighting is a ritual of spectacular violence, the circus is a ritual of spectacular humiliation, and rodeos manifest the convergence of both types of ritual with an emphasis on humiliating animals raised to be slaughtered for food. Roping baby calves, goats
and chickens epitomizes the Ritual of Humiliation: they enact a human desire to degrade and defeat the defenseless among us. Ironically, those who defend these rituals will insist that those who oppose them are anthropomorphizing the animals.
Such rituals do not explain away easily. At a deep, if conflicted, level they testify to a hatred many human cultures have had for nonhuman animals through the ages, rooted in our hatred of ourselves for being animals (vulnerable, ephemeral mortals subject to dusty death and not “divinity”), which we project onto them. In *An Unnatural Order*, Jim Mason calls this hatred of the animal *misothery*. He writes:
I have coined the word misothery (miz OTH uh ree) to name a body of ideas that we are about to discuss. It comes from two Greek words, one meaning “hatred” or “contempt,” the other meaning “animal.” Literally, then, misothery is hatred and contempt for animals. And since animals are so representative of nature in general, it can mean hatred and contempt for nature—especially its animal-like aspects.
He continues:
I deliberately constructed the word misothery for its similarity to the word misogyny, a reasonably common word for an attitude of hatred and contempt toward women. The similarity of the two words reflects the similarity of the two bodies of attitudes and ideas. In both cases, the ideas reduce the power, status, and dignity of others.
At the same time that many human rituals and institutions exhibit rampant misothery toward nonhuman animals and the “degrading” condition of animality, because we are animals and because the knowledge that we are animals is embedded in our biology and in our status as creatures rooted in the natural world, we are ambivalent. Hence, human misothery toward animals and the condition of animality may be considered “hypocritical” in the cautiously optimistic sense offered by Eli Sagan in *Cannibalism: Human Aggression and Cultural Form*, in which he says that we must “treasure and expose that hypocrisy, because within it we will find the possibilities of further change.”
A basis for cautious optimism is the amity that many people feel for animals, which may be gaining ground on the animus that has distorted so much of our relationship with other species and nature and that is contributing, together with economic ruthlessness, to the destruction and deformation of both nature and animals. – Karen Davis
Completely agree with you Karen: anything that involves animal abuse that children are brought into to witness, model, participate in is undoubtedly child abuse. Denying what the children say they perceive and denying their opposition to participating in such cruelty is also abuse. For example, I’ve seen many kids at youth fishing events expressing their sadness at the suffering of the fishes or expressing that they don’t want to be involved, being called names like “don’t be a girl” or being told things like “the fish don’t feel pain” or “it’s the circle of life.” There should definitely be a challenge towards getting kids to participate in abusive events like the chicken roping and other rodeo events. In fact, children are often encouraged and pressured by their parents to partake, as it brings their parents joy and fulfillment. Much of the time the children are too disconnected and brainwashed to understand what they’re participating in and the harm that it causes. It’s a terrible cycle. – *Unparalleled Suffering*, March 18, 2023
United Poultry Concerns is urging Wyoming officials and animal protectors to join us in opposing a chicken-abusing event that we seek to eliminate. The event is a chicken roping contest conducted in a bar & grill called Dewey’s Place in Moorcroft, Wyoming. This year the chicken roping contest, which has been going on for nine miserable years, was held on Saturday night, February 18th and we sent an investigator to document it.
Participants included men, women and children as documented in text, photographs and video showing how the chickens were tormented by inebriated adults yelling and carrying on as loud music blared in a display of unabashed sadism directed at the defenseless birds on the floor at their feet. One child can be heard in the video yelling: “You’re probably killing that poor bird.” Our investigator reported:
One of the highlights of the evening was the repetition of chokings that the birds had to endure again and again. Who in the world would want to have a cord or a rope around their neck and then be hoisted into the air? What can that be other than torture? Even Renee Jean, the business and tourism reporter for *Cowboy State Daily*, who published an article about this event, began her article with “Saturday was not a good night to be a rooster in Moorcroft” and later on stated “it’s clearly a stressful night for them.”
At our request, veterinarian Dr. Nedim Buyukmihci and veterinarian Dr. George Bates reviewed the video footage and photographs and wrote to the Wyoming State Veterinarian and the Moorcroft Police Chief. Their letters can be read in full here: [www.upc-online.org/entertainment](http://www.upc-online.org/entertainment).
**From Dr. Buyukmihci’s letter:**
I viewed a video of this event and observed the following treatment of the chickens:
1. purposeful shaking and poking of an individual (presumably to agitate them)
2. chasing and lassoing of individuals (especially around the neck)
3. lifting of individuals off the ground, the weight of their bodies supported only by their necks
4. pulling of individuals along the ground by their necks
5. stretching individuals between a lasso around the neck and one around the legs
I consider all the above to be inhumane for the chickens and cruel behaviour on the part of the people. Observations 2-5 represent extreme inhumanity and cruelty. Not only were the chickens frightened and struggling to get away, they were being put at risk of severe injury, particularly of the neck, possibly even resulting in death. Some of the chickens lay flat on the ground after being lassoed and hoisted into the air and dropped, no longer struggling. I could not determine if this was due to injury or the tonic immobility seen in chickens who are highly stressed or distressed.
From Dr. Bates’s letter:
I am writing out of concern about “chicken roping” contests being held at Dewey’s Place in the town of Moorcroft, Wyoming. I have reviewed testimony from an observer and video images of the event taken on 18 February 2023. In my judgment, based on what I’ve seen and heard, what is going on here clearly constitutes animal abuse. The chickens used in the event are handled inappropriately and are no doubt traumatized by being dragged and/or suspended by their necks from a rope. This, according to a witness at the event, happened multiple times to individual birds during the course of the evening on February 18. No mammal or bird, not excluding human beings, appreciates having their necks stretched by a rope and their breathing impeded or stopped by compression of the airway. Strangulation, even when it does not result in death, is never an appropriate animal handling practice, most especially when it is done purely for entertainment purposes.
The chickens in the video are clearly frightened and anxious as they are being chased around by adult men and women, and some appear at times to be stunned and unresponsive, possibly due either to hypoxia from being choked or tonic immobility (“scared stiff”). As a veterinarian I am disgusted to see any animal handled in such a cruel fashion let alone one handled that way for the sake of amusement. Were this to be done at a similar venue to more familiar domesticated animals like dogs, cats, rabbits, or parrots I’m sure the overt cruelty would become apparent to even the patrons at Dewey’s.
(cont.) Urge Wyoming Officials to Oppose Unlawful Chicken Roping Contest
What Can I Do?
Not only is the chicken roping contest intentionally cruel and inhumane: it violates WY § 6-3-1002. Cruelty to animals: (iii) Knowingly carries an animal in a manner that poses undue risk of injury or death.
Please write a polite but urgent letter to the Wyoming State Veterinarian and the Moorcroft Police Chief urging them to uphold the WY state law that is violated by the chicken roping contest. Even if the chicken roping did not violate the law, which it clearly does, it could not and should not ever be condoned by law enforcement or anyone else. It is nothing but ugly bullying and mistreating of small, defenseless birds and teaching children to take pleasure in deliberate cruelty.
Contact:
Dr. Hallie Hasel
Wyoming State Veterinarian
Wyoming Livestock Board Office
1934 Wyatt Drive Cheyenne, WY 82002
Phone: (307) 777-7515
Website: https://wyagric.state.wy.us/divisions/admin/contact-us
Email: firstname.lastname@example.org
Bill Bryant, Police Chief
Moorcroft Police Department
104 North Big Horn Avenue
PO Box 70
Moorcroft, WY 82721
Phone: 307-756-9504
Fax: (307) 756-3323
Website: http://townofmoorcroft.com/police.aspx
Email: email@example.com
Learn more about this animal abuse including our success in halting a chicken roping contest in New Mexico in 2000: www.upc-online.org/entertainment.
Karen Davis, PhD, President of United Poultry Concerns, has launched an informative biweekly podcast series of 10-minute episodes featuring life from a chicken’s point of view. *If you were just “poultry” to most people, what would you want them to learn, say, think, and do about you?*
“Thinking Like a Chicken” features short, articulate talks about these birds and our advocacy on their behalf. Topics range from inside the poultry industry to life in a sanctuary, a cockfighting ring, a school hatching project, a backyard. Ideas and situations that highlight these birds are discussed. Karen describes her personal experiences with chickens, turkeys and other domesticated birds for more than three decades along with the challenges and ethics of plant-based and “clean-meat” advocacy.
“While I would not presume to speak for ‘voiceless’ birds — their voices speak for themselves! — I do seek to be their Voice in the public domain to help them be heard. Please join me for these biweekly podcast episodes.”
— Karen Davis, United Poultry Concerns
Each podcast episode is posted permanently on our website. To listen, click on Podcasts & Videos at [www.upc-online.org/videos](http://www.upc-online.org/videos).
Would you like to do more to help the birds? Just go to [www.upc-online.org/email](http://www.upc-online.org/email) and sign up to BECOME A UPC E-SUBSCRIBER! News updates, action alerts, upcoming events and more!
Even people who care very much about animals and animal advocacy can find it hard to take to the streets with our message. The general public continues to resist information about animals and animal abuse. Who wants to learn about the terrible things we do to chickens, pigs, cows, horses and others? People aren’t lining up to learn about the animals whose “products” they like to eat.
Fearing rejection, many advocates wince at the thought of getting “Out There” and facing people directly – complete strangers. In my experience over many years, the person to whom I hand a brochure in a friendly way will usually accept it and keep walking, and I will say to them, Thank You. Others will walk rapidly past you with a look of “Don’t bother me.” Others will stop and ask a few questions expressing at least casual interest. And then there are those wonderful people who thank you for what you are doing and tell you that they are already vegetarian or vegan. They’re happy to see you. And we are happy to see them!
Some, of course, will say things like “Oh, I LOVE chicken” and think they’ve scored a point. There can be pleasure in wounding the advocate for animals, being mean however nice and polite we are. Nothing is easier than scoring points in the mind of a person who assumes the whole world shares his or her negative attitude.
Being with a group of fellow activists, rather than being alone, reduces our fear of handing a brochure to a passerby. Even so, some who leaflet hold their brochures in a way that invites people to reject taking one. They hold a brochure closer to their own chest than to the person they hope will take one. This approach invites passive rejection by the intended recipient, reinforcing the activist’s feeling of futility and anxiety. The reality is that hesitancy and timidity are always on the losing side of activism. A confident, friendly attitude is necessary. This attitude can and must be cultivated.
Years ago I realized that a big reason I cringed, inwardly if not outwardly, at approaching anonymous people on behalf of animals, particularly with posters depicting scenes of chickens or turkeys suffering on farms, was that I hated exposing these defenseless, innocent birds, and their helpless, wounded bodies and faces, to the indifferent eyes of the public. I wanted to protect them from those callous eyes and sometimes hurtful retorts.
Harder than leafleting and holding posters and banners in the company of one’s allies is speaking up and holding out a brochure, to a stranger when one is alone, say, in a store or the office or the airport or some other public place. I know because I’ve done it often enough. Actually I’ve made some friends that way and have elicited from folks, who at first seemed hostile, some touching stories about a rooster or hens or a turkey or a duck they are currently caring for or have cared for and loved in the past.
UPC Correspondent & Database Manager Ronnie Steinau, Encinitas Street Fair, CA, 2022
One person recently explained to me how hard it is to intervene in discussions about food among her colleagues at work. She said food is a constant subject among them and it isn’t about how much they love to cook and eat vegan.
I totally get her point about the unfeasibility of intervening in an endless run of frequent discussions in the same location day after day. It would be like, each time I’m in the checkout line at the supermarket, I would call out the people in line with me about the contents of their shopping cart. I do say something sometimes, but would soon be a basket case if each time I went to buy food I felt I must say something to each non-vegan customer.
That said, there are many occasions when I do say something or politely put a brochure or a card (like our “Dying for Dinner” card about the FEAR in each chicken’s eyes as the chickens hang upside down on the slaughter line) in a person’s hands without getting into a dispute with them, but simply saying, “Please look at this when you have a chance. The chickens suffer so much.” No one has ever said, “No thanks.”
One thing I will not ever agree with is the idea that leafleting or acting alone is a waste of time and a hopeless cause. Many people use that excuse because they are timid about approaching a stranger, a friend or a relative. No one likes to face rejection or ridicule.
Social anxiety is in fact a big reason why so many compassionate people hide their feelings about animals and reject an animal-free diet. Fear of Other People.
As animal activists, we cannot control what others are going to do with our information, but we do have control over our own activist behavior. And we must never forget that most people, including ourselves probably, have become animal advocates and vegans because someone held up a graphic poster or put a brochure in their hand. Even if they did not respond immediately, eventually, they did.
When opportunities arise, the anxiety of speaking up or offering a brochure lasts only a minute or two. When we seize the opportunity, we feel good afterward – as we should. When we forego feasible opportunities, the burden of guilt and self-recrimination lasts a lifetime. This, anyway, has been my experience. – Karen Davis
Mary Finelli (Fishfeel.org) holds a dead chicken in front of a churlish chicken-eater at our rally in Eastville, VA, June 1999.
International Respect for Chickens Day May 4
“Please do an ACTION for Chickens in May!”
INTERNATIONAL RESPECT FOR CHICKENS DAY, MAY 4 is an annual project launched by United Poultry Concerns in 2005 to celebrate chickens throughout the world and protest the bleakness of their lives in farming operations. The entire month of May is International Respect for Chickens Month!
Please do an ACTION for chickens on or around May 4. Ideas include leafleting on a busy street corner, holding an office party or classroom celebration, writing a letter to the editor, doing a radio call-in, tabling at your local church, school or shopping mall, hosting a vegan open house, or simply talking to family, friends or strangers about the plight – and delight – of chickens and how people can help them.
See our merchandise pages for posters & brochures, also available at www.upc-online.org/merchandise.
Thank you for making every day Respect for Chickens Day!
What Wings Are For!
“Root for Roosters!” Stickers
Send a message with your mail!
Order our eyecatching color stickers!
2” x 2 3/4”, 100 for $10
“Dying for Dinner” Cards
Place in stores, mail, etc.!
3” x 4”, 25 for $2.50
Are You Dying for a Chicken Dinner? They Did!
Send check or money order to UPC or order online at www.upc-online.org/merchandise.
Put Your Animal Rights-Vegan Wishes in a Separate Document with Requests to Your Family
Many of us who are active in animal advocacy have families and friends who do not share our participation in advocacy for animals. Not long ago, a fellow activist spoke to me of attending a funeral where some attendees made light of the veganism practiced by the person who had died. The food served after the funeral was to please the carnivores in attendance, not the advocate who was being remembered.
Now is the time to think through what we want to happen immediately after our death and how we wish to be remembered. (Often a person’s wishes are never discovered or only when it is too late - President Franklin D. Roosevelt left requests for his funeral in a drawer at Warm Springs GA. Unfortunately, his requests were not found until years after his death.)
So the document should be a companion piece to a Will, and those who will handle our affairs should either be given the document when it is written, or if we do not wish them to see it while we are still here, they should know where to find it and read it as soon as we are gone.
It can include any special requests for our funeral service, list of people to contact, also any informal distributions not specifically in the Will. Anything you want your family to know that is not in your Will and that merits immediate attention. Here is a sample document.
Please Respect My Wishes as Follows:
My vegan life was very important to me. Some of my family and friends did not share these values, so here is a reminder. Even if you do not share my belief that extending care and respect to include all animals is important and necessary, please read and remember that I want my decision not to hurt and kill animals for “food” to be noted at any memorial service and related gathering on my behalf.
In addition to being respected by clergy, family and friends, I want at least one vegan friend to say a few words about me and what I cared about deeply, and why. Finally, I request that any food served at any function relating to my death be totally vegan. To do otherwise is to hurt and dishonor me and the animals whose advocate I was during my life.
Whoever is reading this, please feel free to use and share it. Thank you!
Karen Davis, United Poultry Concerns
Freddaflower Memorial & Appreciation Fund
The pain of losing them is the price we pay for the privilege of knowing them and sharing their lives . . .
We thank those people who have contributed to our work with recent donations In Loving Memory and in Honor and Appreciation of the following beloved family members and friends, both those who have passed away and those who are with us.
In honor of Nero, Fredericka, Julie, Nathaniel, Leonard, and Bertha, remembered forever and sadly missed. – Paul Deane
My gift is in honor of All God’s Creatures. – Brien Comerford
Dear UPC, I’ve enclosed this donation in honor of our 35 years of chicken rescue work and in memory of Preston, a beautiful barred-rock rooster killed by a possum, and Boots, our precious crippled Dutch rabbit who passed away in late December. Thank you so much for all your hard work for turkeys, chickens and all domestic birds. – Barbara Moffit
Dear UPC, my donation is in celebration of Tammy Gott’s Birthday – February 14, 2023. – Kai Ce Burton
My gift is in memory of Stuart Gittleman. – Ronnie Steinau
Freddaflower
PLEASE, Join Us Today!
We NEED Your Strong and Continuing Financial Support
☐ New Membership $35 ☐ 2023 Membership Renewal $30
Membership includes our quarterly Poultry Press Magazine to keep you informed on current issues, and how you can get involved in many other ways. If you would like to support us by credit card, please go to our website at www.upc-online.org and click on DONATE to make your donation. It’s that easy!
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Are you moving? Please send us your new address.
Do you want to be removed from our mailing list? Please tell us now. The U.S. Postal Service charges UPC for every returned mailing. Remailing the magazine costs UPC an additional sum. Due to the enormous cost of remailing, we can no longer provide this service. Thank you for your consideration. Please keep up your membership. We need your continuing financial support.
‘Cage-free’ eggs are not humane for hens, Portland (Maine) Press Herald, March 3, 2023
Letter to the editor:
One of your readers asked me to write a letter explaining how cage-free eggs differ from free-range eggs, in response to a Feb. 18 letter, “Mainers should take action on cage-free eggs.”
Cage-free hens are more humanely treated than battery-caged hens, who are not treated humanely at all. However, cage-free hens do not go outdoors; they do not range in the open air. Cage-free hens are typically confined in crowded windowless buildings. They are almost always debeaked (“beak-trimmed”) at the hatchery before being moved elsewhere. Though chickens are designed by nature to scratch in the ground for food with their beaks and claws, they do not get to do this in a cage-free facility housing 25,000 or more hens.
Chickens love sunlight – they sunbathe daily outdoors. Cage-free hens are denied this simple pleasure. And while cage-free hens would normally live five or more years, they are usually slaughtered after a year of laying eggs.
For these reasons, and because avian influenza and salmonella have become intrinsic to all sectors of the egg industry, consumers would do well to consider egg-free cooking and baking. As many of us have learned, eggs are not necessary.
Karen Davis
president, United Poultry Concerns
Machipongo, Va.
UPC Chides Egg Shortage Complaints, LA Times, January 11, 2023
To the editor: It is heartening that many states are passing legislation to provide at least a modicum of “welfare” laws on behalf of farmed animals.
As for egg shortages, please. Birds and pigs since a year ago or more have been tortured to death slowly in the procedure of mass extermination known as “ventilation shutdown-plus.”
In this process, they are deprived of air to breathe and subjected to extreme heat designed to induce heatstroke. Anyone with a conscience who has watched chickens and pigs dying under this merciless procedure can only be sickened by the bottomless cruelty of agribusiness and the helpless agony of our innocent victims.
As long as chickens are forced to live in squalor, avian influenza will recycle. This is “egg-xactly” a fact.
Karen Davis, Machipongo, Va.
The writer is president of the group United Poultry Concerns.
Dangerous, Dreary “Chick Days” Resume at Tractor Supply Stores
“TSC is continuing its brutal Chick Days program once again in 2023, with no improvements from last year after all my discussions with them about the rampant problems.”
– Employee to UPC, March 8, 2023
Tractor Supply Company store, 2021
An employee at one of the Tractor Supply stores reports being told by the store manager that the company wants to stop “the crap about the chicks this year.” Intrepidly, this employee continues to document the response of TSC leadership and the suffering of the chicks and ducklings who often arrive dead and dying after their long transit by airmail to local post offices. This employee tells UPC that, 2 weeks ago, “our first shipment was sent to the wrong post office, over 25 miles away.” The next day the manager claimed that the “tanks” into which the chicks were supposedly placed once they reached the store were empty already because “they all sold within the first few hours.” Sounds hinky. In a following shipment, the employee wrote that “One duckling was dead and several chicks barely survived had I not nursed them back.”
In the past few years, UPC has received increased complaints and photos from customers and employees documenting, at TSC stores across the country, sick baby birds, vents impacted with encrusted feces, and filth in the tanks and trays including unwashed, often empty, fecal-filled food and water dishes.
We think that, in addition to documenting and protesting the inhumane treatment of these baby birds by Tractor Supply Company, the link between factory-farm hatchery birds and the rampant spread of Avian Influenza should be stressed. The online publication Sentient Media reported in March:
“Public health officials are urging governments to prepare for possible avian flu spillover to humans. The disease is now spreading between mammals including foxes, otters, sea lions and bears. And while human cases remain extremely rare and the risk to the human population is low, health officials warn the situation — and risk level — could change at any moment.”
The good news is that one of our members in New Jersey, Suzanne Dragan, learned that two TSC stores in NJ will NOT be selling chicks or ducklings this year.
The two stores are the Middletown NJ TSC store and the Tinton Falls NJ TSC store.
This new practice is “at the request of the local town government asking them not to sell them.” Suzanne told UPC: “This gives me an idea that residents of towns where there is a Tractor Supply store could contact their local Mayor/Town Council/Board of Health asking that the town’s Tractor Supply store NOT sell chicks or ducklings.”
What Can I Do?
Contact your local government administrators where there are TSC stores. Talking points can include the human health perspective – the spread of Avian Flu. These fragile birds arrive at the stores typically from out of state and are often dumped in parks and ponds exposing them to avian influenza. *Avian influenza is known to jump species including humans, so this is a health concern as well as a humane issue.*
Poultry factory farms and transport methods, added to traditional farming practices, live bird markets, cockfighting, and the wild-caught bird trade, have created the conditions responsible for the spread of avian influenza viruses capable of infecting birds and humans. Backyard-poultry keepers and their birds are not immune to the contagion. *Salmonella* infection of backyard birds, children, and adults is also a risk. More and more children have egg allergies and complications of seasonal flu. The risk of infection, says Dr. Pascal James Imperato of the State University of New York’s Health Sciences University, is “especially high for young children who come into contact with baby chicks and ducklings.”
Write a letter to the editor of your local newspaper(s).
Express your concern to store managers and to the head of Tractor Supply Company:
Hal Lawton, CEO
Tractor Supply Company
5401 Virginia Way
Brentwood, TN 37027
Phone: 615-440-4600 extension 4601
Website: [www.tractorsupply.com](http://www.tractorsupply.com)
Customer Solutions: 1-877-718-6750
firstname.lastname@example.org
“Dominance Through Mentioning” – The Fiction of Fair Coverage of Farmed Animals
By Karen Davis, PhD
“Dominance Through Mentioning” is a concept I encountered while researching my book *More Than a Meal: The Turkey in History, Myth, Ritual, and Reality*. I was interested in how, and why, the news media routinely denigrated turkeys in their Thanksgiving coverage. Then as now, turkeys were treated in a demeaning and mocking manner. At the same time, starting in the mid-1980s, inserted into the standard coverage there would often be a Food or Lifestyle feature about rescued turkeys *eating* a meal instead of *being* the meal – a trend that was begun by Farm Sanctuary in the mid-1980s.
The media practice of ignoring, trivializing and demeaning farmed animals is a strategy that is well characterized by Dominance Through Mentioning, whereby disturbing truths and unorthodox viewpoints are “mentioned” so that the press can claim “balanced” coverage, without having to disturb the dominant worldview.
In particular, Dominance Through Mentioning is the attitude of the coverage toward the information presented that constitutes the “dominance.” Sociologist James Loewen in his book *Lies My Teacher Told Me* notes that his classroom students seldom or never recalled the European plague that destroyed the Native American town of Patuxet that enabled the Pilgrims to take over the town and rename it Plymouth (Massachusetts). He attributes the students’ ignorance to the fact that American textbooks have traditionally ignored the plague or buried it in a few bland phrases surrounded by glorification of the Pilgrims.
The strategy of Dominance Through Mentioning appeared in Canadian filmmaker John Kastner’s documentary *Chickens are People Too*, which aired on the Canadian Broadcasting Company’s weekly television show *Witness* on November 14, 2000. Kastner and his crew spent three days filming our chicken sanctuary here in Virginia, for the purpose of creating what Kastner called a “dialogue” between our perspective and sanctuary versus the point of view and violence of the poultry and egg industries. Hatchery operators, chicken farmers and chicken catchers freely acknowledge in the film their lack of compassion for the chickens.
Despite scenes of horrific cruelty to the chickens along with images of the chickens in our sanctuary, Kastner manipulated the “dialogue” by gorging on eggs and chicken parts in almost every scene. The show ends with him sitting in a tree with a bucket of fried chicken, listening in his head to our slogan, “Don’t just switch from beef to chicken – get the slaughterhouse out of your kitchen.” The shape of the show circles back to the beginning without any notable change of attitude or behavior in the investigator. His mockery dominates and surrounds the “mentioning” of the chickens.
Similar sarcasms dominate *New York Times* columnists Nicholas Kristof and Mark Bittman, who for years have devalued the suffering of chickens and other farmed animals revealed in the investigations they reported on. They adopt a dominantly playful narrative of how delicious eggs and meat are. How much “we”
Americans love these things and how “our” taste buds transcend the cruelty shown in the investigations.
In 2007, 2015, and 2022-2023, articles about the avian influenza epidemic have ignored or totally underplayed the torture of millions of birds by the poultry and egg industries, focusing instead on the “suffering” of consumers deprived of the usual abundance of cheap eggs. Birds being agonized to death by agribusiness killing crews are falsely said to be “euthanized.”
Typically, an article in *The Washington Post* on January 10, 2023, titled “Egg prices haven’t come down with inflation. Here’s why,” quotes an industry spokesperson on avian influenza, who says: “Infection slows a hen’s egg production if it doesn’t kill the bird first, and infected flocks are euthanized under practices approved by [the] American Veterinary Medical Association to avoid further spread.”
Violating the Veterinarian’s Oath to “prevent and relieve animal suffering,” the AVMA does in fact approve suffocating and inflicting heatstroke on the hens and other unspeakable cruelties, while saying nothing about relieving the crowding, stress and filth that spread the disease. Nothing at all about ethics, compassion, or hygiene, except to call “discussions of ethics and morality . . . fruitless.”
Thus are the victims “mentioned” (“A hen’s egg production”) in a dominant narrative by corporate media siding with agribusiness to ensure public ignorance and apathy toward the brutal massacres, while hyping consumer distress over egg shortages. In 2015, chickens sickened by avian influenza were called by *The New York Times* the “live inventory.” Farmers, we were told, were “forced to euthanize their own live inventory.”
Animal advocates are understandably happy when a Letter to the Editor or an Op-Ed focuses attention on the animals themselves, particularly in *The New York Times*, *The Washington Post* or *The Wall Street Journal*. While we are thankful for these additions and challenges to the dominant narrative, in terms of both information and attitude, we must understand that they are “mentionings” – inserted into coverage that overwhelmingly ignores and trivializes the animals and their experience. Unlike the “news,” they are “opinions.”
So, we may ask, what is the difference between an Op-Ed or a Letter to the Editor versus an opinion piece by a Nicholas Kristof or a Mark Bittman? The difference is between writers who are *unaffiliated* with the news organization in which their piece appears, and writers who *are affiliated* with the news organization in which their piece appears. Affiliates like Bittman and Kristof are on the staff of *The New York Times* (or were when they wrote) and are thus part of the Establishment, not mere guest columnists like you and me.
The criteria for Freedom of Speech are thus, ironically, met by the corporate media, who thereby control the coverage that bypasses the animals while seeming to show “both sides.” – Karen Davis
**Free Ways to Help United Poultry Concerns Raise Much-Needed Funds**
*Please make free fundraising a part of your online routine*
Every time you shop at any of 1900+ online stores in the iGive network, a portion of the money you spend benefits United Poultry Concerns. It’s a free service, and you’ll never pay more when you reach a store through iGive. In fact, smart shoppers will enjoy iGive’s repository of coupons, free shipping deals, and sales. To get started, just create your free iGive account. Earn a $5 bonus when you make your first purchase within 30 days.
Start iGiving at: [www.iGive.com/UPC](http://www.iGive.com/UPC) and help UPC get every possible donation when you shop or search online!
Vegan Irish Hand Pies
Pie Crust Dough
- 2 cups all-purpose flour
- 2/3 cup canola oil
- 6 tablespoons ice water
Mix together flour, oil, and ice water. Keep refrigerated while working on the filling.
Recipe by Vaishali holycowvegan.net slightly modified
Filling Ingredients
- 1 tablespoon oil (any neutral oil)
- 6 cloves garlic (minced)
- 2 medium red potatoes cut into small cubes
- 1 cup cabbage (cut into small pieces or shreds)
- 14 oz brown lentils (cooked or canned)
- 1 teaspoon dried thyme (or oregano)
- 2 heaping tablespoons tomato paste
- 1 tablespoon tamari (or soy sauce)
- 1 teaspoon vegan Worcestershire sauce (optional)
- Salt and ground black pepper to taste
- 4 scallions (finely chopped)
Make the filling
1. Heat oil in a skillet over medium heat. Add garlic and stir until lightly golden. Add the potatoes with salt and ground black pepper. Saute until the potatoes start caramelizing.
2. Stir in the cabbage and saute until the cabbage wilts and the potatoes are nearly cooked. Stir in the tomato paste and thyme and cook for a couple of minutes.
3. Stir in the cooked lentils, tamari and vegan Worcestershire sauce. Add more salt and pepper if needed. Cook until the filling is warmed through.
4. Add scallions, mix them in, and turn off heat. Set the filling aside to cool.
Assemble and bake the hand pies
1. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.
2. Divide the pie dough in two to make handling it easier. Keep one half refrigerated while you work with the other.
3. Roll out the dough between two pieces of plastic wrap to a thickness of ¼th of an inch. Use a 3-inch cookie cutter or the lid of a jar to cut out discs of dough. Gather up the dough scraps, roll, and cut out more discs.
4. Place approximately two heaping teaspoons of filling in the center of one disc. Place a second disc above the disc with the filling and press the edges to seal. Use the tines of a fork to press the edges. Cut a cross in the center of the pastry using a sharp knife.
5. Place the hand pies on a baking sheet and brush with some vegan butter to get a nice color. Bake 25-30 minutes or until golden-brown and flaky. Remove the baking sheet to a wire rack and let the pies cool slightly before you serve.
For more great recipes, go to www.upc-online.org/recipes!
POSTCARDS
20 for $4.00, 40 for $7.50
“Love is Best”
“Peaceable Kingdom”
“Chickens – To Know Them is to Love Them”
“Misery is Not a Health Food”
FACT SHEETS
20 for $3.00
“Viva, the Chicken Hen / Chickens Raised for Meat”
“Jane-one tiny chicken foot”
“Starving Poultry for Profit” (forced molting)
“Poultry Slaughter: The Need for Legislation”
“The Rougher They Look, The Better They Lay” (free-range egg production)
“Intensive Poultry Production: Fouling the Environment”
“Philosophic Vegetarianism: Acting Affirmatively for Peace”
“The Rhetoric of Apology in Animal Rights”
“Providing a Good Home for Chickens”
“Chicken Talk: The Language of Chickens”
“Celebrate Easter Without Eggs”
“Chicken for Dinner: It’s Enough To Make You Sick”
“Guide to Staffing Tables: Do’s & Don’ts”
“Henny’s New Friends”
“Avoiding Burnout”
“The Life of One Battery Hen”
“Bird Flu - What You Need to Know”
“How I Learned the Truth About Eggs”
“Peeper the Turkey, a Story of Endless Love”
“Factory Farming vs. Alternative Farming: The Humane Hoax”
BROCHURES
20 for $3.00
“A Wing & A Prayer” (Kapparot ritual)
“Don’t Plants Have Feelings Too?”
“Chickens”
“The Battery Hen”
“Turkeys”
“Ostriches & Emus: Nowhere To Hide”
“Japanese Quail”
“The Use of Birds In Agricultural and Biomedical Research”
“Free-Range Poultry and Eggs: Not All They’re Cracked Up to Be” - New & Revised!
“Live Poultry Markets” (in English, Spanish, & Chinese)
“Chicken-Flying Contests”
LEAFLETS (FLYERS)
10 for $1.00, 25 for $2.50
“Chicken for Dinner?”
“The ‘Human’ Nature of Pigeons”
“The Truth about Feather Hair Extensions”
“Birds Suffer Horribly for Pillows & Coats”
Bumper Stickers $1 each
Don’t Just Switch from Beef to Chicken: Get the Slaughterhouse out of your Kitchen.
Don’t Just Switch from Beef to Chicken: Go Vegan.
Beautiful Chicken and Turkey Buttons
$2 each. 3 for $5. 10 for $10. Any mixture.
Stick Up For Chickens • Chickens are Friends, Not Food
Turkeys are Friends, Not Food • End Chickens as Kaporos
Be Kind to Turkeys - Don’t Gobble Me
T-shirts
Too Neat to Eat (Hen & Egg or Rooster) • Give a Cluck. Go Vegan! • What Wings Are For • Available in Unisex (S, M, L, XL) or Ladies (S, M, L, XL) $25
UPC Ordering Information:
All Prices Include Postage
To order indicated items send check or money order to:
United Poultry Concerns
P.O. Box 150
Machipongo, VA 23405-0150
Or order online at upc-online.org
Prisoned Chickens, Poisoned Eggs: An Inside Look at the Modern Poultry Industry
By Karen Davis
This newly revised edition of *Prisoned Chickens, Poisoned Eggs* looks at avian influenza, food poisoning, chicken suffering, genetic engineering, and the growth of chicken rights activism since the 1990s. Presents a compelling argument for a compassionate plant-based cuisine. “Riveting . . . Brilliant.” – Choice magazine, American Library Association $14.95. 40% off bulk orders of 5 ($8.97 each) = $44.85 for 5.
The Holocaust and the Henmaid’s Tale: A Case for Comparing Atrocities
By Karen Davis
In this thoughtful and thought-provoking contribution to the study of animals and the Holocaust, Karen Davis makes the case that significant parallels can – and must – be drawn between the Holocaust and the institutionalized abuse of billions of animals on factory farms. “Compelling and convincing . . . this bold, brave book.” – Charles Patterson, author of *Eternal Treblinka* $14.95
More Than a Meal: The Turkey in History, Myth, Ritual, and Reality
By Karen Davis
Karen Davis shows how turkeys in the wild have complex lives and family units, and how they were an integral part of Native American and continental cultures and landscape before the Europeans arrived, while drawing larger conclusions about our paradoxical relationship with turkeys, all birds and other animals including other human beings. “The turkey’s historical disfigurement is starkly depicted by Karen Davis in ‘More Than a Meal.’” – The New Yorker $14.95
Instead of Chicken, Instead of Turkey: A Poultryless “Poultry” Potpourri
By Karen Davis
This delightful vegan cookbook by United Poultry Concerns features homestyle, ethnic, and exotic recipes that duplicate and convert a variety of poultry and egg dishes. Includes artwork, poems, and illuminating passages showing chickens and turkeys in an appreciative light. $14.95
Animals and Women: Feminist Theoretical Explorations Edited by Carol J. Adams & Josephine Donovan
“Karen Davis’s brilliant essay [Thinking Like a Chicken: Farm Animals and The Feminine Connection] brings together the book’s central concepts, leading to conclusions that rightly should disturb feminists and animal advocates alike.” – Review by Deborah Tanzer, Ph.D. in *The Animals’ Agenda*. $16.95
For the Birds: From Exploitation to Liberation
Essays by Karen Davis
*FOR THE BIRDS* “Can Only Be Described with Superlatives” – Animal Culture Magazine. $20
Sister Species: Women, Animals, and Social Justice Edited by Lisa Kemmerer, Forward by Carol J. Adams
*Sister Species* presents the experiences of fourteen women activists who are working on behalf of non-human animals and a more just and compassionate world. $14.95
Hatching Good Lessons: Alternatives To School Hatching Projects
By United Poultry Concerns
A guide booklet for elementary school teachers and other educators including parents. 16 pages of information, storytelling, classroom activities & color photos. Grades K-6 (some activities are designed for K-12). $2.50 per booklet. 5 for $5. It can be viewed and printed out at www.upc-online.org/hatching.
A Home for Henny
By Karen Davis
Melanie is a 3rd grader who is excited about a chick hatching project in her class at school. The project seemed like a good idea at first, but unexpected problems arise and the whole class learns a lesson in compassion. When the project is over, Melanie adopts one of the chicks she names Henny. A Home for Henny explores the challenges and concerns with school hatching projects while evoking the lively personality of Henny and her loving relationship with Melanie. $6.99
The Great Cage Escape
Grades 4-7. By Louise Van Der Merwe
The birds in a pet shop think they are happy until a brown box punched full of air holes is left overnight on their front door step. The creature inside looks very weird at first. But as his feathers begin to grow, his true identity becomes apparent, and the stories he tells inspire the pet shop birds to pull off a Great Cage Escape. This is a story that encourages respect for all forms of life and helps learners realize that heaven can be right here on earth if we choose to make it so. $4.95
Goosie’s Story
By Louise Van Der Merwe
A touching story about a “battery” hen who is given a chance to lead a normal life – a happy life. This moving book will be warmly welcomed and shared by children, parents and teachers, highlighting as it does the concern and compassion we ought to feel for all our feathered friends on this earth. $4.95
A Boy, A Chicken and The Lion of Judah – How Ari Became a Vegetarian
By Roberta Kalechofsky
This wonderfully gifted children’s story, set in modern Israel, is about a young boy’s quest for moral independence. An intelligent book for all ages. Winner of the Fund for Animals “Kind Writers Make Kind Readers Award.” $10
Dave Loves Chickens
By Carlos Patino
Dave is a quirky monster from another planet who loves chickens and all animals on Earth. He encourages people to share his love and not eat any animals! Filled with fun and bold colors, this book is perfect for young children to learn compassion for chickens and all animals in a sweetly told, lovable story. $10
Minny’s Dream
By Clare Druce
What happens when a young girl from the city discovers a battery-hen operation in the country? What happens when a “battery hen” named Minny speaks to her? What must she do when her friend Minny is going to be killed? This book is a must for the young person(s) in your life, age 8-14. $10
A Chicken’s Life!
Grades 4-6. PETAkids Comics
This cute comic book illustrates a group of children visiting an animal sanctuary where they meet a flock of chickens and learn all about them including the differences between Nature’s Way and The Factory Farm Way. “Are these chickens really your friends?” they ask. “I’ve never met a chicken before.” A Chicken’s Life includes a puzzle for elementary school students to unscramble words including barn, beak, cluck, feathers, grass, hatch, peck, peep, wings, and lots more. $1.50 each. 10 for $10.
More Books, plus Videos available at upc-online.org/merchandise
Where’s the Turkey?, by Caroline Jones, is a charming and adorable book for young children. The child is engaged in a journey, with visual clues in the illustrations, toward discovering where the turkey is, which is not on the table. Young children love the “look-and-find” challenge page by page. I recommend this book most highly. It illustrates a Happy Thanksgiving with the whole family and a delicious Thanksgiving feast for which the turkeys themselves can give thanks for enjoying the day in their own happy “turkey” way. $6.99
– Karen Davis, United Poultry Concerns
A Rooster’s Tale: A Year in the Life of a Clan of Chickens, by Claudia Bruckert, transports readers to the fascinating world of Change, who tells the real life story of his chicken family during his first year of life. Enchanting experiences and intriguing facts, chronicled and photographed beautifully over the course of one year, convey deep insights into the daily life of chickens. Grades 3-12 and a reading joy for all ages. $20
‘Twas the Night Before THANKSGIVING
Story and Pictures by Dav Pilkey, Scholastic Book Shelf
Turkeys don’t usually celebrate Thanksgiving. And they wish we wouldn’t either! Here is a tale of eight children who meet eight turkeys who are in big trouble. Only the kids can keep the turkeys from meeting their Thanksgiving fate. But how will they save the turkeys? $6.99
Cha Cha Chicken Coloring Book By Marc Chalvin
Narrated by Cha Cha the hen, this book invites children to visit Green Farm sanctuary and learn about the happy animals who live there. Written by Marian Hailey-Moss and illustrated by Marc Chalvin, Cha Cha shows children that chickens are people too and invites them to color their world beautiful! Cha Cha Chicken Coloring Book is a delightful gift for children K-3. $10
Chickens at Play
By United Poultry Concerns
This vibrant video shows chickens at the United Poultry Concerns sanctuary accompanied by lively music, with brief explanations of what the chickens are doing throughout their daily activities into the evening as, one by one, they hop up to their perches for the night. Narrated by a young child. 10:04 minutes. DVD. $5. $12.50 for 5. Watch: http://vimeo.com/13210456
More books and videos available at upc-online.org/merchandise
Stickers Send a message with your mail! Order our eyecatching color stickers! 100 stickers for $10.
With Heart and Voice - a Beautiful Greeting Card from UPC $19.95 for 20 cards. $38.95 for 40 cards, envelopes included. Single card & envelope $1.00.
POSTERS
International Respect for Chickens Day May 4th
United Poultry Concerns www.upc-online.org
A day to celebrate chickens throughout the world!
International Respect for Chickens Day
Celebrate 12.5” x 17” Wings 12” x 16”
International Respect for Chickens Day, May 4th
What Wings Are For
Photos by Jim Robertson & Karen Davis
Great educational tool. Full color 11-1/2”x16” poster.
Walking to Freedom After a Year in Cages
Photo by Dave Clegg. Full color, 18”x22” poster.
A Heart Beats in Us the Same as in You
Photo by PeTA
Full-color poster vividly captures the truth about factory chickens for the public. Vegetarian message. 18”x22”.
Friends, Not Food
Photo by Franklin Wade
Liqin Cao & FreddaFlower. Full color 19”x27” poster.
“Battery” Hens Roosting in Branches After Rotting in Cages
Photo by Susan Rayfield
This beautiful color poster shows the rescued Cypress hens at UPC. Perfect for your office, your home, your school. 11.5”x16”.
Turkeys Are Too Neat To Eat!
Photos by Barbara Davidson & Susan Rayfield
The posters are in color, and come in two sizes: 11.5” x 16”, and 18” x 27”.
UPC posters in any mix:
One for $4. Two for $5. Three for $7.
INSIDE
Rituals of Humiliation
Moral Problem in Moorcroft, WY
Leafleting – Don’t Be Shy!
International Respect for Chickens Day May 4
Make Your Vegan Wishes Known
Tractor Supply Cruelty Continues
Two Letters for Hens
Dominance Through Mentioning
Freddaflower Fund
Recipe Corner & More!
Wishing you a Happy Spring!
Please renew your membership for 2023
Photo by Unparalleled Suffering Photography, February 18, 2023
Why aren’t these children cheering?
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What are per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances?
Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) are a large group of man-made chemicals that have been used in industry and consumer products worldwide since the 1950s. These chemicals are used to make products to resist stains, grease and water. They are used in many common products such as stain resistant carpet, clothing, non-stick cookware, and firefighting foam.
• PFAS do not occur naturally but are widespread in the environment.
• PFAS are found in people, wildlife, and fish all over the world.
• Some PFAS do not break down easily in the environment.
• Some PFAS can stay in people’s bodies a long time.
The most commonly studied PFAS are perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA or C8) and perfluorooctane sulfonic acid (PFOS).
How can I be exposed to PFAS?
PFAS can be found in the environment near areas where they are manufactured or where products containing PFAS are often used. PFAS contamination may be in drinking water, food, indoor dust, some consumer products, and workplaces. Most exposures occur through consuming contaminated food or water. Very little PFAS exposure occurs during swimming, bathing, or showering in water contaminated with PFAS because only a very small amount of PFAS can get into your body through your skin. Although some types of PFAS are no longer used, certain products such as food packaging materials, firefighting foam and stain resistant carpet treatments may still contain PFAS.
How can I reduce my exposure to PFAS?
PFAS are present at low levels in some food products and in the environment (air, water, soil etc.), so you probably cannot prevent PFAS exposure altogether. However, if you live near known sources of PFAS contamination, you can take steps to reduce your risk of exposure.
• If your drinking water contains PFAS consider using an alternative or treated water source for drinking, brushing teeth, cooking, or preparing infant formula.
• Check for fish advisories before eating fish from local water bodies https://epi.dph.ncdhhs.gov/oee/fish/advisories.html. Currently, there are no fish advisories due to PFAS in NC.
• Avoid contact with products containing PFAS. If you have questions about the products you use in your home, contact the Consumer Product Safety Commission at (800) 638-2772.
• Boiling water will NOT remove PFAS.
How can PFAS affect my health?
Whether or not you develop health problems after being exposed to PFAS depends on what and how much you are exposed to, how long you are exposed, and personal factors including age, lifestyle and how healthy you are.
The potential for health effects from PFAS in humans is still being studied. The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the NC Department of Health and Human Services (NCDHHS) are working with various partners to better understand how exposure to PFAS might affect people’s health — especially how exposure to PFAS in water and food may be harmful. Although more research is needed, some studies of people have shown that certain PFAS may:
• affect growth, learning, and behavior of infants and older children;
• lower a woman’s chance of getting pregnant;
• interfere with the body’s natural hormones;
• increase cholesterol levels;
• affect the immune system; and,
• increase the risk of cancer.
Visit the following websites for more information:
• NCDHHS: Occupational and Environmental Epidemiology Branch: https://epi.dph.ncdhhs.gov/ooe/a_z/pfas.html
• Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR): www.atsdr.cdc.gov/pfas/index.html
• Environmental Protection Agency (EPA): www.epa.gov/chemical-research/research-and-polyfluoroalkyl-substances-pfas
• Food and Drug Administration: www.fda.gov/food/chemicals/and-polyfluoroalkyl-substances-pfas
• National Toxicology Program: https://ntp.niehs.nih.gov/pubhealth/hat/noms/pfoa/index.html
If you have concerns about health effects related to PFOA, PFOS or other chemicals, contact NCDHHS at 919-707-5900.
References
Perfluoroalkyl and Polyfluoroalkyl Substances (PFAS): Frequently Asked Questions. Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR). October 2019.
Toxicological Profile for Perfluoroalkyls (PFAS): Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR). October 2019. | d83172f7-039e-40d4-a952-dce7d0ee1bb5 | CC-MAIN-2020-16 | https://epi.dph.ncdhhs.gov/oee/pfas/PFAS_Factsheet_1.9.20.pdf | 2020-04-04T14:57:45+00:00 | crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2020-16/segments/1585370524043.56/warc/CC-MAIN-20200404134723-20200404164723-00153.warc.gz | 460,867,730 | 965 | eng_Latn | eng_Latn | 0.947631 | eng_Latn | 0.98837 | [
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| MONDAY LUNDI | TUESDAY MARDI | WEDNESDAY MERCREDI | THURSDAY JEUDI | FRIDAY VENDREDI |
|--------------|---------------|--------------------|----------------|-----------------|
| **5** Theme: Colorful leaves
AM Dance with Kim
Bianca’s French lesson: Prenons une marche pour observer les couleurs des feuilles
Leaf threading with Tanya
PM Arts and Crafts with Elizabeth: Leaf print making | 6 Am Bianca la Scientifique
Lampes à lave d’automne
Bianca’s French lesson: Histoire : Miaou! C’est l’automne
Noa’s leaf sensory bag
PM Activity with Zoe: making fall colours using potato block print | 7 AM Arts and Crafts with Elizabeth: Let’s paint some giant leaves together!
Bianca’s French lesson: Trouvons des feuilles et des pommes de pin dehors
Go on a leaf hunt with Tanya
Junior Jams with Nicole | 1 Bianca’s French lesson: Conduisons nos autos dehors
Noa’s activity: Play soccer
Play with Adriana: Freeze dance
AM Bianca la Scientifique : Expérience de vers dansant
Sports with Ryan: Game time
Tanya’s activity: Shape hopscotch | 2 Bianca: On fait de l’exercice!
Play with Adriana: How far can you roll the ball?
Tanya’s jumping jellybeans
Noa’s activity: Go on a walk
AM Baking with Edyn: Yummy vegan banana muffins
PM Dance with Taïna – Groove to hip hop beats! |
| **12** Theme: The farm
Closed for the holiday
Happy Thanksgiving
Action de Grace | 13 AM Dance with Kim
Bianca’s French lesson: Jouons avec des animaux
Farm animal sounds bingo with Tanya | 14 AM Taïna la Scientifique
expérience sur l’eau et l’huile
Bianca’s French lesson: Histoire : Que font les animaux?
PM Lego blocks with Ryan - build a farm
Colour a picture of a farm with Noa
Junior Jams with Nicole | 15 Am Bianca la Scientifique: Loit magique
Bianca’s French lesson: Chantons des chansons sur les animaux
Play with Adriana and the farm animals
PM Sports with Ryan: Football | 16 AM Story World with Haya: “Inside a Barn in the Country” and “When Cows Come Home”
Bianca: Imitons les animaux de la ferme avec des marionnettes
Match the egg shapes with Tanya
PM On dance avec Taïna |
| **19** Theme: Pumpkins
AM Dance with Kim
Bianca’s French lesson: Passe la citrouille!
Matching pumpkin faces activity with Tanya
PM Arts and Crafts with Elizabeth: Making friendly little pumpkins together | 19 Am Bianca la Scientifique
Citrouille bouillonnante
Learn about photography with Alec
Bianca’s French lesson: Chantons des chansons d’automne
Put a face on your pumpkin with Noa | 20 School Pictures (am)
Bianca’s French lesson: Histoire : Le verger
PM Sports with Ryan: Tag games
Junior Jams with Nicole | 21 School Pictures (am)
Bianca’s French lesson: Comptons les citrouilles
The letter « P » for pumpkin with Adriana
PM Sports with Ryan: Bowling | 22 AM Baking Pumpkin loaves with Edyn
Bianca’s French lesson: Colorions une citrouille
Pumpkin sensory bag with Noa
PM On dance avec Taïna |
| **26** Theme: Halloween
Am Bianca la Scientifique: Gonflons un fontôme
Bianca: Chansons d’Halloween
Storytime with Adriana: Trick or Treat
PM Crafts with Elizabeth: Let’s paint some cute spiders | 27 Wear your Scariest PJ’s today for Pyjama Day Breakfast
Bianca: Dessinons des choses d’Halloween avec de la craie
Paint a ghost with Noa
PM Activity with Zoe: We bake delicious pumpkin muffins | 28 AM On dance avec Taïna
Bianca’s French lesson: Danse d’Halloween
ABC of the witches’ brew with Tanya
PM Building with Ryan: Scary playdoh
Junior Jams with Nicole | 29 Am Bianca la Scientifique
Citrouille de bonbons magiques
Bianca’s French lesson: Histoire : Simon et le vent d’automne
Colour a witch with Noa
PM Sports with Ryan: Ball games | 30 Halloween costume and celebration
AM Story World with Haya: “I Like Pumpkins” and “Scaredy Mouse”
Bianca’s French lesson: Bac sensorial d’Halloween
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“Chronic disease can be viewed as a process in which the oxidative stress proceeds at a much slower pace than is seen with acute infectious diseases and acute toxin exposures. Vigorous antioxidant therapy goes a long way in reversing the clinical manifestations of such diseases as well, as long as the dose administered supplies enough electrons on a daily basis to reverse the ongoing oxidative damage from the disease process.”
The body’s trillion or so cells face formidable threats, from lack of food to infection with a virus. Another constant threat comes from nasty chemicals called free radicals. They are capable of damaging cells and genetic material. The body generates free radicals as the inevitable by-products of turning food into energy. Others are in the food you eat and the air you breathe. Some are generated by sunlight’s action on the skin and eyes. Free radicals come in many shapes, sizes, and chemical configurations. What they all share is a voracious appetite for electrons, stealing them from any nearby substances that will yield them. This electron theft can radically alter the “loser’s” structure or function.
Free radical damage can change the instructions coded in a strand of DNA. It can make a circulating low-density lipoprotein (LDL, sometimes called bad cholesterol) molecule more likely to get trapped in an artery wall. Or it can alter a cell’s membrane, changing the flow of what enters the cell and what leaves it. We aren’t defense less against free radicals. The body, long used to this relentless attack, makes scads of molecules that quench free radicals as surely as water douses fire. We also extract free-radical fighters from food.
These defenders are often lumped together as “antioxidants.” They work by generously giving electrons to free radicals without turning into electron-scavenging substances themselves. There are hundreds, probably thousands, of different substances that can act as antioxidants.
The most familiar ones are vitamin C, vitamin E, beta-carotene, and other related carotenoids, along with the minerals selenium and manganese. They’re joined by glutathione, coenzyme Q10, lipoic acid, flavonoids, phenols, polyphenols, phytoestrogens, and many more.
Antioxidants came to public attention in the 1990s, when scientists began to understand that free radical damage was involved in the early stages of artery-clogging atherosclerosis and may contribute to cancer, vision loss, and a host of other chronic conditions. Some studies showed that people with low intakes of antioxidant-rich fruits and vegetables were at greater risk for developing these chronic conditions than were people who ate plenty of these fruits and vegetables. Clinical trials began testing the impact of single substances, especially beta-carotene and vitamin E, as weapons against heart disease, cancer, and the like.
Food can Supply LOTS of Antioxidants:
Some of the most health-enhancing nutrients in fruits and vegetables are bright red, orange, yellow and green.
A simple guide: Go for color
Dark and intensely-colored plant foods contain more chemically important antioxidant pigments than pale ones.
Some of the best:
- Pumpkin, winter squash
- Mango and papaya
- Watermelon, other melons
- Strawberries
- Sweet potato, yams
- Sweet peppers, all colors
- Plums, prunes
- Oranges, other citrus
- Tomatoes
- Carrots
- Fresh corn
- Kale, spinach, dark greens
- Grapes, blueberries
Magic chemicals
Chemically important chemicals in fruits and vegetables
- Anthocyanidins
- Astilbin
- Apigenin
- Hesperetin
- Luteolin
- Pterostilbacinidin
- Myricetin
- Quercetin
- Lycopene
- Beta carotene
What do antioxidants do?
“Free radicals” are small, self-damaging molecules produced by the body as waste products; antioxidants neutralize them.
Oxygen
Body uses oxygen in metabolism
Free radical attacks and damages cells
Antioxidant
Neutralized free radical
*Environmental factors like pollution, smoking, and alcohol drinking also create free radicals
© 2004 by the Institute for Better Health Foundation.
Data from: USDA Agricultural Research Service, Agriculture and Consumer Services, Oregon State University, and Oregon Department of Agriculture.
Graphic: Ginny Jones-Hutchison, Dan Steinberg
Antioxidant supplement and achieve optimal health by following your specific Blood Type Diet, GenoType Diet, or SWAMI Diet. Find additional support with Dr. Peter D'Adamo's unique naturopathic supplement formulas below.
**Promotion: ANTIOXIDANT SUPPORT PACK**
- **Quercetin Plus**: $65
- **Proberry Caps**: $65
- **Harmonia Deluxe**: $89
Now $175 (RP: $219 per Pack)
*Buy any 2 bottles @ 10% off*
To order please call +65 63395570 or whatsapp +65 97295570
**Quercetin Plus:**
Quercetin has been studied scientifically for the past 30 years—and recent studies confirm this flavonoid is 400 times more potent than vitamin E. Quercetin appears to have many beneficial effects on human health, including cardiovascular and stomach health protection, maintaining immune system health, and helping to calm the occasional, temporary inflammation following sports act.
**Proberry Caps:**
Plant anthrocyanidins such as those found in elderberry, berries, and other pigmented fruits and vegetables have been shown to block the enzyme ornithine decarboxylase (ODC) that is responsible for the production of polyamines. Proberry Caps also contains a standardized extract of Acerola Berry, the domestic food with the highest concentration of naturally-occurring Vitamin C, as well as a rich source of synergistic bioflavonoids with among the highest antioxidant capacity found in nature.
**Harmonia Deluxe**
features a wide variety of sprouted seeds and grasses bursting with nutritional integrity and enzymatic activity. The blend also contains antioxidant-rich fruits such as elderberry, cherry and blueberry, plus phytonutrients such as ginseng and ginger.
**Terms & Conditions**
1) The promotion item is while stock last and available for blood type O,A,B,AB, prices are subject to change at management’s discretion.
2) The Company reserves the right to amend, add or delete these terms and conditions without prior notice.
3) The Company’s decision is final and no correspondence will be entertained.
Copyright 2022 My Type Pte Ltd. Material presented for information purposes only and are not offered for the diagnosis, cure, mitigation, treatment, or prevention of any disease or disorder and should not be construed to replace the services of a physician.
My Type Store, 1 Pemimpin Drive, #06-08 One Pemimpin Singapore 576151. Tel: +65 63395570
Quercetin- A potent Antioxidant Quercetin is widely distributed in the plant kingdom and is the most abundant of the flavonoid molecules. It is found in many often-consumed foods, including apple, onion, tea, berries, and brassica vegetables, as well as many seeds, nuts, flowers, barks, and leaves.
It is also found in medicinal botanicals, including Ginkgo biloba, Hypericum perforatum (St. John’s Wort), Sambucus canadensis (Elder), and many others.
It is often a major component of the medicinal activity of the plant, and has been shown in experimental studies to have numerous effects on the body. Flavonoids, as a rule, are antioxidants, and a number of quercetin's effects appear to be due to its antioxidant activity.
Quercetin scavenges oxygen radicals inhibits xanthine oxidase, and inhibits lipid peroxidation in vitro. As another indicator of its antioxidant effects, quercetin inhibits oxidation of LDL cholesterol in vitro, probably by inhibiting LDL oxidation itself, by protecting vitamin E in LDL from being oxidized or by regenerating oxidized vitamin E. By itself, and paired with ascorbic acid (vitamin C), quercetin reduced the incidence of oxidative damage to neurovasculature structures in skin, and inhibited damage to neurons caused by experimental glutathione depletion.
Quercetin is used for treating conditions of the heart and blood vessels including "hardening of the arteries" (atherosclerosis), high cholesterol, heart disease, and circulation problems. It is also used for diabetes, cataracts, hay fever, peptic ulcer, schizophrenia, inflammation, asthma, gout, viral infections, chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS), preventing cancer, and for treating chronic infections of the prostate. Quercetin is also used to increase endurance and improve athletic performance.
**RECIPE RIGHT FOR ALL BLOOD TYPE**
Refresh yourself with a homemade drink packed with right for your type nutrients. For an added dose of power, add a scoop of Harmonia Deluxe Drink powder. Harmonia features a wide variety of sprouted seeds and grasses bursting with nutritional integrity and enzymatic activity.
**Iron(ic) Tonic**
Beet / Celery / Spinach
Bursting with iron rich produce, this juice fortifies your blood.
1 beet
2 stalks of celery
3 cups of spinach
Juice all ingredients and add a scoop of Harmonia and stir before serving over ice.
**Morning Glory Veggie Vitality**
Pineapple / Kale / Ginger / Lemon
Hop out of bed to this energizing morning drink.
½ fresh pineapple (cored, peeled)
4 large kale leaves
1” fresh ginger, grated
Add a squeeze of lemon after juicing
Juice all ingredients and add a scoop of Harmonia and stir before serving over ice.
Celery / Kale / Carrot / Parsley
We call this drink “energy in a glass.”
4 stalks of celery
5 large kale leaves
2 carrots
1 handful of parsley
Juice all ingredients and add a scoop of Harmonia and stir before serving over ice.
Research has proven that acupuncture can improve a person’s well-being by stimulating the body’s healing processes, making it an important component to an integrative health care plan.
From pain management to stress reduction, experts are finding that the positive effects of acupuncture are broad and far-reaching. Patients can experience not only physical wellbeing, but also an improved state of mind and a more balanced emotional state, after they have undergone acupuncture sessions. So if you have been hoping to enhance your health this year, finding a qualified acupuncturist could be just what you need to get the relief you’ve been waiting for, without the use of strong prescriptions or invasive procedures.
**Acupuncture and Its Many Benefits**
Acupuncture has been making waves in the world of alternative health care, and for good reason. Many patients experience incredible results when they see a professional acupuncturist and receive the appropriate treatments. Despite acupuncture’s growing popularity, however, many people are still unclear about how it contributes to a person’s overall health and wellbeing.
When placed at the appropriate points, acupuncture needles help to release blocked energy throughout the body so that function can be restored to everything from the digestive and cardiovascular systems, to the immune system, endocrine system, and nervous system. Results of this balanced energy flow can include better sleep and elevated mood, enhanced digestion, reduced pain, and an improved sense of wellness.
You can even boost the benefits of acupuncture by employing it in combination with other natural healing techniques, such as bodywork therapies, herbal remedies, and dietary changes. For example, you can balance and improve the flow of energy in your body, thereby positively affecting your state of mind and your physical state, with the help of a combination of acupuncture sessions, chiropractic adjustments, massages, and movement exercises like Tai Chi.
**Some of the Conditions That Acupuncture Can Treat**
Clinical studies have found that natural health care in the form of acupuncture, in particular, can provide relief for conditions that include, but are not limited to:
- Depression, anxiety, and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)
- Allergies and respiratory problems like asthma
- Rheumatoid arthritis, osteoarthritis, and fibromyalgia
- Tennis elbow, sprains, and injury related pain
- Hypertension and hypotension
- Knee, low back, and neck pain, as well as sciatica
- Dysmenorrhea
- Headache and migraine
- Nausea, vomiting, irritable bowel syndrome (IBS), and morning sickness
- Postoperative pain, facial pain, and dental pain
Source: https://blog.nuhs.edu/the-future-of-integrative-health/how-acupuncture-can-promote-your-overall-healing-and-wellbeing-this-year
Copyright 2022 My Type Pte Ltd. Material presented for information purposes only and are not offered for the diagnosis, cure, mitigation, treatment, or prevention of any disease or disorder and should not be construed to replace the services of a physician.
To learn more our TCM service please call +65 63395570. | 38596a9a-672f-4318-9439-abae2e0dbf88 | CC-MAIN-2022-21 | http://mytype.sg/news/Newsletter%20March%202022.pdf | 2022-05-20T21:20:43+00:00 | crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-21/segments/1652662534669.47/warc/CC-MAIN-20220520191810-20220520221810-00308.warc.gz | 45,312,586 | 2,701 | eng_Latn | eng_Latn | 0.991206 | eng_Latn | 0.994082 | [
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REMEMBERING OUR LITTLE ONES DURING THE CIRCUIT BREAKER
BY: ABIGAIL LEE
COUNSELLOR/PLAY THERAPIST (HEALING HEARTS CENTRE)
Telecommuting to work, home-based learning, social distancing, no dine-in, no physical church services for the time being, and an extended circuit breaker period. These have become familiar words and phrases for the past few weeks during this Covid-19 pandemic season.
While it is important to remain self-aware with the various emotions that we are experiencing as adults and learning to manage them appropriately, some parents might be wondering what to do with their kids.
Here are some thoughts to bear in mind as we think of our little ones during this circuit breaker time:
1. KEEP ROUTINES IN PLACE
Setting and sticking to a regular schedule is a key factor during this season, even if the children are at home all day. The schedule should encompass consistency and structure – ensuring kids getting up, eating and going to bed at their normal times, just as per an ordinary schooling day. Children, who are particularly inclined towards anxiety would benefit from the certainty in knowing what is going to happen and when. Schedules can also alternate between times of study and play, and it can look different between child to child within the family.
2. KEEP REMINDERS AT HAND
It might be helpful to go through the schedule with your child either the night before or each morning before they start their day. Providing regular reminders such as setting a timer or a special unique ringtone will assist in reducing meltdowns when it is time to transit from one activity to the next. Remember that sometimes anxiety and stress shows up in a child as anger, resistance, lack of concentration and focus as well as negativity.
3. KEEP RECREATION AND CREATIVITY MOVING
Having activities that the family is able to do together not only helps in strengthening family bonding times, but also keeps the physical body moving. Each family member (yes, including the kids) can take turns coming up with ideas for family activities. Parents can think about games they used to play growing up and teach them to their children whilst children can engage their parents in some technology activities, thereby also making this time a learning experience for all who are involved.
4. KEEP REACHING OUT AND ENSURING THE SOCIAL AND SUPPORT NETWORK REMAINS OPEN
Allow your children to use social media (within boundaries) and to FaceTime or Skype with their friends and other family members. Communication can assist in allowing kids to feel less alone and mitigate the stress that comes from not being able to be with their friends and other family members physically. It also plays an important role in helping to regulate the mood of your child and allows them to stay grounded. Seek to understand and acknowledge their frustration about not being able to be in school, to play with their friends or to celebrate events with loved ones. Make plans to have some virtual activities that they can do when they communicate via technology – a virtual birthday celebration, a virtual dinner meal, the possibilities are endless.
5. KEEP RECHARGING AND STRENGTHENING YOUR CHILD’S SPIRITUAL HEALTH
No Sunday school services for your children? This does not mean that the spiritual health of your children need to take a backseat. Schedule in times of praise and worship, where this could be listening and watching a praise and worship song (following some actions for younger children) online, leveraging on some of the virtual Sunday school online services that are readily available (if your church does not have a Sunday school service online for your children) and also times where you can be praying together with your child about this current Covid-19 pandemic, thereby increasing sensitivity to the needs of others.
This can be an overwhelming time for parents as they seek to navigate and manage the household, their own workload along with home-based learning for the children whilst counting down to the end of the circuit breaker time. Yet, this can also be an opportune time for enhancing and strengthening the family system, along with building healthier relationships with our children.
Jesus encouraged us in John 14:27 (NKJV):
“Peace I leave with you, My peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid”.
We can be assured that as we journey on during this period of time, we are able to reach out to the Lord for His peace and protection, and by His grace, we are able to extend patience and love not just to our children, but to others around us as well.
For further help during this time, please contact any of the following hotlines:
- **National Care Hotline**: 1800-202-6868
- **Mental Well-being**
- Institute of Mental Health’s Mental Health Helpline (6389-2222)
- Samaritans of Singapore (1800-221-4444)
- Silver Ribbon Singapore (6385-3714)
- **Violence or Abuse**
- Big Love Child Protection Specialist Centre (6445-0400)
- HEART @ Fei Yue Child Protection Specialist Centre (6819-9170)
- PAVE Integrated Services for Individual and Family Protection (6555-0390)
- Project StART (6476-1482)
- TRANS SAFE Centre (6449-9088) | 28f9deaf-db66-4500-9fde-06b492973fe8 | CC-MAIN-2022-21 | https://www.accs.org.sg/_files/ugd/3ab24d_114bf31e2dda4d299f5a88215ed29b16.pdf | 2022-05-23T03:02:06+00:00 | crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-21/segments/1652662552994.41/warc/CC-MAIN-20220523011006-20220523041006-00726.warc.gz | 736,992,316 | 1,107 | eng_Latn | eng_Latn | 0.994607 | eng_Latn | 0.995936 | [
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Starting children early in volunteering has so many benefits that you’ll want to begin right away!
A They learn skills like saving energy, eating healthy and sorting donations into categories. Through volunteering they also learn values that last a lifetime like caring, empathy, and compassion, and they feel connected to the community through their own actions. Above all, they gain confidence and self-esteem as they discover they are important in the lives of others and that even as children they have the power to make a difference.
B There are so many ways to engage young children in family volunteering activities! Whatever you choose, start with what the children love to do and turn it into your own family’s power to do good. Anything they enjoy can become a service to others – playing outdoors, reading, shopping, or even being around pets!
Here are some easy and fun ideas to get you started.
1 Does it belong, yes or no?
As your family takes a walk in the park, by a river, or during vacations, ask each other “Does this belong, yes or no”? For example a flower belongs and should not be pulled out but a bottle does not. Have the children carry a bag as the adults place in it the items that do not belong. Then throw them away or recycle them.
2 The family cabinet:
Have each family member choose a role, such as the Water Secretary, the Recycling Secretary, the Lights Secretary, and others so that each cabinet member is in charge of watching that the whole family conserves or cares for that issue. Rotate “departments” once a week so everyone has a chance to care for different issues!
3 The giving corner:
On a designated week encourage each family member to look for items they own that are in good shape but they no longer use and deposit them in a special corner. At the end of the week take a family trip to make your donations.
4 Bake for pets:
Spend a fun afternoon baking cookies together; sell them to friends and neighbors and donate the funds to a pet shelter. Stay to play with your new furry friends!
5 Share a birthday:
Create a new family tradition! On their birthday, each family member makes, draws, buys, or donates a gift to a shelter for homeless families or someone in need.
6 Time with special friends:
Spend an hour at a senior center playing board games, singing songs, or telling funny stories. Take a photo of your time together and send it back for your new friend to keep!
7 Get well soon:
Collect and donate toys, books, and videos for a children’s hospital. The young patients will really appreciate them!
8 Shop for one more:
As you shop for groceries, school supplies, or toiletries for your family, have your children pick an extra item to donate. At home, set up a family assembly line to sort your donations!
9 Trash mob:
Organize a family and friends flash mob or race in a single location to pick up as much trash as you can as fast as possible!
10 Waste-free lunch week:
Pack a waste-free lunch for a week! Talk with your family and friends about the quantity of food you throw out and the resulting impact.
11 Watch them grow:
Plant a vegetable or herb garden and donate the harvest to a local shelter.
After any activity Chat, Draw, or Play!
Back at home ask each other what each member liked, what they learned, and what they would like to do again. Find more ideas and tools for your next project by checking out local chapters of organizations like the ones below and others.
They will be eager to support your volunteer efforts!
This is a great time to talk about feelings like caring, compassion, and how even the smallest actions add up to help others.
The children can draw their family in action as you talk about your activity or even role play what each person did, especially how the recipient responded. Make sure to take photos during your project and paste in the children’s drawings to create your own “Our Family in Action” album!
**START HERE**
Talk about ways you can do what you like and help others at the same time.
- If you like animals, you can play with pets at a pet shelter.
- If you like stories, you can collect books for a children’s hospital.
- Does your family like to be active? Run a race in the park to pick up trash as fast as you can!
**GET READY!**
Choose your project and get started:
- Go grocery shopping and pick extra items to donate.
- Choose your Giving Corner and mark the donations week on the calendar.
- Make a list of the games you want to play at the senior center.
**MAKE IT HAPPEN!**
Time to have fun helping others and the planet!
- Take a family trip to bring your donations.
- Invite friends and other families to join in a “trash mob”.
- It’s “Family Cabinet Week!”
**WELL DONE!**
Chat, draw, play and celebrate your family’s power to do good:
- Ask each other questions about what you liked and how you felt helping others.
- Create a skit to show other families what you did.
- Give each child a little booklet or box where they can keep items to remind them of their project.
- Paste photos and the children’s drawings of your project into your own Family in Action album. | 808d48fd-fb08-4e64-aec3-0c72e41266a3 | CC-MAIN-2020-16 | https://userve.utah.gov/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/TOOL_Disney_engaging_youth_toolkit.pdf | 2020-04-03T12:11:47+00:00 | crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2020-16/segments/1585370510846.12/warc/CC-MAIN-20200403092656-20200403122656-00138.warc.gz | 747,154,787 | 1,078 | eng_Latn | eng_Latn | 0.997362 | eng_Latn | 0.997578 | [
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9 Session plan: Integration, mainstreaming, inclusion, and inclusive development
| Learning objectives |
|---------------------|
| By the end of the session participants shall be able to: |
| • Define disability mainstreaming, integration, inclusion and inclusive development |
| • Explain the process of disability mainstreaming |
| • Outline the merits of mainstreaming disability |
| • Outline the importance of teamwork. |
| Time allocated |
|----------------|
| • 180 minutes. |
| Resources needed |
|------------------|
| • PPT Presentation |
| • Participant Manual |
| • Whiteboard or flipchart |
| • Flipchart paper and markers |
| • Copy of scenarios |
| • Guest speaker |
| Preparation |
|-------------|
| Familiarise with: |
| • Relevant content of the Participant Manual |
| • PPT slides |
| Print (onto card if possible): |
| • One copy of the scenarios from the session resources folder or the end of the session plan for activity. |
| Guest speaker: |
| • Identify and brief a person with a disability who is a good role model such as someone who is economically self-reliant, someone who holds a decision-making position in society, or someone who has achieved success in a sport or other activity. Use the briefing notes at the end of the session plan. Note: you may invite one of your participants to be the guest speaker for this session. |
9.1 Introduction (10 minutes)
Introduce the session.
Explain: This session looks at the concepts of *integration, mainstreaming* and its importance in terms of disability *inclusion*, how better to ensure mainstreaming is effective and how we can show that mainstreaming is actually taking place, or not to achieve inclusive development.
Remind participants that in previous sessions we have talked about the CBR Matrix and the CBR Guidelines. But to achieve **Community Based Inclusive Development** a critical concept for us to all understand is how to mainstream disability in not only the 25 areas of the CBR Matrix but in every aspect of development.
Introduce the learning objectives of the session.
**Integration, mainstreaming, inclusion, and inclusive development**
**Learning objectives**
By the end of the session participants shall be able to:
- Define disability mainstreaming, integration inclusion, and inclusive development.
- Explain the process of disability mainstreaming.
- Outline the merits of mainstreaming disability.
- Outline the importance of teamwork.
Explain: The terms integration, mainstreaming and inclusion are often used interchangeably but they have different meanings.
**Terms often used interchangeably:**
- Disability integration
- Disability mainstreaming
- Disability inclusion
Ask: Who can define any of these three terms?
Acknowledge responses.
9.2 Disability integration (15 minutes)
Disability integration means:
- Providing arrangements to allow persons with disabilities to participate in their environment in reaction to a stated need.
- Or – it is the mixing of groups that were previously segregated.
- It is reactive, integrating the person into an already established structure.
Explain: Disability integration is:
- providing features and arrangements which allow persons with disabilities to access and participate in their environment in limited circumstances or in reaction to a stated need.
- Or – the intermixing of groups previously segregated.
- This approach is reactive rather than proactive – it integrates the person with a disability into an already established structure.
Listen to this example of disability integration taking place.
Read out – or ask a volunteer to read out the scenario in the box below, which gives an example of integration.
Note: the scenarios can be printed from the session resources folder or from the end of the session plan if you want to give them to participants to read out. You can also ask 3 people in advance if they would like to read and give them the cards to read through beforehand.
A small village school had about 50 students. None of the children had disabilities but one day, Zola - one of the young girls at the school - had a car accident and was paralysed. Zola needed to use a wheelchair. Her family were supportive and wanted her to finish her education. They met with the Head Teacher at the school who agreed to make a ramp next to the steps at the main entrance and to organize for one of the toilets to be modified so that Zola could continue her classes. The timetable was adapted so that none of her classes were held in the block which was only accessible by a flight of steps, and when it came to lunchtime her friends helped her to get up the three steps into the separate lunch area.
Explain: this is an example of integration. Zola is 'integrated' into a school that is set up to meet the needs of people without disabilities. In this example making 'extra' arrangements accommodates her needs.
Ask: How do you think Zola would feel returning to the school?
Acknowledge responses.
Ask: Does Zola have fewer rights now to access all areas of the school?
Acknowledge responses.
9.3 Disability mainstreaming (15 minutes)
Explain: Next, we will look at mainstreaming.
Disability mainstreaming means:
- Not just adding on a disability component – but making it integral at all stages: needs assessment, planning, setting indicators, implementation, reporting, monitoring, evaluation
- Promoting inclusion, addressing barriers, ensuring rights of persons with disabilities.
Explain: Disability mainstreaming is:
- the consideration of specific conditions, situations and needs of persons with disabilities at all stages.
- It is not about adding a disability component but is a strategy that ensures that concerns of persons with disabilities are an integral dimension in any policy or programme needs assessment, design, setting indicators, implementation, monitoring and evaluation.
- Mainstreaming is a method to promote inclusion and address barriers that exist for persons with disabilities and prevent their equal and full participation.
- It aims to ensure that persons with disabilities have the same rights as others, and provides the individual person with a disability with what they need to fit into the main flow of activities – to be mainstreamed.
Listen to this example of disability mainstreaming taking place.
Read out – or ask a volunteer to read out the scenario below, which gives an example of disability mainstreaming:
A small village school in a rural area had about 50 students. When one of the children, Zola, had an accident and needed to use a wheelchair, the school realized that changes were needed to accommodate Zola and other children with disabilities in the community. While she went through her rehabilitation, they added a ramp to the side of the school to make the classrooms which were only accessible by a flight of steps fully accessible. They also combined two of the toilets in each block so that there was a large accessible toilet in every area of the school. Some new adjustable height desks were purchased to ensure that all children, including Zola, who needed a higher or lower desk could sit comfortably. Staff, pupils and parents were given more information about disability too. The changes also encouraged other children with disabilities to apply to the school because it was now fully accessible to them.
Explain: this is an example of mainstreaming. It is more comprehensive than integration because it looks at all the aspects of a situation to ensure that people with disabilities can come into the ‘main stream’. Think of a stream flowing, and Zola in this situation is at the side of the stream but needs to be in the main stream. She can only get to the main stream if the environment suits her in every way.
Ask: Do you think Zola would feel better or worse returning to school in this scenario than in the previous story?
Acknowledge responses.
9.4 Disability inclusion (15 minutes)
Explain: the third area we are going to look at is Disability inclusion.
Disability inclusion means:
- Providing all the arrangements that allow everyone to participate in their environment, in advance of a stated need, including persons with disabilities.
- Proactive and anticipatory.
- Facilitating an environment in which no one is excluded. That environment being designed to fit the person – including persons with disabilities.
Explain: Disability inclusion is:
- concerned with providing all of the features and arrangements that allow persons with disabilities to access and participate in their environment in advance of any stated need.
- It is proactive and anticipatory.
- The goal of inclusion is to facilitate an environment in which no one feels left out as a result of their difference.
- The environment is designed to fit the person.
Listen to this example of inclusion.
Read out – or ask a volunteer to read out the scenario below, which gives an example of disability inclusion:
A small village school is planned in a rural area. The design takes into account the rights and needs of people with different disabilities by consulting widely and taking a rights-based approach in line with strong national and international laws and conventions. From the start all of the areas of the school are accessible with ramps, large bathrooms that are easy for everyone to use, lighting that helps people with poor vision see the board well, clear signs to assist people with hearing disabilities, and other features that ensure that children with disabilities have their needs met. Staff, pupils, and parents are educated on disability issues and the curriculum meets the needs of different students. When one of the children, Zola, had an accident and needed to use a wheelchair the school was already fully accessible for her needs and the staff and pupils welcomed her back. Zola already had friends in her class and community with disabilities which also meant she wasn’t nervous about returning to school.
Ask: What are the differences between this and the last scenario?
Acknowledge responses.
Explain: So this is the same school, same Zola, but there are differences. This is an example of inclusion. From the start, things are planned with the diverse needs of different pupils considered.
Ask: How do you think Zola would feel in this scenario?
Acknowledge responses.
Explain: Disability inclusion is:
- providing all of the features and arrangements that allow persons with disabilities to access and participate in their environment from the start
- It is proactive – it is done automatically not in response to a need as we saw in the ‘integration’ and ‘mainstreaming’ examples
- The goal of inclusion is to make sure no one feels left out as a result of their difference – whether you go to the church, or the bank, or the shop, you shouldn’t feel left out. That’s an inclusive society.
- The environment is designed to fit the person from the start.
9.5 Mainstreaming to achieve inclusion (15 minutes)
**Mainstreaming and inclusion**
- Mainstreaming is a process to achieve inclusion.
- Mainstreaming is needed because most aspects of life have not been planned from the start with inclusion in mind.
- Inclusion is a process AND a result of mainstreaming.
**Explain:**
- Mainstreaming is a process to achieve inclusion by addressing/removing barriers that exist.
- Mainstreaming is needed because most aspects of life have not been planned from the start with inclusion in mind. For example, inaccessible regular health services, attitudes of employers.
**Ask:** Who can give us some other examples of where mainstreaming is needed?
**Acknowledge** responses.
- Inclusion is a process AND a result of mainstreaming.
This chart graphically shows the differences between exclusion, separation, integration and inclusion.
**Ask:** Are there any questions?
**Check** that people understand these concepts before moving further.
**Ask:** What are the benefits of disability mainstreaming?
**Acknowledge** responses.
**Benefits of mainstreaming**
- Reduced discrimination and negative attitudes
- Mainstreaming meets the diverse needs of all persons so they can participate fully
- Barriers to inclusion are removed
- Allows persons with disabilities to contribute to their own future and to society
- Allows rights to be exercised and full potential to be reached for persons with disabilities.
**Explain that the benefits of mainstreaming** include:
- reduced discrimination and negative attitudes that lead to – for example – parents hiding their children preventing them having any opportunity for inclusion or quality of life
- mainstreaming meets the diverse needs of all persons so they can participate fully
- barriers to inclusion are removed
- allows persons with disabilities to contribute to their own future and to society
- allows rights to be exercised
- and full potential to be reached for persons with disabilities.
Ask: Who is mainstreaming now? Try to find out what mainstreaming activities participants are currently taking, if any.
Ask: In what ways is mainstreaming taking place? What are the successes you have experienced?
If mainstreaming is not happening, ask why not? What obstacles prevent mainstreaming from taking place?
Acknowledge responses and write up some of the barriers to disability mainstreaming on the white board or flipchart.
9.6 Testimonial from a guest speaker with a disability (20 minutes)
Trainer’s notes:
Fifteen minutes has been allowed in the timetable for the guest speaker’s address (plus 5 minutes for the introduction and thanks). Adjust the total session timing if you want to allow more time for this.
Introduce your guest to give their testimonial about their experience as a person with a disability and what factors have helped him or her to achieve a good quality of life and inclusion in society.
Ask participants if they have questions for the speaker.
Invite the speaker to remain for the rest of the session if they would like to.
9.7 Facilitating mainstreaming (20 minutes)
Explain: We have discussed the principle and benefits of mainstreaming disability, but in order to achieve the desired outcome, mainstreaming must be put into action.
Factors in mainstreaming success
Mainstreaming success depends on close collaboration between:
- Government
- OPDs
- Service providers.
Explain:
- One of the key factors in mainstreaming success is the importance of teamwork and seeing how your activities complement those at the other levels.
- Disability mainstreaming requires commitment and the collaboration of stakeholders at national, regional, district, and community levels, with the stakeholder groups of government, OPDs, other civil society organisations and service providers each fulfilling a specific role.
Government is responsible for:
- Ensuring the rights of persons with disabilities in line with national and international laws and policies.
- This includes disability specific as well as mainstream legislation.
- Government provides the framework in which services operate and are monitored, and develops strategies to meet the rights that exist.
OPDs are the voice of persons with disabilities and it is their role to:
- Identify their needs and identify the barriers to their inclusion that exist.
- Represent the views of persons with disabilities to decision makers and develop the skills of their membership to advocate for their rights.
- To demand services in line with their rights under national and international laws.
Service providers: are responsible for providing services in line with the government policies and guidelines. Service providers can also be family members.
Factors in mainstreaming success
Mainstreaming success also depends on:
- Involvement of persons with disabilities and their family members
- Understanding the concept of mainstreaming
- Support of stakeholders
- Situation assessment.
Explain: other factors to be considered are:
- **Involvement of persons with disabilities and organizations of persons with disabilities (OPDs) from the outset.**
- **Understanding the concept of mainstreaming:** all people involved must understand the principles and rationale of mainstreaming.
- **Support of stakeholders:** all involved need to be supportive of mainstreaming.
- **Situation assessment:** a baseline is needed – for example analysing how persons with disabilities are currently excluded in a given place / situation.
- **Develop a supportive culture:** to support organizational change such as revisions of policies and procedures, and disability sensitization training.
- **Learning and networking:** lessons can be learnt from past experience or from other organizations.
- **Considerations for diversity within persons with disabilities:** considering the needs of persons with different disabilities, as well as age and gender.
- **Monitoring and evaluation:** systems and tools must be in place to monitor the success of the mainstreaming and adapt as necessary based on successes and challenges.
9.8 Activity (30 minutes)
**Activity**
- Discuss in your group the scenario you have been given and how the person could be mainstreamed in society. What would be the role of the different stakeholders?
- Be ready to report back to the other groups.
**Explain:** In this activity we will consider how different stakeholders can support mainstreaming of disability in society.
---
**Activity: Mainstreaming scenarios**
| Groups | Divide participants into four groups. |
|--------|--------------------------------------|
| Instructions | Ask each group to pick a card with one of the scenarios on it (print from session resources folder or end of session plan). Groups to discuss how the person described could be mainstreamed, and then to be ready to report back to the whole group on their ideas. |
| Monitor | Check each group has understood the task. |
| Time | Allow each group 10 minutes to discuss their scenario and 5 minutes to feedback and discuss. (Total time: 30 minutes). |
| Feedback | Ask them to read out their scenario as you display it (see below), then describe what they think would be the role of different stakeholders for that person to be mainstreamed. Ask if other participants have any additions or comments. |
---
**Scenario 1**
Grace is a bright young child with post polio paralysis who uses a wheelchair and is currently not attending school.
What could be the role of government, OPDs and service providers to help her to be mainstreamed in education?
Scenario 2
Blessings has a visual impairment and has a good small business, but he has been unable to access a loan from his local microfinance company to expand his services.
What could be the role of government, community members, and local leaders to support his mainstreaming?
Integration, mainstreaming, inclusion and inclusive development: 18
Scenario 3
Sheila is a teenager who has an intellectual disability. Her parents are very over-protective and don’t let her participate in any community activities.
What could be the role of government, OPDs and service providers to help her to be mainstreamed?
Integration, mainstreaming, inclusion and inclusive development: 19
Scenario 4
Joseph is a young man of short stature who has been refused entry to University to study medicine.
What could be the role of his family members, OPDs, and local leaders to help him argue for his right of entry?
Integration, mainstreaming, inclusion and inclusive development: 20
Emphasise that it is through the teamwork of a variety of different stakeholders that mainstreaming and inclusion can be achieved.
9.9 Inclusive development (20 minutes)
National / Regional / District
Explain: We have talked about the terms integration, mainstreaming, and inclusion. Now we are going to discuss the importance of inclusive development and how we can better achieve it.
Ask: What does *Inclusive Development* mean? What would inclusion look like in this community?
Acknowledge responses and write key points on the whiteboard or flipchart.
Inclusive development means that all stages of development are accessible to all people including persons with disabilities.
- Equal rights
- Participation
- Accessibility
- Sustainability.
Explain: Inclusive development means that all stages of development are accessible to all people, including persons with disabilities. Its features include:
- **Equal rights** for all. Everyone, including persons with disabilities, benefits equitably from mainstream development processes.
- **Participation** Persons with disabilities benefit from mainstream programmes and thus participate in decision-making.
- **Accessibility** Attitudinal, environmental and institutional barriers are identified and addressed.
- **Sustainability** Including persons with disabilities must be embedded in all levels of a country’s culture, involving all sections of the community, and visible in all policies, systems and practices.
**Ask:** What are the advantages of inclusion?
**Acknowledge** responses and use the table below to add any not mentioned.
**Ask:** What are the disadvantages of exclusion?
**Acknowledge** responses and use the table below to add any not mentioned.
| Trainer’s notes: | Advantages of inclusion of persons with disabilities | Disadvantages of exclusion of persons with disabilities |
|------------------|-----------------------------------------------------|------------------------------------------------------|
| **Individual level** | • Benefits to the individual, family, community, and society: active participation in family and community activities.
• Ability to self-expression, freedom of expression and self-advocacy
• Self determination
• Higher self-esteem
• Opportunity to participate in decision-making forums. (Voting, constitutional review). | Individual level
• Unaware of right to participate.
• Feel pushed to participate - lack of ambition
• Lack of self-confidence
• Low self-esteem
• Lack of opportunity (e.g. livelihood, social, legal services etc.)
• Experience stigma and discrimination
• Social exclusion/isolation.
• Lack of access to services e.g. Health (medical, rehabilitation, assistive devices) and education.
• Limited empowerment opportunities. |
| **Family level** | • Positive attitude change and increased awareness (in society).
• Reduction in poverty
• Realisation of rights to participation. | Family level
• Increased poverty, reduced income.
• Views and opinions neglected. |
| **Community/National level** | • Reduced stigma, ignorance, misconceptions.
• Improved access to services for persons with disabilities.
• Improved access to all services (such as health, education, financial, legal etc. (More persons with disabilities getting more educated).
• Better livelihood opportunities allowing people with disabilities to become contributing members of society.
• Improved implementation of universal policies and legislation.
• Improved designing of physical environment | Community/National level
• Limited access to physical environment
• Barriers to participation. |
9.10 Networking for change (20 minutes)
Summarise
- There are many stakeholders who have the power to mainstream that they are not currently using. One important role for us as CBID stakeholders is to highlight as a sector of stakeholders, the rights of persons with disabilities in our society and to encourage duty bearers to practice mainstreaming in all areas.
- It is important to understand the differences between mainstreaming, integration and inclusion. If we understand the concepts we can more effectively promote inclusion, and encourage stakeholders to strive for inclusion rather than integration.
- People often think that integration is enough – it makes an effort. However it is not enough, and it is our role to shift people’s thinking to be inclusive in all aspects of life and to recognise the importance and benefits of being inclusive.
CBID Networking for change
Reflect on how we as CBID Stakeholders can collaborate to achieve mainstreaming of disability in our society.
Ask participants to reflect with the person next to them how we, as CBID stakeholders, can work together to promote mainstreaming? Allow a few minutes.
Ask 2-3 pairs to give an example of something they have noted.
Explain that as the training progresses, we will continue to brainstorm how we can network together to achieve progress.
Close the session.
Activity: Mainstreaming scenarios
Scenario 1: Grace is a bright young child with post polio paralysis who uses a wheelchair and is currently not attending school.
What could be the role of government, OPDs and service providers to help her to be mainstreamed in education?
Scenario 2: Blessings has a visual impairment and has a good small business, but he has been unable to access a loan from his local microfinance company to expand his services.
What could be the role of government, community members, and local leaders to support his mainstreaming?
Scenario 3: Sheila is a teenager who has an intellectual disability. Her parents are very over-protective and don’t let her participate in any community activities.
What could be the role of government, OPDs and service providers to help her to be mainstreamed?
Scenario 4: Joseph is a young man of short stature who has been refused entry to University to study medicine.
What could be the role of his family members, OPDs, and local leaders to help him argue for his right of entry?
The aim of this testimonial is to show how when someone has the right support and interventions they can become empowered and integrated into their family, community and society.
Identify someone who is comfortable to speak in front of a group (through an interpreter if necessary) and who understands the concept of mainstreaming disability.
Some ideas of persons with disabilities who might be good speakers:
- Someone who has received an assistive device which has made them more independent and able to go to school or work.
- Someone who has a disability who works in a mainstream job earning their living and supporting their family.
- Someone who has achieved success in sport
- Someone who set up their own business
- Someone who recovered from a mental illness because of the support they received from others.
- Someone who faced challenges accessing education but went on to finish their education or study at an advanced level.
- Someone who raises awareness about disability in the community to change attitudes.
Emphasize to the speaker:
- The time available – make sure they know they must stick to the amount of time you have agreed so that the training programme runs on time.
- The general points you would like them to make that will help illustrate the messages you are communicating in the session and the training. (For example, you want them to emphasize the factors that have helped them to be included – such as which barriers were taken down for them (removal of physical barriers, or receiving a positive attitude).
- Rehearse their testimonial with them to help them work out how much they will be able to talk about in the time available. If they are going over time as you rehearse, help them prioritise what you think are the most important things they should highlight, and which details could be left out. | 24beb77f-cd7b-4993-88e5-d37a793f9a6f | CC-MAIN-2024-42 | https://nad.nhf.no/download/246/02-cbid-trainers-manual-nrd-level/12393/09_sp-integration-mainstreaming-and-inclusion_nrd_160m_230728.pdf | 2024-10-15T03:27:14+00:00 | crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2024-42/segments/1727944255568.89/warc/CC-MAIN-20241015015910-20241015045910-00886.warc.gz | 356,652,424 | 5,281 | eng_Latn | eng_Latn | 0.9949 | eng_Latn | 0.998197 | [
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CSE Style
The Council of Science Editors (CSE) offers three systems of documentation—citation-sequence, citation-name, and name-year; this chapter provides guidelines on all three. The models in this chapter draw on *Scientific Style and Format: The CSE Manual for Authors, Editors, and Publishers*, 7th edition (2006).
A DIRECTORY TO CSE STYLE
**PRINT BOOKS** 230
*Documentation Map: Print Book* 231
1. One author 230
2. Multiple authors 232
3. Organization or corporation as author 232
4. Editor, no author; edition other than the first 233
5. Work in an edited collection 233
6. Chapter of a book 234
7. Paper or abstract from proceedings of a conference 234
**PRINT PERIODICALS** 235
*Documentation Map: Article in a Print Journal* 237
8. Article in a journal 236
9. Article in a weekly journal or magazine 236
10. Article in a newspaper 238
**ONLINE SOURCES** 238
*Documentation Map: Article Accessed through a Database* 241
11. Online book 239
12. Article accessed through a database 240
13. Article in an online journal 242
14. Article in an online newspaper 243
15. Website 243
16. Part of a website 244
SOURCES NOT COVERED BY CSE 245
Formatting a Paper 246
Sample Pages 247
Throughout this chapter, you’ll find models that are color-coded to help you see how writers include source information in their texts and in reference lists: brown for author or editor, yellow for title, gray for publication information: place of publication, publisher, date of publication, page number(s), and so on.
CSE-a In-Text Documentation
In CSE style, either a numeral or brief documentation in your text indicates to your reader that you are citing material from a source. You can use one of three formats:
Citation-Sequence Format calls for you to put a number (either a superscript or a number in parentheses) after any mention of a source. Once you number a source, use that same number each time the source is mentioned: if your first reference to something written by Christopher Gillen is Gillen\(^1\), every subsequent citation of the same work by this author will also be Gillen\(^1\). Number sources in the order you mention them—the first source you refer to is numbered 1, the second one is numbered 2, and so on.
Citation-Name Format calls for you first to alphabetize your list of references and then number the sources consecutively in the order they appear on the list: the first source on the list is number 1, the second is number 2, and so on. Then put the appropriate number (either a superscript or a number in parentheses) after each mention
of a source. So if Zuefle is the tenth source cited on your alphabetical list of references, every citation of the same work by this author will be Zuefle\textsuperscript{10}.
**Name-Year Format** calls for you to give the author’s last name and the year of publication in parentheses after any mention of a source. If you mention the author’s name in a **SIGNAL PHRASE**, you need put only the year in parentheses. For instance:
Atherosclerosis seems to predate our modern lifestyles (Singer 2009).
Singer (2009) questions whether atherosclerosis is inevitable.
If a work has two authors, give both names: Davidson and Lyon 1987. For three or more authors, give only the first author, followed by *et al.*, a Latin abbreviation meaning “and others” (Rathus et al., 2010). If you include more than one work in parentheses, separate them with a semicolon (Gilder 2008; Singer 2009).
### CSE-b List of References
The in-text documentation corresponds to the sources you give at the end of your paper in a list of references. The way you sequence sources in your References, whether you number them, and where you put publication dates depend on which format you use.
- **In citation-sequence format**, arrange and number the sources in the order in which they are first cited in your text. Put the date for a book at the end of the publication information; put the date for a periodical article after the periodical’s title.
- **In citation-name format**, arrange and number the sources in alphabetical order. Put the date for a book at the end of the publication information; put the date for a periodical article after the periodical’s title.
- **In name-year format**, arrange the sources alphabetically, and do not number them. Put the date after the name(s) of the author(s).
Because citation-sequence and citation-name present information in the same way (the differences lie in the organization of the in-text superscripts and list of references), these two formats are combined under a single heading (SEQUENCE/NAME) in the following models. See p. 247 for guidelines on preparing a list of references; for samples from a paper using citation-sequence style, see pp. 249–50.
**Print Books**
For most books, you’ll need to provide information about the author; the title and any subtitle; and the place of publication, publisher, and year of publication.
**IMPORTANT DETAILS FOR DOCUMENTING PRINT BOOKS**
- **AUTHORS**: Put each author’s last name first, and list initials for first and middle names. Do not add space between initials, and omit punctuation except a period after the final initial.
- **TITLES**: For book and chapter titles, capitalize only the first word, any acronyms, or proper nouns or adjectives. Do not italicize, underline, or put quotation marks around any title.
- **PUBLICATION PLACE**: Place the two-letter abbreviation for state, province, or country within parentheses after the city.
- **PUBLISHER**: You may shorten a publisher’s name by omitting *the* and abbreviations such as *Inc.*
1. **ONE AUTHOR**
**SEQUENCE/NAME**
1. Author’s Last Name Initials. Title. Publication City (State): Publisher; Year of publication.
1. Singh S. *Big bang: the origin of the universe*. New York (NY): Fourth Estate; 2004.
1. Ohanian HC. Einstein’s mistakes: the human failings of genius. New York (NY): Norton; 2008.
Ohanian HC. 2008. Einstein’s mistakes: the human failings of genius. New York (NY): Norton.
NAME-YEAR
Author’s Last Name Initials. Year of publication. Title. Publication City (State): Publisher.
Singh S. 2004. Big bang: the origin of the universe. New York (NY): Fourth Estate.
2. MULTIPLE AUTHORS
List up to ten authors, separating them with commas.
SEQUENCE/NAME
2. First Author’s Last Name Initials, Next Author’s Last Name Initials, Final Author’s Last Name Initials. Title. Publication City (State): Publisher; Year of publication.
2. Gaines SM, Eglinton G, Rullkotter J. Echoes of life: what fossil molecules reveal about Earth history. New York (NY): Oxford University Press; 2009.
NAME-YEAR
First Author’s Last Name Initials, Next Author’s Last Name Initials, Final Author’s Last Name Initials. Year of publication. Title. Publication City (State): Publisher.
Gaines SM, Eglinton G, Rullkotter J. 2009. Echoes of life: what fossil molecules reveal about Earth history. New York (NY): Oxford University Press.
For a work by eleven or more authors, list the first ten, followed by *et al.* or *and others*.
3. ORGANIZATION OR CORPORATION AS AUTHOR
SEQUENCE/NAME
3. Organization Name. Title. Publication City (State): Publisher; Year of publication.
3. National Research Council. Black and smokeless powders: technologies for finding bombs and the bomb makers. Washington (DC): National Academy Press; 1998.
**NAME-YEAR**
Begin with the group’s abbreviation, if any, and use it in the in-text citation; however, alphabetize the entry by the first word of the group's actual name, not by its abbreviation.
[Abbreviation if any] Organization Name. Year of publication. Title. Publication City (State): Publisher.
[NRC] National Research Council. 1998. Black and smokeless powders: technologies for finding bombs and the bomb makers. Washington (DC): National Academy Press.
4. **EDITOR, NO AUTHOR; EDITION OTHER THAN THE FIRST**
**SEQUENCE/NAME**
4. Editor’s Last Name Initials, editor. Title. Name or number of ed. Publication City (State): Publisher; Year of publication.
4. Wood RA, editor. The weather almanac. 11th ed. New York (NY): Wiley; 2007.
**NAME-YEAR**
Editor’s Last Name Initials, editor. Year of publication. Title. Publication City (State): Publisher.
Wood RA, editor. 2007. The weather almanac. 11th ed. New York (NY): Wiley.
5. **WORK IN AN EDITED COLLECTION**
**SEQUENCE/NAME**
5. Author’s Last Name Initials. Title of work. Year of publication if earlier than year of collection. In: Editor’s Last Name Initials, editor. Title of book. Publication City (State): Publisher; Year of publication of collection, p. Pages.
5. Carson R. The sea around us. 1951. In: Dawkins R, editor. The Oxford book of modern science writing. New York (NY): Oxford University Press; 2009, p. 130-137.
**NAME-YEAR**
Author’s Last Name Initials. Year of publication if earlier than year of collection. Title of work. *In:* Editor’s Last Name Initials, editor. Year of publication of collection. Title of book. Publication City (State): Publisher, p. Pages.
Carson R. 1951. The sea around us. *In:* Dawkins R, editor. 2009. The Oxford book of modern science writing. New York (NY): Oxford University Press. p. 130-137.
6. **CHAPTER OF A BOOK**
**SEQUENCE/NAME**
6. Author’s Last Name Initials. Title of book. Publication City (State): Publisher; Year of publication. Chapter number, Title of chapter; p. Pages.
6. Gilder L. The age of entanglement: when quantum physics was reborn. New York (NY): Knopf; 2008. Chapter 13, Solvay 1927; p. 110-127.
**NAME-YEAR**
Author’s Last Name Initials. Year of publication. Title. Publication City (State): Publisher. Chapter number, Title of chapter; p. Pages.
Gilder L. 2008. The age of entanglement: when quantum physics was reborn. New York (NY): Knopf. Chapter 13, Solvay 1927; p. 110-127.
7. **PAPER OR ABSTRACT FROM PROCEEDINGS OF A CONFERENCE**
If you cite an abstract of a paper rather than the paper itself, place [abstract] after the paper’s title but before the period.
SEQUENCE/NAME
7. Author’s Last Name Initials. Title of paper. In: Editor’s Last Name Initials, editor. Title of book. Number and Name of Conference; Date of Conference; Place of Conference. Publication City (State): Publisher; Year of publication. p. Pages.
7. Polivy J. Physical activity, fitness, and compulsive behaviors. In: Bouchard C, Shephard RJ, Stephens T, editors. Physical activity, fitness, and health: international proceedings and consensus statement. 2nd International Consensus Symposium on Physical Activity, Fitness, and Health; 1992 May 5-9; Toronto, Canada. Champaign (IL): Human Kinetics Publishers; 1994. p. 883-897.
NAME-YEAR
Author’s Last Name Initials. Year of publication. Title of paper. In: Editor’s Last Name Initials, editor. Title of book. Number and Name of Conference; Date of Conference; Place of Conference. Publication City (State): Publisher. p. Pages.
Polivy J. 1994. Physical activity, fitness, and compulsive behaviors. In: Bouchard C, Shephard RJ, Stephens T, editors. Physical activity, fitness, and health: international proceedings and consensus statement. 2nd International Consensus Symposium on Physical Activity, Fitness, and Health; 1992 May 5-9; Toronto, Canada. Champaign (IL): Human Kinetics Publishers. p. 883-897.
Print Periodicals
For most journal articles, you’ll need to list the author; the title and any subtitle of the article; the title of the periodical; volume and issue numbers; year; and the inclusive page numbers of the article. Articles in newspapers and some magazines have different requirements.
IMPORTANT DETAILS FOR DOCUMENTING PRINT PERIODICALS
• **AUTHORS**: List authors as you would for a book (nos. 1 and 2).
• **TITLES**: Capitalize article titles as you would a book chapter (no. 6). Abbreviate the title of scholarly journals (see the CSE manual or ask your instructor for examples). Capitalize all major words, even if abbreviated. Do not italicize, underline, or put quotation marks around any titles.
• **DATE**: For periodicals with no volume or issue numbers, provide the year, month, and day. Abbreviate months to the first three letters: *Jan*, *Feb*, *Mar*, and so on.
8. ARTICLE IN A JOURNAL
**SEQUENCE/NAME**
8. **Author’s Last Name Initials.** Title of article. Title of Journal. Year;Volume(issue):Pages.
8. Reutemann A, Lucero L, Guarise N, Vigetti AC. Structure of the cyperaceae inflorescence. Bot Rev. 2012;78(2):184-204.
**NAME-YEAR**
Author’s Last Name Initials. Year. Title of article. Title of Journal. Volume(issue):Pages.
Reutemann A, Lucero L, Guarise N, Vigetti AC. 2012. Structure of the cyperaceae inflorescence. Bot Rev. 78(2):184-204.
9. ARTICLE IN A WEEKLY JOURNAL OR MAGAZINE
**SEQUENCE/NAME**
9. **Author’s Last Name Initials.** Title of article. Title of Magazine. Year Month Day:Pages.
9. Wood, G. Scrubbed. New York. 2013 Jun 24-Jul 1:44-46, 48-49.
**NAME-YEAR**
Author’s Last Name Initials. Year Month Day. Title of article. Title of Magazine. Pages.
Wood, G. 2013 Jun 24-Jul 1. Scrubbed. New York. 44-46, 48-49.
Abstract. Predation occurs in a context defined by both prey and non-prey species. At present it is largely unknown how species diversity in general, and species that are not included in a predator’s diet in particular, modify predator-prey interactions.
Therefore we studied how both the density and diversity of non-prey species modified predation rates in experimental communities. We found that the predation rate of a single non-prey species depended on the asymptote of a predator’s functional response. Increases in the density and diversity of non-prey species further reduced predation rates to very low levels. Controls showed that this diversity effect was not due to the identity of any of the non-prey species. Our results establish that both the density and diversity of species outside a predator’s diet can have a substantial and independent strength of modifying trophic interactions. These results have major implications for ecological theory on species interactions in simple vs. complex communities. We discuss our findings in terms of the relationship between diversity and stability.
Key words: biodiversity; functional response; interaction modification; microcosms; non-prey species; *Paramecium aurelia*; predator-prey model; predatory *flavonix*; *Stenostomum virginianum*.
INTRODUCTION
A predator’s intake rate as a function of prey density is known as its functional response (Solomon 1949, Holling 1959). This relationship is often used to decompose of complexity and food web models that are central to theoretical ecology and its applications in conservation biology, fisheries management, and biological control. However, experimental studies of functional responses are usually carried out in simplified systems in which a predator only interacts with a single species (e.g., Hassell 1978, Gross et al. 1993). Much of the structural complexity and diversity of non-prey species in the food web are often excluded from experimental set ups, even though these may have substantial effects on a predator’s ability to locate and pursue prey in nature. Nearly all functional responses published in the literature result from such simplification. As a result, much of current predator-prey theory may contribute more to understanding trophic interactions in relatively contrived laboratory settings than give insight into predation and food web dynamics in realistic natural environments.
Naturally, there is good reason to exclude much of the complexity observed in the real world when modeling or performing experiments. Most of the non-prey species in a food web are irrelevant to particular predator-prey interactions. However, for each specific predator, a subset of species will modify its interaction with any given prey. This may occur for a variety of reasons. Some non-prey species provide structural complexity that allows prey to avoid and evade predators more easily (Mayer et al. 2001, Grabowski 2004). Other species provide a masking background in terms of infochemical cues or a cryptic background in terms of visual cues that make prey less detectable (Wootton 1992, Vos et al. 2001). Some non-prey may be similar to prey in one or more aspects of their shape, colors, sounds, or odors, and these similarities may cause confusion in predators. All of the above effects force predators to spend increasing amounts of time on information processing as the diversity of “relevant” non-prey raises the ratio of such non-prey to prey in the environment increases (Vos et al. 2001).
These kinds of effects are a form of interaction modification (Abrams 1983, Wootton 1993), where one species alters the interaction between individuals of two other species. There is a growing recognition that interaction modifications are likely to be important in natural systems (Anholt and Wootton 1996, Sih 1998, and McIntosh 1998, Cardinale et al. 2003, Palomo et al. 2003). However, few studies have started to address consequences of interaction modifications in communities caused by species diversity (but see Vos et al. 2001, Thébault and Loreau 2006).
Empirical studies across many taxa (Dreuz 1976, Karavaik 1985, Stachowicz and Hay 1999, Mayer et al. 2001, Vos et al. 2001, Grabowski 2004, van Veen et al. 2005) show that a non-prey species may interfere with the foraging behavior of predators and parasitoids and
If a magazine has volume and issue numbers, give them as you would for a journal.
**SEQUENCE/NAME**
9. Millius S. Virus makes liars of squash plants. *Science News*. 2010;177(2):8.
**NAME-YEAR**
Millius S. 2010. Virus makes liars of squash plants. *Science News*. 177(2):8.
**10. ARTICLE IN A NEWSPAPER**
**SEQUENCE/NAME**
10. Author’s Last Name Initials. Title of article. *Title of Newspaper (Edition)*. Year Month Day; Sect. section letter or number: first page of article (col. column number).
10. Singer N. Artery disease in some very old patients: doctors test mummies at a Cairo museum and find signs of atherosclerosis. *New York Times* (New England Ed.). 2009 Nov 24; Sect. D:6 (col. 3).
**NAME-YEAR**
Author’s Last Name Initials. Year Month Day. Title of article. *Title of Newspaper (Edition)*. Sect. section letter or number: first page of article (col. column number).
Singer N. 2009 Nov 24. Artery disease in some very old patients: doctors test mummies at a Cairo museum and find signs of atherosclerosis. *New York Times* (New England Ed.). Sect. D:6 (col. 3).
**Online Sources**
Documentation for online sources begins with basic elements—author of work; title of work; and publication information. In addition, you usually need to include several other items, such as the title of the website, medium, access date, and URL.
IMPORTANT DETAILS FOR DOCUMENTING ONLINE SOURCES
• **AUTHORS**: List authors as you would for a book (nos. 1 and 2).
• **TITLES**: Format the titles of books, journals, and articles on the web as you would for print sources (see pp. 230, 235–36). For titles of other web materials, including homepages, reproduce the wording, capitalization, and punctuation as they appear on the site.
• **MEDIUM**: Indicate that a book, journal, magazine, or newspaper is online by writing [Internet].
• **PUBLICATION CITY**: If you cannot identify the city of publication of an online book, write [place unknown].
• **PUBLISHER**: List the person or organization that sponsors the website as the publisher. If you cannot identify the publisher of an online book, write [publisher unknown].
• **DATES**: Whenever possible, give three dates: the date a work was first published on the internet or the copyright date; the date of its latest update; and the date you accessed it.
• **PAGES, DOCUMENT NUMBERS, LENGTH**: For online articles with a document number instead of page numbers, include the document number. If there are no page numbers and no document number, indicate the length in brackets: [2 screens], [8 paragraphs].
• **URL**: Break URLs that won’t fit on one line after a slash, but do not add a hyphen. If the URL ends with a slash, follow it with a period (as in no. 16). If a DOI (Digital Object Identifier) is available, list it after the URL; CSE does not consider DOIs essential.
11. ONLINE BOOK
**SEQUENCE/NAME**
11. Author’s Last Name Initials. Title [Medium]. Publication City (State): Publisher; Year of publication [updated Year Month Day; cited Year Month Day]. Available from: URL
11. Dean L. Blood groups and red cell antigens [Internet]. Bethesda (MD): National Library of Medicine; 2005 [cited 2013 Nov 25]. Available from: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/bookshelf/br.fcgi?book=rbcantigen
**NAME-YEAR**
Author’s Last Name Initials. Year of publication. Title [Medium]. Publication City (State): Publisher; [updated Year Month Day; cited Year Month Day]. Available from: URL
Dean L. 2005. Blood groups and red cell antigens [Internet]. Bethesda (MD): National Library of Medicine; [cited 2013 Nov 25]. Available from: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/bookshelf/br.fcgi?book=rbcantigen
To document a part of an online book, include the title of the part after the publication information (as in no. 6).
**12. ARTICLE ACCESSED THROUGH A DATABASE**
CSE does not provide specific guidelines for documenting articles from an online database. This model is based on its guidelines for documenting an online journal article (no. 13). Include the document number if the database assigns one.
**SEQUENCE / NAME**
12. Author’s Last Name Initials. Title of article. Title of Periodical [Medium]. Date of publication [updated Year Month Day; cited Year Month Day]; Volume(issue):Pages or length. Name of Database. Available from: URL of database Database Doc No number.
12. Kemker BE, Stierwalt JAG, LaPointe LL, Heald GR. Effects of a cell phone conversation on cognitive processing performances. *J Amer Acad Audiol* [Internet]. 2009 [cited 2013 Nov 29];20(9):582-588. Academic Search Premier. Available from: http://web.ebscohost.com/academic/academic-search-premier Database Doc No 45108388.
Beckett D. Biotin sensing at the molecular level. J Nutr [Internet]. 2009 [cited 2013 Mar 2];139(1):167-170. PubMed Central.
Available from: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc Database Doc No PMC2646212.
NAME-YEAR
Author’s Last Name Initials. Date of publication. Title of article. Title of Periodical [Medium]. [updated Year Month Day; cited Year Month Day]; Volume(issue): Pages or length. Name of Database. Available from: URL of database Database Doc No number.
Kemker BE, Stierwalt JAG, LaPointe LL, Heald GR. 2009. Effects of a cell phone conversation on cognitive processing performances. J Amer Acad Audiol [Internet]. [cited 2013 Nov 29];20(9):582-588. Academic Search Premier. Available from: http://web.ebscohost.com/academic/academic-search-premier Database Doc No 45108388.
13. ARTICLE IN AN ONLINE JOURNAL
SEQUENCE/NAME
13. Author’s Last Name Initials. Title of article. Title of Journal [Medium]. Year of publication [updated Year Month Day; cited Year Month Day]; Volume(issue): Pages or length. Available from: URL
13. Voelker R. Medical simulation gets real. JAMA [Internet]. 2009 [cited 2013 Nov 25];302(20):2190-2192. Available from: http://jama.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/full/302/20/2190
NAME-YEAR
Author’s Last Name Initials. Year of publication. Title of article. Title of Journal [Medium]. [updated Year Month Day; cited Year Month Day]; Volume(issue): Pages or length. Available from: URL
Voelker R. 2009. Medical simulation gets real. JAMA [Internet]. [cited 2013 Nov 25];302(20):2190-2192. Available from: http://jama.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/full/302/20/2190
14. ARTICLE IN AN ONLINE NEWSPAPER
SEQUENCE/NAME
14. Author’s Last Name Initials. Title of article. Title of Newspaper [Medium]. Year Month Day [updated Year Month Day; cited Year Month Day];[pages or length]. Available from: URL
14. Levey NN. Doctors list overused medical treatments. Los Angeles Times [Internet]. 2013 Feb 20 [cited 2013 Feb 27];[about 4 screens]. Available from: http://www.latimes.com/health/la-na-medical-procedures-20130221,0,6234009.story
NAME-YEAR
Author’s Last Name Initials. Year Month Day. Title of article. Title of Newspaper [Medium]. [cited Year Month Day];[pages or length]. Available from: URL
Levey NN. 2013 Feb 20. Doctors list overused medical treatments. Los Angeles Times [Internet]. [cited 2013 Feb 27];[about 4 screens]. Available from: http://www.latimes.com/health/la-na-medical-procedures-20130221,0,6234009.story
15. WEBSITE
If no individual is identified as author, begin with the title of the site. If an organization is the only author given, begin with the title of the site, and give the organization’s name as the publisher.
SEQUENCE/NAME
15. Author’s Last Name Initials. Title of Site [Medium]. Publication City (State): Publisher; Year of publication [updated Year Month Day; cited Year Month Day]. Available from: URL
15. American Wind Energy Association [Internet]. Washington (DC): American Wind Energy Association; 1996-2013 [cited 2013 Mar 17]. Available from: http://www.awea.org
NAME-YEAR
If there is no individual author and you begin with the title of the site, give the year of publication after the title and medium.
Author’s Last Name Initials. Year of publication. Title of Site [Medium]. Publication City (State): Publisher; [updated Year Month Day; cited Year Month Day]. Available from: URL
American Wind Energy Association [Internet]. 1996-2013. Washington (DC): American Wind Energy Association; [cited 2013 Mar 17]. Available from: http://www.awea.org
16. PART OF A WEBSITE
When citing a government website, include the country’s abbreviation in parentheses after the publisher if it’s not part of the name.
SEQUENCE/NAME
16. Title of Site [Medium]. Publication City (State): Publisher; Year of site publication. Title of part; Year Month Day of part publication [updated Year Month Day; cited Year month Day]; [length of part]. Available from: URL of part
16. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency [Internet]. Research Triangle Park (NC): U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Air Quality Analysis Group. Nitrogen dioxide; 2011 [updated 2012 Nov 28; cited 2013 Feb 27];[about 3 screens]. Available from: http://www.epa.gov/airtrends/nitrogen.html/.
NAME-YEAR
Title of Site [Medium]. Year of site publication. Publication City (State): Publisher. Title of part; Year Month day of part publication [updated Year Month Day; cited Year Month Day];[length of part]. Available from: URL of part
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency [Internet]. 2011. Research Triangle Park (NC): U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Air Quality
Analysis Group. Nitrogen dioxide; 2011 [updated 2012 Nov 28; cited 2013 Feb 27];[about 3 screens]. Available from: http://www.epa.gov/airtrends/nitrogen.html/.
If the author of the part you are citing is different from the author of the site, begin with the former author’s name and the title of the part, and do not give the title of the complete website.
**SEQUENCE/NAME**
16. **Author’s Last Name Initials.** Title of part. [Medium]. Publication City (State): Publisher; Year Month Day of part publication [updated Year Month Day; cited Year Month Day];[length of part]. Available from: URL of part
16. Macklin SA. PICES metadata federation [Internet]. Sidney (BC): PICES North Pacific Marine Science Organization; 2008 Nov [cited 2013 May 2];[15 paragraphs]. Available from: http://www.pices.int/projects/npem/default.aspx
**NAME-YEAR**
Author’s Last Name Initials. Year Month Day of part publication. Title of part [Medium]. Publication City (State): Publisher; [updated Year Month Day; cited Year Month Day];[length of part]. Available from: URL of part
Macklin SA. 2008 Nov. PICES metadata federation [Internet]. Sidney (BC): PICES North Pacific Marine Science Organization; [cited 2013 May 2];[15 paragraphs]. Available from: http://www.pices.int/projects/npem/default.aspx
**Sources Not Covered by CSE**
To document a source for which CSE does not provide guidelines, look for models similar to the source you have cited. Give any information readers will need in order to find your source themselves—author; title; publisher, date of publication, information about electronic
retrieval (such as the medium, URL, and date of citation), and any other pertinent information. You might want to try your reference note yourself, to be sure it will lead others to your source.
**CSE-c Formatting a Paper**
**Title page.** CSE does not provide guidelines for college papers. Check to see whether your instructor prefers a separate title page; if so, include the title of your paper, your name, the name of the course, your instructor’s name, and the date. Otherwise, place that information at the top of the first page of your text.
**Page numbers and running head.** Put the page number and a short version of your title in the top right-hand corner of each page except for the title page.
**Margins and line spacing.** Leave one-inch margins all around the page; double-space your text but single-space your list of references, leaving a line space between entries.
**Headings.** Especially when your paper is long, or when it has clear parts, headings can help readers to follow your argument. Center headings but without adding any extra space above or below.
**Abstract.** If you are required to include an **ABSTRACT**, put it on its own page after the title page, with the word *Abstract* centered at the top of the page.
**Long quotations.** When you are quoting forty or more words, reduce text size slightly and set them off from your text, indented a little from the left margin. Do not enclose such quotations in quotation marks. Indicate the source in a **SIGNAL PHRASE** before the quotation or in parentheses at the end, after any final punctuation. In either case, include a superscript note number to the full documentation if using citation-sequence or citation-name format.
The simulations identify observable criteria for sympatric speciation and resolve the question of whether Darwin correctly identified the trends he observed in nature\(^1\).
How many of those birds and insects in North America and Europe, which differ very slightly from each other, have been ranked by one eminent naturalist as undoubted species, and by another as varieties, or, as they are often called, as geographical races!
**FROM LIST OF REFERENCES**
1. Darwin C. The origin of species: Darwin’s four great books. In: Wilson EO, editor. From so simple a beginning. New York (NY): Norton; 2006. p. 441-760.
**Illustrations.** Insert each illustration close to where it is mentioned. Number and label each one (Table 1, Figure 3), and provide a descriptive title (Figure 5 Bonding in ethylene). Titles use sentence-style capitalization. Figures include charts, graphs, maps, photographs, and other types of illustrations. Number tables and figures consecutively, using separate numbering for tables and for figures.
**References.** Start your list of sources on a new page at the end of your paper; center the heading *References* at the top of the page. CSE single-spaces entries and separates them with a line space. For citation-sequence and citation-name format, number each entry, and align subsequent lines of each entry below the first word of the first line. For name-year format, begin each line of the entry at the left margin.
**CSE-d Sample Pages**
The following sample pages are from “Guppies and Goldilocks: Models and Evidence of Two Types of Speciation,” a paper written by Pieter Spealman for an undergraduate biology course. They are formatted in the citation-sequence format according to the guidelines of *Scientific Style and Format: The CSE Manual for Authors, Editors, and Publishers*, 7th edition (2006). To read the complete paper, go to [www.norton.com/write/little-seagull-handbook](http://www.norton.com/write/little-seagull-handbook).
Guppies and Goldilocks: Models and Evidence of Two Types of Speciation
Pieter Spealman
Biology 38
Professor Lipke
February 17, 2013
Determining how a given species has arisen is a central question for any field biologist. There are two competing models of speciation: allopatric and sympatric. In 1859, Charles Darwin\(^1\) asserted that speciation could be sympatric, saying, “I believe that many perfectly defined species have been formed on strictly continuous areas.” One hundred years later, Ernst Mayr\(^2\) contested Darwin’s assertion, saying, “All the evidence that has accumulated since Darwin indicates that this assumption [that species have been formed on strictly continuous areas] is unwarranted as far as higher animals are concerned.” Was Mayr right to condemn Darwin for failing to assess correctly the lessons of nature that he observed in the Galapagos archipelago? The difficulty of determining the provenance of a species—whether it arose through sympatric or allopatric speciation—lies in knowing what to look for. And while recent research employing computer simulations\(^3\) suggests a solution to the problem by providing a set of criteria necessary for sympatric speciation, the results predicted by those simulations did not actually arise in the field study that provides the most comprehensive data available to test the model. Rather than invalidating the model, however, this research points to the challenges that complex natural environments pose to the isolation of observable criteria for distinguishing the two types of speciation.
Allopatric and Sympatric: Conditions and Examples
The two types of speciation differ in their view of what conditions are crucial in determining whether speciation can occur. Allopatric speciation, which Mayr\(^2\) championed, explains the divergence of species by physical isolation, as when a population
References
1. Darwin C. The origin of species: Darwin’s four great books. In: Wilson EO, editor. From so simple a beginning. New York (NY): Norton; 2006. p. 441-760.
2. Mayr E. Isolation as an evolutionary factor. Proc Am Philos Soc. 1959;103(2):221-230.
3. van Doorn GS, Edelaar P, Weissing FJ. On the origin of species by natural and sexual selection. Science. 2009;326(5960):1704-1707.
4. Schilthuizen M. Frogs, flies, and dandelions: speciation—the evolution of new species. New York (NY): Oxford University Press; 2001.
5. Grant BR, Grant PR. Darwin’s finches: population variation and sympatric speciation. Proc Nat Acad Sci USA. 1979;76(4):2359-2363.
6. Endler JA. Natural selection on color patterns in Poecilia reticulata. Evolution [Internet]. 1980 [cited 2013 Feb 7];34(1):76-91. JSTOR. Available from: http://jstor.org/stable/2408316
7. Weiner J. The beak of the finch. New York (NY): Vintage; 1994.
8. Smith JM. Sympatric speciation. Am Nat [Internet]. 1966 [cited 2013 Feb 7];100(916):637-650. JSTOR. Available from: http://jstor.org/stable/2459301
9. Stewart P. Galapagos: islands that changed the world. New Haven (CT): Yale University Press; 2006. | 87a59aa6-0204-4c62-ab19-b24e94f0ffc6 | CC-MAIN-2021-43 | https://wwnorton.com/college/english/write/writesite/research/Documentation_PDFs/CSE-style%20guidelines2015.pdf | 2021-10-27T04:41:07+00:00 | crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2021-43/segments/1634323588053.38/warc/CC-MAIN-20211027022823-20211027052823-00098.warc.gz | 739,743,939 | 8,473 | eng_Latn | eng_Latn | 0.89407 | eng_Latn | 0.979457 | [
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Hatchery Background:
Since the 1990s, the Yakama Nation has been researching how to culture white sturgeon by rearing small numbers in Tribal hatchery facilities.
Our production efforts expanded in 2009, with the development of the Yakama Nation Sturgeon Hatchery.
Production Steps:
1) Collect wild adults: To maintain diversity, every year about 8 female and 8-12 male sturgeon are captured from Bonneville, John Day,* and Wanapum* reservoirs as broodstock.
2) Spawn the wild stock: Broodstock are spawned at the hatchery, and then returned to their area of capture.
3) Fertilize, hatch and rear: In isolated family groups, eggs are fertilized and hatched, and juveniles are reared for about a year.
4) Juveniles released spring:
From 2010-2018, about 83,000 tagged yearling sturgeon have been produced for release in mid-Columbia reservoirs. The future production goal is 20,000 fish, annually.
Note: Sturgeon production/reintroduction projects receive funding from various sources (e.g. NOAA’s PCSRF program, U.S. BOR, and Grant, Chelan and Douglas County PUDs). Future expansion is funded by the Bonneville Power Administration. Background photo: Juvenile sturgeon rearing at Marion Drain (photos YN)
HONOR. PROTECT. RESTORE.
White Sturgeon Management Project
Existing Challenge
Since the 1980s, it has been known that there is a problem with low juvenile white sturgeon recruitment in the mid- to upper-Columbia River. While numerous factors may be involved, impacts to spawning and rearing habitat, migration, and changes in flows due to the hydrosystem may be contributing.
Our Project Goals
• To supplement wild production by releasing hatchery-reared juveniles until healthy self-sustaining harvestable populations can be achieved.
• Enhanced natural spawning and fisheries throughout the mid-Columbia and Lower Snake rivers.
Future Plans
• We are working on plans to expand juvenile releases in Zone 6 of the Columbia River and into the Lower Snake River.
For more information contact: Donella Miller, YN Sturgeon Project Manager, email@example.com
Also visit: yakamafish-nsn.gov and dashboard.yakamafish-star.net | cb114cce-7f5d-4f20-b69b-30c5ea2f3a43 | CC-MAIN-2020-16 | http://yakamafish-nsn.gov/sites/default/files/projects/sturgeon_marion_factsheet_11_8_2018_Final.pdf | 2020-04-03T20:25:11+00:00 | crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2020-16/segments/1585370518622.65/warc/CC-MAIN-20200403190006-20200403220006-00549.warc.gz | 324,749,661 | 495 | eng_Latn | eng_Latn | 0.991011 | eng_Latn | 0.991123 | [
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Dangers of computer arithmetic
Because computers use a relatively few bits to represent numbers, one must be careful when asking them to carry out certain arithmetical operations.
Adding quantities of very different magnitude: decimal
The problem here is
1. the mantissa of a floating point number can only cover a certain range
2. computers can add and subtract numbers only if they have the same exponent
Before they can add or subtract two values, computers must somehow force the two values to have the same exponent. By convention, they modify the smaller of the values, doing their best to retain its original value. However, the conversion sometimes causes the final value to be different, which leads to an error in the result of the addition or subtraction.
Let's look at an example for a fictional computer which uses base-10 arithmetic. Suppose that it has 4 decimal places for the mantissa and 2 decimal places for the exponent. If we ask it to add the numbers 239,400 and 875, here's what happens:
\[
0.2394 \times 10^{(5)} = 239,400 \\
0.8750 \times 10^{(2)} = 875
\]
The computer can't add two numbers with different exponents, so it converts the smaller number into a form with the same exponent as the big number:
\[
0.8750 \times 10^{(2)} = 875 \\
\text{shift} \\
0.0875 \times 10^{(3)} = 875 \quad \text{okay} \\
\text{shift} \\
0.0087 \times 10^{(4)} = 870 \quad \text{uh-oh!} \\
\text{shift} \\
0.0008 \times 10^{(5)} = 800 \quad \text{double uh-oh!}
\]
Whoops! The result of the conversion is 800, not 875. But the computer just keeps going:
So, according to this fictional base-10 computer, $239,400 + 875 = 240,200$. That's incorrect, of course: the true sum is 240,275. But with only 4 decimal places in the mantissa, the computer can't keep track of all the digits.
---
**Adding quantities of very different magnitude: binary**
Now, let's watch the same procedure carried out by a real computer which uses binary representations. Consider a computer which uses a 4-bit mantissa and a 3-bit exponent to represent numbers in base 2. Let's choose two numbers, 40 and 9 in ordinary base ten.
$$40 = 0.625 \times 2^6$$
$$= 1010 \quad 110 \quad \text{in the computer}$$
$$9 = 0.5625 \times 2^4$$
$$= 1001 \quad 100 \quad \text{in the computer}$$
Now, we know that when you add these two numbers, you should get
$$40 + 9 = 49$$
But what happens when the computer tries to do it? The computer adds numbers by modifying the smaller number until its exponent matches the larger number's exponent, and then combining the mantissas. If the computer could explain itself, it would say
1. Start with $\begin{array}{c}1010\ 110 \\ 1001\ 100\end{array}$ (that's 40 in base 10) (that's 9 in base 10)
2. Modify the smaller value so that it has the same exponent as the large one. We can do this in steps:
\[
1001 \ 100 = 0.5626 \times 2^{(4)} \text{ is the starting point}
\]
\[
0100 \ 101 = 0.25 \times 2^{(5)} \text{ after shifting exponent once}
\]
\[
0010 \ 110 = 0.125 \times 2^{(6)} \text{ after shifting exponent twice}
\]
Oh, no! The computer has done the best it could to convert the smaller value into a form which has the same exponent as the big one ... but the result is wrong. We started with "1001 100", a value of 9, but the result "0010 110" has a value of 8. The computer doesn't know this; it just keeps going.
3. Now that the two numbers have the same exponent, add the mantissas.
\[
\begin{array}{c}
1010 \ 110 \\
+ \ 0010 \ 110 \\
\hline
1100 \ 110
\end{array}
\]
4. The sum has mantissa $1100 = 0.75$, exponent $110 = 2^{(6)}$, for a total of $0.75 \times 2^{(6)} = 48$. Thus,
computer says $40 + 9 = 48$
Obviously, the result is not correct. Adding a small number to a large one yields an answer which is only approximately correct.
The problem can become even worse. Suppose we try to add an even smaller number, 3, to the same big one, 40. In step 2 of its procedure, the computer will try to convert its representation for "3" so that the exponent matches that of its representation of "40".
1. Start with $1010 \ 110$ (that's 40 in base 10)
2. Modify the smaller value so that it has the same exponent as the large one. We can do this in steps:
\[
1100 \ 010 = 0.75 \times 2^2 \text{ is the starting point}
\]
\[
0110 \ 011 = 0.375 \times 2^3 \text{ after shifting exponent once}
\]
\[
0011 \ 100 = 0.1875 \times 2^4 \text{ after shifting exponent twice}
\]
\[
0001 \ 101 = 0.0625 \times 2^5 \text{ after shifting exponent thrice}
\]
\[
0000 \ 110 = 0 \times 2^6 \text{ after shifting exponent again}
\]
Oh, no, again! Now the smaller value has been turned into zero! When we add this to the big number, we'll get the big number itself as the sum.
3. Now that the two numbers have the same exponent, add the mantissas.
\[
\begin{align*}
1010 \ 110 \\
+ \ 0000 \ 110 \\
\hline
1010 \ 100
\end{align*}
\]
4. The sum has mantissa $1010 = 0.625$, exponent $110 = 2^6$, for a total of $0.625 \times 2^6 = 40$. Thus,
computer says $40 + 3 = 40$
---
**Calculating the difference of two very large values**
A classic error occurs when one subtracts (or compares) two very large values which are close in magnitude. Using the same system as the previous example, in which 4 bits are used for the mantissa and 3 for the exponent, suppose we wish to subtract (base ten) 52 from 72.
1. Start with \[ 1001\ 111 \] (that's 72 in base 10)
\[ 1101\ 110 \] (that's 52 in base 10)
2. Modify the smaller value so that it has the same exponent as the larger one:
\[ 1101\ 110 = 0.8125 \times 2^{(6)} \text{ is the starting point} \]
\[ 0110\ 111 = 0.375 \times 2^{(7)} \text{ after shifting exponent once} \]
3. Now that the two numbers have the same exponent, subtract the mantissas.
\[
\begin{align*}
&1001\ 111 \\
- &0110\ 111 \\
\hline
&0011\ 111
\end{align*}
\]
4. The sum has mantissa 0011 = 0.1875, exponent 111 = \(2^{(7)}\), for a total of \(0.1875 \times 2^{(7)} = 24\). Thus,
computer says \(72 - 52 = 24\)
This sort of error does not occur if one adds two large numbers (as long as the sum doesn't overflow).
---
**Repeating a (very slightly incorrect) operation many, many times**
As you will learn in this course, scientists very frequently program a computer to carry out some computation over and over and over and OVER again, thousands or millions of times. If each individual computation incurs some error -- even a very small one -- then that error can build up to a significant level.
For example, suppose one is simulating the orbit of the Earth around the Sun as a function of time. One might calculate the change in the Earth’s position once every
second. If that change has even a tiny fractional error, say, $10^{-10}$, then the Earth's position will slowly become more and more inaccurate.
| After | (seconds) | fractional error is |
|-------------|-------------|----------------------------------------------------------|
| 1 day | 86,400 | $86,400 \times 10^{-10} = 8 \times 10^{-4}$ percent |
| 1 month | 2,592,000 | $2,592,000 \times 10^{-10} = 0.026$ percent |
| 1 year | 31,557,600 | $31,557,600 \times 10^{-10} = 0.32$ percent |
| 1 decade | | 3.2 percent |
| 1 century | | 32 percent |
It would be impossible to use a program with even a tiny fractional error in each step to simulate the motions of planets in the Solar System over timescales of millions of years, let alone billions of years.
It's often easy to cook up a simple numerical algorithm with a relatively large fractional error. One can apply that algorithm safely to some problems: those which don't require very large numbers of iterations. If one is lazy or careless, one might mis-apply such an algorithm to some other problem for which it isn't safe -- and get garbage as the result. Sometimes, it's necessary to spend extra time to write a more accurate algorithm in the first place.
There's often a choice:
- **use a simple method with a small step, iterate MANY times**
- Pro: quick to write, and the code is likely to be correct
- Con: susceptible to accumulated errors, can take many minutes (or hours!) of computation
- **use a complex method with a large step, iterate few times**
- Pro: yields more accurate answer with less computation
- Con: takes longer to write the code (and is more likely to have mistakes in the algorithm)
You might want to check out [a simple example of accumulated roundoff error](#).
How can you detect errors?
There are several general approaches to checking for errors in a large set of calculations.
1. Run the program on a simple system to which you KNOW the answer. If you can solve a system analytically, the result will be exact. Compare the exact answer to the result of your computations.
2. Set up two independent efforts: they may be two different people writing separate versions of the same program, or two slightly different versions of the same program (perhaps with different algorithms used in a crucial spot). Run both efforts on the same system, and compare results.
It is significantly easier to **detect** errors than it is to **fix** them...
Source: http://spiff.rit.edu/classes/phys317/lectures/dangers.html | 72413c2e-c54a-4b31-8f26-2954da290267 | CC-MAIN-2025-05 | https://www.idc-online.com/technical_references/pdfs/information_technology/Dangers_of_computer_arithmetic.pdf | 2025-01-16T21:49:04+00:00 | crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2025-05/segments/1736703362308.55/warc/CC-MAIN-20250116203526-20250116233526-00739.warc.gz | 837,774,322 | 2,557 | eng_Latn | eng_Latn | 0.996558 | eng_Latn | 0.997553 | [
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Keeping Hopes In Crisis
Challenges do not come alone, they come with possibilities. We believe that there are always rays of hope and windows of opportunities even in the time of despair and crisis. Children, all over the world, have no choice than to stay at home all the time these days as the entire world is hit hard by the COVID-19 pandemic. Children need extra and special care during this challenging and critical time. As parents and guardians, we need to understand the needs and interest of our children and spend more time with them during this time. We should teach and make them aware about the virus and the different ways to stay safe from it. However, exposing them to the disturbing news in the media could increase their anxiety level, we need to be very careful and sensitive about it. We need to help them to become positive and hopeful. For this, we should fully support and encourage them to be engaged in productive and creative activities. This also helps to give children an important message - "We can fight against the COVID-19 virus not being afraid of it but by being adequately alert and prepared."
All the regular project activities of Right4Children are on hold due to the lock-down. However, we have been carrying out various activities to respond to the needs of our beneficiaries during the time of COVID-19 pandemic. In this issue, we have presented the highlights of those programmes and activities. Through this issue of our newsletter, we would like to spread hopes and appeal to fight with the corona virus with optimism and positivity.
Finally, we would like to thank all our partners and supporters for helping us and being with us in such a critical and challenging time!
Take care of yourself and your loved ones!
Art
- Art Exhibition was conducted in 2 schools in which 400 people visited.
- Due to COVID-19 lockdown and restriction in mobility, we conducted an Online Art Competition for children this time. 151 children from Kaski District participated in the competition.
*Children express the effect of COVID-19 through Art*
Child Friendly School (CFS)
- As a response to COVID-19, Right4Children, in collaboration with the local authorities in Kaski district, published ‘Self-Learning Exercise Book’ to enable and facilitate children to continue learning during the time of lock-down and closure of schools. A total of 9918 children of 70 schools are benefitting from the book.
FAB Hospitality School
- The 3rd phase of construction in FAB School for Spa Therapy and Laundry Operation has started.
- The families of 60 FAB School trainees were provided with COVID-19 emergency relief support package that included food items and sanitary supplies.
SOYEE
- The radio magazine programme 'Hamro Kaam Ramro Kaam' has been on air once every two weeks. The theme of the programme is decent work and gender equality.
Radio
- 5 PSAs in 2 different topics (COVID-19 awareness and child marriage) were produced and broadcasted.
- 11 radio episodes were produced and aired focusing on COVID-19 awareness.
Children during COVID-19 in Nepal
Safin Pandey, a class-6 student, spent most of his time learning a piano, drawing and playing with his siblings at home during the lockdown. He missed his school, teachers and friends. Like Safin, other 8 million school going children in Nepal are being forced to stay at home. Over 35 thousand schools in Nepal have been closed since March due to the coronavirus outbreak.
‘Our teachers are regularly monitoring children in the community and we have found that most of the children are spending their time playing and supporting parents in household works’, says Indra Subedi, the Principal of Sewamilan Basic School. As an alternative way, many private schools have been running online classes for their students. However, public schools have been unable to offer any alternative modes of learning and this has largely affected the education of the children in public schools.
Recently, after the lock-down was lifted, some public schools were found running classes in school maintaining certain standards and regulations. Though this has somehow addressed children’s learning needs and provided them the opportunity for social interaction, it has, on the other hand, increased the risk of infection. Parents, therefore, are quite reluctant to send their children to school.
Considering the situation, Right4Children published ‘Self-Learning Exercise Book’ to facilitate children for continuous learning. The book contains exercises and activities in all the different subjects they have to study which they can practice at home on their own. Almost 10 thousand children have received this book from R4C.
Story of Bina
Bina who studies in grade 12 in Mirmee Basic School in Syangja has a different story than many other youth. The ‘lockdown period’ turned out to be a very productive time for her. Bina is associated with the Milijuli Bolaun radio programme supported by R4C. She spent her time producing corona virus related awareness programmes for children and parents. She, along with her team, produced 2 short films about corona virus. Her family and teachers have continuously been supporting her work which has further motivated her to keep up her creative and exemplary works.
SPREADING HOPE AND SOLIDARITY IN THE TIME OF COVID-19
Thank you to all our wonderful funding partners:
ONGD FNEL Luxembourg, CWSHK, Mouenpick Hotels & Resorts, World of Children, C4C Nepal-UK, GATE College, Friends of Singapore and The Pavilions Himalayas
GET INVOLVED, HELP US CHANGE LIVES AND VISIT US AT WWW.RIGHT4CHILDREN.ORG
Published by Right4Children
Annapurna Marga, Pokhara 07, Kaski Nepal
Phone: 977-61-465176,
Email: firstname.lastname@example.org | 098056e6-b902-498f-a4a6-b19420c99739 | CC-MAIN-2024-42 | https://api.r4c.aitrc.com.np/media/filer_public/2d/50/2d50ff2a-4c9b-405e-a8e9-12cad816ff35/right4children_newsletter_vol9.pdf | 2024-10-12T05:26:02+00:00 | crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2024-42/segments/1727944253879.21/warc/CC-MAIN-20241012051558-20241012081558-00621.warc.gz | 76,233,143 | 1,198 | eng_Latn | eng_Latn | 0.934269 | eng_Latn | 0.998255 | [
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Introduction: Houndstongue is a highly invasive pest of pine woodlands in Eastern Oregon especially in areas where cattle are grazed. Its seeds are covered in hooked barbs that readily attach to wildlife and grazing cattle. This plant was introduced to North America from Europe as a contaminant of cereal seed in the late 1800s.
Distribution in Oregon: Occurs in many counties in eastern Oregon. There are historical sites in Lane and Marion Counties. It continues to expand its range.
Description: Houndstongue is a biennial growing from 1 to 4 feet tall. Rosettes form the first year later sending up a flowering stalk in the second. Leaves are alternate, rough, hairy, and 1 to 12 inches long. Flowers are reddish purple and terminal. It reproduces only from seed with each plant capable of producing up to 2,000 seeds. Houndstongue prefers well drained, relatively sandy and gravelly soils in habitats comprised of shady areas under the canopy of forests, in native grasslands, in pastures, meadows, along roadsides, and in disturbed sites.
Impacts: Houndstongue can be a serious problem in rangeland and pasture. It is highly invasive and can significantly reduce forage. Houndstongue produces barbed seeds, or burrs, which allow the plant to readily adhere to hair, wool, and fur and can in turn reduce the value of sheep wool. The burrs can become embedded in the eye or eyelids and cause eye damage to animals. This can increase the cost of raising livestock as well as reduce overall health and value. Houndstongue is also toxic to livestock, containing pyrrolizidine alkaloids, damaging liver cells. Animals may survive six months or longer after they have consumed a lethal amount but are unthrifty. Sheep are more resistant than cattle or horses. In addition, it is a nuisance to recreationists due to its bur-like seeds.
Biological controls: No approved biological control agent is currently available. However, research is being conducted on five promising insects: a root weevil, a stem weevil, a seed weevil, a root beetle and a root fly. | <urn:uuid:6f294dfc-72d7-4681-a039-bbc17f8751ff> | CC-MAIN-2019-39 | http://publichealth.klamathcounty.org/DocumentCenter/View/22176/HoundstongueProfile | 2019-09-20T07:25:36Z | crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2019-39/segments/1568514573908.70/warc/CC-MAIN-20190920071824-20190920093824-00349.warc.gz | 159,657,714 | 452 | eng_Latn | eng_Latn | 0.998461 | eng_Latn | 0.998461 | [
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Preface
Natural farming is based on a nature free of human meddling and intervention. It strives to restore nature from the destruction wrought by human knowledge and action, and to resurrect a humanity divorced from God.
While still a youth, a certain turn of events set me out on the proud and lonely road back to nature. With sadness, though, I learned that one person cannot live alone. One either lives in association with people or in communion with nature. I found also, to my
despair, that people were no longer truly human, and nature no longer truly natural. The noble road that rises above the world of relativity was too steep for me.
These writings are the record of one farmer who for fifty years has wandered about in search of nature. I have traveled a long way, yet as night falls there remains still a long way to go.
Of course, in a sense, natural farming will never be perfected. It will not see general application in its true form, and will serve only as a brake to slow the mad onslaught of scientific agriculture.
Ever since I began proposing a way of farming in step with nature, I have sought to demonstrate the validity of five major principles: no tillage, no fertilizer, no pesticides, no weeding, and no pruning. During the many years that have elapsed since, I have never once doubted the possibilities of a natural way of farming that renounces all human knowledge and intervention. To the scientist convinced that nature can be understood and used through the human intellect and action, natural farming is a special case and has no universality. Yet these basic principles apply everywhere.
The trees and grasses release seeds that fall to the ground, there to germinate and grow into new plants. The seeds sown by nature are not so weak as to grow only in plowed fields. Plants have always grown by direct seeding, without tillage. The soil in the fields is worked by small animals and roots, and enriched by green manure plants.
Only over the last fifty years or so have chemical fertilizers become thought of as indispensable. True, the ancient practice of using manure and compost does help speed crop growth, but this also depletes the land from which the organic material in the compost is taken.
Even organic farming, which everyone is making such a big fuss over lately, is just another type of scientific farming. A lot of trouble is taken to move organic materials first here then there, to process and treat. But any gains to be had from all this activity are local and temporal gains. In fact, when examined from a broader perspective, many such efforts to protect the natural ecology are actually destructive.
Although a thousand diseases attack plants in the fields and forests, nature strikes a balance; there never was any need for pesticides. Man grew confused when he identified these diseases as insect damage; he created with his own hands the need for labor and toil.
Man tries also to control weeds, but nature does not arbitrarily call one plant a weed and try to eradicate it. Nor does a fruit tree always grow more vigorously and bear more fruit when pruned. A tree grows best in its natural habit; the branches do not tangle, sunlight falls on every leaf, and the tree bears fully each year, not only in alternate years.
Many people are worried today over the drying out of arable lands and the loss of vegetation throughout the world, but there is no doubting that human civilization and the misguided methods of crop cultivation that arose from man’s arrogance are largely responsible for this global plight.
Overgrazing by large animal herds kept by nomadic peoples has reduced the variety of vegetation, denuding the land. Agricultural societies too, with the shift to modern
agriculture and its heavy reliance on petroleum-based chemicals, have had to confront the problem of rapid debilitation of the land.
Once we accept that nature has been harmed by human knowledge and action, and renounce these instruments of chaos and destruction, nature will recover its ability to nurture all forms of life. In a sense, my path to natural farming is a first step toward the restoration of nature.
That natural farming has yet to gain wide acceptance shows just how mortally nature has been afflicted by man’s tampering and the extent to which the human spirit has been ravaged and ruined. All of which makes the mission of natural farming that much more critical.
I have begun thinking that the natural farming experience may be of some help, however small, in revegetating the world and stabilizing food supply. Although some will call the idea outlandish, I propose that the seeds of certain plants be sown over the deserts in clay pellets to help green these barren lands.
These pellets can be prepared by first mixing the seeds of green manure trees —such as black wattle—that grow in areas with an annual rainfall of less than 2 inches, and the seeds of clover, alfalfa, bur clover, and other types of green manure, with grain and vegetable seeds. The mixture of seeds is coated first with a layer of soil, then one of clay, to form microbe-containing clay pellets. These finished pellets could then be scattered by hand over the deserts and savannahs.
Once scattered, the seeds within the hard clay pellets will not sprout until rain has fallen and conditions are just right for germination. Nor will they be eaten by mice and birds. A year later, several of the plants will survive, giving a clue as to what is suited to the climate and land. In certain countries to the south, there are reported to be plants that grow on rocks and trees that store water. Anything will do, as long as we get the deserts blanketed rapidly with a green cover of grass. This will bring back the rains.
While standing in an American desert, I suddenly realized that rain does not fall from the heavens; it issues forth from the ground. Deserts do not form because there is no rain; rather, rain ceases to fall because the vegetation has disappeared. Building a dam in the desert is an attempt to treat the symptoms of the disease, but is not a strategy for increasing rainfall. First we have to learn how to restore the ancient forests.
But we do not have time to launch a scientific study to determine why the deserts are spreading in the first place. Even were we to try, we would find that no matter how far back into the past we go in search of causes, these causes are preceded by other causes in an endless chain of interwoven events and factors that is beyond man’s powers of comprehension. Suppose that man were able in this way to learn which plant had been the first to die off in a land turned to desert. He would still not know enough to decide whether to begin by planting the first type of vegetation to disappear or the last to survive. The reason is simple: in nature, there is no cause and effect.
Science rarely looks to microorganisms for an understanding of large causal relationships. True, the perishing of vegetation may have triggered a drought, but the plants may have died as a result of the action of some microorganism. However, botanists are not to be bothered with microorganisms as these lie outside their field of interest. We’ve gathered together such a diverse collection of specialists that we’ve lost sight of
both the starting line and the finish line. That is why I believe that the only effective approach we can take to revegetating barren land is to leave things largely up to nature.
One gram of soil on my farm contains about 100 million nitrogen-fixing bacteria and other soil-enriching microbes. I feel that soil containing seeds and these microorganisms could be the spark that restores the deserts.
I have created, together with the insects in my fields, a new strain of rice I call “Happy Hill.” This is a hardy strain with the blood of wild variants in it, yet it is also one of the highest yielding strains of rice in the world. If a single head of Happy Hill were sent across the sea to a country where food is scarce and there sown over a ten-square-yard area, a single grain would yield 5,000 grains in one year’s time. There would be grain enough to sow a half-acre the following year, fifty acres two years hence, and 7,000 acres in the fourth year. This could become the seed rice for an entire nation. This handful of grain could open up the road to independence for a starving people.
But the seed rice must be delivered as soon as possible. Even one person can begin. I could be no happier than if my humble experience with natural farming were to be used toward this end.
My greatest fear today is that of nature being made the plaything of the human intellect. There is also the danger that man will attempt to protect nature through the medium of human knowledge, without noticing that nature can be restored only by abandoning our preoccupation with knowledge and action that has driven it to the wall.
All begins by relinquishing human knowledge.
Although perhaps just the empty dream of a farmer who has sought in vain to return to nature and the side of God, I wish to become the sower of seed. Nothing would give me more joy than to meet others of the same mind.
**Introduction**
**Anyone Can Be a Quarter-Acre Farmer**
In this hilltop orchard overlooking the Inland Sea stand several mud-walled huts. Here, young people from the cities—some from other lands—live a crude, simple life growing crops. They live self-sufficiently on a diet of brown rice and vegetables, without electricity or running water. These young fugitives, disaffected with the cities or religion, tread through my fields clad only in a loincloth. The search for the bluebird of happiness brings them to my farm in one corner of Iyo-shi in Ehime Prefecture, where they learn how to become quarter-acre farmers.
Chickens run free through the orchard and semi-wild vegetables grow in the clover among the trees.
In the paddy fields spread out below on the Dogo Plain, one no longer sees the pastoral green of barley and the blossoms of rape and clover from another age. Instead, desolate fields lie fallow, the crumbling bundles of straw portraying the chaos of modern farming practices and the confusion in the hearts of farmers.
Only my field lies covered in the fresh green of winter grain.* (*Barley or wheat. Barley cultivation is predominant in Japan, but most of what I say about barley in this book applies equally well to wheat.)
This field has not been plowed or turned in over thirty years. Nor have I applied chemical fertilizers or prepared compost, or sprayed pesticides or other chemicals. I practice what I call “do-nothing” farming here, yet each year I harvest close to 22 bushels (1,300 pounds) of winter grain and 22 bushels of rice per quarter-acre. My goal is to eventually take in 33 bushels per quarter-acre.
Growing grain in this way is very easy and straightforward. I simply broadcast clover and winter grain over the ripening heads of rice before the fall harvest. Later, I harvest the rice while treading on the young shoots of winter grain. After leaving the rice to dry for three days, I thresh it then scatter the straw uncut over the entire field. If I have some chicken droppings on hand, I scatter this over the straw. Next, I form clay pellets containing seed rice and scatter the pellets over the straw before the New Year. With the winter grain growing and the rice seed sown, there is now nothing left to do until the harvesting of the winter grain. The labor of one or two people is more than enough to grow crops on a quarter-acre.
In late May, while harvesting the winter grain, I notice the clover growing luxuriantly at my feet and the small shoots that have emerged from the rice seed in the clay pellets. After harvesting, drying, and threshing the winter grain, I scatter all of the straw uncut over the field. I then flood the field for four to five days to weaken the clover and give the rice shoots a chance to break through the cover of clover. In June and July, I leave the field unirrigated, and in August I run water through the drainage ditches once every week or ten days.
That is essentially all there is to the method of natural farming I call “direct-seeded, no-tillage, winter grain/rice succession in a clover cover.”
Were I to say that all my method of farming boils down to is the symbiosis of rice and barley or wheat in clover, I would probably be reproached: “If that’s all there is to growing rice, then farmers wouldn’t be out there working so hard in their fields.” Yet, that *is* all there is to it. Indeed, with this method I have consistently gotten better-than-average yields. Such being the case, the only conclusion possible is that there must be something drastically wrong with farming practices that require so much unnecessary labor.
Scientists are always saying, “Let’s try this, let’s try that.” Agriculture becomes swept up in all of this fiddling around; new methods requiring additional expenditures and effort by farmers are constantly introduced, along with new pesticides and fertilizers. As for me, I have taken the opposite tack. I eliminate unnecessary practices, expenditures, and labor by telling myself, “I don’t need to do this, I don’t need to do that.” After thirty years at it, I have managed to reduce my labor to essentially just sowing seed and spreading straw. Human effort is unnecessary because nature, not man, grows the rice and wheat.
If you stop and think about it, every time someone says “this is useful,” “that has value,” or “one ought to do such-and-such,” it is because man has created the preconditions that give this whatever-it-is its value. We create situations in which,
without something we never needed in the first place, we are lost. And to get ourselves out of such a predicament, we make what appear to be new discoveries, which we then herald as progress.
Flood a field with water, stir it up with a plow and the ground will set as hard as plaster. If the soil dies and hardens, then it must be plowed each year to soften it. All we are doing is creating the conditions that make a plow useful, then rejoicing at the utility of our tool. No plant on the face of the earth is so weak as to germinate only in plowed soil. Man has no need to plow and turn the earth, for microorganisms and small animals act as nature’s tillers.
By killing the soil with plow and chemical fertilizer, and rotting the roots through prolonged summer flooding, farmers create weak, diseased rice plants that require the nutritive boost of chemical fertilizers and the protection of pesticides. Healthy rice plants have no need for the plow or chemicals. And compost does not have to be prepared if rice straw is applied to the fields half a year before the rice is sown.
Soil enriches itself year in and year out without man having to lift a finger. On the other hand, pesticides ruin the soil and create a pollution problem. Shrines in Japanese villages are often surrounded by a grove of tall trees. These trees were not grown with the aid of nutrition science, nor were they protected by plant ecology. Saved from the axe and saw by the shrine deity, they grew into large trees of their own accord.
Properly speaking, nature is neither living nor dead. Nor is it small or large, weak or strong, feeble or thriving. It is those who believe only in science who call an insect either a pest or a predator and cry out that nature is a violent world of relativity and contradiction in which the strong feed on the weak. Notions of right and wrong, good and bad, are alien to nature. These are only distinctions invented by man. Nature maintained a great harmony without such notions, and brought forth the grasses and trees without the “helping” hand of man.
The living and holistic biosystem that is nature cannot be dissected or resolved into its parts. Once broken down, it dies. Or rather, those who break off a piece of nature lay hold of something that is dead, and, unaware that what they are examining is no longer what they think it to be, claim to understand nature. Man commits a grave error when he collects data and findings piecemeal on a dead and fragmented nature and claims to “know,” “use,” or “conquer” nature. Because he starts off with misconceptions about nature and takes the wrong approach to understanding it, regardless of how rational his thinking, everything winds up all wrong. We must become aware of the insignificance of human knowledge and activity, and begin by grasping their uselessness and futility.
**Follow the Workings of Nature**
We often speak of “producing food,” but farmers do not produce the food of life. Only nature has the power to produce something from nothing. Farmers merely assist nature.
Modern agriculture is just another processing industry that uses oil energy in the form of fertilizers, pesticides, and machinery to manufacture synthetic food products which are poor imitations of natural food. The farmer today has become a hired hand of industrialized society. He tries without success to make money at farming with synthetic
chemicals, a feat that would tax even the powers of the Thousand-Handed Goddess of Mercy. It is no surprise then that he is spinning around like a top.
Natural farming, the true and original form of agriculture, is the methodless method of nature, the unmoving way of Bodhidharma. Although appearing fragile and vulnerable, it
is potent for it brings victory unfought; it is a Buddhist way of farming that is boundless and yielding, and leaves the soil, the plants, and the insects to themselves.
As I walk through the paddy field, spiders and frogs scramble about, locusts jump up, and droves of dragonflies hover overhead. Whenever a large outbreak of leafhoppers occurs, the spiders multiply too, without fail. Although the yield of this field varies from year to year, there are generally about 250 heads of grain per square yard. With an average of 200 grains per head, this gives a harvest of some 33 bushels for every quarter-acre. Those who see the sturdy heads of rice rising from the field marvel at the strength and vigor of the plants and their large yields. No matter that there are insect pests here. As long as their natural enemies are also present, a natural balance asserts itself.
Because it is founded upon principles derived from a fundamental view of nature, natural farming remains current and applicable in any age. Although ancient, it is also forever new. Of course, such a way of natural farming must be able to weather the criticism of science. The question of greatest concern is whether this “green philosophy” and way of farming has the power to criticize science and guide man onto the road back to nature.
**The Illusions of Modern Scientific Farming**
With the growing popularity of natural foods lately, I thought that natural farming too would be studied at last by scientists and receives the attention it is due. Alas, I was wrong. Although some research is being conducted on natural farming, most of it remains strictly within the scope of scientific agriculture as practiced to date. This research adopts the basic framework of natural farming, but makes not the slightest reduction in the use of chemical fertilizers and pesticides; even the equipment used has gotten larger and larger.
Why do things turn out this way? Because scientists believe that, by adding technical know-how to natural farming, which already reaps over 22 bushels of rice per quarter acre, they will develop an even better method of cultivation and higher yields. Although such reasoning appears to make sense, one cannot ignore the basic contradiction it entails. Until the day that people understand what is meant by “doing nothing”—the ultimate goal of natural farming, they will not relinquish their faith in the omnipotence of science.
When we compare natural farming and scientific farming graphically, we can right away appreciate the differences between the two methods. The objective of natural farming is non-action and a return to nature; it is centrifugal and convergent. On the other hand, scientific farming breaks away from nature with the expansion of human wants and desires; it is
centripetal and divergent. Because this outward expansion cannot be stopped, scientific farming is doomed to extinction. The addition of new technology only makes it more complex and diversified, generating ever-increasing expense and labor. In contrast, not only is natural farming simple, it is also economical and labor-saving.
Fig. D. The direction taken by scientific agriculture.
Why is it that, even when the advantages are so clear and irrefutable, man is unable to walk away from scientific agriculture? People think, no doubt, that “doing nothing” is defeatist, that it hurts production and productivity. Yet, does natural farming harm productivity? Far from it. In fact, if we base our figures on the efficiency of energy used in production, natural farming turns out to be the most productive method of farming there is.
Natural farming produces 130 pounds of rice—or 200,000 kilocalories of energy—per man-day of labor, without the input of any outside materials. This is about 100 times the daily intake of 2,000 kilocalories by a farmer on a natural diet. Ten times as much energy was expended in traditional farming, which used horses and oxen to plow the fields. The energy input in calories was doubled again with the advent of small-scale mechanization, and doubled yet another time with the shift to large-scale mechanization. This geometric progression has given us the energy-intensive agricultural methods of today.
The claim is often made that mechanization has increased the efficiency of work, but farmers must use the extra hours away from their fields to earn outside income to help pay for their equipment. All they have done is exchange their work in the fields for a job in some company; they have traded the joy of working outdoors in the open fields for dreary hours of labor shut up inside a factory.
People believe that modern agriculture can both improve productivity and increase yields. What a misconception. The truth of the matter is that the yields provided by scientific farming are smaller than the yields attainable under the full powers of nature. High-yield practices and scientific methods of increasing production are thought to have given us increased yields that exceed the natural productivity of the land, but this is not so. These are merely endeavors by man to artificially restore full productivity after he has hamstrung nature so that it cannot exercise its full powers. Man creates adverse conditions, then rejoices later at his “conquest” of nature. High-yield technologies are no more than glorified attempts to stave off reductions in productivity.
Nor is science a match for nature in terms of the quality of the food it helps to create. Ever since man deluded himself into thinking that nature can be understood by being broken down and analyzed, scientific farming has produced artificial, deformed food. Modern agriculture has created nothing from nature. Rather, by making quantitative and qualitative changes in certain aspects of nature, it has managed only to fabricate synthetic food products that are crude, expensive, and further alienate man from nature.
Humanity has left the bosom of nature and recently begun to view with growing alarm its plight as orphan of the universe. Yet, even when he tries returning to nature, man finds that he no longer knows what nature is, and that, moreover, he has destroyed and forever lost the nature he seeks to return to.
Scientists envision domed cities of the future in which enormous heaters, air conditioners, and ventilators will provide comfortable living conditions throughout the year. They dream of building underground cities and colonies on the seafloor. But the city dweller is dying; he has forgotten the bright rays of the sun, the green fields, the plants and animals, and the sensation of a gentle breeze on the skin. Man can live a true life only with nature.
Natural farming is a Buddhist way of farming that originates in the philosophy of “Mu,” or nothingness, and returns to a “do-nothing” nature. The young people living in my orchard carry with them the hope of someday resolving the great problems of our world that cannot be solved by science and reason. Mere dreams perhaps, but these hold the key to the future.
1. AILING AGRICULTURE IN AN AILING AGE
1. Man Cannot Know Nature
Man prides himself on being the only creature on earth with the ability to think. He claims to know himself and the natural world, and believes he can use nature as he pleases. He is convinced, moreover, that intelligence is strength, that anything he desires is within his reach.
As he has forged ahead, making new advances in the natural sciences and dizzily expanding his materialistic culture, man has grown estranged from nature and ended by building a civilization all his own, like a wayward child rebelling against its mother.
But all his vast cities and frenetic activity have brought him are empty, dehumanized pleasures and the destruction of his living environment through the abusive exploitation of nature.
Harsh retribution for straying from nature and plundering its riches has begun to appear in the form of depleted natural resources and food crises, throwing a dark shadow over the future of mankind. Having finally grown aware of the gravity of the situation, man has begun to think seriously about what should be done. But unless he is willing to undertake the most fundamental self-reflection he will be unable to steer away from a path of certain destruction.
Alienated from nature, human existence becomes a void, the wellspring of life and spiritual growth gone utterly dry. Man grows ever more ill and weary in the midst of his curious civilization that is but a struggle over a tiny bit of time and space.
Leave Nature Alone
Man has always deluded himself into thinking that he knows nature and is free to use it as he wishes to build his civilizations. But nature cannot be explained or expanded
upon. As an organic whole, it is not subject to man’s classifications; nor does it tolerate dissection and analysis. Once broken down, nature cannot be returned to its original state. All that remains is an empty skeleton devoid of the true essence of living nature. This skeletal image only serves to confuse man and lead him further astray.
Scientific reasoning also is of no avail in helping man understand nature and add to its creations. Nature as perceived by man through discriminating knowledge is a falsehood. Man can never truly know even a single leaf or a single handful of earth. Unable to fully comprehend plant life and soil, he sees these only through the filter of human intellect.
Although he may seek to return to the bosom of nature or use it to his advantage, man only touches one tiny part of nature—a dead portion at that—and has no affinity with the main body of living nature. He is, in effect, merely toying with delusions.
Man is but an arrogant fool who vainly believes that he knows all of nature and can achieve anything he sets his mind to. Seeing neither the logic nor order inherent in nature, he has selfishly appropriated it to his own ends and destroyed it. The world today is in such a sad state because man has not felt compelled to reflect upon the dangers of his high-handed ways.
The earth is an organically interwoven community of plants, animals, and microorganisms. When seen through man’s eyes, it appears either as a model of the strong consuming the weak or of coexistence and mutual benefit. Yet there are food chains and cycles of matter; there is endless transformation without birth or death. Although this flux of matter and the cycles in the biosphere can be perceived only through direct intuition, our unswerving faith in the omnipotence of science has led us to analyze and study these phenomena, raining down destruction upon the world of living things and throwing nature as we see it into disarray.
A case in point is the application of toxic pesticides to apple trees and hothouse strawberries. This kills off pollinating insects such as bees and gadflies, forcing man to collect the pollen himself and artificially pollinate each of the blossoms. Although he cannot even hope to replace the myriad activities of all the plants, animals, and microorganisms in nature, man goes out of his way to block their activities, then studies each of these functions carefully and attempts to find substitutes. What a ridiculous waste of effort.
Consider the case of the scientist who studies mice and develops a rodenticide. He does so without understanding why mice nourished in the first place. He simply decides that killing them is a good idea without first determining whether the mice multiplied as the result of a breakdown in the balance of nature, or whether they support that balance. The rodenticide is a temporary expedient that answers only the needs of a given time and place; it is not a responsible action in keeping with the true cycles of nature. Man cannot possibly replace all the functions of plants and animals on this earth through scientific analysis and human knowledge. While unable to fully grasp the totality of these interrelationships, any rash endeavor such as the selective extermination or raising of a species only serves to upset the balance and order of nature.
Even the replanting of mountain forests may be seen as destructive. Trees are logged for their value as lumber, and species of economic value to man, such as pine and cedar, are planted in large number. We even go so far as to call this “forestry conservation.”
However, altering the tree cover on a mountain produces changes in the characteristics of the forest soil, which in turn affects the plants and animals that inhabit the forest. Qualitative changes also take place in the air and temperature of the forest, causing subtle changes in weather and affecting the microbial world.
No matter how closely one looks, there is no limit to the complexity and detail with which nature interacts to effect constant, organic change. When a section of the forest is clear-cut and cedar trees planted, for example, there no longer is enough food for small birds. These disappear, allowing long-horned beetles to flourish. The beetles are vectors for nematodes, which attack red pines and feed on parasitic *Botrytis* fungi in the trunks of the pine trees. The pines fall victim to the *Botrytis* fungi because they are weakened by the disappearance of the edible *matsutake* fungus that lives symbolically on the roots of red pines. This beneficial fungus has died off as a result of an increase in the harmful *Botrytis* fungus in the soil, which is itself a consequence of the acidity of the soil. The high soil acidity is the result of atmospheric pollution and acid rain, and so on and so forth. This backward regression from effect to prior cause continues in an unending chain that leaves one wondering what the true cause is.
When the pines die, thickets of bamboo grass rise up. Mice feed on the abundant bamboo grass berries and multiply. The mice attack the cedar saplings, so man applies a rodenticide. But as the mice vanish, a decline occurs in the weasels and snakes that feed on them. To protect the weasels, man then begins to raise mice to restore the roden population. Isn’t this the stuff of crazed dreams?
Toxic chemicals are applied at least eight times a year on Japanese rice fields. Is it not odd then that hardly any agricultural scientists have bothered to investigate why the amount of insect damage in these fields remains largely the same as in fields where no pesticides are used? The first application of pesticide does not kill off the hordes of rice leafhoppers, but the tens of thousands of young spiders on each square yard of land simply vanish, and the swarms of fireflies that fly up from the stands of grass disappear at once. The second application kills off the chalcid dies, which are important natural predators, and leaves victim dragonfly larvae, tadpoles, and loaches. Just one look at this slaughter would suffice to show the insanity of the blanket application of pesticides.
No matter how hard he tries, man can never rule over nature. What he can do is serve nature, which means living in accordance with its laws.
**The “Do-Nothing” Movement**
The age of aggressive expansion in our materialistic culture is at an end, and a new “do-nothing” age of consolidation and convergence has arrived. Man must hurry to establish a new way of life and a spiritual culture founded on communion with nature, lest he grow ever more weak and feeble while running around in a frenzy of wasted effort and confusion.
When he turns back to nature and seeks to learn the essence of a tree or a blade of grass, man will have no need for human knowledge. It will be enough to live in concert with nature, free of plans, designs, and effort. One can break free of the false image of nature conceived by the human intellect only by becoming detached and earnestly
begging for a return to the absolute realm of nature. No, not even entreaty and supplication are necessary; it is enough only to farm the earth free of concern and desire.
To achieve a humanity and a society founded on non-action, man must look back over everything he has done and rid himself one by one of the false visions and concepts that permeate him and his society. This is what the “do-nothing” movement is all about.
Natural farming can be seen as one branch of this movement. Human knowledge and effort expand and grow increasingly complex and wasteful without limit. We need to halt this expansion, to converge, simplify, and reduce our knowledge and effort. This is in keeping with the laws of nature. Natural farming is more than just a revolution in agricultural techniques. It is the practical foundation of a spiritual movement, of a revolution to change the way man lives.
2. The Breakdown of Japanese Agriculture
Life in the Farming Villages of the Past
In earlier days, Japanese peasants were a poor and downtrodden lot. Forever oppressed by those in power, they occupied the lowest rung on the social ladder. Where did they find the strength to endure their poverty and what did they depend on to live?
The farmers who lived quietly in a secluded inland glen, on a solitary island in the southern seas, or in a desolate northern region of deep snows were self-supporting and independent; they lived a proud, happy, noble life in the great outdoors. People born in remote areas who lived out poor lives and died anonymously were able to subsist in a world cut off from the rest of mankind without discontent or anxiety because, though they appeared alone, they were not. They were creatures of nature, and being close to God (nature incarnate), experienced the daily joy and pride of tending the gardens of God. They went out to work in the fields at sunrise and returned home to rest at sunset, living each day well, one day being as wide and infinite as the universe and yet just one small frame in the unending flow of existence. Theirs was a farming way of life, set in the midst of nature, which violated nothing and was not itself violated.
Farmers are bound to take offense when the clever ones who left the village and made their way in the world come back, saying “sir, sir” with false humility, then, when you least expect it, telling you, in effect, to “go to hell.” Although farmers have no need for business cards, on occasion they have been misers too mean to part with a single penny, and at other times, millionaires without the slightest interest in fabulous riches. Peasant villages were lonely, out-of-the-way places inhabited by indigent farmers, yet were also home to recluses who lived in a world of the sublime. People in the small, humble villages of which Lao-tzu spoke were unaware that the Great Way of man lay in living independently and self-sufficiently, yet they knew this in their hearts. These were the farmers of old.
What a tragedy it would be to think of these as fools who know, yet are unaware. To the remark that “any fool can farm,” farmers should reply, “a fool cannot be a true farmer.” There is no need for philosophy in the farming village. It is the urban intellectual
who ponders human existence, who goes in search of truth and questions the purpose of life.
The farmer does not wrestle with the questions of why man arose on the face of the earth and how he should live. Why is it that he never learned to question his existence? Life was never so empty and void as to bring him to contemplate the purpose of human existence; there was no seed of uncertainty to lead him astray.
With their intuitive understanding of life and death, these farmers were free of anguish and grief; they had no need for learning. They joked that agonizing over life and death, and wandering through ideological thickets in search of truth were the pastimes of idle city youth. Farmers preferred to live common lives, without knowledge or learning. There was no time for philosophizing. Nor was there any need. This does not mean that the farming village was without a philosophy. On the contrary, it had a very important philosophy. This was embodied in the principle that “philosophy is unnecessary.” The farming village was above all a society of philosophers without a need for philosophy. It was none other than the philosophy of Mu, or nothingness—which teaches that all is unnecessary, that gave the farmer his enduring strength.
**Disappearance of the Village Philosophy**
Not that long ago one could still hear the woodsman sing a woodcutter’s song as he sawed down a tree. During transplanting, singing voices rolled over the paddy fields, and the sound of drums surged through the village after the fall harvest. Nor was it that long ago that people used pack animals to carry goods.
These scenes have changed drastically over the past twenty years or so. In the mountains, instead of the rasping of hand saws, we now hear the angry snarl of chain saws. We see mechanical plows and transplanters racing over the fields. Vegetables today are grown in vinyl houses ranged in neat rows like factories. The fields are automatically sprayed with fertilizers and pesticides. Because all of the farmer’s work has been mechanized and systematized, the farming village has lost its human touch. Singing voices are no longer heard. Everyone sits instead before the TV set, listening to traditional country songs and reminiscing over the past.
We have fallen from a true way of life to one that is false. People rush about in a frenzy to shorten time and widen space, and in so doing lose both.
The farmer may have thought at first that modern developments would make his job easier. Well, it freed him from the land and now he works harder than ever at other jobs, wearing away his body and mind. The chain saw was developed because someone decided that a tree had to be cut faster. Rather than making things easier for the farmer, the mechanized transplantation of rice has sent him running off to find other work.
The disappearance of the sunken hearth from farming homes has extinguished the light of ancient farming village culture. Fireside discussions have vanished, and with them, the village philosophy.
**High Growth and the Fainting Population after World War II**
No country has experienced such a sudden and dramatic transformation as Japan following World War II. The country rose rapidly from the ruins of war to become a major economic power. As this was going on, its farming and fishing populations—the seedbed of the Japanese people—fell from fifty percent of the overall population at the end of the war to less than twenty percent today. Without the help of the dexterous, hard-working farmer, the skyscrapers, highways, and subways of the metropolises would never have materialized. Japan owes its current prosperity to the labor it appropriated from the farming population and placed at the service of urban civilization.
Japan’s rapid growth following the war is generally attributed to good fortune and wise leadership. However, the farmer draws a different interpretation. Changes in the self-image of the farming population led to the adoption of new agricultural methods. As farming became less labor-intensive, surplus manpower poured out of the countryside into the towns and cities, bringing prosperity to the urban civilization. But far from being a blessing, this prosperity has made things harder on the farmer. In effect, he tightened the noose about his own neck. How did this happen?
The first step was the arrival of the motorized transport-tiller in the farming village, a major turning point in Japanese agriculture. This was rapidly followed by three-wheeled vehicles and trucks. Before long, ropeways, monorails, and paved roads stretched to the furthest corners of the village, all of which completely altered the farmer’s notions of time and space.
With this wave of change from labor-intensive to capital-intensive farming came the replacement of the horse-drawn plow with tillers, and later, tractors. Methods of pesticide and fertilizer application underwent major revisions, with motorized hand sprayers being abandoned in favor of helicopter spraying. Needless to say, traditional farming with draft animals was abandoned and replaced with methods involving the heavy application of chemical fertilizers and pesticides.
The rapid mechanization of agriculture lit the fires for the revival and precipitous growth of the machine industry, while the adoption of pesticides, chemical fertilizers, and petroleum-based farming materials laid the foundation for development of the chemical industry.
It was the desire by farmers to modernize, the sweeping reforms in methods of crop cultivation that opened up the road to a new transformation of society following the destruction of the weapons industry and the industrial infrastructure during the war. What began as a movement to assure adequate food supplies in times of acute shortage grew into a drive to increase food production, the momentum of which carried over into the industrial world. This is where things stood in the mid-1950s.
The situation changed completely in the late sixties and early seventies. Stability of food supply had been achieved for the most part and the economy was overflowing with vigor. At last the visions of a modern industrial state were beginning to be realized. It was at about this time that politicians and businessmen started thinking of how to bring the large number of farmers and their land into the picture.
Once food surpluses started to arise, the farmers became a weight around the government’s neck. The food control system set up to ensure an adequate food supply began to be regarded as a burden on the nation. The Basic Agriculture Law was
established in 1961 to define the role and direction to be taken by Japanese agriculture. But instead of serving as a foundation for farmers, it established controls over the farmer and passed the reins of control to the financial community. The general public started thinking that agricultural land could be put to better use in industry and housing than for food production; city dwellers even began to see farmers, who were reluctant to part with their land, as selfish monopolizers of land. Laborers and office workers joined in the effort to drive farmers off their land, and taxes as high as those on housing land were levied on farmland.
The effort by farmers to raise food production appears to have backfired against them. Even though Japan’s food self-sufficiency has dropped below thirty percent, farmers are unable to speak up because the people of the nation are under the illusion that the farmland reduction policy being pushed through by the government is in the interest of the consumer. Somewhere along the way, the farmer lost both his land and the freedom to choose the crops he wishes to raise. Farmers have simply gone with the flow of the times. Today, most of them lament that they can’t make a decent living off farming.
Why has the farming community fallen to such a hopeless state? The experience of Japanese farmers over the past 30 years is unprecedented, and poses very grave problems for the future. Let us take a closer look at the fall of Japanese agriculture to determine exactly what happened.
**How an Impoverished National Agricultural Policy Arose**
When I look closely at the recent history of an agriculture that, unable to oppose the current of the times, has been made to bend and twist to the designs of the leadership, as a farmer, I cannot help feeling tremendous rage.
Behind the claim that today’s farming youth is being carefully trained as agricultural specialists and model farmers lie plans to wipe out small farms and proposals for a euthanasia of farming. Underlying the spectacular programs for modernizing agriculture and increasing productivity, and the calls to expand the scale of farming operations, lies a thinly-disguised contempt for the farmer.
While the one-acre farmer was doing all he could to work his way up to three or even five acres, the policy leaders in government were saying that ten acres just was not large enough, and were running demonstration farms of ISO acres. Clearly, no matter how hard they tried to scale up their operations, farmers were pitted one against another in a fratricidal process of natural selection.
To the economists who supported the doctrine of international division of labor, agrarianism and the insistence by farmers that their mission was to produce food were evidence of the obstinate, mule-headed farming temperament which they despised. As for the trading companies, their basic formula for prosperity was to encourage ever more domestic and foreign food trade.
Consumers are easily won over by arguments that they have the right to buy cheap, tasty rice. But “tasty” rice is weak rice, polluting rice grown with lots of pesticides. Such demands make things harder on the farmer, and the consumer actually ends up eating bad-tasting rice. The only one who wins out is the merchant.
People talk of “cheap rice,” but it has never been the farmer who sets the price of rice or other farm produce. Nor is it the farmer who determines production costs. The price of rice nowadays is the price calculated to support the manufacturers of agricultural equipment; it is the price needed for the production of new farm implements; it is the price at which fuel can be bought.
When I visited the United States in the summer of 1979, the price of rice on the U.S. market was everywhere about 50 cents per pound—about the same as that of economy rice in Japan. Since the price of gasoline at the time was about one dollar per gallon, I was at a loss to understand the reasoning behind reports then in circulation that rice could easily be imported into Japan at one-quarter to one-third the local price. Just as incredible were reports that the surplus of rice had left the food control system “in the red” or that the scarcity of wheat had kept the system solvent.
In natural farming, the cost of producing rice is almost the same as the cost of wheat production. Moreover, both can be produced more cheaply this way than buying imported grain. The mechanism by which the market price of rice is set has nothing whatsoever to do with farmers. The retail price of farm produce is said to be too high in Japan, but this is because the costs of distribution are too high. Distribution costs in Japan are five times those in the United States and twice as high as in West Germany. One cannot help suspecting that the aim of Japan’s food policy is to find the best way to line government coffers with gold. The federal assistance given per farmer is twice as high in the United States as in Japan, and three times as high in France. Japanese farmers are treated with indifference.
Today’s farmers are besieged from all sides. Angry voices rise from the cities, crying: “Farmers are overprotected,” “They are over-subsidized,” “They’re producing too much rice, putting the food control system in debt, and raising our taxes.”
But these are just the superficial views of people who don’t see the whole picture or have any idea of the real state of affairs. I am even tempted to call these false rumors created by the gimmickry of an insanely complex society. At one time, six farming households supported one official. Today, there is reportedly one agriculture or forestry official for every full-time farmer. One wonders then if the agricultural deficits in Japan are really the fault of the farmer.
Statistics tell us that the average American farmer feeds one hundred people and the average Japanese farmer only ten, but Japanese farmers actually have a higher productivity than American farmers. It just appears the other way around because Americans farm under much better conditions than Japanese farmers.
Farmers today in Japan are in love with money. They no longer have any time or affection for nature or their crops. All they have time for anymore is to blindly follow the figures spit out by distribution industry computers and the plans of agricultural administrators. They don’t talk with the land or converse with the crops; they are interested only in money crops. They grow produce without choosing the time or place, without giving a thought to the suitability of the land or crop.
The way administrators see it, grain produced abroad and grain grown locally both have the same value. They make no distinction over whether a crop is a short-term or long-term crop. Without giving the slightest thought to the concerns of the farmer, the
official instructs the farmer to grow vegetables today, fruits tomorrow, and to forget about rice. However, crop production within the natural ecosystem is no simple matter that can be resolved in an administrative bulletin. It is no wonder then that measures planned from on high are always thwarted and delayed.
When the farmer forgets the land to which he owes his existence and becomes concerned only with his own self-interest, when the consumer is no longer able to distinguish between food as the staff of life and food as merely nutrition, when the administrator looks down his nose at farmers and the industrialist scoffs at nature, then the land will answer with its death. Nature is not so kind as to forewarn a humanity so foolish as this.
**What Lies Ahead for Modern Agriculture**
In 1979, I boarded a plane for the first time and visited the United States. I was astounded by what I saw. I had thought that desertification and the disappearance of native peoples were stories from ancient history—in the Middle East and Africa. But I learned that the very same thing has happened repeatedly in the U.S.
Because meat is the food staple in America, agriculture is dominated by livestock farming. Grazing has destroyed the ecology of natural grasses, devastating the land. I watched this happening and could hardly believe my eyes. Land that has lost its fertility is barren of nature’s strength. This accounts for the development of a modern agriculture totally reliant on petroleum energy.
The low productivity of the land drives farmers to large-scale operations. Large operations require mechanization with machinery of increasing size. This “big iron” breaks down the structure of the soil, setting up a negative cycle. Agriculture that ignores the forces of nature and relies solely on the human intellect and human effort is unprofitable. It was inevitable that these crops, produced as they are with the help of petroleum, would be transformed into a strategic commodity for securing cheap oil.
To get an idea of just how fragile commercial agriculture is with its large-scale, subcontractor-type monoculture farming, just consider that U.S. farmers working 500 to 700 acres have smaller net incomes than Japanese farmers on 3 to 5 acres.
I realized, however, that these faults of modern farming were rooted in the basic illusions of Western philosophy that support the foundations of scientific agriculture. I saw that mistaken ideology had led man astray in how he lived his life and secured his essentials of food, clothing, and shelter. I noted that confusion over food had bred confusion over farming, which had destroyed nature. And I understood also that the destruction of nature had enfeebled man and thrown the world into disarray.
**Is There a Future for Natural Farming?**
I do not wish merely to expose and attack the current state of modern agriculture, but to point out the errors of Western thought and call for observance of the Eastern philosophy of Mu. While recalling the self-sufficient farming practices and natural diets of the past, my desire has been to establish a natural way of farming for the future and explore the potential for its spread and adoption by others.
Yet I suppose that whether natural farming becomes the method of farming for the future depends both on a general acceptance of the thinking on which it is based and on a reversal in the existing value system. Although I will not expound here on this philosophy of Mu and its system of values, I would like to take a brief look at the agriculture of the future from the perspective of Mu.
Forty years ago, I predicted that the age of centrifugal expansion fed by the growing material desires of man, the era of rampant modern science, would soon pass and be replaced by a period of contraction and convergence as man sought to improve his spiritual life. I take it that I was wrong.
Even organic farming, which has come into its own with the pollution problem, only serves as a temporary stopgap, a brief respite. This is essentially a rehashing of the animal-based traditional farming of the past. Being part and parcel of scientific agriculture to begin with, it will be swallowed whole and assimilated by scientific agriculture.
I had hoped that the self-sufficient agriculture of the past and farming methods that try to tap into the natural ecosystem would help turn Japanese thinking around and reorient it toward natural farming—the true way of agriculture, but the current situation is almost behind hope.
**Science Continues on an Unending Rampage**
In today’s society, man is cut off from nature and human knowledge is arbitrary. To take an example, suppose that a scientist wants to understand nature. He may begin by studying a leaf, but as his investigation progresses down to the level of molecules, atoms, and elementary particles, he loses sight of the original leaf.
Nuclear fission and fusion research is among the most advanced and dynamic fields of inquiry today, and with the development of genetic engineering, man has acquired the ability to alter life as he pleases. A self-appointed surrogate of the Creator, he has gotten hold of a magic wand, a sorcerer’s staff.
And what is man likely to attempt in the field of agriculture? He probably intends to begin with the creation of curious plants by interspecific genetic recombination. It should be easy to create gigantic varieties of rice. Trees will be crossed with bamboo, and eggplants will be grown on cucumber vines. It will even become possible to ripen tomatoes on trees.
By transferring genes from leguminous plants to tomato or rice, scientists will produce rhizobium-bearing tomatoes capable of fixing nitrogen from the air. Once tomatoes and rice are developed that do not require nitrogen fertilizer, farmers will no doubt jump at the chance to grow these.
Genetic engineering will most certainly be applied to insects as well. If hybrid bee-flies are created, or butterfly-dragonflies, we will no longer be able to tell whether these are beneficial insects or pests. Yet, just as the queen ant produces nothing but worker ants, man will try to create any insect or animal that is of benefit to him.
Eventually, things may progress to the point where hybrids of foxes and raccoons will be created for zoos, and we may see vegetable-like or mechanical humans created as
workers. The most ridiculous products, if developed initially for the sake of medicine, let us say, will receive the plaudits of the world and win wide acceptance. A good example is the recent news, received as a godsend, that the mass production of insulin has been achieved through genetic recombination using *E. coli* genes.
**The Illusions of Science and the Farmer**
Today we have test-tube babies, and scientists are already envisioning a day, not that far off, when they will breed superior humans in culture media by transferring in the genes of gifted physicists and mathematicians. Perhaps they dream of creating new races of men. There will no longer be any need to go through the ordeal of giving birth, or raising children for that matter, as children will be raised **in** complete incubators equipped with dispensers supplying artificial protein foods and vitamins.
No longer will food consist of unappetizing meal protein synthesized from petrochemicals. Instead, we will enjoy delicious, inexpensive meat-like products created by crossing the genes of the soybean with the genes of the cow or pig.
Such dreams of science are so close to being achieved, I can see them as if they were already a reality. When that day does come, what will be the role of farmers then? Working the open fields under the sun may become a thing of the past. The farmer may find himself assisting the scientist as a laborer in a tightly sealed factory—perhaps even one for mass-producing strong, intelligent, artificial humans to eliminate the trouble of using or dealing with ordinary human beings.
To the scientist, this sort of tragedy appears as but a temporary inconvenience, a necessary sacrifice. Firm and unshaking in his conviction that, while still imperfect, someday human knowledge will be complete, that knowledge is of value as long as it is not put to the wrong use, he will probably continue to rise eagerly to the challenge of empty possibilities.
But these dreams of scientists are just mirages, nothing more than wild dancing in the hand of the Lord Buddha. Even if scientists change the living and nonliving as they please and create new life, the fruits and creations of human knowledge can never exceed the limits of the human intellect. In the eyes of nature, actions that arise from human knowledge are all futile.
All is arbitrary delusion created by the false reasoning of man in a world of relativity. Man has learned and achieved nothing. He is destroying nature under the illusion that he controls it. Casting and befouling himself as a plaything, he is bringing the earth to the abyss of annihilation. Nor will it be just the farmer who follows the bidding of the scientist and lends him a hand. What a tragedy if this is what awaits the farmer of tomorrow. What a tragedy too for those who laugh at the ruin of each farmer, and those as well who merely look on.
All that remains is a last glimmer of hope that the principle dying like a buried ember in the farming village will be unearthed and revived in time to establish a natural way of farming that unites man and nature.
3. Disappearance of a Natural Diet
**Decline in the Quality of Food**
It should have come as no surprise that crops grown with vast amounts of petroleum energy would suffer a decline in quality. The use of oil-based energy in agriculture has gotten to the point where one could almost talk of growing rice in the “oil patch” rather than in the “paddy.”
Farming under the open skies has disappeared. Agriculture today has been degraded to the manufacture of petroleum-derived foods, and the farmer has become a seller of false goods called “nutritional food.”
Ever since the farmer who had worked hand in hand with nature capitulated to the pressures of society and became a subcontractor to the oil industry, control over his livelihood has passed into the hands of the industrialist and businessman. Today it is the merchant who has the last say over the farmer’s right to loss or gain, life or death.
The destruction of agriculture can be seen, for example, in the transition by farmers from the open cultivation of vegetables to hothouse horticulture. This began with the seeding and growing of melons and tomatoes in soil within hot beds or vinyl houses arranged in neat rows. The next stage was sand culture and gravel culture using sand or gravel in place of soil because these materials have fewer bacteria and are thus “cleaner.” This was accompanied by a change in thinking—replacing the notion of forming rich soil with that of administering nutrients—which led to the creation and supply of nutrient solutions. The only function of the sand and gravel was to support the plant, so a simpler, more readily available material was sought. Plastic or polymer netting and containers were developed in which seeds are “planted.” As these germinate and grow, the roots extend out in all directions within the plastic netting. The stem and leaves are also artificially supported, and the tightly sealed chamber in which the plants are grown is completely sterile, eliminating the chance, at first, of insect damage or blight.
Since the root absorption of nutrients dissolved in water is inefficient, the nutrient solution is sprayed on a regular basis over the entire plant. Nutrients are taken in not only through the roots, but also through leaf surfaces, so they are more immediately available, resulting in a higher growth rate. The temperature is increased and the level of light exposure raised with artificial lighting. Carbon dioxide is sprayed and oxygen pumped in, making plant growth several times faster than in field cultivation.
However, any product grown in such an artificial environment is a far cry from products grown under natural conditions. True, freshly colored melons with a beautifully networked skin and a sweet taste and fragrance can be produced, as can large red tomatoes and supple green cucumbers of good texture. But it is a mistake to think of these as good for man. Grown unnaturally as they are, these products are inferior in quality, although perhaps in ways unknown to man. Nature has struck back fiercely against this affront by technology, in the form of increased insect damage. Predictably, the response by man has been an agriculture increasingly dependent on pesticides and fertilizers.
Artificial cultivation leads ultimately to the total synthesis of food. The creation of factories for purely chemical food synthesis that will render farms and gardens
unnecessary is already underway. This will make of agriculture an activity entirely unrelated to nature.
The synthesis of urea has enabled man to produce any organic material he wishes. Protein synthesis enables man-made meat to be fabricated from various materials. Butter and cheese can be made from petroleum. Sooner or later, as further progress is made in research on photosynthesis, man will surely learn how to synthesize starch. He may even succeed one day in doing this by the saccharification of wood and oil.
Man has learned how to synthesize nucleic acid and cellular proteins and nuclei, and is beginning to synthesize and recombine genes and chromosomes. He has even begun thinking that he can control life itself. Not only that. As the notion has settled in that he may soon be able to alter all living things in any way he pleases, man has begun fancying himself as the Creator. Yet all that he learns, all that he performs and creates with science, is a mere imitation of nature and propels him further along the path to suicidal self-destruction.
**Production Costs Are Not Coming Down**
It is a mistake to believe that progress in agricultural technology will lower production costs and make food less expensive. Suppose that some entrepreneur decided to grow rice and vegetables in a large building right at the center of a major city. He would make full spatial use of the building in three dimensions, fully equipping it with central heating and air conditioning, artificial lighting, and automatic spraying devices for carbon dioxide and nutrient solutions.
Now, would such systemized agriculture involving automated production under the watchful eyes of a single technician really provide people with fresh, inexpensive, and nutritious vegetables? A vegetable factory like this cannot be built and run without considerable outlays for capital and materials, so it is only natural to expect the vegetables thus produced to be expensive. However efficient and modern it may be, such a plant cannot possibly grow produce more cheaply than crops grown naturally with sunlight and soil.
Nature produces without calling for supplies or remuneration, but human effort always demands payment in return. The more sophisticated the equipment and facilities, the higher the costs. And man never knows when to stop. When a highly efficient robot is developed, people applaud, saying that efficient production is here at last. But their joy is short-lived, for soon they are dissatisfied again and demanding even more advanced and efficient technology. Everyone seems intent on lowering production costs, yet these costs have skyrocketed nevertheless.
Equally mistaken is the notion that food can be produced cheaply and in large quantity with microorganisms such as chlorella and yeast. Science cannot produce something from nothing. Invariably, the result is a decrease in production rather than an increase, giving a high-cost product.
People brought up eating unnatural food develop into artificial, anti-natural human beings with an unnatural body prone to disease and an unnatural way of thinking. There exists the frightful possibility that the transfiguration of agriculture may result in the perversion of far more than just agriculture.
Increased Production Has Not Brought Increased Yields
When talk everywhere turned to increasing food production, most people believed that raising yields and productivity through scientific techniques would enable man to produce larger, better, more plentiful food crops. Yet, larger harvests have not brought greater profits for farmers. In many cases, they have even resulted in losses.
Most high-yield farming technology in use today does not increase net profits. At fault are the very practices thought to be vital to increasing yields: the heavy application of chemical fertilizers and pesticides, and indiscriminate mechanization. But although these may be useful in reducing crop losses, they are not effective techniques for increasing productivity. In fact, such practices hurt productivity. They appear to work because:
1) Chemical fertilizers are effective only when the soil is dead.
2) Pesticides are effective only for protecting unhealthy plants.
3) Farm machinery is useful only when one has to cultivate a large area.
Another way of saying the same thing is that these methods are ineffective or even detrimental on fertile soil, healthy crops, and small fields. Chemical fertilizers can increase yields when the soil is poor to begin with and produces only 4 to 5 bushels of rice per quarter-acre. Even then, heavy fertilization produces an average rise in yield of not more than about 2 bushels over the long term. Chemical fertilizers are truly effective only on soil abused and wasted through slash-and-burn agriculture.
Adding chemical fertilizer to soil that regularly produces 7 to 8 bushels of rice per quarter-acre has very little effect, while addition to fields that yield 10 bushels may even hurt productivity. Chemical fertilizer is thus of benefit only as a means for preventing a decline in yields. Green manure—nature’s own fertilizer—and animal manure were cheaper and safer methods of increasing yields.
The same is true of pesticides. What sense can there be in producing unhealthy rice plants and applying powerful pesticides anywhere up to ten times a year? Before investigating how well pesticides kill harmful insects and how well they prevent crop losses, scientists should have studied how the natural ecosystem is destroyed by these pesticides and why crop plants have weakened. They should have investigated the causes underlying the disruption in the harmony of nature and the outbreak of pests, and on the basis of these findings decided whether pesticides are really needed or not.
By flooding the paddy fields and breaking up the soil with tillers until it hardens to the consistency of adobe, rice farmers have created conditions that make it impossible to raise crops without tilling, and in the process have deluded themselves into thinking this to be an effective and necessary part of farming. Fertilizers, pesticides, and farm machinery all appear convenient and useful in raising productivity. However, when viewed from a broader perspective, these kill the soil and crops, and destroy the natural productivity of the earth.
“But after all,” we are often told, “along with its advantages, science also has its disadvantages.” Indeed, the two are inseparable; we cannot have one without the other. Science can produce no good without evil. It is effective only at the price of the destruction of nature. This is why, after man has maimed and disfigured nature, science
appears to give such striking results—when all it is doing is repairing the most extreme damage.
Productivity of the land can be improved through scientific farming methods only when its natural productivity is in decline. These are regarded as high-yielding practices only because they are useful in stemming crop losses. To make matters worse, man’s efforts to return conditions to their natural state are always incomplete and accompanied by great waste. This explains the basic energy extravagance of science and technology.
Nature is entirely self-contained. In its eternal cycles of change, never is there the slightest extravagance or waste. All the products of the human intellect—which has strayed far from the bosom of nature—and all man’s labors are doomed to end in vain.
Before rejoicing over the progress of science, we should lament those conditions that have driven us to depend on its helping hand. The root cause for the decline of the farmer and crop productivity lie with the development of scientific agriculture.
**Energy-Wasteful Modern Agriculture**
The claim is often made that scientific agriculture has a high productivity, but if we calculate the energy efficiency of production, we find that this decreases with mechanization. Table 1.1 compares the amount of energy expended directly in rice production using five different methods of farming: natural farming, farming with the help of animals, and lightly, moderately, and heavily mechanized agriculture. Natural farming requires only one man day of labor to recover 130 pounds of rice, or 200,000 kilocalories of food energy, from a quarter-acre of land. The energy input needed to recover 200,000 kilocalories from the land in this way is the 2,000 kilocalories required to feed one farmer for one day. Cultivation with horses or oxen requires an energy input five to ten times as great, and mechanized agriculture calls for an input of from ten to fifty times as much energy. Since the efficiency of rice production is inversely proportional to the energy input, scientific agriculture requires an energy expenditure per unit of food produced up to fifty times that of natural farming.
The youths living in the mud-walled huts of my citrus orchard have shown me that a person’s minimum daily calorie requirement is somewhere about 1,000 calories for a “hermit’s diet” of brown rice with sesame seeds and salt, and 1,500 calories on a diet of brown rice and vegetables. This *is* enough to do a farmer’s work—equivalent to about one-tenth of a horsepower.
At one time, people believed that using horses and oxen would lighten the labor of men. But contrary to expectations, our reliance on these large animals has been to our disadvantage. Farmers would have been better off using pigs and goats to plow and turn the soil. In fact, what they should have done was to leave the soil to be worked by small animals—chickens, rabbits, mice, moles, and even worms. Large animals only appear to be useful when one is in a hurry to get the job done. We tend to forget that it takes over two acres of pasture to feed just one horse or cow. This much land could feed fifty or even a hundred people if one made full use of nature’s powers. Raising livestock has clearly taken its toll on man. The reason India’s farmers are so poor today is that they raised large numbers of cows and elephants which ate up all the grass, and dried and burned the droppings as fuel. Such practices have depleted soil fertility and reduced the productivity of the land.
Livestock farming today is of the same school of idiocy as the fish-farming of yellowtails. Raising one yellowtail to a marketable size requires ten times its weight in sardines. Similarly, a silver fox consumes ten times its weight in rabbit meat, and a rabbit ten times its weight in grass. What an incredible waste of energy to produce a single silver fox pelt! People have to work ten times as hard to eat beef as grain, and they had better be prepared to work five times as hard if they want to nourish themselves on milk and eggs.
Farming with the labor of animals therefore helps satisfy certain cravings and desires, but increases man’s labor many times over. Although this form of agriculture appears to benefit man, it actually puts him in the service of his livestock. In raising cattle or elephants as members of the farming household, the peasants of Japan and India impoverished themselves to provide their livestock with the calories they needed.
Mechanized farming is even worse. Instead of reducing the farmer’s work, mechanization enslaves him to his equipment. To the farmer, machinery is the largest domestic animal of all—a great guzzler of oil, a consumer good rather than a capital good. At first glance, mechanized agriculture appears to increase the productivity per worker and thus raise income. However, quite to the contrary, a look at the efficiency of land utilization and energy consumption reveals this to be an extremely destructive method of farming.
Man reasons by comparison. Thus he thinks it better to have a horse do the plowing than a man, and thinks it more convenient to own a ten-horsepower tractor than to keep ten horses—why, if it costs less than a horse, a one-horsepower motor is a bargain! Such thinking has accelerated the spread of mechanization and appears reasonable in the context of our currency-based economic system. But the progressively inorganic character and towered productivity of the land resulting from farming operations aimed at large-volume production, the economic disruption caused by the excessive input of energy, and the increased sense of alienation deriving from such a direct antithesis to nature has only speeded the dislocation of farmers off the land, however much this has been called progress.
Has mechanization really increased productivity and made things easier for the farmer? Let us consider the changes this has brought about in tilling practices.
A two-acre farmer who purchases a 30-horsepower tractor will not magically become a 50-acre farmer unless the amount of land in his care increases. If the land under cultivation is limited, mechanization only lowers the number of laborers required. This surplus manpower begets leisure. Applying such excess energy to some other work increases income, or so the reasoning goes. The problem, however, is that this extra income cannot come from the land. In fact, the yield from the land will probably decrease while the energy requirements skyrocket. In the end, the farmer is driven from his fields by his machinery. The use of machinery may make working the fields easier, but revenue from crop production has shrunk. Yet taxes are not about to decrease, and the costs of mechanization continue to climb by leaps and bounds. This is where things stand for the farmer.
The reduction in labor brought about by scientific farming has succeeded only in forcing farmers off the land. Perhaps the politician and consumer think the ability of a smaller number of workers to carry out agricultural production for the nation is indicative of progress. To the farmer, however, this is a tragedy, a preposterous mistake. For every tractor operator, how many dozens of farmers are driven off the land and forced to work in factories making agricultural implements and fertilizer—which would not be needed in the first place if natural farming were used.
Machinery, chemical fertilizers, and pesticides have drawn the farmer away from nature. Although these useless products of human manufacture do not raise the yields of his land, because they are promoted as tools for making profits and boosting yields, he labors under the illusion that he needs them. Their use has wrought great destruction on nature, robbing it of its powers and leaving man no choice but to tend vast fields by his own hand. This in turn has made large machinery, high-grade compound fertilizers, and powerful poisons indispensable. And the same vicious cycle goes on and on without end.
Larger and larger agricultural operations have not given farmers the stability they seek. Farms in Europe are ten times larger, and in the United States one hundred times larger, than the 6- to 7-acre farms common to Japan. Yet farmers in Europe and the U.S. are, if anything, even more insecure than Japanese farmers. It is only natural that farmers in the West who question the trend toward large-scale mechanized agriculture have sought an alternative in Eastern methods of organic farming. However, as they have come to realize also that traditional agriculture with farm animals is not the way to salvation, these farmers have begun searching frantically for the road leading toward natural farming.
**Laying to Waste the Land and Sea**
The modern livestock and fishing industries are also basically flawed. Everyone unquestioningly assumed that by raising poultry and livestock and by fish farming our diet would improve, but no one had the slightest suspicion that the production of meat would ruin the land and the raising of fish would pollute the seas.
In terms of caloric production and consumption, someone will have to work at least twice as hard if he wants to eat eggs and milk rather than grains and vegetables. If he likes meat, he will have to put out seven times the effort. Because it is *so* energy-inefficient, modern livestock farming cannot be considered as “production” in a basic sense. In fact, true efficiency has become so low and man has been driven to such extremes of toil and labor that he is even attempting to increase the efficiency of livestock production by raising large, genetically improved breeds.
The Japanese Bantam is a breed of chicken native to Japan. Leave it to roam about freely and it lays just one small egg every other day—low productivity by most standards. But although this chicken is not an outstanding egg-layer, it is in fact very productive. Take a breeding pair of Bantams, let them nest every so often, and before you know it they will hatch a clutch of chicks. Within a year’s time, your original pair of chickens will have grown to a flock often or twenty birds that together will lay many times as many eggs each day as the best variety of White Leghorn. The Bantams are very efficient calorie producers because they feed themselves and lay eggs on their own, literally producing something from nothing. Moreover, as long as the number of birds remains appropriate for the space available, raising chickens in this way does not harm the land.
Genetically-upgraded White Leghorns raised in cages lay one large egg a day. Because they produce so many eggs, it is commonly thought that raising these in large numbers will provide people with lots of eggs to eat and also generate droppings that can be used to enrich the land. But in order for the chickens to lay so many eggs, they have to be given feed grain having twice the caloric value of the eggs produced. Such artificial methods of raising chickens are thus basically counterproductive; instead of increasing calories, they actually cut the number of calories in half. Restoration of the wastes to the land is not easy, and even then, soil fertility is depleted to the extent of the caloric loss.
This is true not only for chickens but for pigs and cattle as well, where the efficiency is even worse. The ratio of energy output to input is 50 percent for broilers, 20 percent for pork, 15 percent for milk, and 8 percent for beef. Raising beef cattle cuts the food energy
recoverable from land tenfold; people who eat beef consume ten times as much energy as people on a diet of rice. Few are aware of how our livestock industry, which raises cattle in indoor stalls with feed grain shipped from the United States, has helped deplete American soil. Not only are such practices uneconomical, they amount essentially to a campaign to destroy vegetation on a global scale.
Nonetheless, people persist in believing that raising large numbers of chickens that are good egg-layers or improved breeds of hogs and cattle with a high feed conversion efficiency in enclosures is the only workable approach to mass production; they are convinced that this is intelligent, economical livestock farming. The very opposite is true. Artificial livestock practices consisting essentially of the conversion of feed into eggs, milk, or meat are actually very energy-wasteful. In fact, the larger and more highly improved the breed of animal being raised, the greater the energy input required and the greater the effort and pains that must be taken by the farmer.
The question we must answer then is: What should be raised, and where? First we must select breeds that can be left to graze the mountain pastures. Raising large numbers of genetically improved Holstein cows and beef cattle in indoor pens or small lots on concentrated feed is a highly risky business for both man and livestock alike. Moreover, such methods yield higher rates of energy loss than other forms of animal husbandry. Native breeds and varieties such as Jersey cattle, which are thought to be of lower productivity, actually have a higher feed efficiency and do not lead to depletion of the land. Being closer to nature, the wild boar and the black Berkshire pig are in fact more economical than the supposedly superior white Yorkshire breed. Profits aside, it would be better to raise small goats than dairy cattle. And raising deer, boars, rabbits, chickens, wildfowl, and even edible rodents, would be even more economical—and better protect nature—than goats.
In a small country like Japan, rather than raising large dairy cattle, which merely impoverishes the soil, it would be far wiser for each family to keep a goat. Breeds that are better milk producers but basically weak, such as Saanen, should be avoided and strong native varieties that can live on roughage raised. The goat, which is called the poor man’s cattle because it takes care of itself and also provides milk, is in fact inexpensive to raise and does not weaken the productivity of the land.
If poultry and livestock are to truly benefit man, they must be capable of feeding and fending for themselves under the open sky. Only then will food become naturally plentiful and contribute to man’s well-being.
In my idealized vision of livestock farming, I see bees busily making the rounds of clover and vegetable blossoms thickly flowering beneath trees laden heavy with fruit; I see semiwild chickens and rabbits frolicking with dogs in fields of growing wheat, and great numbers of ducks and mallards playing in the rice paddy; at the foot of the hills and in the valleys, black pigs and boars grow fat on worms and crayfish, and from time to time goats peer out from the thickets and trees.
This scene might be taken from an out-of-the-way hamlet in a country untarnished by modern civilization. The real question for us is whether to view it as a picture of primitive, economically disadvantaged life or as an organic partnership between man, animal, and nature. An environment comfortable for small animals is also an ideal setting for man.
It takes 200 square yards of land to support one human being living on grains, 600 square yards to support someone living on potatoes, 1,500 square yards for someone living on milk, 4,000 square yards for someone living on pork, and 10,000 square yards for someone subsisting entirely on beef. If the entire human population on earth were dependent on a diet of just beef, humanity would have already reached its limits of growth. The world population could grow to three times its present level on a diet of pork, eight times on a milk diet, and twenty times on a potato diet. On a diet of just grains, the carrying capacity of earth is sixty times the current world population.
One need look only at the United States and Europe for clear evidence that beef impoverishes the soil and denudes the earth.
Modern fishing practices are just as destructive. We have polluted and killed the seas that were once fertile fishing grounds. Today’s fishing industry raises expensive fish by feeding them several times their weight in smaller fish while rejoicing at how abundant fish have become. Scientists are interested only in learning how to make bigger catches or increasing the number of fish, but viewed in a larger context, such an approach merely speeds the decline in catches. Protecting seas in which fish can still be caught by hand should be a clear priority over the development of superior methods for catching fish. Research on breeding technology for shrimp, sea bream, and eels will not increase the numbers offish. Such misguided thinking and efforts are not only undermining the modern agricultural and fishing industries, they will also someday spell doom for the oceans of the world.
As with modern livestock practices that run counter to nature, man has tricked himself into believing that he can improve the fishing industry through the development of more advanced fish farming methods while at the same time perfecting fishing practices that destroy natural reproduction. Frankly, I am frightened at the dangers posed by treating fish with large doses of chemicals to prevent pelagic diseases that break out in the Inland Sea as a result of pollution caused by the large quantities of feed strewn over the water at the many fish farming centers on the Sea. It was no laughing matter when a rise in demand for sardines as feed for yellowtails resulted in a curious development recently: an acute shortage of sardines that made the smaller fish a luxury item for a short while.
Man ought to know that nature is fragile and easily harmed. It is far more difficult to protect than everyone seems to think. And once it has been destroyed, nature cannot be restored.
The way to enrich man’s diet is easy. It does not entail mass growing or gathering. But it does require man to relinquish human knowledge and action, and to allow nature to restore its natural bounty. Indeed, there is no other way.
2 THE ILLUSIONS OF NATURAL SCIENCE
1. The Errors of the Human Intellect
Scientific agriculture developed early in the West as one branch of the natural sciences, which arose in Western learning as the study of matter. The natural sciences took a materialistic viewpoint that interpreted nature analytically and dialectically. This
was a consequence of Western man’s belief in a man-nature dichotomy. In contrast to the Eastern view that man should seek to become one with nature, Western man used discriminating knowledge to place man in opposition to nature and attempted, from that vantage point, a detached interpretation of the natural world. For he was convinced that the human intellect can cast off subjectivity and comprehend nature objectively.
Western man firmly believed nature to be an entity with an objective reality independent of human consciousness, an entity that man can know through observation, reductive analysis, and reconstruction. From these processes of destruction and reconstruction arose the natural sciences.
The natural sciences have advanced at breakneck speed, flinging us into the space age. Today, man appears capable of knowing everything about the universe. He grows ever more confident that, sooner or later, he will understand even phenomena as yet unknown. But what exactly does it mean for man to “know”? He may laugh at the folly of the proverbial frog in the well, but is unable to laugh off his own ignorance before the vastness of the universe. Although man, who occupies but one small corner of the universe, can never hope to fully understand the world in which he lives, he persists nonetheless in the illusion that he has the cosmos in the palm of his hand.
Man is not in a position to know nature.
**Nature Must Not Be Dissected**
Scientific farming first arose when man, observing plants as they grew, came to know these and later grew convinced that he could raise them himself. Yet has man really known nature? Has he really grown crops and lived by the fruit of his own labor? Man looks at a stalk of wheat and says he knows what that wheat is. But does he really know wheat, and is he really capable of growing it? Let us examine the process by which man thinks he can know things.
Man believes that he has to fly off into outer space to learn about space, or that he must travel to the moon to know the moon. In the same way, he thinks that to know a stalk of wheat, he must first take it in his hand, dissect it, and analyze it. He thinks that the best way to learn about something is to collect and assemble as much data on it as possible. In his efforts to learn about nature, man has cut it up into little pieces. He has certainly learned many things in this way, but what he has examined has not been nature itself.
Man’s curiosity has led him to ask why and how the winds blow and the rain falls. He has carefully studied the tides of the sea, the nature of lightning, and the plants and animals that inhabit the fields and mountains. He has extended his inquiring gaze into the tiny world of microorganisms, into the realm of minerals and inorganic matter. Even the sub-microscopic universe of molecules, atoms, and subatomic particles has come under his scrutiny. Detailed research has pressed forth on the morphology, physiology, ecology, and every other conceivable aspect of a single flower, a single stalk of wheat.
Even a single leaf presents infinite opportunities for study. The collection of cells that together form the leaf; the nucleus of one of these cells, which harbors the mystery of life; the chromosomes that hold the key to heredity; the question of how chlorophyll synthesizes starch from sunlight and carbon dioxide; the unseen activity of roots at work;
the uptake of various nutrients by the plant; how water rises to the tops of tall trees; the relationships between various components and microorganisms in the soil; how these interact and change when absorbed by the roots and what functions they serve—these are but a few of the inexhaustible array of topics scientific research has pursued.
But nature is a living, organic whole that cannot be divided and subdivided. When it is separated into two complementary halves and these divided again into four, when research becomes fragmented and specialized, the unity of nature is lost.
The diagram in Figure 2.1 is an attempt to illustrate the interplay of factors, or elements, that determine yields in rice cultivation. Originally, the elements determining yield were not divided and separate. All were joined in perfect order under a single conductor’s baton and resonated together in exquisite harmony. Yet, when science inserted its scalpel, a complex and horrendously chaotic array of elements appeared. All science has succeeded in doing is to peel the skin off a beautiful woman and reveal a bloody mass of tissue. What a miserable, wasted effort.
Nowadays, plants can be made to bloom in all seasons. Stores display fruits and vegetables throughout the year, so that one almost forgets whether it is summer or winter anymore. This is the result of chemical controls that have been developed to regulate the time of bud formation and differentiation.
Confident of his ability to synthesize the proteins that make up cells, man has even challenged the “ultimate” secret—the mystery of life itself. Whether he will succeed in synthesizing cells depends on his ability to synthesize nucleic acids, this being the last major hurdle to the synthesis of living matter. The synthesis of simple forms of life is now just a matter of time, this was first anticipated when the notion of a fundamental difference between living and non-living matter was laid to rest with the discovery of bacteriophages, the confirmation—in subsequent research on viral pathogens—of the existence of non-living matter that multiplies, and the first attempts to synthesize such matter.
Following his interests blindly, man is intently at work on the synthesis of life without knowing what the successful creation of living cells means or the repercussions it might have. Nor is this all. Carried along by their own momentum, scientists have even begun venturing into chromosome synthesis. Soon after the disclosure that man had synthesized life came the announcement that the synthesis and modification of chromosomes has become possible through genetic recombination. Man can already create and alter living organism: like the Creator. We are about to enter an age in which scientists will create organisms that have never before appeared on the face of the earth. Following test-tube babies, we will see the creation of artificial beings, monsters, and enormous crops. In fact, these have already begun to appear.
Granted, one certainly does get the impression that great advances have been made in human understanding, that man has come to know all things in nature and, by using and adapting such knowledge, has accelerated progress in human life. Yet, there is a catch to all of this. Man’s awareness is intrinsically imperfect, and this gives rise to errors in human understanding.
When man says that he is capable of knowing nature, to “know” does not mean to grasp and understand the true essence of nature. It means only that man knows that nature which he is able to know.
**Fig. 2.1 The factors of rice cultivation.**
Just as the world known to a frog in a well is not the entire world but only the world within that well, so the nature that man can perceive and know is only that nature which he has been able to grasp with his own hands and his own subjectivity. But of course, this is not true nature.
**The Maze of Relative Subjectivity**
When people want to know what Okuninushi no Mikoto, the Shinto deity of agriculture, carries around in the huge sack on his shoulder, they immediately open the sack and thrust their hands in. They think that to understand the interior of the sack, they must know its contents. Supposing they found the sack to be filled with all sorts of
strange objects made of wood and bamboo. At this point, most people would begin to make various pronouncements: “Why this no doubt is a tool used by travelers.” “No, it’s a decorative carving.” “No, it most definitely is a weapon.” And so forth. Yet the truth, known only to Okuninushi himself, is that the object is an instrument fashioned by him for his amusement. And moreover, because it is broken, he is carrying it around in his sack merely for use as kindling.
Man jumps into that great sack called nature, and grabbing whatever he can, turns it over and examines it, asking himself what it is and how it works, and drawing his own conclusions about what purpose nature serves. But no matter how careful his observations and reasoning, each and every interpretation carries the risk of causing grievous error because man cannot know nature any more than he can know the uses for the objects in Okuninushi’s sack.
Yet man is not easily discouraged. He believes that, even if it amounts to the same absurdity as jumping into the sack and guessing at the objects inside, man’s knowledge will broaden without limit; simple observations will start the wheels of reason and inference turning.
For example, man may see some shells attached to a piece of bamboo and mistake it for a weapon. When further investigation reveals that rapping the shells against the bamboo makes an interesting sound, he will conclude this to be a musical instrument, and will infer from the curvature of the bamboo that it must be worn dangling from the waist while dancing. With each step in this line of reasoning, he will believe himself that much closer to the truth.
Just as he believes that he can know Okuninushi’s mind by studying the contents of his sack, so man believes that, by observing nature, he can learn the story of its creation and can in turn become privy to its very designs and purpose. But this is a hopeless illusion, for man can know the world only by stepping outside of the sack and meeting face-to-face with the owner.
A flea born and raised in the sack without ever having seen the world outside will never be able to guess that the object in the sack is an instrument that is hung from Okuninushi’s belt, no matter how much it studies the object. Similarly, man, who is born within nature and will never be able to step outside of the natural world, can never understand all of nature merely by examining that part of nature around him. Man’s answer to this is that, although he may not be able to view the world from without, if he has the knowledge and ability to explore the furthest reaches of the vast, seemingly boundless universe and is able at least to learn what there is and what has happened in this universe, is not this enough? Has not man learned, sooner or later, everything that he wished to learn? That which is unknown today will become known tomorrow. This being the case, there is nothing man cannot know.
Even if he were to spend his entire life within a sack, provided he was able to learn everything about the inside of the sack, would this not be enough? Is not the frog in the well able to live there in peace and tranquility? What need has it for the world outside the well?
Man watches nature unfold about him; he examines it and puts it to practical use. If he gets the expected results, he has no reason to call into question his knowledge or actions.
There being nothing to suggest that he is in error, does not this mean that he has grasped the real truth about the world?
He assumes an air of indifference: “I don’t know what lies outside the world of the unknown; maybe nothing. This goes beyond the sphere of the intellect. We’d be better off leaving inquiries into a world that may or may not exist to those men of religion who dream of God.”
But who is it that is dreaming? Who is it that is seeing illusions? And knowing the answer to this, can we enjoy true peace of mind? No matter how deep his understanding of the universe, it is man’s subjectivity that holds up the stage on which his knowledge performs. But just what if his subjective view were all wrong? Before laughing at blind faith in God, man should take note of his blind faith in himself.
When man observes and judges, there is only the thing called “man” and the thing being observed. It is this thing called “man” that verifies and believes in the reality of an object, and it is man who verifies and believes in the existence of this thing called “man.” Everything in this world derives from man and he draws all the conclusions. In which case, he need not worry about being God’s puppet. But he does run the risk of acting out a drunken role on the stage supported by the crazed subjectivity of his own despotic existence.
“Yes,” persists the scientist, “man observes and makes judgments, so one cannot deny that subjectivity may be at work here. Yet his ability to reason enables man to divest himself of subjectivity and see things objectively as well. Through repeated inductive experimentation and reasoning, man has resolved all things into patterns of association and interaction. The proof that this was no mistake lies about us, in the airplanes, automobiles, and all the other trappings of modern civilization.”
But if, on taking a better look at this modern civilization of ours, we find it to be insane, we must conclude that the human intellect which engendered it is also insane. It is the perversity of human subjectivity that gave rise to our ailing modern age. Indeed, whether one views the modern world as insane or not may even be a criterion of one’s own sanity. We have already seen, in Chapter 1, how perverted agriculture has grown.
Are airplanes really fast, and cars truly a comfortable way to travel? Isn’t our magnificent civilization nothing more than a toy, an amusement? Man is unable to see the truth because his eyes are veiled by subjectivity. He has looked at the green of trees without knowing true green, and has “known” the color crimson without seeing crimson itself. That has been the source of all his errors.
**Non-Discriminating Knowledge**
The statement that science arose from doubt and discontent is often used as implied justification of scientific inquiry, but this in no way justifies it. On the contrary, when confronted with the havoc wrought by science and technology on nature, one cannot help feeling disquiet at this very process of scientific inquiry that man uses to separate and classify his doubts and discontents.
An infant sees things intuitively. When observed without intellectual discrimination, nature is entire and complete—a unity. In this non-discriminating view of creation, there
is no cause for the slightest doubt or discontent. A baby is satisfied and enjoys peace of mind without having to do anything.
The adult mentally picks things apart and classifies them; he sees everything as imperfect and fraught with inconsistency. This is what is meant by grasping things dialectically. Armed with his doubts about “imperfect” nature and his discontent, man has set forth to improve upon nature and vainly calls the changes he has brought about “progress” and “development.”
People believe that as a child grows into adulthood his understanding of nature deepens and through this process he becomes able to contribute to progress and development in this world. That this “progress” is nothing other than a march toward annihilation is clearly shown by the spiritual decay and environmental pollution that plague the developed nations of the world.
When a child living in the country comes across a muddy rice field, he jumps right in and plays in the mud. This is the simple, straightforward way of a child who knows the earth intuitively. But a child raised in the city lacks the courage to jump into the field. His mother has constantly been after him to wash the grime from his hands, telling him that dirt is filthy and full of germs. The child who “knows” about the “awful germs” in the dirt sees the muddy rice field as unclean, an ugly and fearful place. Are the mother’s knowledge and judgment really better than the unschooled intuition of the country child?
Hundreds of millions of microorganisms crowd each gram of soil. Bacteria are present in this soil, but so are other bacteria that kill these bacteria, and yet other bacteria that kill the killer bacteria. The soil contains bacteria harmful to man, but also many that are harmless or even beneficial to man. The soil in the fields under the sun is not only healthy and whole, it is absolutely essential to man. A child who rolls in the dirt grows up healthy. An unknowing child grows up strong.
What ‘this means is that the knowledge that “there are germs in the soil” is more ignorant than ignorance itself. People would expect the most knowledgeable person on soil to be the soil scientist. But if, in spite of his extensive knowledge on soil as mineral matter in flasks and test tubes, his research does not allow him to know the joy of lying on the ground under the sun, he cannot be said to know anything about the soil. The soil that he knows is a discreet, isolated part of a whole. The only complete and whole soil is natural soil before it is broken down and analyzed, and it is the infant and child who best know, in their ingenuous way, what truly natural soil is.
The mother (science) who parades her partial knowledge implants in the child (modern man) a false image of nature. In Buddhism, knowledge that splits apart self and object and sets them up in opposition is called “discriminating knowledge,” while knowledge that treats self and object as a unified whole is called “non-discriminating knowledge,” the highest form of wisdom.
Clearly, the “discriminating adult” is inferior to the “non-discriminating child,” for the adult only plunges himself into ever-deepening confusion.
2. THE FALLACIES OF SCIENTIFIC UNDERSTANDING
The Limits to Analytical Knowledge
The scientific method consists of four basic steps. The first is to consciously focus one’s attention on something and to observe and examine it mentally. The second step is to use one’s powers of discernment and reasoning to set up a hypothesis and formulate a theory based on these observations. The third is to empirically uncover a single principle or law from concurring results gathered through analogous experiences and repeated experimentation. And finally, when the results of inductive experimentation have been applied and found to hold, the final step is to accept this knowledge as scientific truth and affirm its utility to mankind.
As this process begins with research that discriminates, breaks down, and analyzes, the truths it grasps can never be absolute and universal. Thus scientific knowledge is by definition fragmented and incomplete; no matter how many bits of incomplete knowledge are collected together, they can never form a complete whole. Man believes that the continued dissection and deciphering of nature enable broad generalizations to be made which give a full picture of nature, but this only breaks nature down into smaller and smaller fragments and reduces it to ever greater imperfection.
The judgment by man that science understands nature and can use it to create a more perfect world has had the very opposite effect of making nature incomprehensible and has drawn man away from nature and its blessings, so that he now gladly harvests imitation crops far inferior to those of nature.
To illustrate, let us consider the scientist who brings a soil sample back to the laboratory for analysis. Finding the sample to consist of organic and inorganic matter, he divides the inorganic matter up into its components, such as nitrogen, potassium, phosphorus, calcium, and manganese, and studies, say, the pathways by which these elements are absorbed by plants as nutrients. He then plants seeds in pots or small test plots to study how plants grow in this soil. He also carefully examines the relationships between microorganisms in the soil and inorganic soil components, and the roles and effects of these microorganisms.
The wheat that grows of its own accord from fallen seed on the open ground and the wheat planted and grown in laboratory pots are both identical, but man expends great time, effort, and resources to raise wheat, all because of the blind faith he has in his own ability to grow more and better wheat than nature. Why does he believe this?
Wheat growth varies with the conditions under which the wheat is grown. Noting a variation in the size of the heads of wheat, the scientist sets about to investigate the cause. He discovers that when there is too little calcium or magnesium in the soil within the pot, growth is poor and the leaves whither. When he artificially supplements the calcium or magnesium, he notes that the rate of growth increases and large grains form. Pleased with his success, the scientist calls his discovery scientific truth and treats it as an infallible cultivation technique.
But the real question here is whether the lack of calcium or magnesium was a true deficiency. What is the basis for calling it a deficiency, and is the remedy prescribed really in the best interests of man? When a field really is deficient in some component, the first thing done should be to determine the true cause of the deficiency. Yet science
begins by treating the most obvious symptoms. If there is bleeding, it stops the bleeding. For a calcium deficiency, it immediately applies calcium.
If this does not solve the problem, then science looks further and any number of reasons may come to light: perhaps the over-application of potassium reduced calcium absorption by the plant or changed the calcium in the soil to a form that cannot be taken up by the plant.
This calls for a new approach. But behind every cause, there is a second and a third cause. Behind every phenomenon there is a main cause, a fundamental cause, an underlying cause, and contributing factors. Numerous causes and effects intertwine in a complex pattern that leaves little clue as to the true cause. Even so, man is confident of the ability of science to find the true cause through persistent and ever deeper investigation and to set up effective ways of coping with the problem. Yet, just how far can he go in his investigation of cause and effect?
**Fig. 2.2 Relationship between cause and effect.**
---
**There Is No Cause-and-Effect in Nature**
Behind every cause lie countless other causes. Any attempt to trace these back to their sources only leads one further away from an understanding of the true cause.
When soil acidity becomes a problem, one jumps to the immediate conclusion that the soil does not contain enough lime. However this deficiency of lime may be due not to the soil itself, but to a more fundamental cause such as erosion of the soil resulting from repeated cultivation on ground exposed by weeding; or perhaps it is related to the rainfall or temperature. Applying lime to treat soil acidity thought to result from insufficient lime may bring about excessive plant growth and increase acidity even further, in which case one ends up confusing cause with effect. Soil acidity control measures taken without understanding why the soil became acidic in the first place may be just as likely to prolong acidity as to reduce it.
Right after the war, I used large quantities of sawdust and wood chips in my orchard. Soil experts opposed this, saying that the organic acids produced when the wood rots
would most likely make the soil acidic and that to neutralize it I would have to apply large quantities of lime. Yet the soil did not turn acid, so lime was not needed. What happens is that, when bacteria start decomposing the sawdust, organic acids are produced. But as the acidity rises, bacterial growth levels off and molds begin to flourish. When the soil is left to itself, the molds are eventually replaced by mushrooms and other fungi, which break the sawdust down to cellulose and lignin. The soil at this point is neither acidic nor basic, but hovers about a point of equilibrium.
The decision to counteract the acidity of rotting wood by applying lime only addresses the situation at a particular moment in time and under certain assumed conditions without a full understanding of the causal relationships involved. Nonintervention is the wisest course of action.
The same is true for crop diseases. Believing rice blast to be caused by the infiltration of rice blast bacteria, farmers are convinced beyond a doubt that the disease can be dispelled by spraying copper or mercury agents. However, the truth is not so simple. High temperatures and heavy rainfall may be contributing factors, as may the over-application of nitrogenous fertilizers. Perhaps flooding of the paddy during a period of high temperature weakened the roots, or the variety of rice being grown has a low resistance to rice blast disease.
Any number of interrelated factors may exist. Different measures may be adopted at different times and under different conditions, or a more comprehensive approach applied. But with a general acceptance of the scientific explanation for rice blast disease comes the belief that science is working on a way to combat the disease. Steady improvement in the pesticides used for the direct control of the disease has led to the present state of affairs where pesticides are applied several times a year as a sort of panacea.
But as research digs deeper and deeper, what was once accepted as plain and simple fact is no longer clear, and causes cease to be what they appear.
For instance, even if we know that excess nitrogenous fertilizer is a cause of rice blast disease, determining how the excess fertilizer relates to attack by rice blast bacteria is no easy matter. If the plant receives plenty of sunlight, photosynthesis in the leaves speeds up, increasing the rate at which nitrogenous components taken up by the roots are assimilated as protein that nourishes the stem and leaves or is stored in the grain. But if cloudy weather persists or the rice is planted too densely, individual plants may receive insufficient light or too little carbon dioxide, slowing photosynthesis. This may in turn cause an excess of nitrogenous components to remain unassimilated in the leaves, making the plant susceptible to the disease.
Thus, an excess of nitrogenous fertilizer may or may not be the cause of rice blast disease. One can just as easily ascribe the cause to insufficient sunlight or carbon dioxide, or to the amount of starch in the leaves, but then it turns out that to understand how these factors relate to rice blast disease, we need to understand the process of photosynthesis. Yet modern science has not yet succeeded in fully unlocking the secrets of this process by which starch is synthesized from sunlight and carbon dioxide in the leaves of plants.
We know that rotting roots make a plant susceptible to rice blast, but the attempts of scientists to explain why are less than convincing. This happens when the balance
between the surface portion of the plant and its roots breaks down. Yet in trying to define what that balance is, we must answer why a weight in-equilibrium in the roots as compared with the stalk and leaves makes the plant susceptible to attack by pathogens, what constitutes an “unhealthy” state, and other riddles that ultimately leave us knowing nothing.
Sometimes the problem is blamed on a weak strain of rice, but again no one is able to define what “weak” means. Some scientists talk of the silica content and stalk hardness, while others define “weakness” in terms of physiology, genetics, or some other branch of scientific learning. In the end, we gradually fail to understand even those causes that appeared clear at first, and completely lose sight of the true cause.
When man sees a brown spot on a leaf, he calls it abnormal. If he finds an unusual bacteria on that spot, he calls the plant diseased. His confident solution to rice blast disease is to kill the pathogen with pesticides. But in so doing he has not really solved the problem of blast disease. Without a grasp of the true cause of the disease, his solution cannot be a real solution. Behind each cause lies another cause, and behind that yet another. Thus what we view as a cause can also be seen as the result of another cause. Similarly, what we think of as an effect may become the cause of something else.
**Fig. 2.3** Effect may be traced back to cause, and cause to prior cause, in an endless chain of cause and effect.
| Ripening of grain | Effect |
|-------------------|--------|
| Thinning of plants| Cause = Effect ---- First cause |
| Blast disease | Effect = Cause ---- Second cause |
| Rice blast bacteria | Cause = Effect ---- Third cause |
| Excess nitrogen | Effect = Cause ---- Fourth cause |
|-----------------|----------------------------------|
| Protein | Cause = Effect ---- Fifth cause |
| Carbon dioxide assimilation | Effect = Cause ---- Sixth cause |
| Respiration | Cause = Effect ---- Seventh cause |
The rice plant itself may see blast disease as a protective mechanism that halts excessive plant growth and restores a balance between the surface and underground portions of the plant. The disease might even be regarded as a means by nature for preventing the overly dense growth of rice plants, thus aiding photosynthesis and assuring the full production of seed. In any case, rice blast disease is not the final effect, but merely one stage in the constant flux of nature. It is both a cause as well as an effect.
Although cause and effect may be clearly discernible when observing an isolated event at a certain point in time, if one views nature from a broader spatial and temporal perspective, one sees a tangled confusion of causal relationships that defy unraveling into cause and effect. Even so, man thinks that by resolving this confusion down to its tiniest details and attempting to deal with these details at their most elementary level, he will be able to develop more precise and reliable solutions. But this scientific thinking and methodology only results in the most circuitous and pointless efforts.
Viewed up close, organic causal relationships can be resolved into causes and effects, but when examined holistically, no effects and causes are to be found. There is nothing to
get ahold of, so all measures are futile. Nature has neither beginning nor end, before nor after, cause nor effect. Causality does not exist.
When there is no front or back, no beginning or end, but only what resembles a circle or sphere, one could say that there is unity of cause and effect, but one could just as well claim that cause and effect do not exist. This is my principle of non-causality.
To science, which examines this wheel of causality in parts and at close quarters, cause and effect exist. To the scientific mind trained to believe in causality, there most certainly is a way to combat rice blast bacteria. Yet when man, in his myopic way, perceives rice disease as a nuisance and takes the scientific approach of controlling the disease with a powerful bactericide, he proceeds from his first error that causality exists to subsequent errors. From his futile efforts he incurs further toil and misery.
3. A Critique of the Laws of Agricultural Science
The Laws of Modern Agriculture
Certain generally accepted laws have been critical to the development of modern agricultural practices and serve as the foundation of scientific agriculture. These are the laws of diminishing returns, equilibrium, adaptation, compensation and cancellation, relativity, and the law of minimum. I would like to examine here the validity of each from the standpoint of natural farming. But before doing so, a brief description of these laws will help to show why each, when examined by itself, appears to stand up as an unassailable truth.
Law of Diminishing Returns: This law states, for example, that when one uses scientific technology to grow rice or wheat on a given plot of land, the technology proves effective up to some upper limit, but exceeding this limit has the reverse effect of diminishing yields. Such a limit is not fixed in the real world; it changes with time and
circumstance, so agricultural technology constantly seeks ways to break through it. Yet this law teaches that there are definite limits to returns and that beyond a certain point additional effort is futile.
*Equilibrium:* Nature works constantly to strike a balance, to maintain an equilibrium. When this balance breaks down, forces come into effect that work to restore it. All phenomena in the natural world act to restore and maintain a state of equilibrium. Water flows from a high point to a low point, electricity from a high potential to a low potential. Flow ceases when the surface of the water is level, when there is no longer any difference in the electrical potential. The chemical transformation of a substance stops when chemical equilibrium has been restored. In the same way, all the phenomena associated with living organisms work tirelessly to maintain a state of equilibrium.
*Adaptation:* Animals live by adapting to their environment and crops similarly show the ability to adapt to changes in growing conditions. Such adaptation is one type of activity aimed at restoring equilibrium in the natural world. The concepts of equilibrium and adaptation are thus intimately related and inseparable from each other.
*Compensation and Cancellation:* When rice is planted densely, the plants send out fewer tillers, and when it is planted sparsely, a larger number of stalks grow per plant. This is said to illustrate compensation. The notion of cancellation can be seen, for example, in the smaller heads of grain that result from increasing the number of stalks per plant, or in the smaller grains that form on heads of rice nourished to excessive size with heavy fertilization.
*Relativity:* Factors that determine crop yield are associated with other factors, and all change constantly in relation to each other. An interrelationship exists, for example, between the planting period and the quantity of seed sown, between the time and amount of fertilizer application, and between the number of seedlings and the spacing of plants. No particular amount of seed broadcast, quantity of fertilizer applied, or sowing period is decisive or critical under all conditions. Rather, the fanner constantly weighs one factor against another, making relative judgments that this variety of grain, that method of cultivation, and that type of fertilizer over there is right for such-and-such a period.
*Law of Minimum:* This universally known law, first proposed by Justus von Liebig, a German chemist, may be said to have laid the foundation for the development of modern agriculture. It states that the yield of a crop is determined by the one element, of all those making up the yield, in shortest supply. Liebig illustrated this with a diagram now known as Liebig’s barrel.
The amount of water—or yield—the barrel holds is determined by that nutrient in shortest supply. No matter how large the supply of other nutrients, it is that nutrient of which there is the greatest scarcity that sets the upper limit on the yield.
A typical illustration of this principle would point out that the reason crops fail on volcanic soil in spite of the abundance of nitrogen, potassium, calcium, iron, and other nutrients is the scarcity of phosphates. Indeed, the addition of phosphate fertilizer often results in improved yields. In addition to tackling problems with soil nutrients, this concept has also been applied as a basic tool for achieving high crop yields.
**All Laws Are Meaningless**
Each of the above laws is treated and applied independently, yet are these really different and distinct from one another? My conclusion is that nature is an indivisible whole; all laws emanate from one source and return to Mu, or nothingness.
Scientists have examined nature from every conceivable angle and have seen this unity as a thousand different forms. Although they recognize that these separate laws are intimately related and point in the same general direction, there is a world of difference between this realization and the awareness that all laws are one and the same.
One could read into the law of diminishing returns a force at work in nature that strives to maintain equilibrium by opposing and suppressing gradual increases in returns.
Compensation and cancellation are mutually antagonistic. The forces of cancellation act to negate the forces of compensation, by which mechanism nature seeks to maintain a balance.
Equilibrium and adaptability are, beyond any doubt, means of protecting the balance, order, and harmony of nature.
And if there is a law of the minimum, then there must also be a law of the maximum. In their search for equilibrium and harmony, plants have an aversion not only to nutrient deficiencies, but to deficiencies and excesses of anything.
Each one of these laws is nothing other than a manifestation of the great harmony and balance of nature. Each springs from a single source that draws them all together. What has misled man is that, when the same law emanates from a single source in different directions, he perceives each image as representing a different law.
Nature is an absolute void. Those who see nature as a point have gone one step astray, those who see it as a circle have gone two steps astray, and those who see breadth, matter, time, and cycles have wandered off into a world of illusion distant and divorced from true nature.
The law of diminishing returns, which concerns gains and losses, does not reflect a true understanding of nature—a world without loss or gain. When one has understood that there is no large or small in nature, only a great harmony, the notion of a minimum and a maximum nutrient also is reduced to a petty, circumstantial view.
There was never any need for man to set into play his vision of relativity, to get all worked up over compensation and cancellation, or equilibrium and disequilibrium. Yet, agricultural scientists have drawn up elaborate hypotheses and added explanations for everything, leading farming further and further away from nature and upsetting the order and balance of the natural world.
Life on earth is a story of the birth and death of individual organisms, a cyclic history of the ascendance and fall, the thriving and failure, of communities. All matter behaves according to set principles—whether we are talking of the cosmic universe, the world of microorganisms, or the far smaller world of molecules and atoms that make up living and nonliving matter. All things are in constant flux while preserving a fixed order; all things move in a recurrent cycle unified by some basic force emanating from one source.
If we had to give this fundamental law a name, we could call it the “Dharmic Law That All Things Return to One.” All things fuse into a circle, which reverts to a point, and the point to nothing. To man, it appears as if something has occurred and something has vanished, yet nothing is ever created or destroyed. This is not the same as the scientific law of the conservation of matter. Science maintains that destruction and conservation exist side by side, but ventures no further.
The different laws of agricultural science are merely scattered images, as seen through the prisms of time and circumstance, of this fundamental law that all things return to one. Because these laws all derive from the same source and were originally one, it is natural that they should fuse together like stalks of rice at the base of the plant. Man might just as well have chosen to group together the law of diminishing returns, the law of minimum, and the law of compensation and cancellation, for example, and refer to these collectively as the “law of harmony.” When we interpret this single law as several different laws, are we really explaining more of nature and achieving agricultural progress?
In his desire to know and understand nature, man applies numerous laws to it from many different perspectives. As would be expected, human knowledge deepens and expands, but man is sadly deceived in thinking that he draws closer to a true understanding of nature as he learns more about it. For he actually draws further and further away from nature with each new discovery and each fresh bit of knowledge.
These laws are fragments cut from the one law that flows at the source of nature. But this is not to say that if reassembled, they would form the original law. They would not.
Just as in the tale of the blind men and the elephant in which one blind man touches the elephant’s trunk and believes it to be a snake and another touches one of the elephant’s legs and calls it a tree, man believes himself capable of knowing the whole of nature by touching a part of it. There are limits to crop yields. There is balance and imbalance. Man observes the dualities of compensation and cancellation, of life and death, loss and gain. He notes nutrient excess and deficiency, abundance and scarcity,
and from these observations derives various laws and pronounces them truths. He believes that he has succeeded in knowing and understanding nature and its laws, but what he has understood is nothing more than the elephant as seen by the blind men.
No matter how many fragmentary laws extracted from the single unnamed law of nature are collected together, they can never add up to the great source principle. That the nature observed through these laws differs fundamentally from true nature should come as no surprise. Scientific farming based on the application of such laws is vastly different from natural farming, which observes the basic principle of nature.
As long as natural farming stands on this unique law, it is guaranteed truth and possesses eternal life. For although the laws of scientific farming may be useful in examining the status quo, they cannot be used to develop better cultivation techniques. These laws cannot boost rice yields beyond those attainable by present methods, and are useful only in preventing reduced yields.
When the farmer asks: “How many rice seedlings should I transplant per square yard of paddy?” the scientist launches into a long-winded explanation of how the seedling does not increase yields, how compensation and cancellation are at work keeping seedling growth and the number of tillers within a given range to maintain an equilibrium, how too small a number of seedlings may be the limiting factor for yield and too large a number can cause a decline in the harvested grain. At which point, the farmer asks with exasperation: “So what am I supposed to do?” Even the number of seedlings that should be planted varies with the conditions, and yet this has been the subject of endless research and debate.
No one knows how many stalks will grow from the seedlings planted in spring, or how this will affect yields in the fall. All one can do is theorize, after the harvest is in, that a smaller number of seedlings would have been better because of the high temperatures that summer, or that the combination of sparse planting and low temperatures were at fault for the low yields. These laws are of use only in explaining results, and cannot be of any help in reaching beyond what is currently possible.
**A Critical Look at Liebig’s Law of Minimum**
In any discussion of increased production and high yields, the following are generally given as factors affecting yield:
| Meteorological conditions | sunlight, temperature, humidity, wind strength, air, oxygen, carbon dioxide, hydrogen, etc. |
|---------------------------|-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|
| Soil conditions | Physical: structure, moisture, air Chemical: inorganic, organic, nutrients, constituents |
| Biological conditions | animals, plants, microorganisms |
| Artificial conditions | breeding, cultivation, manure and fertilizer application, disease and pest control |
Scientific farming pieces together the conditions and factors that make up production, and either conducts specialized research in each area or arrives at generalizations, on the basis of which it attempts to increase yields.
The notion of raising productivity by making partial improvements in a number of these factors of production most likely originated with Liebig’s thinking, which has played a key role in the development of modern agriculture in the West.
According to Liebig’s law of minimum, the yield of a crop is determined by that nutrient present in shortest supply. Implicit in this rule is the notion that yield can be increased by improving the factors of production. Going one step further, this can also be understood to imply that, because the worst factor represents the largest barrier to increased yields, significant improvement can be made in the yield by training research efforts on this factor and improving it.
Using the analogy of a barrel (Fig. 2.5), Liebig’s law states that, just as the level of the water in a barrel cannot rise above the height of the lowest barrel stave, so yields are determined by the factor of production present in shortest supply. In reality, however, this is not the case.
Granted, if we break down the crop nutrients and analyze them chemically, we find that these can be divided into any number of components: nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium, calcium, manganese, magnesium, and so on. But to claim that supplying all these factors in sufficient quantity raises yield is dubious reasoning at best. Rather than claiming that this increases yield, we should say only that it maintains yield. A nutrient in short supply decreases yield, but providing a sufficient amount of this nutrient does not increase yield, it merely prevents a loss in yield.
Liebig’s barrel fails to apply to real-life situations on two counts. First, what holds up the barrel? The yield of a crop is not determined by just one factor; it is the general outcome of all the conditions and factors of cultivation. Thus, before becoming concerned with the effects that the surplus or shortage of a particular nutrient might have, it would make more sense to decide first the extent to which nutrients play a determining role on crop yields.
Unless one establishes the limits, coordinates, and domain represented by the factor known as nutrients, any results obtained from research on nutrients break apart in midair. Liebig’s barrel is a concept floating in the air. In the real world, yield is composed of innumerable interrelated factors and conditions, so the barrel should be shown on top of a column or pedestal representing these many conditions.
As Figure 2.7 shows, yield is determined by various factors and conditions, such as scale of operations, equipment, nutrient supply, and other considerations. Not only is the effect of a surplus or deficiency of any one factor on the yield very small, there is no real way of telling how great this effect is on a scale of one to ten.
Then also, the angle of the column or pedestal holding up the barrel affects the tilt of the barrel, changing the amount of water that it can hold. In fact, because the tilt of the
barrel exerts a greater influence on the amount of water held by the barrel than the height of the staves, the level of individual nutrients is often of no real significance.
**Fig. 2.7** Conditions affecting yield.
The second reason Liebig’s barrel analogy does not apply to the real world is that the barrel has no hoops. Before worrying about the height of the staves, we should look at how tightly they are fitted together. A barrel without hoops leaks horribly and cannot hold water. The leakage of water between the barrel staves due to the absence of tightly fastened hoops represents man’s lack of a full understanding of the interrelatedness of different nutrients.
One could say that we know next to nothing about the true relationships between nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium, and the dozens of other crop nutrients; that no matter how much research is done on each of these, man will never fully understand the organic connections between all the nutrients making up a single crop.
Even were we to attempt to fully understand just one nutrient, this would be impossible because we would also have to determine how it relates to all other factors, including soil and fertilizers, method of cultivation, pests, and the weather and environment. But this is impossible because time and space are in a constant state of flux. Not understanding the relationships between nutrients amounts to the lack of a hoop to hold the barrel staves together. This is the situation at an agricultural research center with separate sections devoted to the study of cultivation techniques, fertilizers, and pest
control; even the existence of a planning section and a farsighted director will be unable to pull these sections together into an integral whole with a common purpose.
The point of all this is simple: as long as Liebig’s barrel is constructed of staves representing various nutrients, the barrel will not hold water. Such thinking cannot produce a true increase in yield. Examining and repairing the barrel will not raise the level of the water. Indeed, this can be done only by changing the very shape and form of the barrel.
Broad interpretation of Liebig’s law of minimum leads to propositions such as “yield can be raised by improving each of the conditions of production,” or “defective conditions being the controlling factors of yield, these should be the first to be improved.” But these are equally untenable and false.
One often hears that yields cannot be increased in a certain locality because of poor weather conditions, or because soil conditions are poor and must first be improved. This sounds very much as if we were talking of a factory where production is the output of components such as raw materials, manufacturing equipment, labor, and capital. When a damaged gearwheel in a piece of machinery slows production in a factory, productivity can soon be restored by repairing the problem. But crop cultivation under natural conditions differs entirely from industrial fabrication in a plant. In farming, the organic whole cannot be enhanced by the mere replacement of parts.
Let us retrace the steps of agricultural research and examine the errors committed by the thinking underlying the law of minimum and analytical chemistry.
**Where Specialized Research Has Gone Wrong**
Research on crop cultivation began by examining actual production conditions. The goal being to increase production by improving each of these conditions, research efforts were divided initially into specialized disciplines such as tillage and seeding, soil and fertilizers, and pest control. As research progressed in each of these areas, the findings were collected together and applied by farmers to boost productivity. Factors identified as having a controlling influence on productivity were targeted as high-priority research topics.
Tillage and seeding specialists believe that improvements in these techniques are critical to increasing yields. They see such questions as when, where, and how to seed, and how to plow a field as the first topics research on crop cultivation should address.
A fertilizer specialist will tell you: “Keep fertilizing your plants and they’ll just keep on growing. If it’s high yields you’re after, you’ve got to give your crops a lot of fertilizer. Increased fertilization is a positive way to raise yields.” And the pest control specialist will say: “No matter how carefully you grow your crops and how high the yields you’re after, if your fields are damaged by a crop disease or an insect pest, you’re left with nothing. Effective disease and pest control is indispensable to high-yield production.”
All such factors appear to help increase production, but the conventional view is that tillage and seeding methods, breeding, and fertilizer application have a direct positive
influence on yields, disease and pest damage reduces yields, and weather disasters destroy crops.
But are these actually important factors that work independently of each other under natural conditions to set or increase yields? And is there perhaps a range in the degree of importance of these factors? Let us consider natural disasters, which result in extensive crop damage.
Gales that occur when the rice is heading and floods coming shortly after transplantation can have a very decisive effect on yields regardless of the combination of production factors. However, the damage is not the same everywhere. The effects of a single gale can vary tremendously depending on the time and place. In a single stretch of fields, some of the rice plants will have lodged while others will remain standing; some heads of rice will be stripped clean, others will have less than a quarter of the grains remaining, and yet others more than three-quarters. Some rice plants submerged under flood waters will soon recover and continue growing, while others in the same waters will rot and die.
Damage may have been light because a host of interrelated factors—seed variety, method of cultivation, fertilizer application, disease and pest control—combined to give healthy plants that were able to recover as growth conditions and the environment returned to normal. Even inclement weather or a natural disaster is intimately and inseparately tied in with other production factors. So it is a mistake to think that any one factor can act independently to override all other factors and exert a decisive effect on yield.
This is true also for disease and pest damage. Twenty-percent crop damage by rice borers does not necessarily mean a twenty-percent decline in harvested grain.
Yields may actually rise in spite of pest damage. If a farmer expecting twenty-percent crop damage by leaf hoppers in his fields forgoes the use of pesticides, he may find the damage to be effectively contained by the appearance of vast numbers of spiders and frogs that prey on the leafhoppers.
Insect damage arises from a number of causes. If we trace each of these back, we find that the damage attributable to any one cause is generally very insignificant. Natural farming takes a broad view of this tangle of causality and the interplay of different factors, and chooses to grow healthy crops rather than exercise pest control.
Breeding programs have sought to develop new high-yield strains that are easy to grow, resistant to insect pests and disease, and so on. But the creation and abandoning over the past several decades of tens of thousands of new varieties shows that the goals set for these change constantly, an indication that the question of seed variety cannot be resolved independently of other factors.
Although breeding techniques may be useful in achieving temporary gains in yield and quality, such gains are never permanent or universal. The same is true for methods of cultivation. Undeniable as it is that plowing, the time and period of seeding, and the raising of seedlings are basic to growing crops, we are wrong to think that the skill applied to these methods is decisive in setting yields.
Deep plowing was for a long time considered an important factor in determining crop yield, yet today a growing number of farmers no longer believe plowing to be necessary.
Some even think that intertillage, weeding, and transplantation, all practices held to be of central importance by most farmers, are not needed at all. The use of such practices is dictated by the thinking of the times and other factors.
Another pitfall is the belief that fertilizers and methods of fertilizer application are directly linked to improved yields. Damage by heavy fertilization can just as easily lead to reduced yields. No single factor of production is powerful enough by itself to determine the yield or quality of a harvest. All are closely interrelated and share responsibility with many other factors for the harvest.
The moment that he applied discriminating knowledge to his study of nature, the scientist broke nature into a thousand pieces. Today, he picks apart the many factors that together contribute to the production of a crop, and studying each factor independently in specialized laboratories, writes reports on his research which he is confident, when studied, will help raise crop productivity. Such is the state of agricultural science today. While such research helps throw some light on current farming practices and may be effective in preventing a decline in productivity, it does not lead to discoveries of how to raise productivity and achieve spectacularly high yields.
Far from benefiting agricultural productivity, progressive specialization in research actually has the opposite effect. Methods intended to boost productivity lead instead to the devastation of nature, lowering overall productivity. Science labors under the delusion that the accumulated findings of an army of investigators pursuing specialized research in separate disciplines will provide a total and complete picture of nature.
Although parts may be broken off from the whole, “the whole is greater than the sum of the parts,” as the saying goes. By implication, a collection of an infinite number of parts includes an infinite number of unknown parts. These may be represented as an infinite number of gaps, which prevent the whole from ever being completely reassembled.
**Fig. 2.9** The whole consists of known (○) and unknown (×) parts.
Scientific agriculture believes that by applying specialized research to parts of the whole, partial improvements can be made which will translate into overall improvement of the whole. But nature should not forever be picked apart. Man has become so absorbed in his pursuit of the parts that he has abandoned his quest for the truth of the whole. Or perhaps, inevitably, his attempt to know the parts has made him lose sight of the whole.
Fragmented research only produces results of limited utility. All scientific farming can provide are partial improvements that may give high yields and increased production under certain conditions, but these tenuous “gains” soon fall victim to the violent recuperative backlash of nature and never ultimately result in higher yields.
Being limited and imperfect, human knowledge cannot hope to win out over the whole and ever-perfect wisdom of nature. Hence, all efforts to raise productivity founded on human knowledge can enjoy only limited success. While they may help deter a decline in yields by compensating for an irregular dip in productivity, such efforts will never be a means for significantly boosting productivity. Although man may interpret the result as an increase in yield, his efforts can never amount to anything more than a means for staving off reduced yields. All of which goes to show that, try as he may, man cannot equal the yields of nature.
**Critique of the Inductive and Deductive Methods**
Scientific thought is founded on inductive and deductive reasoning, so a critical review of these methods will allow us to examine the basic foundations of science. As my example, I will use the process of conducting research on rice cultivation.
One normally begins by drawing up a general proposition from a number of facts or observations. Let us say that a comprehensive study of rice is made. To determine the most suitable quantity of rice seed to be sown, the scientist experiments with a variety of seeding quantities. To establish the optimal spacing of plants, he runs tests in which he varies the number of days seedlings are grown in a nursery, and the number and spacing of transplanted seedlings. He compares several different varieties and selects those that give the highest yields. And to set guidelines for fertilizer application, he tries applying different amounts of nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium. Inferences drawn from the results of these tests form the basis for selecting suitable techniques and quantities to be used in all methods of producing rice. The scientist or farmer, as the case may be, relies on these conclusions to make general decisions and erect standards that he believes help improve rice cultivation.
But do a number of disparate improvements add up to the best overall result? This problem lies behind the notable failure of most research to achieve higher yields in rice cultivation. Respective ten-percent improvements through new varieties of rice, tilling and seeding techniques, fertilization, and pest and disease control might be expected to add up to an overall increase of forty percent in yields, but actual improvements in the field amount to from two to ten percent, at best.
Why do $1 + 1 + 1$ not make 3, but 1? For the same reason that the pieces of a broken mirror can never be reassembled into a mirror more perfect than the original. The reason agricultural research stations were unable to produce more than 15-20 bushels per quarter-acre until around 1965 was that all they were doing, essentially, was to analyze and interpret rice that yielded 15-20 bushels per quarter-acre to begin with.
Although such research was launched to develop high-yielding techniques that are more productive than those used by the ordinary farmer, its only achievement has been the addition of scientific commentary on existing rice-growing methods. It has not improved farmer’s yields. Such is the fate of inductive research.
Scientific agriculture first conducts research primarily by an inductive, or *a posteriori*, process, then does an about-face, applying deductive reasoning to draw specific propositions from general premises.
Natural farming arrives at its conclusions by applying deductive, or *a priori*, reasoning based on intuition. By this, I do not mean the imaginative formulation of wild hypotheses, but a mental process that attempts to reach a broad conclusion through intuitive understanding. During this process, it draws narrow conclusions adapted to the time and place, and searches out concrete methods in keeping with these conclusions.
Natural farming thus begins by formulating conclusions, then seeks concrete means of attaining these. This contrasts sharply with the inductive approach, whereby one studies the situation as it stands and from this derives a theory with which one searches for a conclusion while making gradual improvements along the way. In the first case, we have a conclusion, but no means of achieving it, and in the second, we have means at our disposal, but no conclusion.
Returning again to our original example, natural farming uses intuitive reasoning to draw up an ideal vision of rice cultivation, infers the environmental conditions under which a situation approximating the ideal can arise, and work* out a means of achieving this ideal. On the other hand, scientific farming studies all aspects of rice production and conducts many different tests in an attempt to develop increasingly economical and high-yielding methods office cultivation.
Such inductive experimentation is done without a clear goal. Scientists run experiments oblivious to the direction in which their research takes them. They may be pleased with the results and confident that the amassing of new data leads to steady progress and scientific achievement. But in the absence of a clear goal by which to set their course, this activity is just aimless wandering. It is not progress.
The scientist is well aware of the restrictive and circumstantial nature of inductive research, and does give some thought to deductive reasoning. But he ends up relying on the inductive approach because this leads more directly to practical and certain success and achievement.
Deductive experimentation has never had much appeal to scientists because they are unable to get a good handle on what appears to many a whimsical process. In addition, as this requires a great deal of time and space, it runs counter to the natural inclinations of scientists, who like to hole up in their laboratories. The reality is that both the inductive and the deductive method thread their way through the entire history of agricultural development. Of the two, deductive reasoning has always been the driving force behind rapid leaps in development, which are invariably triggered by some oddball idea dreamed up by an eccentric or a zealous farmer bit by curiosity.
Generally lacking scope and universality, such an idea tends to slide back into oblivion unless the scientist recognizes it as a clue. After taking it apart and analyzing, studying, reconstructing, and verifying it through inductive experimentation, the scientist raises the idea to the level of a universally applicable technique. It is only at this point that the original idea is ready to be put to practical use and may, as often is the case, eventually become widely adopted by farmers.
Thus, although the guiding force of agricultural development is inductive reasoning by the scientist, the initial inspiration that lays the rails for progress is often the deductive notion of a progressive farmer or a hint left by someone who has nothing to do with farming.
Clearly then, the inductive method is useful only in a negative sense, as a means for preventing a decline in crop yields. Although throwing light on existing methods, it cannot break new ground in agriculture. Only deductive reasoning can bring forth fresh ideas having the potential of leading to positive gains in yields. Yet, because deductive reasoning generally remains poorly understood and is defined primarily in relation to induction, it is not likely to lead to any dramatic increases in yield.
True deduction originates at a point beyond the world of phenomena. It arises when one has acquired a philosophical understanding of the true essence of the natural world and grasped the ultimate goal. All that man sees is a superficial image of nature. Unable to perceive the ultimate goal, he assumes deduction to be merely the inverse of induction and can go no further than deductive reasoning, which is but a dim shadow of true deduction. Experiments in which deduction is treated as the counterpart of induction have brought us the confusion of modern science. Even in agriculture, farmers and scientists are confounding measures for preventing crop losses with means for raising yields, and by discussing both on equal terms, are only prolonging the current stagnation of agriculture.
Induction and deduction can be likened to two climbers ascending a rock face. The lower of the two, who checks his footing before giving the climber in the lead a boost, plays an inductive role, while the lead climber, who lets down a rope and pulls the lower climber up, plays a deductive role.
Induction and deduction are complementary and together form a whole. Surprising as it may seem, although scientific agriculture has relied primarily on inductive experimentation, progress has been made as well in deductive reasoning. This is why measures to prevent crop losses and measures to boost yields have been confused.
Deduction here being merely a concept defined in relation to induction, we may see a gradual increase in yields, but are unlikely to see a dramatic improvement. Our two climbers make only slow progress and will never go beyond the peak they have already sighted.
To attain dramatically improved yields of a type possible only by a fundamental revolution in farming practices, one would have to rely not on this restricted notion of deduction, but on a broader deductive method; namely, intuitive reasoning. In addition to our two climbers with a rope, other radically different methods of reaching the top of the mountain are possible, such as descending onto the peak by rope from a helicopter. It is from just such intuitive reasoning, which goes beyond induction and deduction that the thinking underlying natural farming arises.
The creative roots of natural farming lie in true intuitive understanding. The point of departure must be a true grasp of nature gained by fixing one’s gaze on the natural world that extends beyond actions and events in one’s immediate surroundings. An infinitude of yield-improving possibilities lie hidden here. One must look beyond the immediate.
High-Yield Theory Is Full of Holes
It is easy for us to think that scientific farming, which harnesses the forces of nature and adds to this human knowledge, is superior to natural farming both from the standpoint of economics and crop yields. This is not the case, of course, for a number of reasons.
1. Scientific farming has isolated the factors responsible for yield and found ways to improve each of these. But although science can break nature down and analyze it, it cannot reassemble the parts into the same whole. What may appear to be nature reconstructed is just an imperfect imitation that can never produce higher yields than natural farming.
2. What is trumpeted as high-yield theory and technology amounts to nothing more than an attempt to approach natural harvests. Rather than aiming at large jumps in yields, as is claimed, these are really just measures to stave off crop losses.
3. Not only does the endeavor to artificially achieve high yields that surpass natural output only increase the level of imperfection, it invites a breakdown in agriculture. Viewed in a larger sense, this is just so much wasted effort. Yields that outstrip nature can never be achieved.
The diagram in Fig. 2.10 compares the yields of natural farming and scientific farming. Outermost circle 0 represents the yields of pure Mahayana natural farming (see page 93). Actually, this cannot be properly depicted as either large or small, but lies in the world of Mu, shown as innermost circle 0 at the center of the diagram. Circle (2) represents the yields of narrower, relativistic Hinayana natural farming. Growth in these yields always parallels growth in the yields of scientific farming (3). Circle ® stands for the yields likely to result from the application of Liebig’s law of minimum.
**A Model of Harvest Yields:** A good way to understand how crop yields are determined by different factors or elements is to use the analogy of a building like that shown in Fig. 2.11. The hotel—this could just as well be a warehouse—is built on a rock foundation that symbolizes nature, and the floors and rooms of the building represent cultivation conditions and factors which play a role in the final yield. Each of the floors
and rooms are integrally and inseparably related. A number of observations can be made from this analogy.
1. Yield is determined by the size of the building and the degree to which each room is full.
2. The upper limit of yield is set by the natural environment, represented here by the strength of the rock foundation and the size of the building site. One could have gotten a reasonably close idea of the potential yield from the blueprints of the building. The limit
became fixed when the frame for the building was put into place. This maximum yield may be called the natural yield and is, for man, the best and highest yield.
3. The actual harvest is much lower than this maximum yield, for the harvest does not completely fill each and every room. If the building were a hotel, this would be equivalent to saying that some guest rooms are vacant. In other words, there are invariably flaws or weaknesses in some of the elements of cultivation; these hold down yields. The actual harvest is what we are left with after subtracting the vacant rooms from the total number of guest rooms.
4. The approach usually taken by scientific farming to boost yields is to fill as many of the rooms as possible. But in a larger sense, this is merely a way of minimizing losses in yield. The only true way to raise yields is to enlarge the building itself.
5. Any attempt to outdo nature, to increase production by purely industrial methods that brazenly disregard the natural order, is analogous to adding an annex onto the building representing nature. If we imagine this annex to be built on sand, then we can begin to understand the precariousness of artificial endeavors to raise yields. Inherently unstable, these do not represent true production and do not really benefit man.
6. Although one would assume that filling each of the rooms would reduce losses and produce a net increase in yield, this is not necessarily so because all the rooms are closely interconnected. One cannot make selective improvements here and there in specific factors of production.
Knowing all this, we can better comprehend what the building signifies. To accept the thinking of Liebig is to say that yield is dominated by that element present in shortest supply. Such reasoning implies that, if one is not applying enough fertilizer or is using the wrong method of pest control, then correcting this will raise yields. Yet half-baked improvements of this sort are no more effective than renovating just the fourth floor, or just one room on the first floor. The reason is that there are no absolute criteria with which to judge whether one element or condition is good or bad, excessive or insufficient. The qualitative and quantitative aspects of an element vary in a continuously fluid relationship with those of other elements; at times these work together, at other times they cancel each other out.
Because he is nearsighted, what man takes to be improvements in various elements are just localized improvements—like remodeling one room of the hotel.
There is no way of knowing what effect this will have on the entire building.
One cannot know how business is faring at a hotel just by looking at the number of guest rooms or the number of vacancies. True, there may be many empty rooms, but other rooms may be packed full; in some cases, one good patron may be better for business than a large number of other guests. Good conditions in one room do not necessarily have a positive effect on overall business, and bad conditions on the first floor do not always exert a negative influence on the second and third floors. All the rooms and floors of the building are separate and distinct, yet all are intimately linked together into one organic whole. Although one can claim that the final yield is determined by the combination of an infinite array of factors and conditions, just as a new company president can dramatically change morale within the company, so the entire yield of a crop may turn on a change in a single factor.
In the final analysis, one cannot predict which element or factor will help or hurt the yield. This can only be determined by hindsight—after the harvest is in. A farmer might say that this year’s good harvest was due to the early-maturing variety he used, but he cannot be certain about this because of the unlimited number of factors involved. He has no way of knowing whether using the same variety the following year will again give good results.
One could even go to the extreme of saying that the effects of all the factors on the final yield can hinge, for example, on how a typhoon blows. This could turn bad conditions into good conditions. Last year’s crop failure might have been the result of spreading too much fertilizer, which led to excessive plant growth and pest damage, but this year is windier so the fertilizer may succeed if the wind helps keep the bugs off the plants. We cannot predict what will work and what will not, so there is no reason for us to be so concerned about minor improvements.
Just as the manager of our hotel will never succeed if all he pays attention to is whether the lights in the guest rooms are on or off, careful attention to tiny, insignificant details will never get the farmer off to a good start. Clearly, the only positive way to increase yields is to increase the capacity of the hotel. What we need to know is whether the hotel can be renovated, and if so, how.
We must not forget that as the scientist makes additions and repairs and the building gets higher and higher, it becomes increasingly unstable and imperfect. His observations, experiences, and ideas being entirely derived from nature, man can never build a house that extends beyond the bounds of nature. But heedless of this and not content with crops in their natural state, he has broken away from the natural arrangement of environmental factors and begun building an addition to the house of nature—artificially cultivated crops.
This artificial, chemically produced food unquestionably presents a dreadful danger to man. More than just a question of wasted effort and meaningless toil, it is the root of a calamity that threatens the very foundations of human existence. Yet agriculture continues to move rapidly toward the purely chemical and industrial production of agricultural crops, an addition—to return to my original analogy—built by man which projects out from the cliff on which nature stands.
The side view of the building (Fig. 2.11) shows which path to follow in climbing from floor to floor while meeting the requirements for each of the factors of production. For example, since Course I begins under poor weather and land conditions, the yield is poor regardless of special efforts invested in cultivation and pest control. Weather and land conditions in Course II are good, so the yield is high even though the method of cultivation and overall management leave something to be desired.
One cannot predict, however, which pathway will give the highest yield as there are an infinite number of these, and infinite variations in the factors and conditions for each. While no doubt of use to the theorist for expounding the principles of crop cultivation, this diagram has no practical value.
*A Look at Photosynthesis:* Research aimed at high rice yields likewise begins by analyzing the factors underlying production. This commences with morphological observation, proceeds next to dissection and analysis, then moves on to plant ecology. By
conducting laboratory experiments, pot tests, and small-scale field experiments under highly selective conditions, scientists have been able to pinpoint some of the factors that limit yields and some of the elements that increase harvests.
Yet clearly, any results obtained under such special conditions can have little relevance with the incredibly complex set of natural conditions at work in an actual field. It comes as no surprise then that research is turning from the narrow, highly focused study of individual organisms to a broader examination of groups of organisms and investigations into the ecology of rice. One line of investigation being taken to find a theoretical basis for high yields is the ecological study of photosynthetic crops that increase starch production.
Many scientists continue to feel, however, that ecological research aimed at increasing the number of heads or grains of rice on a plant, or at providing larger individual grains, are crude and elementary. These people believe that physiological research which lays bare the mechanism of starch production is higher science; they subscribe to the illusion that such revelations will provide a basic clue to high yields.
To the casual observer, the study of photosynthesis within the leaves of the rice plant appears to be a research area of utmost importance, the findings of which could lead to a theory of high yields. Let us take a look at this research process. If one accepts that increased starch production is connected to high yields, then research on photosynthesis does take on a great importance. Moreover, as efforts are made to increase the amount of sunlight received by the plant and research is pursued on ways of improving the plant’s capacity for starch synthesis from sunlight, people begin thinking that high yields are possible.
Current high-yield theory, as seen from the perspective of plant physiology, says essentially that yields may be regarded as the amount of starch produced by photosynthesis in the leaves of the plant, minus the starch consumed by respiration. Proponents of this view claim that yields can be increased by maximizing the photosynthetic ability of the plant while maintaining a balance between starch production and starch consumption.
But is all this theorizing and effort useful in achieving dramatic increases in rice yields? The fact of the matter is that today, as in the past, a yield of about 22 bushels per quarter-acre is still quite good, and the goal agronomists have set for themselves is raising the national average above this level. The possibility of reaping 26 to 28 bushels has recently been reported by some agricultural test centers, but this is only on a very limited scale and does not make use of techniques likely to gain wide acceptance. Why is it that such massive and persistent research efforts have failed to bear fruit? Perhaps the answer lies in the physiological process of starch production by the rice plant and in the scientific means for enhancing the starch productivity of the plant.
The diagram in Fig. 2.12 depicts a number of processes at work in the rice plant.
1) The leaves of the plant use photosynthesis to synthesize starch, which the leaves, stem, and roots consume during the process of respiration.
2) The plant produces starch by taking up water through the roots and sending it to the leaves, where photosynthesis is carried out using carbon dioxide absorbed through the leaf stomata and sunlight.
3) The starch produced in the leaves is broken down to sugar, which is sent to all parts of the plant and further decomposed by oxidation. This degradative process of respiration releases energy that feeds the rice plant.
4) A large portion of the starch produced in this way is metabolized by the plant and the remainder stored in the grains of rice.
Armed with a basic understanding of how photosynthesis works, the next thing science does is to study ways in which to raise starch productivity and increase the amount of stored starch. Countless factors affect the relative activities of photosynthesis and respiration. Here are some of the most important:
Factors affecting photosynthesis: carbon dioxide, stomata closure, water uptake, water temperature, sunlight.
Factors affecting respiration: sugar, oxygen, strength of wind, nutrients, humidity.
One way of raising rice production that immediately comes to mind here is to maximize starch production by increasing photosynthesis while at the same time holding starch consumption down to a minimum in order to leave as much unconsumed starch as possible in the heads of rice.
Conditions favorable for high photosynthetic activity are lots of sunlight, high temperatures, and good water and nutrient uptake by the roots. Under such conditions, the leaf stomata remain open and much carbon dioxide is absorbed, resulting in active photosynthesis and maximum starch synthesis.
There is a catch to this, unfortunately. The same conditions that favor photosynthesis also promote respiration. Starch production may be high, but so is starch consumption, and hence these conditions do not result in maximum starch storage. On the other hand, a low starch production does not necessarily mean that yields will be low. In fact, if starch consumption is low enough, the amount of stored starch may even be higher—meaning higher yields—than under more vigorous photosynthetic activity.
How often have farmers and scientists tried techniques that maximize starch production only to find the result to be large rice plants that lodge under the slightest breeze? A much easier and more certain path to high yields would be to hold down respiration and grow smaller plants that consume less starch. The combinations of production factors and elements that can occur in nature are limitless and may lead to any number of different yields.
Various pathways are possible in Fig. 2.13. For example, when there is abundant sunlight and temperatures are high—around 40°C (104°F), as in Course 1, root rot tends to occur, reducing root vitality. This weakens water uptake, causing the plant to close its stomata to prevent excessive loss of water. As a result, less carbon dioxide is absorbed and photosynthesis slows down, but because respiration continues unabated, starch consumption remains high, resulting in a low yield.
In Course 2, temperatures are lower—perhaps 30°C (86°F), and better suited to the variety of rice. Nutrient and water absorption are good, so photosynthetic activity is high and remains in balance with respiration. This combination of factors gives the highest yield.
In Course 3, low temperatures prevail and the other conditions are fair but hardly ideal. Yet, because good root activity supplies the plant with ample nutrients, a normal yield is maintained.
This is just a tiny sampling of the possibilities, and I have made only crude guesses at the effects several factors on each course might have on the final yield. But in the real world yields are not determined as simply as this. An infinite number of paths exist, and each of the many elements and conditions during cultivation change, often on a daily
basis, over the entire growing season. This is not like a footrace along a clearly marked track that begins at the starting line and ends at the finish line.
Even were it possible to know what conditions maximize photosynthetic activity, one would be unable to design a course that assembles a combination of the very best conditions. The best conditions cannot be combined under natural circumstances. And to make matters even worse, maximizing photosynthesis does not guarantee maximum yields; nor do yields necessarily increase when respiration is minimized.
To begin with, there is no standard by which to judge what “maximum” and “minimum” are. One cannot flatly assert, for example, that 40°C is the maximum temperature, and 30°C optimal. This varies with time and place, the variety of rice, and the method of cultivation. We cannot even know for certain whether a higher temperature is better or worse.
Another reason why we cannot know is that the notion of what is appropriate differs for each condition and factor. People are usually satisfied with an optimal temperature that is workable under the greatest range of conditions. Although this answers the most common needs and will help raise normal yields, it is not the temperature required for high yields. Our inquiry into what temperatures are needed for high yields thus proves fruitless and we settle in the end for normal temperatures.
What about sunlight? Sunlight increases photosynthesis, but an increase in sunlight is not necessarily accompanied by a rise in yield. In Japan, yields are higher in the northern part of Honshu than in sunny Kyushu to the south, and Japan boasts better yields than countries in the southern tropics. Everyone is off in search of the optimal amount of sunlight, but this varies in relation with many other factors.
Good water uptake invigorates photosynthesis, but flooding the field can hasten root decay and slow photosynthesis. A deficiency in soil moisture and nutrients may at times help to maintain root vigor, and may at other times inhibit growth and bring about a decline in starch production. It all depends on the other conditions.
An understanding of rice plant physiology can be applied to a scientific inquiry into how to maximize starch production, but this will not be directly applicable to actual rice-growing operations. Scientific visions of high yields based on the physiology of the rice plant amount to just a lot of empty theorizing. Maybe the numbers add up on paper, but no one can build a theory like this and get it to work in practice. The rice scientist well-versed in his particular specialty is not unlike the sports commentator who can give a good rundown of a tennis match and may even make a respectable coach, but is not himself a top-notch athlete.
This inability of high-yield theory to translate into practical techniques is a basic inconsistency that applies to all scientific theory and technology. The scientist is a scientist and the farmer a farmer and “never the twain shall meet.” The scientist may study farming, but the farmer can grow crops without knowing anything about science. This is borne out nowhere better than in the history of rice cultivation.
*Look Beyond the Immediate Reality:* Obviously, productivity and yields are measured in relative terms. A yield is high or low with respect to some standard. In seeking to boost productivity, we first have to define a starting point relative to which an increase is to be
made. But do we not in fact always aim to produce more, to obtain higher yields, while believing all the while that no harm can come of simply moving ahead one step at a time?
When people discuss rice harvests, for some reason they are usually most concerned with attempts to increase yields. By “high-yielding” all we really mean is higher than current rice yields. This might be 20 bushels per quarter-acre in some cases, and over 25 bushels in others. There is no set target for “high-yielding” cultivation.
The point of departure defines the destination, and a starting line makes sense only when there is a finish line. Without a starting line we cannot take off. So it is meaningless to talk of great or small, gain or loss, good or bad.
Because we take the present for granted as certain and unquestionable reality, we normally make this our point of departure and view as desirable any conditions or factors of production that improve on it. Yet the present is actually a very shaky and unreliable starting point. A good hard look at this so-called reality shows the greater part of it to be man-made, to be erected on commonsensical notions, with all the stability of a building erected on a boat.
Taking any one of the traditional notions of rice cultivation—plowing, starter beds, transplantation, flooded paddies—as our basic point of departure would be a grave error. Indeed, true progress can be had only by starting out from a totally new point.
But where is one to search for this starting point? I believe that it must be found in nature itself. Yet philosophically speaking, man is the only being that does not understand the true state of nature. He discriminates and grasps things in relative terms, mistaking his phenomenological world for the true natural world. He sees the morning as the beginning of a new day; he takes germination as the start in the life of a plant, and withering as its end. But this is nothing more than biased judgment on his part.
Nature is one. There is no starting point or destination, only an unending flux, a continuous metamorphosis of all things. Even this may be said not to exist. The true essence of nature then is “nothingness.” It is here that the real starting point and destination are to be found. To make nature our foundation is to begin at “nothing” and make this point of departure our destination as well; to start off from “nothing” and return to “nothing.” We should not make conditions directly before us a platform from which to launch new improvements. Instead, we must distance ourselves from the immediate situation, and observing it at a remove—from the standpoint of Mu, seek to return to Mu nature.
This may seem very difficult, but may also appear very easy because the world beyond immediate reality is actually nothing more than the world as it was prior to human awareness of reality. A look from afar at the total picture is no better than a look up close at a small part because both are one inseparable whole.
This undivided and inseparable unity is the “nothingness” that must be understood as it is. To start from Mu and return to Mu, that is natural farming.
If we strip away the layers of human knowledge and action from nature one by one, true nature will emerge of itself. A good look at the natural order thus revealed will show us just how great have been the errors committed by science. A science that rejects the science of today will surely ensue. Crops need only be entrusted to the hand of nature. The starting point of natural farming is also its destination, and the journey in-between.
One may believe the productivity of natural farming—which has no notion of time or space—to be quantifiable or unquantifiable; it makes no difference. Natural farming merely provides harvests that follow a fixed, unchanging orbit with the cycles of nature. Yet, let there be no mistake about it, natural harvests always give the best possible yields; they are never inferior to the harvests of scientific farming.
The scientific world of “somethingness” is smaller than the natural world of “nothingness.” No degree of expansion can enable the world of science to arrive at the vast, limitless world of nature.
*Original Factors Are Most Important:* We have seen that resolving production into elements or constituent factors and studying ways of improving these individually is basically an invalid approach. Now I would like to examine the propriety of scientists ignoring correlations between different factors, of their adherence to a sliding scale of importance in factors, and of their selective study of those elements that offer the greatest chances for rapid and visible improvement in yields.
The factors involved in production are infinite in number, and all are organically interrelated. None exerts a controlling influence on production. Moreover, these cannot and should not be ranked by importance. Each factor is meaningful in the tangled web of interrelationships, but ceases to have any meaning when isolated from the whole. In spite of this, individual factors are extracted and studied in isolation all the time. Which is to say that research attempts to find meaning in something from which it has wrested all meaning.
There are commonly thought to be a number of important topics that should be addressed, and factors that should be studied, in order to boost crop production. Since people feel that the quickest way to raise production is to make improvements in those factors thought to be deficient in some way (Liebig’s law of minimum), they sow seed, apply fertilizer, and control disease and insect damage. So it comes as no surprise when research follows suit by focusing on methods of cultivation, soil and fertilizers, disease and insect pests. Environmental factors such as climate that are far more difficult for man to alter are given a wide berth.
But judging from the results, the factors most critical to yields are not those which man believes he can easily improve, but rather the environmental factors abandoned by man as intractable. Furthermore, it is precisely those factors that we break down, meticulously categorize, and view as vital and important that are the most trivial and insignificant. Those primitive, unresolved factors not yet subjected to the full scrutiny of scientific analysis are the ones of greatest importance.
The fact that agricultural research centers are divided into different sections breeding, cultivation, soil and fertilizers, plant diseases and pests—is proof that agricultural research does not take a comprehensive approach to the study of nature. Instead, it starts from simple economic concerns and proceeds wherever man’s desires take him, with the result that fragmented research is conducted in response to the concerns of the moment, almost as if by impulse.
Whichever field of inquiry we look at—plant breeders who chase after rare and unusual strains; agronomics and its preoccupation with high yields; soil science based on the premise of fertilizer application; entomologists and plant pathologists who devote
themselves entirely to the study of pesticides for controlling diseases and pests without ever giving a thought to the role played by poor plant health; and meteorologists who perform token research in agricultural meteorology, a marginal and very narrowly defined discipline that only gets any attention when there is no other alternative—one thing is clear: modern agricultural research is not an attempt to gain a better understanding of the relationship between agricultural crops and man. From beginning to end, this has consisted exclusively of limited, inconsequential analytic research on isolated crops that does not set as its goal an understanding of the interrelationships between man and crops in nature.
As research grows increasingly specialized, it advances into ever more narrowly defined disciplines and penetrates into ever smaller worlds. The scientist believes that his studies reach down to the deepest stratum of nature and his efforts bring man that much closer to a fundamental understanding of the natural world, but these endeavors are just peripheral research that moves further and further away from the fountainhead of nature.
Early man rose with the sun and slept on the ground. In ancient times, the rays of the sun, the soil, and the rains raised the crops; people learned to live by this and were grateful to the heavens and earth.
The man of science is well versed in small details and confident that he knows more about growing crops than the farmer of old. But does the scientist—who is aware that starch is produced within the leaf by photosynthesis from carbon dioxide and water with the aid of chlorophyll, and that the plant grows with the energy released by the oxidation of this starch—know more about light and air than the farmer who thinks the rice has ripened by the grace of the sun? Certainly not! The scientist knows only one aspect, only one function of light and air—that seen from the perspective of science. Unable to perceive light and air as broadly changing phenomena of the universe, man isolates these from nature and examines them in cross-section like dead tissue under a microscope. In fact, the scientist, unable to see light as anything other than a purely physical phenomenon, is blind to light.
The soil scientist explains that crops are not raised by the earth, but grow under the effects of water and nutrients, and that high yields can be obtained when these are applied at the right time in the proper quantity. But he should also know that what he has in his laboratory is dead, mineral soil, not the living soil of nature. He should know that the water which flows down from the mountains and into the earth differs from the water that runs over the plains as a river; that the fluvial waters which give birth to all forms of life, from microorganisms and algae to fish and shellfish, are more than just a compound of oxygen and hydrogen.
Farmers build greenhouses and hot beds where they grow vegetables and flowers without knowing what sunlight really is or bothering to take a close look at how light changes when it passes through glass or vinyl sheeting. No matter how high a market price they fetch, the vegetables and flowers grown in such enclosures cannot be truly alive or of any great value.
*No Understanding of Causal Relationships:* The farmer might talk about how this year’s poor harvest was due to the poor weather, while the specialist will go into more detail: “Tiller formation was good this year resulting in a large number of heads. Grain
count per head was also good, but insufficient sunlight after heading slowed maturation, giving a poor harvest.”
The second explanation is far more descriptive and appears closer to the real truth. Surely one reason for poor maturation is insufficient sunshine, since the two clearly are causally related. Yet one cannot make the claim that a lack of sunlight during heading was the decisive factor behind the poor harvest that year. This is because the causal relationship between these two factors—maturation and sunlight—is unclear. Insufficient sunlight and poor maturation mean that not enough sunlight was received by the leaves. The cause for this may have been drooping of the leaves due to excessive vegetative growth, and the drooping may have been caused by any number of factors. Perhaps this was a result of the over application and absorption of nitrogenous fertilizers, or a shortage of some other nutrient. Perhaps the cause was stem weakness due to a deficiency of silica, or maybe the leaf droop was caused merely by an excess of leaf nitrogen on account of inhibition, for some reason, of the conversion of nitrogenous nutrients to protein. Behind each cause lies another cause.
When we talk of causes, we refer to a complex web of organically interrelated causes—basic causes, remote causes, contributing factors, predisposing factors. This is why one cannot give a brief, simple explanation of the true cause of poor maturation, and it is also why a more detailed explanation is no closer to grasping the real truth. The poor harvest might be attributed to insufficient sunshine or to excess nitrogen during heading or merely to poor starch transport due to inadequate water. Or perhaps the basic cause is low temperatures. In any event, it is impossible to tell what the real cause is.
So what do we do? The conclusion we draw from all this is that the poor harvest resulted from a combination of factors, which is no more meaningful than the farmer saying it was written in the stars. The scientist may be pleased with himself for coming up with a detailed explanation, but it makes not the slightest bit of difference whether we carefully analyze the reasons for the poor harvest or throw all analysis to the winds; the result is the same.
Scientists think otherwise, however, believing that an analysis of one year’s harvest will benefit rice growers the following year. Yet the weather is never the same, so the rice growing environment next year will be entirely different from this year’s. And because all factors of production are organically interrelated, when one factor changes, this affects all other factors and conditions. What this means is that rice will be grown under entirely different conditions next year, rendering this year’s experience and observations totally useless. Although useful for examining results in retrospect, the explanations of yesterday cannot be used to set tomorrow’s strategy.
The causal relationships between factors in nature are just too entangled for man to unravel through research and analysis. Perhaps science succeeds in advancing one slow step at a time, but because it does so while groping in total darkness along a road without
end, it is unable to know the real truth of things. This is why scientists are pleased with partial explications and see nothing wrong with pointing a finger and proclaiming this to be the cause and that the effect. The more research progresses, the larger the body of scholarly data grows. The antecedent causes of causes increase in number and depth, becoming incredibly complex, such that, far from unraveling the tangled web of cause and effect, science succeeds only in explaining in ever greater detail each of the bends and kinks in the individual threads. There being infinite causes for an event or action, there are infinite solutions as well, and these together deepen and broaden to infinite complexity.
To resolve the single matter of poor maturation, one must be prepared to resolve at the same time elements in every field of study that bears upon this—such as weather, the biological environment, cultivation methods, soil, fertilizer, disease and pest control, and human factors. A look at the prospects of such a simultaneous solution should be enough to make man aware of just how difficult and fraught with contradiction this endeavor is. Yet, in a sense, this is already unavoidable.
Many people believe that if you take a variety of rice which bears large heads of grain, grow it so that it receives lots of sunlight, apply plenty of fertilizer, and carry out thorough pest control measures, you will get good yields. However, varieties that bear large heads usually have fewer heads per plant. Thus it will do no good to plant densely if the intention is to allow better exposure to sunlight. Moreover, the heavy application of fertilizers will cause excessive vegetative growth, again defeating attempts to improve exposure to sunlight. Efforts to obtain large stems and heads only weaken the rice plant and increase disease and insect damage, while thorough pest control measures result in lodging of the rice plants.
The use of water-conserving rice cultivation to improve light exposure of the rice plants may actually cut down the available light due to the growth of weeds, and the lack of sufficient water may even interfere with the transport of nutrients. An attempt to raise the efficiency of photosynthesis may lower the photosynthetic ability of the plant. If we then conclude that irrigation is beneficial for the rice plants and try irrigating, just when high temperatures would be expected to encourage vigorous growth, root rot sets in, resulting in poor maturation.
In other words, while a means of improving photosynthesis may prove effective at increasing the amount of starch, it does not necessarily exert a beneficial influence on those other elements that help set harvest yields and is in fact more likely to have countless negative effects.
In short, there is no way to join all these into one overall method that works just right. The more improvement measures are combined, the more these measures cancel each other out to give an indefinite result, so that the only conclusion ends up being no clear conclusion at all.
If what people have in mind is that a plant variety that bears in abundance, is easy to raise, and has a good flavor would solve everything, they are in for a long wait. The day will never come when one variety satisfies all conditions.
The breeding specialist may believe that his endeavors will produce a variety that meets the needs of his age, but an improved variety with three good features will also
have three bad features, and one with six strengths will have six weaknesses. All of which goes to show that any variety thought to be better will probably be worse, because in it will lie new contradictions that defy solution.
Although when examined individually, each of the improvements conceived by agricultural scientists may appear fine and proper, when seen collectively they cancel each other out and are totally ineffective.
This property of mutual cancellation derives from the equilibrium of nature. Nature inherently abhors the unnatural and makes every effort to return to its true state by discarding human techniques for increasing harvests. For this reason, a natural control operates to hold down large harvests and raise low harvests, such as to approach the natural yield without disrupting the balance of nature.
In any case, since the basic causes of actions and effects that arise at any particular time and place cannot be known to man, and he can have no true understanding of the causal relationships involved, there is no way for him to know the true effectiveness of any of his techniques. Although he knows that no grand conclusion is forthcoming in the long run, man persists nevertheless in the belief that his partial conclusions and devices are effective in an overall sense. It is utterly impossible to predict what effects will arise from actions undertaken using the human intellect. Man only thinks the effects will be beneficial. He cannot know.
Although it would be desirable to erect comprehensive measures and simultaneously apply methods complete on all counts, only God is capable of doing this. As the correlations and causal relationships between all the elements of nature remain unclear, man’s understanding and interpretation can at best be only myopic and uncertain. After having succeeded only in causing meaningless confusion, his efforts thus cancel each other out and are eventually buried in nature.
3 THE THEORY OF NATURAL FARMING
1. The Relative Merits of Natural Farming and Scientific Agriculture
Two Ways of Natural Farming
Although I have already shown in some detail the differences between natural farming and scientific farming, I would like to return here to compare the principles on which each is based. For the sake of convenience, I shall divide natural farming into two types and consider each separately.
Mahayana Natural Farming: When the human spirit and human life blend with the natural order and man devotes himself entirely to the service of nature, he lives freely as an integral part of the natural world, subsisting on its bounty without having to resort to purposeful effort. This type of farming, which I shall call Mahayana natural farming, is realized when man becomes one with nature, for it is a way of farming that transcends time and space and reaches the zenith of understanding and enlightenment.
This relationship between man and nature is like an ideal marriage in which the partners together realize a perfect life without asking for, giving, or receiving anything of each other. Mahayana farming is the very embodiment of life in accordance with nature. Those who live such a life are hermits and wise men.
*Hinayana Natural Farming:* This type of farming arises when man earnestly seeks entry to the realm of Mahayana farming. Desirous of the true blessings and bounty of nature, he prepares himself to receive it. This is the road leading directly to complete enlightenment, but is short of that perfect state. The relationship between man and nature here is like that of a lover who yearns after his loved one and asks for her hand, but has not realized full union.
*Scientific Farming:* Man exists in a state of contradiction in which he is basically estranged from nature, living in a totally artificial world, yet longs for a return to nature. A product of this condition, scientific farming forever wanders blindly back and forth, now calling upon the blessings of nature, now rejecting it in favor of human knowledge and action. Returning to the same analogy, our lover here is unable to decide whose hand to ask in marriage, and, while agonizing over his indecision, imprudently courts the ladies, heedless of social proprieties.
**Absolute World**
*Mahayana natural farming* (philosopher’s way of farming) = pure natural farming
**Relative World**
*Hinayana natural farming* (idealistic farming) = natural farming, organic farming
*Scientific farming* (dialectical materialism) = scientific agriculture
*The Three Ways of Farming Compared:* These may be arranged as above or depicted in the manner shown in Fig. 3.1.
1. **Mahayana natural farming:** This and scientific farming are on entirely different planes. Although it is a bit strange to directly compare the two and discuss their relative merits, the only way we have of expressing their value in this world of ours is by comparison and contrast. Scientific agriculture draws as much as it can from natural forces and attempts, by adding human knowledge, to produce results that eclipse nature. Naturally, proponents of this type of farming think it superior to natural farming, which relies entirely on the forces and resources of nature.
Philosophically, however, scientific farming cannot be superior to Mahayana natural farming because, while scientific farming is the sum of knowledge and forces extracted from nature by the human intellect, this still amounts to finite human knowledge. No matter how one totals it up, human knowledge is but a tiny, closely circumscribed fraction of the infinitude of the natural world. In contrast to the vast, boundless, perfect knowledge and power of nature, the finite knowledge of man is always limited to small pockets of time and space. Inherently imperfect as it is, human knowledge can never be collected together to form perfect knowledge.
As imperfection can never be the equal of perfection, so scientific farming must always yield a step to Mahayana natural farming. Nature encompasses everything. No matter how desperately he struggles, man will never be more than a small, imperfect part of its totality. Clearly then, scientific farming, which is inherently incomplete, can never hope to attain the immutable absoluteness of natural farming.
2. **Hinayana natural farming:** This type of farming belongs in the same world of relativity as scientific farming, and so the two may be directly compared. Both are alike in that they are derived from that nature which is verified with discriminating knowledge. But Hinayana farming attempts to cast off human knowledge and action and devote itself to making the greatest possible use of the pure forces of nature, whereas scientific farming uses the powers of nature and adds human knowledge and action in an effort to establish a superior way of farming.
The two differ fundamentally and are diametrically opposed in their perceptions, thinking, and the direction of research, but to explain the methods of Hinayana farming we have no choice but to borrow the terms and methods of science. So for the sake of simplicity, we shall place it temporarily in the realm of science. In this respect, it resembles the position of the Eastern arts of healing vis-à-vis Western medicine. The direction in which Hinayana natural farming points leads beyond the world of science and to a rejection of scientific thinking.
Borrowing an analogy from the art of sword fighting, Hinayana natural farming may be likened to the one-sword school that is directed toward the center, and scientific farming to the two-sword school that is directed outward. The two can be compared. But Mahayana natural farming is the unmoving no-sword school, comparison with which is impossible. Scientific farming uses all possible means at its disposal, increasing the number of swords, whereas natural farming tries to obtain the best possible results while rendering all means useless, in effect reducing the number of its swords (Hinayana) or doing entirely without (Mahayana).
This view is based on the philosophical conviction that if man makes a genuine effort to approach nature, then even should he abandon all deeds and actions, nature will take each of these over and perform them for him.
3. **Scientific farming**: Pure natural farming should therefore be judged on philosophical grounds, while scientific farming should be evaluated on scientific grounds. Because scientific farming is limited to immediate circumstances in every respect, its achievements may excel in a restricted sense but are invariably inferior in all other ways. In contrast, natural farming is total and comprehensive, so its achievements must be judged from a broad, universal perspective.
When scientific methods are used to grow a fruit tree, for example, the goal may be to produce large fruit, in which case all efforts will be concentrated to this end. Yet all that will be achieved is the production of what may, in a limited sense, be regarded as large fruit. The fruit produced by scientific farming is always large—even unnaturally so—in a relative sense, but invariably has grave flaws. Essentially, what is being grown is deformed fruit. To determine the true merit of scientific farming, one has to decide whether producing large fruit is truly good for man. The answer to this should be obvious.
Scientific farming constantly practices the unnatural without the slightest concern, but this is of very great significance and invites the gravest of consequences. The unnaturalness of scientific farming leads directly to incompleteness, which is why its results are always distorted and at best of only local utility.
As the diagram in Fig. 3.2 shows, scientific farming and Hinayana natural farming both occupy the same dimension and may be described as “circles” of equal diameter, although one large difference is the very irregular contour of scientific farming.
The irregular shape of scientific farming represents the distortions and imperfections arising from the collection of narrow research findings of which it is made. This contrasts sharply with the perfect circle that signifies the perfection of nature toward which Hinayana natural farming aspires.
Because the nature seen by man is just a superficial image of true nature, the circle representing Hinayana farming is drawn much smaller than that for Mahayana natural farming. Mahayana farming, which is nature itself, is superior in every respect to the other ways of farming.
**Fig. 3.2** *Mahayana natural farming is absolute and beyond comparison.*
**Scientific Agriculture: Farming without Nature**
Constant changes in crop-growing practices and the shifting history of sericulture and livestock farming show that while man may have approached natural farming in some ages, he leaned more toward scientific agriculture in others. Farming has repeatedly turned back to nature, then moved away again. Today, it is headed toward fully automated and systemized production. The immediate reason for this trend toward mechanized agriculture is that artificial methods of raising livestock and scientific crop cultivation are believed to give higher yields and to be more economically advantageous, meaning higher productivity and profits.
Natural farming, on the other hand, is seen as a passive and primitive way of farming, at best a laissez-faire form of extensive agriculture that gives meager harvests and paltry profits.
Here is how I compare the yields for these three types of farming:
1) Scientific farming excels under unnatural, man-made conditions. But this is only because natural farming cannot be practiced under such conditions.
2) Under conditions approaching those of nature, Hinayana natural farming will yield results at least as good as or better than scientific farming.
3) In holistic terms, Mahayana natural farming, which is both pure and perfect, is always superior to scientific farming.
Let us take a look at situations in which each of these excels.
1. **Cases Where Scientific Farming Excels:** Scientific methods will always have the upper hand when growing produce in an unnatural environment and under unnatural conditions that deny nature its full powers, such as accelerated crop growth and cultivation in cramped plots, clay pots, hothouses, and hotbeds. And through adroit management, yields can be increased and fruit and vegetables grown out of season to satisfy consumer cravings by pumping in lots of high technology in the form of chemical fertilizers and powerful disease and pest control agents, bringing in unheard-of profits. Yet this is only because under such unnatural conditions natural farming does not stand a chance.
Instead of being satisfied with vegetables and fruit ripened on the land under the full rays of the sun, people vie with each other to buy limp, pale, out-of-season vegetables and splendid-looking fruit packed with artificial coloring the minute these appear in the supermarkets and food stalls. Under the circumstances, it is no surprise that people are grateful for scientific farming and think of it as beneficial to man.
Yet even under such ideal conditions, scientific farming does not produce more at lower cost or generate higher profits per unit area of land or per fruit tree than natural farming. It is not economically advantageous because it produces more and better product with less work and at lower cost. No, it is suited rather to the skillful use of time and space to create profit.
People construct buildings on high-priced land and raise silkworms, chickens, or hogs. In the winter they grow tomatoes and watermelons hydroponically in large hothouses. Mandarin oranges, which normally ripen in late autumn, are shipped from refrigerated warehouses in the summer and sold at a high profit. Here scientific agriculture has the entire field to itself. The only response possible to a consumer public that desires what nature cannot give it is to produce crops in an environment divorced from nature and to allow technology that relies on human knowledge and action to flex its muscle.
But I repeat, viewed in a larger sense that transcends space and time, scientific farming is *not* more economical or productive than natural farming. This superiority of scientific farming is a fragile, short-lived thing, and soon collapses with changing times and circumstances.
2. **Cases Where Both Ways of Farming Are Equally Effective:** Which of the two approaches is more productive under nearly natural conditions such as field cropping or the summer grazing of livestock? Under such circumstances, natural farming will never produce results inferior to scientific agriculture because it is able to take full advantage of nature’s forces.
The reason is simple: man imitates nature. No matter how well he thinks he knows rice, he cannot produce it from scratch. All he does is take the rice plant that he finds in nature and tries growing it by imitating the natural processes of rice seeding and germination. Man is no more than a student of nature. It is a foregone conclusion that were nature—the teacher—to use its full powers, man—the student—would lose out in the confrontation.
A typical response might go as follows: “But a student sometimes catches up with and overtakes his teacher. Isn’t it possible that man may one day succeed in fabricating an entire fruit. Even if this isn’t identical to a natural fruit, but just a mere imitation, might it not possibly be better than the real thing?”
But has anyone actually given any thought to how much scientific knowledge, to the materials and effort, it would take to reproduce something of nature? The level of technology that would be needed to create a single persimmon seed or leaf is incomparably greater than that used to launch a rocket into outer space. Even were man to undertake a solution to the myriad mysteries in the persimmon seed and attempt to fabricate a single seed artificially, the world’s scientists pooling all their knowledge and resources would not be up to the task.
And even supposing that this were possible, if man then set his mind on replacing current world fruit production with fruit manufactured in chemical plants that rely solely on the faculties of science, he would probably fall short of his goal even were he to cover the entire face of the earth with factories. I may appear to be overstating the case here, yet man constantly goes out of his way to commit such follies.
Man today knows that planting seeds in the ground is much easier than going to the trouble of manufacturing the same seeds scientifically. He knows, but he persists in such reveries anyway.
An imitation can never outclass the original. Imperfection shall always lie in the shadow of perfection. Even though man is well aware that the human activity we call science can never be superior to nature, his attention is riveted on the imitation rather than the original because he has been led astray by his peculiar myopia that makes science appear to excel over nature in certain areas.
Man believes in the superiority of science when it comes to crop yields and aesthetics, for example. He expects scientific farming, with its use of high-yielding techniques, to provide richer harvests than natural farming. He is convinced that taller plants can be grown by spraying hormones on rice plants grown under the forces of nature; that the number of grains per head can be increased by applying fertilizer during heading; that higher-than-natural yields can be attained by applying any of a host of yield-enhancing techniques.
Yet, no matter how many of these disparate techniques are used together, they cannot increase the total harvest of a field. This is because the amount of sunlight a field receives is fixed, and the yield of rice, which is the amount of starch produced by photosynthesis in a given area, depends on the amount of sunlight that shines on that area. No degree of human tampering with the other conditions of rice cultivation can change the upper limit in the rice yield. What man believes to be high-yielding technology is just an attempt to approach the limits of natural yields; more accurately, it is just an effort to minimize harvest losses.
So what is man likely to do? Recognizing the upper limit of yields to be set by the amount of sunlight the rice plants receive, he may well try to breach this barrier and produce yields higher than naturally possible by irradiating the rice plants with artificial light and blowing carbon dioxide over them to increase starch production. This is certainly possible in theory, but one must not forget that such artificial light and carbon
dioxide are modeled on natural sunlight and carbon dioxide. These were created by man from other materials and did not arise spontaneously. So it is all very well and good to talk of additional increases in yield achieved over the natural limits of production by scientific technology, but because such means require enormous energy outlays they are not true increases. Even worse, man must take full responsibility for destruction of the cyclic and material order of the natural world brought about by the use of technology. Since this disruption in the balance of nature is the basic cause of environmental pollution, man has brought lengthy suffering down upon his own head.
**The Entanglement of Natural and Scientific Farming**
As I mentioned earlier, natural farming and scientific farming are diametrically opposed. Natural farming moves centripetally toward nature, and scientific farming moves centrifugally away from nature. Yet many people think of these two approaches as being intertwined like the strands of a rope, or see scientific farming as repeatedly moving away from nature, then returning back again, something like the in-and-out motion of a piston. This is because they believe science to be intimately and inseparably allied with nature. But such thinking does not stand on a very firm foundation.
The paths of nature and of science and human action are forever parallel and never cross. Moreover, because they proceed in opposite directions, the distance between nature and science grows ever larger. As it moves along its path, science appears to maintain a cooperative association and harmony with nature, but in reality it aspires to dissect and analyze nature to know it completely in and out. Having done so, it will discard the pieces and move on without looking back. It hungers for struggle and conquest.
Thus, with every two steps forward that science takes, it moves one step back, returning to the bosom of nature and drinking of its knowledge. Once nourished, it ventures again three or four steps away from nature. When it runs into problems or out of ideas, it returns, seeking reconciliation and harmony. But it soon forgets its debt of gratitude and begins again to decry the passiveness and inefficiency of nature.
Let us take a look at an example of this pattern as seen in the development of silkworm cultivation.
Sericulture first arose when man noticed the camphor silk moth and the tussah spinning cocoons in mountain forests and learned that silk can be spun from these cocoons. The cocoons are fashioned with silk threads by moth larvae just before they enter the pupal stage. Having studied how these cocoons are made, man was no longer satisfied with just collecting natural cocoons and hit upon the idea of raising silkworms to make cocoons for him.
Primitive methods close to nature are believed to have marked the beginnings of sericulture. Silkworms were collected and released in woods close to home.
Eventually man replaced these wild species with artificially bred varieties. He noticed that silkworms thrive on mulberry leaves and that, when young, they grow more rapidly if these leaves are fed to them finely chopped. At this point, it became easier to raise them indoors, so he built shelves that allowed him to grow large numbers of worms inside. He devised feeding shelves and special tools for cocoon production, and became very concerned about optimum temperature and humidity. The methods used during this
long period of sericulture development demanded a great deal of hard labor from farming households. One had to get up very early in the morning, shoulder a large basket, and walk out to the mulberry grove, there to pick the leaves one at a time. The leaves were carefully wiped free of dew with dry cloths, chopped into strips with a large knife, and scattered over the silkworms on the tens and hundreds of feeding shelves.
The grower carefully maintained optimum conditions night and day, taking the greatest pains to adjust room temperature and ventilation by installing heaters and opening and closing doors. He had no choice; the silkworms improved by artificial breeding were weak and susceptible to disease. It was not uncommon for the worms, after having finally grown to full size, to be suddenly wiped out by disease. During spinning of the silk from the cocoons, all the members of the family pitched in, rarely getting any sleep. Growing and care of the mulberry trees also kept farmers busy with fertilizing and weeding. If a late frost killed the young leaves, then one usually had no choice but to throw away the whole lot of silkworms.
Given such labor-intensive methods, it should come as no surprise then that people began to look for less strenuous techniques. Starting 15 to 20 years ago, sericulture techniques that approach natural farming spread widely among growers.
These methods consisted of, for example, throwing branches of mulberry leaves onto the silkworms rather than picking and chopping leaves. Once it was learned that such a crude method works for young silkworms as well as the fully grown larvae, the next thought that occurred to growers was that, instead of raising the worms in a special room, they might perhaps be raised outdoors in a small shed, under the eaves, or in a sort of hotbed. On trying the idea out, growers found that silkworms are really quite hardy and never had to be raised under constant temperature and humidity conditions. Needless to say, they were overjoyed. Originally a creature of nature, the silkworms thrived outdoors day and night; only man feared the evening dew.
As advances were made in rearing methods, silkworms were raised first under the eaves, then outdoors, and finally were released into nearby trees. Sericulture appeared to be headed in the direction of natural farming when all of a sudden the industry fell upon hard times. The rapid development of synthetic fibers almost made natural silk obsolete. The price of silk plummeted, throwing sericulture farms out of business. Raising silkworms became regarded as something of a backwards industry.
However, the growing material affluence of our times has nurtured extravagant tastes in people. Consumers rediscovered the virtues of natural silk absent in synthetic fibers, causing silk to be treated once again as something of a precious commodity. The price of silk cocoons skyrocketed and farmers regained an interest in silkworm cultivation.
Yet by this time the hard-working farmer of old was gone, so innovative new sericulture techniques were adopted. These are purely scientific methods that go in a direction opposite to that of natural farming: industrial sericulture. Artificial feed is prepared from mulberry leaf powder, soybean powder, wheat powder, starch, fats, vitamins, and other ingredients. It also contains preservatives and is sterilized. Naturally, the silkworms are raised in a plant fully outfitted with heating and air conditioning equipment; lighting and ventilation are adjusted automatically. Feed is carried in, and droppings carried out, on a belt conveyor.
If disease should break out among the worms, the room can be hermetically sealed and disinfected with gas. With all feeding and cocoon collection operations fully automated, we have reached an age in which natural silk is something produced in factories. Although the starting material is still mulberry leaves, this will probably be replaced by a totally synthetic feed prepared from petrochemicals. Once an inexhaustible supply of cocoons can be produced in factories from a perfect diet, human labor will no longer be required. Will people then rejoice at how easily and effortlessly silk can be had in any amount?
Sericulture has in this way shifted repeatedly from one side to another. From natural farming it moved to scientific farming, then appeared to move a step back in the direction of natural farming. However, once scientific farming begins to get under way, it does not regress or turn back but rushes madly onward along a path that takes it away from nature.
The intertwining of natural farming and scientific farming can be depicted as shown in Fig. 3.3. Narrowly defined natural farming, which includes organic farming, proceeds centripetally inward toward a state of “nothingness” (Mu) by the elimination of human labor; it compresses and freezes time and space. Modern scientific farming, on the other hand, seeks to appropriate time and space through complex and diverse means; it proceeds centrifugally outward toward “something-ness,” expanding and developing as it goes. Both can be understood as existing in a relative relationship in the same dimension.
or plane. But although the two may appear identical at a given point, they move in opposite directions, the one headed for zero and the other for infinity.
Thus, seen relatively and discriminatively, the two readily appear to be in opposition, yet intimately intertwined neither approaching nor moving away from one another, advancing together and complementarily through time. However, because natural farming condenses inward, seeking ultimately a return to the true world of nature that transcends the world of relativity, it is in irreconcilable conflict with scientific farming, which expands forever in the relative world.
2. The Four Principles of Natural Farming
I have already shown how natural farming is clearly and undeniably superior to scientific farming, both in theory and in practice. And I have shown that scientific farming requires human labor and large expenditures, compounds chaos and confusion, and leads eventually to destruction.
Yet man is a strange creature. He creates one troublesome condition after another and wears himself down observing each. But take all these artificial conditions away and he suddenly becomes very uneasy. Even though he may agree that the natural way of farming is legitimate, he seems to think that it takes extraordinary resolve to exercise the principle of “doing nothing.”
It is to allay this feeling of unease that I recount my own experiences. Today, my method of natural farming has approached the point of “doing nothing.” I will admit that I have had my share of failures during the forty years that I have been at it. But because I was headed in basically the right direction, I now have yields that are at least equal to or better than those of crops grown scientifically in every respect. And most importantly: 1) my method succeeds at only a tiny fraction of the labor and costs of scientific farming, and my goal is to bring this down to zero; 2) at no point in the process of cultivation or in my crops is there any element that generates the slightest pollution, in addition to which my soil remains eternally fertile.
There can be no mistaking these results, as I have achieved them now for a good many years. Moreover, I guarantee that anyone can farm this way. This method of “do-nothing” farming is based on four major principles:
1. No cultivation
2. No fertilizer
3. No weeding
4. No pesticides
No Cultivation
Plowing a field is hard work for the farmer and usually one of the most important activities in farming operations. In fact, to many people, being a farmer is synonymous with turning the soil with plow or hoe. If working the soil is unnecessary then, the image and reality of the farmer change drastically. Let us look at why plowing is thought to be essential and what effect it actually has.
Plowing Ruins the Soil: Knowing that the roots of crops penetrate deep into the earth in search of air, water, and nutrients, people reason that making larger amounts of these ingredients available to the plants will speed crop growth. So they clear the field of weeds and turn the soil from time to time, believing that this loosens and aerates the soil, increases the amount of available nitrogen by encouraging nitrification, and introduces fertilizer into the soil where it can be absorbed by the crops.
Of course, plowing under chemical fertilizers scattered over the surface of a field will probably increase fertilizer effectiveness. But this is true only for cleanly plowed and weeded fields on which fertilizer is applied. Grassed fields and no-fertilizer cultivation are a different matter altogether. We therefore have to examine the necessity of plowing from a different perspective. As for the argument that this helps increase available nitrogen through nitrification, this is analogous to wasting one’s body for some temporary gain.
Plowing is supposed to loosen the soil and improve the penetration of air, but does not this in fact have the opposite effect of compacting (he soil and decreasing air porosity? When a farmer plows his fields and turns the soil with a hoe, this appears to create air spaces in the soil and soften the dirt. But the effect is the same as kneading bread: by turning the soil, the farmer breaks it up into smaller and smaller particles which acquire an increasingly regular physical arrangement with smaller interstitial spaces. The result is a harder, denser soil.
The only effective way to soften up the soil is to apply compost and work it into the ground by plowing. But this is just a short-lived measure. In fields that have been weeded clean and carefully plowed and re-plowed, the natural aggregation of the soil into larger particles is disturbed; soil particles become finer and finer, hardening the ground.
Wet paddy fields are normally supposed to be tilled five, six, or even seven times during the growing season. The more zealous farmers have even competed with each other to increase the number of plowings. Everyone thought this softened the soil in the paddy and let more air into the soil. That is the way it looked to most people for a long time, until after World War II, when herbicides became available. Then farmers discovered that when they sprayed their fields with herbicides and reduced the frequency of plowing, their yields improved. This demonstrated that intertillage had been effective as a weeding process but had been worthless as a means for loosening the soil.
To say that tilling the soil is worthless is not the same as claiming that it is unnecessary to loosen the soil and increase its porosity. No, in fact I would like to stress, more than anyone else, just how important an abundance of air and water are to the soil. It is in the nature of soil to swell and grow more porous with each passing year. This is absolutely essential for microorganisms to multiply in the earth, for the soil to grow more fertile, and for the roots of large trees to penetrate deep into the ground. Only I believe that, far from being the answer, working the soil with plow and hoe actually interferes with these processes. If man leaves the soil to itself, the forces of nature will enrich and loosen.
Farmers usually plow the soil to a depth of about four to eight inches, whereas the roots of grasses and green manure crops work the soil down to twelve inches, fifteen inches, or more. When these roots reach down deep into the earth, air and water penetrate into the soil together with the roots. As these wither and die, many types of
microorganisms proliferate. These organisms die and are replaced by others, increasing the amount of humus and softening the soil. Earthworms eventually appear where there is humus, and as the number of earthworm’s increases, moles begin burrowing through the soil.
**The Soil Works Itself:** The soil lives of its own accord and plows itself. It needs no help from man. Farmers often talk of “taming the soil” and of a field becoming “mature,” but why is it that trees in mountain forests grow to such magnificent heights without the benefit of hoe or fertilizer, while the farmer’s fields can grow only puny crops?
Has the farmer ever given any careful thought to what plowing is? Has he not trained all his attention on a thin surface layer and neglected to consider what lies below that?
Trees seem to grow almost haphazardly in the mountains and forests, but the cedar grows where it can thrive to its great size, mixed woods rise up where mixed woods must, and pine trees germinate and grow in places suited for pine trees. One does not see pines growing at the bottom of a valley or cedar seedlings taking root on mountain tops. One type of fern grows on infertile land and another in areas of deep soil. Plants that normally grow along the water’s edge are not found on mountain tops, and terrestrial plants do not thrive in the water. Although apparently without intent or purpose, these plants know exactly where they can and should grow.
Man talks of “the right crop for the right land,” and does studies to determine which crops grow well where. Yet research has hardly touched upon such topics as the type of parent rock and soil structure suited to mandarin orange trees, or the physical, chemical, and biological soil structures in which persimmon trees grow well. People plant trees and sow seed without having the faintest idea of what the parent rock *on* their land is and without knowing anything about the structure of the soil. It is no wonder then that farmers worry about how their crops are going to turn out.
In the mountain forests, however, concerns over the physical and chemical compositions of the topsoil and deeper strata are nonexistent; without the least help from man, nature creates the soil conditions sufficient to support dense stands of towering trees. In nature, the very grasses and trees, and the earthworms and moles in the ground, have acted the part of plow horse and oxen, completely rearranging and renewing the soil. What can be more desirable to the farmer than being able to work the fields without pulling a plow or swinging a hoe? Let the grasses plow the topsoil and the trees work the deeper layers. Everywhere I look, I am reminded of how much wiser it is to entrust soil improvement to the soil and plant growth to the inherent powers of plants.
People transplant saplings without giving a thought as to what they are doing. They graft a scion to the stock of another species or clip the roots of a fruit sapling and transplant it. From this point on, the roots cease to grow straight and lose the ability to penetrate hard rock. During transplanting, even a slight entanglement of the tree’s roots interferes with the normal growth of the first generation of roots and weakens the tree’s ability to send roots deep into the soil. Applying chemical fertilizers encourages the tree to grow a shallow root structure that extends along the topsoil. Fertilizer application and weeding bring a halt to the normal aggregation and enrichment of topsoil. Clearing new land for agriculture by pulling up trees and bushes robs the deeper layers of the soil of a source of humus, halting the active proliferation of soil microbes. These very actions are what make plowing and turning the soil necessary in the first place.
There is no need to plow or improve a soil because nature has been working at it with its own methods for thousands of years. Man has restrained the hand of nature and taken up the plow himself. But this is just man imitating nature—All he has really gained from this is a mastery at scientific exposition.
No amount of research can teach man everything there is to know about the soil, and he will certainly never create soils more perfect than those of nature. Because nature itself is perfect. If anything, advances in scientific research teach man just how perfect and complete a handful of soil is, and how incomplete human knowledge.
We can either choose to see the soil as imperfect and take hoe in hand, or trust the soil and leave the business of working it to nature.
**No Fertilizer**
*Crops Depend on the Soil:* When we look directly at how and why crops grow on the earth, we realize that they do so independently of human knowledge and action. This means that they have no need basically for such things as fertilizers and nutrients. Crops depend on the soil for growth.
I have experimented with fruit trees and with rice and winter grain to determine whether these can be cultivated without fertilizers. Of course crops can be grown without fertilizer. Nor does this yield the poor harvests people generally believe. In fact, I have been able to show that by taking full advantage of the inherent powers of nature, one can obtain yields equal to those that can be had with heavy fertilization. But before getting into a discussion of why it is possible to farm without using fertilizers and whether the results are good or bad, I would like to look first at the road scientific farming has taken.
Long ago, people saw crops growing in the wild and called this “growth.” Applying discriminating knowledge, they proceeded from the notion of wild plant growth to plant cultivation.
For example, scientists typically begin by analyzing rice and barley plants and identifying the various nutrients. They then speculate that these nutrients promote the growth of rice and barley. Next they apply the nutrients as fertilizer, and observing that the plants grow as expected, they conclude that the fertilizer is what makes the crops grow. The moment they compare crops grown with and without fertilizer and conclude that fertilizer application results in taller, better yielding plants, people cease to doubt the value of fertilizers.
*Are Fertilizers Really Necessary?* The same is true when one delves into the reasons why fertilizers are thought to be essential to fruit trees. Pomologists normally begin with an analysis of the trunk, leaves, and fruit of the tree. From this they learn what the nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium contents are and how much of these components are consumed per unit of annual growth or of fruit produced. Based on the results of such analyses, fertilization schedules for fruit trees in mature orchards will typically set the amount of nitrogen components at 90 pounds, say, and the amount of phosphates and potassium at 70 pounds each. Researchers will apply fertilizer to trees grown in test plots or earthen pots, and examining the growth of the tree and the amount and quality of fruit it bears, will claim to have demonstrated the indispensability of fertilizer.
Learning that nitrogenous components are present in the leaves and branches of citrus trees and that these are absorbed from the ground by the roots, man hits upon the idea of administering fertilizer as a nutrient source. If this succeeds in supplying the nutrient needs of the leaves and branches, man immediately jumps to the conclusion that applying fertilizer to citrus trees is both necessary and effective.
If one works from the assumption that fruit trees must “be grown,” the absorption of fertilizer by the roots becomes the cause, and the full growth of the leaves and branches the effect. This leads quite naturally to the conclusion that applying fertilizer is necessary.
However, if we take as our starting point the view that a tree grows of its own accord, the uptake of nutrients by the tree’s roots is no longer a cause but, in the eyes of nature, just a small effect. One could say that the tree grew as a result of the absorption of nutrients by the roots, but one could also claim that the absorption of nutrients was caused by something else, which had the effect of making the tree grow. The buds on a tree are made for budding and so this is what they do; the roots, with their powers of elongation, spread and extend throughout the earth. A tree has a shape perfectly adapted to the natural environment. With this, it guards the providence of nature and obeys nature’s laws, growing neither too fast nor too slow, but in total harmony with the great cycles of nature.
*The Countless Evils of Fertilizer:* What happens when the farmer arrives in the middle of all this and spreads his fields and orchards with fertilizer? Dazzled and led astray by the rapid growth he hears of, he applies fertilizer to his trees without giving any thought to the influence this has on the natural order.
As long as he cannot know what effects scattering a handful of fertilizer has on the natural world, man is not qualified to speak of the effectiveness of fertilizer application. Determining whether fertilizer does a tree or soil good or harm is not something that can be decided overnight.
The more scientists learn, the more they realize just how awesome is the complexity and mystery of nature. They find this to be a world filled with boundless, inscrutable riddles. The amount of research material that lies hidden in a single gram of soil, a single particle, is mind-boggling.
People call the soil mineral matter, but some one hundred million bacteria, yeasts, molds, diatoms, and other microbes live in just one gram of ordinary topsoil. Far from being dead and inanimate, the soil is teeming with life. These microorganisms do not exist without reason. Each lives for a purpose, struggling, cooperating, and carrying on the cycles of nature.
Into this soil, man throws powerful chemical fertilizers. It would take years of research to determine how the fertilizer components combine and react with air, water, and many other substances in nonliving mineral matter, what changes they undergo, and what relationships should be maintained between these components and the various microorganisms in order to guard a harmonious balance.
Very little, if any, research has been done yet on the relationship between fertilizers and soil microbes. In fact, most experiments totally ignore this. At agricultural research stations, scientists place soil in pots and run tests, but more likely as not, most of the soil microbes in these pots die off. Clearly, results obtained from tests conducted under fixed
conditions and within a limited experimental framework cannot be applied to situations under natural conditions.
Yet, just because a fertilizer slightly accelerates crop growth in such tests, it is praised lavishly and widely reported to be effective. Only the efficacy of the fertilizer is stressed; almost nothing is said about its adverse effects, which are innumerable. Here is just a sampling:
1. Fertilizers speed up the growth of crops, but this is only a temporary and local effect that does not offset the inevitable weakening of the crops. This is similar to the rapid acceleration of plant growth by hormones.
2. Plants weakened by fertilizers have a lowered resistance to diseases and pests, and are less able to overcome other obstacles to growth and development.
3. Fertilizer applied to soil usually is not as effective as in laboratory experiments. For example, it was recently learned that some thirty percent of the nitrogenous component of ammonium sulfate applied to paddy fields is denitrified by microorganisms in the soil and escapes into the atmosphere. That this came out after decades of use is an unspeakable injury and injustice to countless farmers that cannot be laughed off as just an innocent mistake. Such nonsense will occur again and again. Recent reports say that phosphate fertilizers applied to fields only penetrate two inches into the soil surface. So it turns out that those mountains of phosphates that farmers religiously spread on their fields year after year were useless and were essentially being “dumped” on the topsoil.
4. Damage caused directly by fertilizers is also enormous. More than seventy percent of the “big three”—ammonium sulfate, super-phosphate, and potassium sulfate—is concentrated sulfuric acid which acidifies the soil, causing great harm to it, both directly and indirectly. Each year, some 1.8 million tons of sulfuric acid are dumped onto the farmlands of Japan in the form of fertilizer. This acidic fertilizer suppresses and kills soil microorganisms, disrupting and damaging the soil in a way that may one day spell disaster for Japanese agriculture.
5. One major problem with fertilizer use is the deficiency of trace components. Not only have we killed the soil by relying too heavily on chemical fertilizers, our production of crops from a small number of nutrients has led to a deficiency in many trace elements essential to the crops. Recently, this problem has risen to alarming proportions in fruit trees, and has also surfaced as one cause of low rice harvests.
The effects and interactions of the various components of fertilizers in orchard soil are unspeakably complex. Nitrogen and phosphate uptake is poor in iodine-deficient soils. When the soil is acidic or turns alkaline through heavy applications of lime, deficiencies of zinc, manganese, boron, iodine, and other elements develop because these become less soluble in water. Too much potassium blocks iodine uptake and reduces the absorption of boron as well. The greater the amount of nitrogen, phosphate, and potassium administered to the soil, the higher the resulting deficiency of zinc and boron. On the other hand, higher levels of nitrogen and phosphate result in a lower manganese deficiency.
Adding too much of one fertilizer renders another fertilizer ineffective. When there is a shortage of certain components, it does no good to add a generous amount of other components. When scientists get around to studying these relationships, they will realize
just how complex the addition of fertilizers is. If we were prudent enough to apply fertilizers only when we were certain of the pros and cons, we could be sure of avoiding dangerous mistakes, but the benefits and dangers of fertilization are never likely to become perfectly clear.
And the problems go on multiplying. Very limited research is currently underway on several trace components, but an endless number of such components remain to be discovered. This will spawn infinite new areas of study, such as mutual interactions, leaching in the soil, fixation, and relationships with microbes.
Still, in spite of such intimidating complexity, if a fertilizer happens to be effective in one narrowly designed experiment, scientists report this as being remarkably effective without having the vaguest idea of its true merits and drawbacks.
“Well yes,” the farmer all too easily reasons. “Chemical fertilizers do cause some damage. But I’ve used fertilizers now for years and haven’t had any big problems, so I suppose that I’m better off with them.” The seeds of calamity have been sown. When we take note of the danger, it will be too late to do anything about it.
Consider also the fact that farmers have always had to struggle to scrape together enough to buy fertilizer. Why, to give one simple example, fertilizers currently account for thirty to fifty percent of the costs of running an orchard.
People claim that produce cannot be grown without fertilization, but is it really true that crops do not grow in the absence of fertilizer? Is the use of fertilizers economically advantageous? And have methods of farming with fertilizers made the lot of farmers easier?
*Why the Absence of No-Fertilizer Tests?*: Strange as it may seem, scientists hardly ever run experiments on no-fertilizer cultivation. In Japan, only a handful of reports have been published over the last few years on the cultivation of fruit trees without fertilizer in small concrete enclosures and earthen pots. Some tests have been done on rice and other grains, but only as controls. Actually, the reason why no-fertilizer tests are not performed is all too clear. Scientists work from the basic premise that crops are to be grown with fertilizer. “Why experiment with such an idiotic and dangerous method of cultivation?” they say. Why indeed.
The standard on which fertilizer experiments should be based is no-fertilizer tests, but three-element tests using nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium are the standard actually used. Quoting the results of a very small number of insignificant experiments, scientists claim that a tree grows only about half as much without fertilizer as when various types of fertilizer are used, and the common belief is that yields are terrible—on the order of one-third that obtained with fertilizers. However, the conditions under which these no-fertilizer experiments were conducted have little in common with true natural farming.
When crops are planted in small earthenware pots or artificial enclosures, the soil in which they grow is dead soil. The growth of trees whose roots are boxed in by concrete is highly unnatural. It is unreasonable to claim that because plants grown without fertilizer in such an enclosure grow poorly, they cannot be grown without fertilizers.
No-fertilizer natural farming essentially means the natural cultivation of crops without fertilizers in a soil and environment under totally natural conditions. By totally natural
cultivation I mean no-fertilizer tests under “condition-less” conditions. However such experiments are out of the reach of scientists, and indeed impossible to perform.
I am convinced that cultivation without fertilizers under natural circumstances is not only philosophically feasible, but is more beneficial than scientific, fertilizer-based agriculture, and preferable for the farmer. Yet, although cultivation without the use of chemical fertilizers is possible, crops cannot immediately be grown successfully without fertilizers on fields that are normally plowed and weeded.
It is imperative that farmers think seriously about what nature is and provide a growing environment that approaches at least one step closer to nature. But to farm in nature, one must first make an effort to return to that natural state which preceded the development of the farming methods used by man.
*Take a Good Look at Nature:* When trying to determine whether crops can be grown without fertilizers, one cannot tell anything by examining only the crops. One must begin by taking a good look at nature.
The trees of the mountain forests grow under nearly natural conditions. Although they receive no fertilizer by the hand of man, they grow very well year after year. Reforested cedars in a favorable area generally grow about forty tons per quarter-acre over a period of twenty years. These trees thus produce some two tons of new growth each year without fertilizer. This includes only that part of the tree that can be used as lumber, so if we take into account also small branches, leaves, and roots, then annual production is probably closer to double, or about four tons.
In the case of a fruit orchard, this would translate into two to four tons of fruit produced each year without fertilizers—about equal to standard production levels by fruit growers today.
After a certain period of time, the trees in a timber stand are felled, and the entire surface portion of the tree—including the branches, leaves, and trunk—is carried away. So not only are fertilizers not used, this is slash-and-burn agriculture. How then, and from where, are the fertilizer components for this production volume supplied each year to the growing trees? Plants do not need to be raised; they grow of their own accord. The mountain forests are living proof that trees are not raised with fertilizer but grow by themselves.
One might also point out that because the planted cedars are not virgin forest, they are not likely to be growing under the full powers of the natural soil and environment. The damage caused by repeated planting of the same species of tree, the felling and harvesting of the timber, and the burning of the mountainside take their toll. Anyone who sees black wattle planted in depleted soil on a mountainside and succeeded a number of years later with giant cedars many times their size will be amazed at the great productive powers of the soil. When black wattle is planted among cedar or cypress, these latter thrive with the help of the microbes present on the roots of the black wattle. If the forest is left to itself, the action of the wind and snow over the years weathers the rock, a layer of humus forms and deepens with the fall of leaves each year, microorganisms multiply in the soil—turning it a rich black, and the soil aggregates and softens, increasing water retention. There is no need for human intervention here. And the trees grow on and on.
Nature is not dead. It lives and it grows. All that man has to do is direct these vast hidden forces to the growth of fruit trees. But rather than using this great power, people choose to destroy it. Weeding and plowing the fields each year depletes the fertility of the soil, creates a deficiency of trace components, diminishes the soil’s vitality, hardens the topsoil, kills off microbes, and turns rich, living, organic material into a dead, inanimate, yellowish-white mineral matter the only function of which is to physically support the crops.
**Fertilizer Was Never Needed to Begin With:** Let us consider the farmer as he clears a forest and plants fruit trees. He fells the trees in the forest and carries them off as logs, taking the branches and leaves as well. Then he digs deep into the earth, pulling up the roots of trees and grasses, which he burns. Next, he turns the soil over and over again to loosen it up. But in so doing, he destroys the physical structure of the soil. After pounding and kneading the soil again and again like bread dough, he drives out air and the humus so essential to microorganisms, reducing it to a yellow mineral matter barren of life. He then plants fruit saplings in the now lifeless soil, adds fertilizer, and attempts to grow fruit trees entirely through human forces.
At agricultural research centers, fertilizer is added to potted soil devoid of life and nutrients. The effect is like sprinkling water on dry soil: the trees thrive on the fertilizer nutrients. Naturally, researchers report this as evidence of the remarkable effectiveness of the fertilizer. The farmer simulates the laboratory procedure by carefully clearing the land of all plant matter and killing the soil in the field, then applying fertilizer. He too notes the same startling results and is pleased with what he sees.
The poor farmer has taken the long way around. Although I would not call fertilizers totally useless, the fact is that nature provides us with all the fertilizers we need. Crops grow very well without chemical fertilizers. Since ancient times, rock outcroppings on the earth have been battered by the elements, first into boulders and stones, then into sand and earth. As this gave rise to and nurtured microbes, grasses, and eventually great, towering trees, the land became buried under a mantle of rich soil.
Even though it is unclear how, when, and from where the nutrients essential to plant growth are formed and accumulate, each year the topsoil becomes darker and richer. Compare this with the soil in the fields farmed by man, which grows poorer and more barren each year, in spite of the large amounts of fertilizer constantly poured onto it.
The no-fertilizer principle does not say that fertilizers are worthless, but that there is no need to apply chemical fertilizers. Scientific technology for applying fertilizers is basically pointless for the same reason. Yet research on the preparation and use of organic composts, which are much closer to nature, appears at first glance to be of value.
When compost such as straw, grasses and trees, or seaweed is applied directly to a field, it takes a while for this to decompose and trigger a fertilizer response in the crops. This is because microbes help themselves to the available nitrogen in the soil, creating a temporary nitrogen deficiency that initially starves the crops of needed nitrogen. In organic farming, therefore, these materials are fermented and used as prepared compost, giving a safe, effective fertilizer.
All the trouble taken during preparation of the compost to speed up the rate of fertilizer response, such as frequent turning of the pile, methods for stimulating the
growth of aerobic bacteria, the addition of water and nitrogenous fertilizers, lime, superphosphate, rice bran, manure, and so forth—all this trouble is taken just for a slight acceleration in response. Because the net effect of these efforts is to speed up decomposition by at most ten to twenty percent, this can hardly be called necessary, especially since there already was a method of applying straw that achieved outstanding results.
The logic that rejects grassed fields, green manure, and the direct application and plowing under of human wastes and livestock manure changes with time and circumstances. Given the right conditions, these may be effective. But no fertilizer method is absolute. The surest way to solve the problem is to apply a method that adapts to the circumstances and follows nature.
I firmly believe that, while compost itself is not without value, the composting of organic materials is fundamentally useless.
**No Weeding**
Nothing would be more welcome to the farmer than not having to weed his fields, for this is his greatest source of toil. Not having to weed or plow might sound like asking for too much, but if one stops to think about what repeatedly weeding and running a plow through a field actually means, it becomes clear that weeding is not as indispensable as we have been led to believe.
*Is There Such a Thing as a Weed?*: Does no one question the common view that weeds are a nuisance and harmful to the raising of crops?
The first step that those who distinguish between crops and weeds take is to decide whether to weed or not to weed! Like the many different microorganisms that struggle and cooperate in the soil, myriad grasses and trees live together on the soil surface. Is it right then to destroy this natural state, to pick out certain plants living in harmony among many plants and call these “crops,” and to uproot all the others as “weeds”?
In nature, plants live and thrive together. But man sees things differently. He sees coexistence as competition; he thinks of one plant as hindering the growth of another and believes that to raise a crop, he must remove other grasses and herbs. Had man looked squarely at nature and placed his trust in its powers, would he not have raised crops in harmony with other plants? Ever since he chose to differentiate crop plants from other plants, he has felt compelled to raise crops through his own efforts. When man decides to raise one crop, the attention and devotion he focuses on raising that crop gives birth to a complementary sense of repulsion and hate that excludes all else.
The moment that the farmer started caring for and raising crops, he began to regard other herbs with disgust as weeds and has striven ever since to remove them. But because the growth of weeds is natural, there is no end to their variety or to the labors of those who work to remove them.
If one believes that crops grow with the aid of fertilizers, then the surrounding weeds must be removed because they rob the crop plants of fertilizer. But in natural farming, where plants grow of their own accord without relying on fertilizers, the surrounding weeds do not pose any problem at all. Nothing is more natural than to see grass growing
at the foot of a tree; no one would ever think of that grass as interfering with the growth of the tree.
In nature, bushes and shrubs grow at the foot of large trees, grasses spread among the shrubs, and mosses flourish beneath the grasses. Instead of cut-throat competition for nutrients, this is a peaceful world of coexistence. Rather than seeing the grasses as stunting shrub growth and the shrubs as slowing the growth of trees, one should feel instead a sense of wonder and amazement at the ability of these plants to grow together in this way.
*Weeds Enrich the Soil:* Instead of pulling weeds, people should give some thought to the significance of these plants. Having done so, they will agree that the farmer should let the weeds live and make use of their strength. Although I call this the “no-weeding” principle, it could also be known as the principle of “weed utility.”
Long ago, when the earth began to cool and the surface of the earth’s crust weathered, forming soil, the first forms of life to appear were bacteria and lower forms of plant life such as algae. All plants arose for a reason, and all plants live and thrive today for a reason. None is useless; each makes its own contribution to the development and enrichment of the biosphere. Such fertile soil would not have formed on the earth’s surface had there been no microorganisms in the earth and grasses on the surface. Grasses and other plants do not grow without a purpose.
The deep penetration of grass roots into the earth loosens the soil. When the roots die, this adds to the humus, allowing soil microbes to proliferate and enrich the soil. Rainwater percolates through the soil and air is carried deep down, supporting earthworms, which eventually attract moles. Weeds and grasses are absolutely essential for a soil to remain organic and alive.
Without grasses growing over the surface of the ground, rainwater would wash away part of the topsoil each year. Even in gently sloping areas, this would result in the loss of from several tons to perhaps well over a hundred tons of soil per year. In twenty to thirty years, the topsoil would wash entirely away, reducing soil fertility to essentially zero. It would make more sense then for farmers to stop pulling weeds and begin making use of their considerable powers.
Of course, it is understandable when farmers say that weeds growing wild in rice and wheat fields or under fruit trees interfere with other work. Even in cases where cultivation with weeds appears to be possible and even beneficial in principle, monoculture is more convenient for the farmer. This is why, in practice, one must adopt a method that utilizes the strength of weeds but also takes into account the convenience of farming operations—a “weedless” method that allows the weeds to grow.
*A Cover of Grass Is Beneficial:* This method includes sod and green manure cultivation. In my citrus orchard, I first attempted cultivation under a cover of grass, then switched to green manure cultivation. Now I use a ground cover of clover and vegetables with no weeding, tillage, or fertilizer. When weeds are a problem, then it is wiser to remove weeds with weeds than to pull weeds by hand. The many different grasses and herbs in a natural meadow appear to grow and die in total confusion, but upon closer examination, there are laws and there is order here. Grasses meant to sprout do so. Plants that flourish do so for a reason; and if they weaken and die, there is a cause. Plants of the
same species do not all grow in the same place and way: given types flourish, then fade in an ongoing succession. The cycles of coexistence, competition, and mutual benefit repeat themselves. Certain weeds grow as individuals, others grow in bunches, and yet others form colonies. Some grow sparsely, some densely, and some in clumps. Each has a different ecology: some rise up over their neighbors and overpower them, some wrap themselves around others in symbiosis, some weaken other plants, and some die—while others thrive—as undergrowth.
By studying and making use of the properties of weeds, one weed can be used to drive out a large number of other weeds. If the farmer were to grow grasses or green manure crops that take the place of undesirable weeds and are beneficial to him and his crops, then he would no longer have to weed. In addition, the green manure would enrich the soil and prevent its erosion. I have found that by “killing two birds with one stone” in this way, growing fruit trees and tending an orchard can be made easier and more advantageous than normal methods. In fact, from my experience, there is no question that weeding in orchards is not only useless, it is positively harmful.
What about in the case of crops such as rice or barley? I believe that the coexistence of surface plants is true to nature, and that the no-weeding principle applies also to rice and barley cultivation. But because the presence of weeds among the rice and barley interferes with harvesting, these weeds have to be replaced with some other herb.
I practice a form of rice-barley succession cropping in which I seed barley together with clover over the standing heads of rice, and scatter rice seed and green manure while the barley is up. This more nearly approaches nature and eliminates weeding. My reason for trying such a method was not that I was tired of weeding or wanted to prove that cultivation is possible without weeding. I did this but of dedication to my goals of understanding the true form of rice and barley and of achieving more vigorous growth and higher yields by cultivating these grains in as natural a way as possible.
What I found was that, like fruit trees, rice and barley too can be grown without weeding. I learned also that vegetables can be grown in a state that allows them to go wild, without fertilizer or weeding, and yet attain yields comparable to normal methods.
**No Pesticides**
*Insect Pests Do Not Exist:* The moment the problem of crop disease or insect damage arises, talk turns immediately to methods of control. But we should begin by examining whether crop disease or insect damage exist in the first place. A thousand plant diseases exist in nature, yet in truth there are none. It is the agricultural specialist who gets carried away with discussions on disease and pest damage. Although research is done on ways to reduce the number of country villages without doctors, no studies are ever run to find out how these villages have managed to get by without doctors. In the same way, when people spot signs of a plant disease or an insect pest, they immediately go about trying to get rid of it. The smart thing to do would be to stop treating insects as pests and find a way that eliminates the need for control measures altogether.
I would like to take a look now at the question of new pesticides, which has escalated into a major pollution problem. The problem exists because, very simply, there are no non-polluting new pesticides.
Most people seem to believe that the use of natural predators and pesticides of low toxicity will clear up the problem, but they are mistaken. Many feel reassured by the thought that the use of beneficial insect predators to control pests is a biological method of control without harmful repercussions, but to someone who understands the chain of being that links together the world of living organisms, there is no way of telling which organisms are beneficial predators and which are pests. By meddling with controls, all man accomplishes is destruction of the natural order. Although he may appear to be protecting the natural enemies and killing the pests, there is no way of knowing whether the pests will become beneficial and the predator’s pests. Many insects that are harmless in a direct sense are harmful indirectly. And when things get even more complex, as when one beneficial insect feeds on a pest that kills another beneficial insect which feeds on another pest, it is futile to try and draw sharp distinctions between these and apply pesticides selectively.
**Pollution by New Pesticides:** With the problem of pesticide pollution, many await the development of new pesticides that:
1. have no adverse effects on animal cells and act by inhibiting enzymes specific to given insects, microorganisms, pathogens, plants, or whatever;
2. are degradable under the action of sunlight and microorganisms, and are totally non-polluting, leaving no residues.
The antibiotics blastasticidin S and kasugamycin were released onto the market as new pesticides that meet these conditions, and used widely as preventive measures against rice blast disease amid great clamor and publicity. Another recent area of investigation in which many are placing much hope is pesticides prepared from biological components already present in nature, such as amino acids, fatty acids, and nucleic acids. Such pesticides, it is generally surmised, are not likely to leave residues.
One other new type of pesticide discovered recently and reported as possibly non-polluting is a chemical that suppresses metamorphosis-regulating hormones in insects. Insects’ secrete hormones that control the various stages of metamorphosis, from the egg to the larva, the pupa, and finally the adult. A substance extracted from the bay tree apparently inhibits secretion of these hormones.
Because these substances work selectively on only certain types of insects, they are thought to have no effects on other animals and plants. But this is incorrect and shortsighted. Animal cells, plant cells, and microorganisms are basically all quite similar. When a pesticide that works on some insect or pathogen is said to be harmless to plants and animals, this is merely a word game that plays on a very minor difference in resistance to that substance.
A substance that is effective on insects and microorganisms also acts, to a greater or lesser degree, on plants and animals. A pesticidal or bactericidal effect is referred to as phytotoxicity in plants and pollution in animals and man.
It is unreasonable to expect a substance to work only on specific insects and microbes. To claim that something does not cause pesticide damage or pollution is to make small distinctions based on minor differences in action. Moreover, there is no knowing when these minor differences will change or turn against us. Yet, in spite of this constant danger, people are satisfied if a substance poses no immediate threat of damage or
pollution and do not bother to consider the greater repercussions of its effects. This attitude of ready acceptance complicates the problem and aggravates the dangers.
The same is true as well of microorganisms employed as biological pesticides. Many different types of bacteria, viruses, and molds are sold and used in a variety of applications, but what effect are these having on the biosphere? One hears a lot lately about pheromones. These are chemicals produced by organisms in minute quantities that trigger very profound physiological changes or specific behavioral reactions in other individuals. They may be used, for example, to attract the males or females of a given insect pest. Even the use of chemo-sterilants together with such attractants and excitants is conceivable.
Sterilization can be achieved by a number of methods, such as destruction of the reproductive function by irradiation with gamma rays, the use of chemo-sterilants, and interspecific mating. But no evidence exists to support the claim that the effects of sterilization are limited to just the insect pest. If, for instance, one insect pest were entirely eliminated, there is no knowing what might arise in its place. No one has any idea what effects a given sterilant used on one type of insect will have on other insects, plants, animals, or man for that matter. An action as cruel as ruining and annihilating a family of organisms will surely invite retribution.
The aerial spraying of mountain forests with herbicides, pesticides, and chemical fertilizers is considered a success if a given weed or insect pest is selectively killed, or the growth of trees improved. But this is a grave error that can prove most dangerous. Natural conservationists have already recognized such practices as polluting.
Spraying herbicides such as PCP does more than just kill weeds. This acts also as a bactericide and fungicide, killing both black spot on living plants and the many putrefactive fungi and bacteria on fallen leaves. Lack of leaf decomposition seriously affects the habitats of earthworms and ground beetles, on top of which PCP also destroys microorganisms in the ground.
Treating the soil with chloropicrin will temporarily alleviate bacterial soft rot in Chinese cabbage and the daikon radish, but the disease breaks out again two years later and gets completely out of hand. This germicide halts the soft rot, but at the same time it also kills other bacteria that moderate the severity of the disease, leaving the field open to the soft rot bacteria. Chloropicrin also works against fusarium fungi and sclerotium fungi that attack young seedlings, but one cannot overlook the fact that these fungi kill other important pathogens. Is it really possible to restore the balance of nature by spraying an array of bactericides and fungicides like this into a soil populated with such a large variety of microbes?
Instead of trying to bring nature around to his own designs with pesticides, man would be much wiser to step out of the way and let nature carry on its affairs without his interference.
Man is also kidding himself if he thinks that he can clear up the problem of weeds with herbicides. He only makes things harder on himself because this leaves hardy weeds resistant to herbicides or results in the emergence of totally unmanageable new strains of weed. Somebody has come up with the bright idea of killing off herbicide-resistant weeds such as Kentucky bluegrass that are spreading from road embankments by importing an
insect pest which attacks the weeds. When this insect begins to attack crops, a new pesticide will have to be developed, setting into motion another vicious cycle—To illustrate just how complex the interrelationships between insects, microorganisms, and plants are, let us take a look at the pine rot epidemic spreading throughout Japan.
**The Root Cause of Pine Rot:** Contrary to the generally accepted view, I do not think that the primary cause of the red pine disease that has afflicted so many forested areas of Japan is the pinewood nematode. Recently a group of pesticide researchers at the Institute of Physical and Chemical Research pointed to a new type of *aohen-kin* (“blue change mold”) as the real villain, but the situation is more complicated than this. I have made a number of observations that throw some light on the true cause.
1. On cutting down a healthy-looking pine in an infected forest, new pathogenic fungi can be isolated from pure cultures of some forty percent of the trunk tissue. The isolated fungi include molds such as *kurohen-kin* (“black change mold”) and three types of *aohen-kin*, all of them new, undocumented pathogens foreign to the area.
2. Nematode infestation can be observed under a microscope only after a pine is a quarter- or half-withered. Actually, the new pathogenic fungi arrived before the nematodes, and it is on them that the nematodes are feeding, not the tree.
3. The new pathogenic fungi are not strongly parasitic, attacking only weakened or physiologically abnormal trees.
4. Wilting and physiological abnormalities of the red pines are caused by decay and blackening of the roots, the onset of which has been observed—to coincide with the death of the *matsutake* mushroom, a symbiont that lives on the roots of red pines.
5. The direct cause of the death of *matsutake* mushrooms was the proliferation of *kurosen-kin* (“black bristle mold”), a contributing factor for which was the increasing acidity of the soil.
That red pine disease is not caused by just one organism became clear to me from 1) the results of experiments I conducted on healthy trees in which I inoculated nematodes directly into pines and placed long-horned beetles on the trees under a netting, all without ill effect, and 2) the observation that even when all insect pests are kept off the tree, the roots continue to rot, causing the tree to die. *Matsutake* mushrooms die when small potted pine saplings are subjected to conditions of extreme dryness and high temperature, and perish when exposed to a temperature of 30°C for one hour in a hothouse. On the other hand, they do not die in alkaline soil by the shore with fresh water nearby, or on high ground at low temperature.
On the assumption that red pine disease is triggered by acidification of the soil and dying of the *matsutake* mushroom, followed first by parasitic attack by *kurohen-kin* and other mold fungi, then by nematode infestation, I tried the following methods of control.
1. Application of lime to reduce soil acidification; in the garden, this can be done by spraying with water containing bleaching powder.
2. Spraying of soil germicides; in gardens, the use of hydrogen peroxide solution and alcohol chloropicrin disinfection is also okay.
3. Inoculation of *matsutake* spores grown in pure culture to promote root development.
These are the bare bones of my method of fighting pine disease, but what most troubles me now is that, although we may feel confident of our ability to restore garden trees and cultivate *matsutake* artificially, we are powerless to rehabilitate an ecosystem that has been disturbed.
It is no exaggeration to say that Japan is turning into a barren desert. The loss of the small autumn *matsutake* means more than just the perishing of a mushroom; it is a solemn warning that something is amiss in the world of soil microbes. The first telltale sign of a global change in weather patterns will probably appear in microorganisms. Nor would it be surprising if the first shock wave occurred in the soil where all types of microorganisms are concentrated, or even in mycorrhiza such as *matsutake*, which form a highly developed biological community with very organic interactions.
Essentially, the inevitable happened where it was meant to happen. Red pine is a hardy plant capable of growing even in deserts and on sandy beaches. At the same time, it is an extremely sensitive species that grows under the protection of a very delicate fungus. Man’s ability to control and prevent red pine disease may be a litmus test of his capacity to halt the global loss of vegetation.
2. How Should Nature Be Perceived?
**Seeing Nature as Wholistic**
The central truth of natural farming is that nothing need be done to grow crops. I have learned this because non-discriminating knowledge has enabled me to confirm that nature is complete and crops more than capable of growing by themselves. This is not the theoretical hypothesis of a scholar in his study or the wishful thinking of an idler with an aversion to work; it is based on a total, intuitive understanding of the reality about self and nature wrested from the depths of doubt and skepticism in a deeply earnest struggle over the meaning of life. This is the source of my insistence that nature not be analyzed.
*Examining the Parts Never Gives a Complete Picture*: This principle is extremely important, but since it is somewhat abstract, I will illustrate with an example.
A scientist who wishes to know Mt. Fuji will climb the mountain and examine the rocks and wildlife. After having conducted geological, biological, and meteorological research, he will conclude that, he now has a full picture of Fuji. But if we were to ask whether it is the scientist who has spent his life studying the details of the mountain who knows it best, the answer would have to be no. When one seeks total understanding and comprehensive judgment, analytic research is instead a hindrance. If a lifetime of study leads to the conclusion that Fuji consists mostly of rocks and trees, then it would have been better not to have climbed it in the first place.
One can know Fuji by looking at it from afar. One must see it and yet not examine it, and in not examining it, know it.
Yet the scientist will think: “Well, gazing at Mt. Fuji from a distance is useful for knowing it abstractly and conceptually, but is no help in learning something about the actual features of the mountain. Even if we concede that analytic research is of no use in knowing and understanding the truth about Fuji, learning something about the trees and
rocks on the mountain is not totally meaningless. And moreover, isn’t the only way to learn something to go and examine it directly?”
To be sure, I can say that analyzing nature and appending to these observations one’s conclusions is a meaningless exercise, but unless those who listen understand why this is worthless and unrelated to the truth, they will not be convinced.
What more can I say if, when I mention that the artist Hokusai who captured faraway images of Fuji in his paintings understood it better than those who climbed it and found it an ugly mountain, I am told that this is just a subjective difference, a mere difference in viewpoint or opinion.
The most common view is that one can best know the true nature of Fuji by both listening to the ecologist speak of his research on its fauna and flora and looking at the abstracted form of Fuji in Hokusai’s paintings. But this is just like the hunter who chases two rabbits and catches none. Such a person neither climbs the mountain nor paints. Those who say Fuji is the same whether we look at it tying down or standing up, those who make use of discriminating knowledge, cannot grasp the truth of this mountain.
Without the whole, the parts are lost, and without the parts, there is no whole. Both lie within the same plane. The moment he distinguishes between the trees and rocks that form a part of the mountain and the mountain as a whole, man falls into a confusion from which he cannot easily escape. A problem exists from the moment man draws a distinction between partial, focused research and total, all-encompassing conclusions.
To know the real Fuji, one must look at the self in relation to Fuji rather than at the mountain itself. One must look at oneself and Fuji prior to the self-other dichotomy. When one’s eyes are opened by forgetting the self and becoming one with Fuji, then one will know the true form of the mountain.
**Become One with Nature:** Farming is an activity conducted by the hand of nature. We must look carefully at a rice plant and listen to what it tells us. Knowing what it says, we are able to observe the feelings of the rice as we grow it. However, to “look at” or “scrutinize” rice does not mean to view rice as the object, to observe or think about rice. One should essentially put oneself in the place of the rice. In so doing, the self looking upon the rice plant vanishes. This is what it means to “see and not examine and in not examining to know.” Those who have not the slightest idea what I mean by this need only devote themselves to their rice plants. It is enough to be able to work with detachment, free of worldly concerns. Laying aside one’s ego is the quickest path to unity with nature.
Although what I am saying here may seem as intangible and difficult to understand as the words of a Zen priest, I am not borrowing philosophical and Buddhist terms to spout empty theories and principles. I am speaking from raw personal experience of things grounded solidly in reality.
Nature should not be taken apart. The moment it is broken down, parts cease being parts and the whole is no longer a whole. When collected together, all the parts do not make a whole. “All” refers to the world of mathematical form and “whole” represents the world of living truth. Farming by the hand of nature is a world alive, not a world of form.
The instant he begins to ponder over the factors of crop cultivation and growth and concerns himself with the means of production, man loses sight of the crop as a whole
entity. To produce a crop, he must comprehend the true meaning of a plant growing on the earth’s surface, and the goal of production must derive from a clear vision of unity with the crop.
Natural farming is one way to remedy the presumptions and conceits of scientific thought, which claims to know nature and says man produces crops. Natural farming “checks whether nature is perfect or imperfect, whether it is a world of contradiction. The task then is to establish and prove whether pure natural farming free of all vestige of the human intellect is indeed powerless and inferior, and whether farming based on the inputs of technology and scientific knowledge is truly superior.
For several decades now, I have devoted myself to examining whether natural farming can really compete with scientific farming. I have tried to gauge the strength of nature in rice and barley cultivation, and in the growing of fruit trees. Casting off human knowledge and action, relying only on the raw power of nature, I have investigated whether “do-nothing” natural farming can achieve results equal to or better than scientific farming. I have also compared both approaches using man’s direct yardsticks of growth and yield. The more one studies and compares the two, whether from the limited perspective of growth and yields, or from a broader and higher perspective, the clearer and more undeniable becomes the supremacy of nature.
However, my research on natural farming has done more than just point out the faults of scientific farming. It has given me a glimpse of the disasters that the frightening defects of modern practices are visiting on mankind.
*Imperfect Human Knowledge Fails Short of Natural Perfection:* Understanding the degree to which human knowledge is imperfect and inadequate helps one to appreciate just how perfect nature is. Scientists of all ages have sensed with increasing clarity the frailty and insignificance of human knowledge as man’s learning grew from his investigations of the natural world around him. No matter how unlimited his knowledge may appear, there are hurdles over which man cannot pass: the endless topics that await research, the infinitude of microscopic and submicroscopic universes that even the rapid specialization of science cannot keep pace with, the boundless and eternal reaches of outer space. We have no choice then but to frankly acknowledge the frailty and imperfection of human knowledge. Clearly, man can never escape from his imperfection.
If human knowledge is unenlightened and imperfect, then the nature perceived and built up by this knowledge must in turn always be imperfect. The nature perceived by man, the nature to which he has appended human knowledge and action, the nature which serves as the world of phenomenon on which science acts, this nature being forever imperfect, then that which is opposed to nature—that which is unnatural, is even more imperfect.
And paradoxically, the very incompleteness of the nature conceived and born of human knowledge and action—a nature that is but a pale shadow of true nature—is proof that the nature from which science derived its image of nature is whole and complete.
The only direct means for confirming the perfection of nature is for each individual to come into immediate contact with the reality of nature and see for himself. People must experience this personally and choose to believe or not believe. I myself have found
nature to be perfect and am trying here only to present the evidence. Natural farming begins with the assumption that nature is perfect.
Natural farming starts out with the conviction that barley seeds which fall to the earth will send up sprouts without fail. If a barley sprout should emerge then later wilt in mid-growth, something unnatural has occurred and one reflects on the cause, which originates in human knowledge and action. One never blames nature, but begins by blaming oneself. One searches unrelentingly for a way to grow barley in the heart of nature.
There is no good or evil in nature. Natural farming admits to the existence neither of insect pests nor of beneficial insects. If a pest outbreak occurs, damaging the barley, one reflects that this was probably triggered by some human mistake. Invariably, the cause lies in some action by man; perhaps the barley was seeded too densely or a beneficial fungus that attacks pests was killed, upsetting nature’s balance.
Thus, in natural farming, one always solves the problem by reflecting on the mistake and returning as close to nature as possible. Those practicing scientific farming, on the other hand, habitually blame insect infestation on the weather or some other aspect of nature, then apply pesticides to exterminate the marauding pest and spray fungicides to cure diseases.
The road diverges here, turning back to nature for those who believe nature to be perfect, but leading on to the subjugation of nature for those who doubt its perfection.
**Do Not Look at Things Relatively**
In natural farming, one always avoids seeing things in relative terms; should one catch sight of relative phenomena, one immediately tries to trace these back to a single source, to reunite the two broken halves. To farm naturally, one must question and reject scientific thinking, all of which is founded on a relative view of things: notions of good and poor crop growth, fast and slow, life and death, health and disease, large and small yields, major and minor gains, profits and losses.
Let me now describe what constitutes a viewpoint that does not fall prey to relativistic perceptions so that I may help correct the errors committed by a relative view of things.
From a scientific perspective, things are large or small, dead or alive, increasing or decreasing. But this view is predicated on notions of time and space, and is really nothing more than a convenient assumption. In the natural world which transcends time and space, there is, properly speaking, no large or small, no life or death, no rise or fall. Nor was there ever the conflict and contradiction of opposing pairs: right and left, fast and slow, strong and weak.
If we go beyond the confines of time and space, we see that the autumn wilting of a rice plant can be understood as life passing into the seed and continuing on into eternity. Only man frets over life and death, gain and loss. A method of farming founded on the view of birth as the beginning and death as the end cannot help but be short-sighted.
In the narrow scientific view, growth appears to be either good or poor, and yields either large or small, but the amount of sunlight reaching the earth stays constant and the levels of oxygen and carbon dioxide remain balanced in the atmosphere. This being so, why do we nevertheless see differences in growth and yields? The fault is usually man’s.
Man destroys the immutability and stability of nature either by himself invoking the notions of large and small, many and few, or by altering form and substance. These things become self-evident when viewed from a deeper and broader perspective or from a perspective in accordance with nature.
Man generally finds value only in the harvest of grains and fruit. But nature sees both cereal grains and weeds, and all the animals and microorganisms that inhabit the natural world, as the fruit of the earth. Notions of quantity and size usually exist within a limited frame of reference. From a broader or slightly more relaxed perspective, these cease to be problems at all.
When looking at nature from the standpoint of natural farming, one does not worry over minor circumstances; there is no need for concern over form, substance, size, hardness, and other peripheral matters. Such concerns only cause us to lose sight of the real essence of nature and shut off the road back to nature.
**Take Perspective That Transcends Time and Space**
I have said that to travel the road leading to a natural way of farming, one must reject the use of discriminating knowledge and not take a relativistic view of the world. Such rejection may be thought of as a means for attaining a perspective transcending time and space. A world without discrimination, an absolute world that passes beyond the reaches of the relative world, is a world that transcends space and time.
When captive to the notions of space and time, we are capable only of seeing things circumstantially. Scientific farming is a method of farming that originates within the confines of time and space, but Mahayana natural farming comes into being only in a world beyond time and space.
Thus, in striving to realize a natural way of farming, one must focus one’s efforts on overcoming time and space constraints in everything one does. Transcending time and space is both the starting point and the destination of natural farming. Scientific farming, concerned as it is with harvesting so much from a given field over such-and-such a period of time, is confined within the limits of time and space. But in natural farming one must go beyond space and time by making decisions and achieving results supported by a position of freedom and a long-term and general perspective.
To give an example, when an insect alights on a rice plant, science immediately zeros in on the relationship between the rice plant and the insect. If the insect feeds on juices from the leaves of the plant and the plant dies, then the insect is viewed as a pest. The pest is researched: it is identified taxonomically, and its morphology and ecology studied carefully. This knowledge is eventually used to determine how to kill it.
The first thing that the natural farmer does when he sees this crop and the insect is to see, yet not see, the rice; to see and yet not see the insect. He is not misled by circumstantial matters; he does not pursue the scientific method of inquiry by observing the rice and insect or investigating what the insect is. He does not ask why, when, and from where it came, or try to find out what it is doing in his field. What then does he do? He reaches beyond time and space by taking the stance that there are no crops or pests in nature to begin with. The concepts of “raising plants” and “harmful insects” are just words coined by man based on subjective criteria grounded in the self; viewed in terms of
the natural order, they are meaningless. This insect is thus a pest and yet not a pest. Which is to say that its presence in no way interferes with growth of the rice plant for there is a way of farming in which both the rice plant and the insect can coexist in harmony.
Natural farming seeks to develop methods of rice cultivation in which the existence of “pests” poses no problem. It begins by first stating the conclusion and clearing up local and temporal problems in a way that fits the conclusion. Even leafhoppers, pests from the scientific viewpoint, do not always harm rice. The time and circumstances also play a part.
When I say that it is necessary to examine things from a broad, long-range perspective, I do not mean that one must conduct difficult and highly specialized research. The scientist studies rice damage by a particular insect, but it would suffice to observe cases where the insect does no damage to the rice. Such cases invariably exist. Instances of damage are quite naturally accompanied also by instances of no damage. There may be immense damage in one field and none in another. Invariably too, there are cases in which the insects will not even approach the rice. Natural farming examines cases in which little or no damage occurs and the reasons why, based on which it creates circumstances where nothing is done, yet insect damage is nonexistent.
One type of leaf hopper that attacks rice plants early in the growing season is the green rice leafhopper, which lives among the weeds in the levees between rice fields from winter to early spring. To rid the fields of these leafhoppers, burning the levee weeds is preferable to direct application of a leafhopper poison. But an even better way is to change the variety of weeds growing on the levees.
The white-backed leafhopper and the brown leafhopper tend to appear during long spells of hot, humid weather, but break out in especially large numbers in the summer or fall in flooded fields of stagnant water. When the field is drained and the surface exposed to breezes so that it dries, spiders and frogs emerge in number, helping reduce damage to a minimum.
The farmer need not worry about damage by leafhoppers if he cultivates healthy fields of rice. Nature is always showing man, somewhere and sometime, situations in which pests are not pests and do not cause real damage. Instead of holing up in laboratories, people can learn directly in the open classrooms of nature.
Natural farming takes its departure from a perspective transcending time and space, and returns to a point beyond time and space. Man must learn from nature the bridge that links these two points. The real meaning of taking a transcendent perspective, in plain, down-to-earth terms, is to help provide both insect pests and beneficial insects with a pleasant environment in which to live.
**Do Not Be Led Astray by Circumstance**
To look at things from a perspective that transcends time and place is to prevent oneself from becoming captive to circumstance. Even science constantly tries to avoid becoming too wrapped up in details and losing sight of the larger picture. However, this “larger picture” is not the true picture. There is another view that is broader and more all-encompassing.
In nature, a whole encloses the parts, and a yet larger whole encloses the whole enclosing the parts. By enlarging our field of view, what is thought of as a whole becomes, in fact, nothing more than one part of a larger whole. Yet another whole encloses this whole in a concentric series that continues on to infinity. Therefore, while it can be said that to act one must intuitively grasp the true “whole” and include therein all small particulars, this cannot actually be done.
Let us take an example from the world of medicine. The physician studies the stomach and intestines, examines the ingredients of various foods, and investigates how these are absorbed as nutrients by the human body. The common perception is that, as research becomes increasingly focused and parallel advances are made in broad interdisciplinary studies, nutritional science becomes an authoritative field in its own right with wide application.
But for all we know, nutritional science, which was introduced to Japan from Western Europe, may have first been modeled on German beer drinkers or French wine lovers. Nutritional principles that work for them do not necessarily apply to the people of Africa, for example. The same radishes will be absorbed very differently and will have an entirely different nutritive value for the irritable city dweller afflicted by smog and noise pollution who eats his without secreting digestive juices, as compared with the tropical African who munches on his after a meal of wild game.
Progress in medicine has brought us a whole host of dietary therapies, such as low-calorie diets for people who want to lose weight, light diets for people with stomach problems, low-salt diets for people with bad kidneys, and sugarless diets for people with pancreatic ailments. But what happens when a person has problems with two or three organs? If this food is out and that one forbidden, then the poor fellow, unable to eat anything, could end up as thin as a dried sardine.
It is a mistake to believe that as advances are made in a broad range of highly specialized fields, the scope of applications grows. We should not forget that the more highly specialized the research, the further it strays from a broad overall perspective.
In an age before the development of nutritional science, before we gave any thought about what was good or bad for us, alt we knew was that to stay healthy, one should eat in moderation. Which has broader application? Which is more effective? Modern nutritional science with its specialized research or traditional admonitions for moderation at mealtime? Modern nutritional science may appear to have broader application because it considers all cases. Yet it forbids first one thing then another, so people keep running into walls and struggling with a lot of new problems. Cruder but complete, the simple knowledge that one should cut with moderation applies to all people and thus it works better. This is so because knowledge that is less discriminating has wider application.
**Be Free of Cravings and Desires**
The aim of scientific farming is to chase after the objects of man’s desire, but natural farming does not seek to satisfy or promote human cravings. Its mission is to provide the bread of human life. This is all it seeks, no more. It knows how much is enough. There is no need to become caught up in man’s cravings and attempts to expand and fortify production.
What has the campaign in Japan to produce good-tasting rice over the last several years achieved? How much happier does it make us when a farmer throws himself into improving varieties and raising production in response to the vagaries of the consumer for “tasty” rice and barley. Only the farmer suffers, because nature strongly resists all his efforts to upgrade crops for minor gains in taste and sweetness. Do urbanites know the torments that farmers go through—declines in production, reduced crop resistance to diseases and pests, to give but a couple examples—when consumers demand the slightest improvement in flavor?
Nature sounds warnings and resists man’s unnatural demands. Only, it says nothing. Man must make reparations for his own sins. But he cannot forget the sweetness he has tasted. Once the cravings of the palate assert themselves, there is no retreating. No matter how great the labors that farmers must shoulder as a result, these are of no concern to the consumer. Scientific farming exalts and follows the example of the farmer working diligently to service the endlessly growing demands of city dwellers, who expect, as a matter of course, fresh fruit and beautiful flowers in all seasons.
The fruits of autumn picked in the fields and mountains were beautiful and sweet. The beauty of flowers in a meadow was a thing to behold. Natural farming tries to enter the bosom of nature, not break it down from without. It has no interest in conquering nature, but seeks instead to obey it. It serves not man’s ambitions, but nature, reaping its fruit and wine. To the selfless, nature is always beautiful and sweet, always constant. Because all is fundamentally one.
**No Plan Is the Best Plan**
If nature is perfect, then man should have no need to do anything. But nature, to man, appears imperfect and riddled with contradiction. Left to themselves, crops become diseased, they are infested by insects, they lodge and wither.
But upon taking a good look at these examples of imperfection, we realize that they occur when nature has been thwarted, when man has fiddled with nature. If nature is left in an unnatural state, this inevitably invites failure, leading not only to imperfection, but even catastrophe.
When nature appears imperfect this is the result of something man has done to nature that has never been rectified. When left to its proper cycles and workings, nature does not fail. Nature may act, or may compensate or offset one thing for another, but it always does so while maintaining order and moderation.
The pine tree that grows on a mountain rises up straight and true, sending out branches in all directions in a regular annular pattern. In keeping with the rule of phyllotaxy, the branches remain equally spaced as they grow, so no matter how many years pass, branches never crisscross or overlap and die. The tree grows in just the right way to allow all the branches and leaves to receive equal amounts of sunlight.
But when a pine is transplanted into a garden and pruned with clippers, the arrangement of branches undergoes a dramatic change, taking on the contorted “elegance” of a garden tree. This is because, once it has been pruned, the pine no longer sends out normal shoots and branches. Instead, branches grow irregularly, crisscrossing every which way, bending, twisting, and overlapping with each other. By merely nipping
the buds at the tips of a few shoots, conical citrus trees that had until then grown straight fork into a three-leader arrangement or assume a wineglass shape. The same is true of all trees.
Once man comes into the act, a tree loses its natural form. In a tree of unnatural habit, the branches are in disarray, growing either too close together or too far apart. Diseases arise and insects burrow and nest wherever there is poor ventilation or inadequate exposure to sunlight. And where two branches cross, a struggle for survival ensues; one will thrive, the other die. All it takes to destroy the conditions of nature and transform a tree that lived in peace and harmony into a battleground where the strong consume the weak is to nip a few young buds.
Although disruption of the order and balance of nature may have begun as the unintentional consequence of impulsive human deeds, this has grown and escalated to the point where there is no turning back. Once tampered with, the garden pine can never revert back again to being a natural -tree. All it takes to disturb the natural habit of a fruit tree is to nip a single bud at the end of a young shoot.
When nature has been tainted and left unnatural, what remains? It is here that begins the never-ending toil of man. Two crisscrossing branches compete with each other. To prevent this, man must meticulously prune the garden pine each year.
Snipping off the tip of a branch causes several irregular branches to grow in its place. The tips of these new branches must then be cut the next year. The following year, the even larger number of new branches create even greater confusion, increasing the amount of pruning that has to be done.
The same holds true for the pruning of fruit trees. A fruit tree pruned once must be tended for its entire life. The tree is no longer able to space its branches properly and grow in the direction it chooses. It leaves the decision up to the farmer and just sends out branches wherever and however it pleases without the least regard for order or regularity. Now it is man’s turn to think and cut the branches not needed. Nor can he overlook those places where the branches cross or grow too densely together. If he does, the tree will grow confused; branches at the center will rot and wither, and the tree will become susceptible to disease and insects and eventually die.
Man, therefore, is compelled to act—because he earlier created the very conditions that now require his action. Because he has made nature unnatural, he must compensate for and correct the defects arising from this unnatural state.
Similarly, man’s deeds have made farming technology essential. Plowing, transplanting, tillage, weeding, and disease and pest control—all these practices are necessary today because man has tampered with and altered nature. The reason a farmer has to plow his rice field is that he plowed it the year before, then flooded and harrowed it, breaking the clods of earth into smaller and smaller particles, driving the air out and compacting the soil. Because he kneads the earth like bread dough, the field *has* to be plowed each year. Naturally, under such conditions, plowing the field raises productivity.
Man also makes crop disease and pest control indispensable by growing unhealthy crops. Agricultural technology creates the causes that produce disease and pest damage, then becomes adept at treating these. Growing healthy crops should take precedence.
Scientific farming attempts to correct and improve on what it perceives as the shortcomings of nature through human effort. In contrast, when a problem arises, natural farming relentlessly pursues the causes and strives to correct and restrain human action.
The best plan, then, is true non-action; it is no plan at all.
3. **Natural Farming for a New Age**
**At the Vanguard of Modern Farming**
To some, natural farming may appear as a return to a passive, primitive form of farming over the road of idleness and inaction. Yet because it occupies an immutable and unshakable position that transcends time and space, natural farming is always both the oldest and the newest form of farming. Today, it presses on at the very leading edge of modern agriculture.
Although the truth remains fixed and immobile, the heart of man is ever fickle and changing; his thinking shifts with the passage of time, with circumstances, and so he is forced to alter his means. He, and science with him, orbits forever about the periphery without reaching in to the truth at the center.
Scientific farming blindly traces spiraling cycles in the tracks of science. Today’s new technology will become the dated technology of tomorrow, and tomorrow’s reforms will become the stale news of a later day. What is on the right today will appear on the left tomorrow and on the right the day after. While this wheel spins round and round, it expands and diffuses outward.
Even so, things were better when man circled about the periphery while gazing from afar upon the truth at the center. Man today tries to leap outside of nature and truth altogether. Balanced against this centrifugal force are the centripetal forces, represented by efforts to return to nature and to see the truth that have managed only barely to maintain a balance. But the moment this thread connected to the core breaks, man will fly away from truth like a whirling stone. The danger has now arrived at the doorstep of science. Scientific farming has no future.
**Natural Livestock Farming**
*The Abuses of Modern Livestock Farming:* The storms of agricultural reform are beginning to ravage the good name of agricultural modernization. Let us look at a trend that has emerged in all farming technologies.
One new livestock technology that has been spreading like wildfire throughout Japan is the mass raising of chickens, pigs, cattle, and other livestock and fowl in large facilities. The animals are fed preserved foods compounded from a very small amount of natural feed and liberal amounts of additives such as drugs, vitamins, and nutrients, all ostensibly for protecting health. This eliminates the necessity of rushing about to attend to every need of the livestock. The animal is efficiently raised by placing it in a narrow enclosure or cage just big enough to accommodate it but hardly allowing it to move about. The goal is to produce as much as possible on a narrow piece of land.
There appear to be no problems with this method. In addition to being efficient, the work is less physically demanding and production is better than ever. But high-volume livestock farming encounters the problems of market supply and distribution of the product familiar in factory production. Beset by wildly fluctuating prices, the livestock farmer becomes totally caught up with concerns over his margins and profits.
The quality of these products is in every way inferior to beef and eggs from cattle and fowl allowed to roam freely outdoors and to multiply and grow without restraint. What’s more, because these animals have been raised on roughage packed with antibiotics, preservatives, flavor enhancers, hormones, and residual pesticides, there is also the concern that toxins harmful to the human body have accumulated in the beef and eggs. We have arrived in an age where beef is no longer beef and eggs are no longer truly eggs. What we have instead is merely the conversion of complete feed preparations into animal products. Livestock farming is no longer a form of agriculture practiced in nature. Unfertilized battery chickens are just machines for hatching factory-made eggs, while hogs and cows are merely factory-produced meat and milk-fabricating machines. These products could not possibly be wholesome. The point is that, regardless of whether the product is good or bad, one person can raise tens and hundreds of thousands of head efficiently with mass production techniques. But it is capital, not men, that today raises these animals. This is no longer the farmer’s domain, but that of commercial houses which raise livestock in large factory-like operations.
*Natural Grazing h the Ideal:* Is natural livestock farming old and outdated in contrast? Under the precepts of natural farming, livestock farming takes the form of open grazing. Cattle, pigs, and chickens fattened while free to roam at will on the open land under the sun’s rays are a precious, irreplaceable source of food for man. The problem lies elsewhere—in the prejudiced view that sees natural farming as inefficient. Is grazing, which allows one person to raise hundreds of head without doing anything, really inefficient? Is it not, rather, the most efficient form of production there is?
This is not to say that raising livestock freely in open meadows and forests is without its problems. There are poisonous plants, diseases, and ticks. Some would even call free grazing unhygienic. But most such problems are the consequence of human action and can be resolved. The basic premise that animals are perfectly capable of being born and living in nature is unassailable, and so, although solutions may require some very determined observation, there is always a way. The key is to raise the right animal in the right environment while letting nature be.
Even fields covered with a thick growth of wild roses and creepers that seem worthless for grazing can be used to raise goats and sheep, which love to feed on these intractable shrubs and vines and could clean up the undergrowth in the densest jungle.
There is no need to worry that cows or other animals cannot be raised in uncultivated pastures. They can be raised in mixed woods or even in mountain forests planted with Japanese cypress or pine. Grasses and underbrush have to be cut the first seven or eight years after planting trees on a mountain, but the labor of cutting the brush can be eliminated very nicely by raising cows. The grazing cattle may slightly damage a few young saplings along a fixed path through the cypresses, but the planted saplings will remain almost entirely unaffected. This may seem hard to believe, but it is only natural when we recall that animals in nature do not indiscriminately ravage anything unrelated
to what they eat. Obviously, a natural forest would be even more ideal than a reforested area.
In allowing animals to graze in the fields and mountains, some people may worry about the presence of poisonous plants, but animals have an innate ability to tell these apart from other plants. If no longer able to do so, there is most certainly a reason why. Bracken, for example, may be a poisonous herb under certain conditions, but it grows in clusters. If a cow eats too much and suffers, something is probably wrong with the cow.
Livestock bred by artificial insemination and raised on artificial milk formulas are more likely to have poor viability. Animals improved indiscriminately often show unanticipated defects. Breeding programs are usually opposed to nature and often result in the creation of unnaturally deformed creatures that man deludes himself into thinking are superior.
It would be unreasonable, of course, to take modern, genetically upgraded livestock, release them suddenly in a forest, and expect to see an immediate improvement in results. But if the possibilities are studied with patience, a path should open up. At the very least, after habituating the animals to open grazing in the forests over the course of two or three generations, natural selection will take over and those animals adapted to nature will survive.
Ticks and mites do present a problem, but the conditions under which parasites such as these arise vary considerably. There may be a great number at the southern edge of a wood, but very few along the northern edge. Infestation is generally limited in cool, breezy areas, and is closely related to humidity and temperature. The problem can be prevented by providing the right environment. It should suffice to raise hardier cattle and give some consideration to the protection and raising of beneficial insects that help control the tick population.
It will also be necessary to stop thinking in terms of raising just cattle. What happens, for example, when we let pigs, chickens, and rabbits graze together with the cows in an orchard? The pigs like to root up the ground looking for the insects and earthworms they are fond of in valleys and damp areas; they are like small tractors that dig up the soil. Just sow some clover and grain in the turned soil, and with the cow and pig droppings, you should get a fine growth of pasturage. Once this pasture grass begins to nourish, then you should be able to raise chickens, goats, and rabbits in the same way.
Today’s livestock raised in large numbers and reduced to just so much standardized machinery, no longer receives the strength and grace of nature. As the products of human endeavor achieved through the power of science alone, they differ fundamentally from nature—which creates something from nothing—because they are merely processed goods, the transformation of one thing into another. Livestock production under factory-like conditions is generally thought to be efficient, but this is a nearsighted assessment based on a limited spatial and temporal frame of reference. The pitiful sight of fowl, pigs, and cattle confined to cages and unable even to move bears witness to the loss of nature of these animals and points also to man’s alienation to and loss of nature. Both the farm worker directly engaged in the raising of livestock and the city dweller who consumes these food products lose their health and humanity as they turn away from nature.
Livestock Farming in the Search for Truth: Scientific farming is content to think of conditional truth as *the* truth, but natural farming makes every effort to discard all premises and conditions and seek out a truth without conditions.
For instance, in order to study a particular animal feed, scientific farming will give various formulations to cows chained in a barn (representing a certain set of environmental conditions), and judge the mixture producing the best results to be superior to the others (inductive experimentation). From this, it draws various conclusions about cattle feed, which it believes to be the truth.
Natural farming does not follow this type of reasoning and experimental approach. Because its goal is unconditional truth it begins by examining the cow from a standpoint that disregards environmental conditions, by asking how the cow lives in open nature. But it does not immediately analyze what the cow eats when and where. Rather, it takes a broader perspective and looks at how a cow is born and grows. By paying too much attention to what the cow feeds on, we lose a broader understanding of how it lives and what its needs are. More is required to sustain life than just food. Nor are problems of sustenance resolved by food alone. Many other factors relate to life: weather, climate, living environment, exercise, sleep, and more. Even on the subject of food, what a cow does not eat, dislikes, or has low nutritive value is generally thought worthless, but may actually be indispensable in certain cases. We must therefore find a way, within the broad associations between man, livestock, and nature, of rearing animals that leaves them free and unrestrained.
The very notion of “raising” livestock should not even exist in natural farming. Nature is the one that raises and grows. Man follows nature; all he needs to know is with what and in what manner cattle live. When he designs and builds a barn or a chicken coop, a farmer should not rely on his human reasoning and feelings. Even if the scientist conducts independent studies on such factors as temperature and ventilation and runs experiments in which he raises calves or chicks under given conditions, it is only natural that his results will show that these should be raised under cool conditions in summer and warm conditions in winter. The conclusion (scientific truth) that an optimum temperature is needed to raise the calves or chicks is a natural consequence of the method used to raise these, and certainly is not an immutable truth.
Although high and low temperatures exist in nature, the notions of hot and cold do not. Although cattle, horses, pigs, sheep, chickens, and ducks all know or cold. “With our temperate climate in Japan, there never was a need to worry about whether the summer heat or winter cold was good or bad for raising animals.
Heat and cold exist, and yet do not exist, in nature. One will never be wrong in starting with the assumption that the temperature and humidity are everywhere and at all times just right. The size, height, frame, construction, windows, floor, and other features of animal enclosures have been improved on the basis of diverse theories, but we have to return to the starting point and try making a fundamental turnabout. Without hot and cold, the barn is no longer necessary. All that is needed, for the convenience of man, is the smallest of sheds: perhaps a milking shed for the cows and a tiny chicken shed in which hens can lay their eggs. As for the animals, they will scratch and forage freely for food night and day under the open sky, find themselves a place to roost, and grow up strong and healthy. Disease has become a frequent problem lately in animal husbandry and
because it is often a major factor in determining whether a livestock operation will succeed or fail, farmers are racking their brains to find a solution. This problem too will never really be solved unless farmers make their starting point the raising of healthy animals that do not contract diseases.
Some eighty percent of Japan consists of mountains and valleys. One could probably fence off the entrance to one of those depopulated mountain villages that have lost their inhabitants to the cities and thus create a large, open grazing range for animals. I would like to see someone try an experiment on this scale. All sorts of domestic animals could be placed inside the enclosure and left to themselves for a number of years, after which we could go in and see what had happened.
To summarize, then, scientific experiments always take a single subject and apply a number of variable conditions to it while making some prior assumption about the results. Natural farming, however, pushes aside all conditions, and knocking away the precepts from which science operates, strives to find the laws and principles in force at the true source.
Unchanging truths can be found only through experiments free of conditions, assumptions, and notions of time and space.
**Natural Farming—In Pursuit of Nature**
There is a fundamental difference between nature and the doctrine of laissez-faire or non-intervention. Laissez-faire is the abandoning of nature by man after he has altered it, such as leaving a pine tree untended after it has been transplanted in a garden and pruned, or suddenly letting a calf out to pasture in a mountain meadow after raising it on formula milk.
Crops and domestic animals are no longer things of nature and so it is already close to impossible to attain true Mahayana natural farming. But at least we can try reaching for Hinayana natural farming, which approaches closest to nature. The ultimate goal of this way of natural farming is to know the true spirit and form of nature. To do this, we can start by closely examining and learning from a laissez-faire situation before us. By observing nature that has been abandoned by man, we can make out the true form of nature that lies behind it. Our goal then is to carefully examine abandoned nature and learn of the true nature revealed when the effects of man’s earlier actions are removed.
But this will not suffice to know nature in its true form. Even nature stripped of all human action and influence is still only nature as seen through man’s relativity, a nature clothed in the subjective notions of man. To follow the path of natural farming, one must tear the robes of human action from nature and remove the innermost garments of subjectivity.
One must beware also of arbitrarily settling upon causal relationships on the basis of subjective human notions, or of drawing suppositions on the problems of accident and necessity or the association between continuity and discontinuity. One must first follow closely on nature’s heels, rejecting all assumptions, knowledge, and action—not thinking, not seeing, not doing. That nature is God.
The Only Future for Man
Will humanity go on advancing without end? The people of this world seem to think that, although reality is rife with contradiction, development will continue forever in a process of sublation while wandering between right and left, and thesis-antithesis-synthesis.
Yet the universe and all it contains does not advance along a linear or planar path. It expands and grows volumetrically outward and must, at the furthest limit, rupture, split, collapse, disappear. But at a point beyond this limit, what should have vanished reverses its course and reappears, now moving centripetally inward, contracting and condensing. What has form vaporizes at the limits of development to a void, and the void condenses into a form and reappears, in a never-ending cycle of contraction and expansion.
I liken this pattern of development to the Wheel of Dharma or a cyclone because it is identical to a cyclone or tornado, which compresses the atmosphere into a vortex, expanding and growing as it rages furiously, then eventually disintegrates and vanishes.
Human progress also moves mankind toward collapse. The question is how, and in what manner, shall this ruin come about? I have sketched below how I believe this will inevitably occur and what man must do.
The first stage of this collapse will be the breakdown of human knowledge. Human knowledge is merely discriminating knowledge. Having no way of knowing that this knowledge is really unknowable, man founders ever deeper into confusion through the collection and advancement of unknowable and mistaken knowledge. Unable to extricate himself from schizophrenic development, he ultimately brings upon himself spiritual derangement and collapse.
The second stage will be the destruction of life and matter. The earth, an organic synthesis of these two elements, is being broken down and divided up by man. This is gradually depriving the natural world on the earth’s surface of its equilibrium. Destruction of the natural order and the natural ecosystem will rob matter and life of their proper functions. Nor will man be spared. Either he will lose his adaptability to the natural environment and meet with self-destruction or he will succumb to instant ruin under a slight pressure from without, like an inflated rubber balloon ruptured by a small needle.
The third stage will be failure, when man loses sight of what he must do. The industrial activity that expands relentlessly with developments in the natural sciences is basically a campaign to promote energy consumption. Its target has not been so much to boost energy production as to senselessly waste energy. As long as man continues to take the stance that he is “developing” nature, the materials and resources of the earth will go on drying up. Burdened by growing self-contradictions, industrial activity will grind to a halt or undergo unyielding transformations that shall usher in drastic changes in political, economic, and social institutions.
Self-contradiction is most evident in the decline in energy efficiency. In his fascination with ever greater sources of energy, man has moved from the heat of the fireplace to electrical generation with a water wheel to thermal power generation to nuclear power. But he closes his eyes to the fact that the efficiency of these sources (ratio of total energy input to total energy output) has worsened exponentially in the same order. Because he
refuses to acknowledge this, internal contradiction continues to accumulate and will soon reach explosive levels.
Some scientists believe that if nuclear energy dries up we should then turn to solar energy or wind power, which are non-polluting and do not engender contradictions. But these will only continue the decline in energy efficiency and, if anything, will accelerate the speed at which man heads toward destruction.
Until man notices that scientific truth is not the same as absolute truth and turns his system of values on its head, he will continue to rush blindly onward toward self-destruction. There will then be nothing for him to do except sustain an attitude that enables him to survive without doing anything. Man’s only work then will consist of the barest of farming essential for sustaining life. But since agriculture does not exist as an independent entity of and for itself, the farming he will practice will not be an extension of modern agriculture.
Farming with small machinery was more energy efficient than modern large-scale agriculture using large implements, while farming with animal power was even more efficient. And no form of agriculture has better energy efficiency than natural farming. Once this becomes clear, people will realize for themselves what they must do.
Only natural farming lies in the future. Natural farming is the only future for man.
4. THE PRACTICE OF NATURAL FARMING
1. Starting a Natural Farm
Once the decision has been made to start farming the natural way the very first problem that comes up is where and on what type of land to live. Although some may share the woodsman’s preference for the isolation and solitude of a mountain forest, the best course generally is to set up a farm at the foot of a hill or mountain. Weather is often most pleasant when the site is slightly elevated. Abundant firewood, vegetables, and other necessities are to be had here, providing all the materials required for food, clothing, and shelter. Having a stream nearby helps make crops easy to grow. This type of location thus provides all the conditions essential for setting up an easy and comfortable life.
Of course, with effort, crops can be made to grow on any type of land, but nothing compares with richly endowed land. The ideal location is one where enormous trees tower above the earth, the soil is deep and a rich black or brown in color, and the water is clear. Scenic beauty perfects the site. A good environment in an attractive setting provides the physical and spiritual elements necessary for living a pleasant life.
The natural farm must be able to supply all the materials and resources essential for food, clothing, and shelter. In addition to fields for growing crops, a complete natural farm should include also a bordering wood.
Keep a Natural Protected Wood
The woods surrounding a natural farm should be treated as a natural preserve for the farm and used as a direct or indirect source of organic fertilizer. The basic strategy for achieving long-term, totally fertilizer-free cultivation on a natural farm is to create deep, fertile soil. There are several ways of doing this. Here are some examples.
1. Direct burial of coarse organic matter deep in the ground.
2. Gradual soil improvement by planting grasses and trees that send roots deep into the soil.
3. Enrichment of the farm by carrying nutrients built up in the humus of the upland woods or forest downhill with rainwater or by other means.
Whatever the means employed, the natural farmer must secure a nearby supply of humus that can serve as a source of soil fertility.
When there is no uphill wood available for use as a preserve, one can always develop a new wood or bamboo grove for this purpose. Although the main function of a preserve is to serve as a deeply verdant natural wood, one should also plant companion trees that enrich the soil, timber trees, trees that supply food for birds and animals, and trees that provide a habitat for the natural enemies of insect pests.
Growing a Wood Preserve: Being generally infertile and dry, hill and mountain tops are highly susceptible to denudation. The first thing to do is plant a vine such as kudzu to prevent the soil from washing away. Next, sow the seeds of a low conifer such as moss cypress to create a mountain cover of evergreens. Grasses such as cogon, ferns such as bracken, and low bushes such as lespedeza, eurya, and moss cypress grow thickly at first, but this vegetation gradually gives way to urajiro (a fern), kudzu, and a mix of trees which further enriches the soil.
Evergreens such as Japanese cypress and the camphor tree should be planted on hillsides, and together with these, deciduous trees such as Chinese hackberry, zelkova, paulownia, cherry, maple, and eucalyptus. Plant the fertile land at the foot of hills and in valleys with oak and evergreens such as cryptomeria and live oak, interplanting these with walnut and ginkgo.
A bamboo grove may serve equally well as the reserve. It takes a bamboo shoot only one year to grow to full size, so the amount of vegetative growth is greater than for ordinary trees. Bamboo is therefore valuable as a source of coarse organic material that can be buried in the ground for soil improvement.
Not only can the shoots of certain species of bamboo be sold as a vegetable, when dried the wood is light and easy to carry. Bamboo is hollow and so has a large void ratio, in addition to which it decomposes slowly. These properties help it to retain air and water in the soil when it is buried. Clearly then, this plant may be used to great advantage in the improvement of soil structure.
Shelterbelts: Shelterbelts and windbreak trees are valuable not only for preventing wind damage, but also for maintaining soil fertility and for environmental improvement.
Fast-growing trees that are commonly planted for this purpose include cedar, cypress, acacia, and the camphor tree. Other species that grow somewhat more slowly but are also used quite often include camellia, the umbrella tree, wax myrtle, and Chinese anise. In some places, evergreen oaks, holly, and other trees are also used.
Setting Up an Orchard
One may establish an orchard and plant nursery stock using essentially the same methods as when planting forest trees. Vegetation on the hillside is cut in lateral strips, and the large trunks, branches, and leaves of the felled trees are arranged or buried in trenches running along hill contours, covered with earth, and allowed to decompose naturally. None of the vegetation cut down in the orchard should be carried away.
In modern orchards, using bulldozers to clear land has become the rule rather than the exception, but a natural farm should be developed without clearing the land. When land is cleared with a bulldozer, irregular surface features on a slope are flattened and smoothed. Wide farm roads are built to permit farm mechanization. However, mechanization really only facilitates certain farm operations such as fertilizer and pesticide application. Since picking ripened fruit is the only major operation in natural farming, there is no need to go out of one’s way to clear steep slope.
Another factor that improves the enterprising orchardist’s chances of success is that a natural orchard can be established without a heavy initial outlay of capital or incurring large debts.
**Starting a Garden**
People usually think of a garden as a plot of land devoted to the production of vegetables and field crops. However, using the open space in an orchard to raise an undergrowth of special-purpose crops and vegetables is the very picture of nature. Nothing stops the farmer from having his orchard double as a vegetable and grain patch.
Clearly, of course, the system of cultivation and the nature of the garden or orchard will differ significantly depending on whether the principal aim is to grow fruit trees or vegetable crops.
Table 4.2 Base the selection of vegetables to be planted on weed succession. As the garden or orchard matures, a transition will take place in the weeds growing there. Observe the types of weeds growing and plant vegetables belonging to the same family of plants.
| Group (Family) | Weeds | Crops |
|----------------------|--------------------------------------------|----------------------------------------------------------------------|
| Ferns | *urajitro*, *koshida*, bracken | barnyard millet, foxtail millet, proso millet, wheat, barley, rice |
| Grass Family | eulalia, cogon, foxtail, crabgrass | devil’s tongue, taro |
| Arum Family | jack-in-the-pulpit | Chinese yam |
| Yam Family | yam | |
| Buckwheat Family | knotgrass, knotweed | pigweed, buckwheat, spinach |
| Composite Family | fleabane, dandelion, thistle, mugwort, aster| garland chrysanthemum, lettuce, burdock |
| Lily Family | dogtooth violet, gold-banded lily, tulip, asparagus | leek, garlic, shallot, Welsh onion, onion |
| Mint Family | *hikioikoshi* | perilla, mint, sesame |
| Pea Family | *kudzu*, common vetch, bur clover, clover | soybean, adzuki bean, kidney bean, garden pea, broad bean |
| Morning-Glory Family | morning glory | sweet potato |
| Carrot Family | water hemlock | dropwort, honewort, carrot, parsley, celery |
| Mustard Family | shepherd’s purse | *daikon*, turnip, Chinese cabbage, leaf mustard, cabbage |
| Gourd Family | snake gourd, bottle gourd | chayote, squash, muskmelon, watermelon, cucumber |
| Potato Family | ground cherry, sweet brier | hot red pepper, potato, tobacco, eggplant, tomato |
Land to be used for growing fruit trees and intercropped with grains or vegetables is prepared in essentially the same way as an orchard. The land does not need to be cleared and leveled, but should be carefully readied by, for example, burying coarse organic material in the ground.
When starting an orchard, the main goals initially should be prevention of weed emergence and maturation of the soil. These can be accomplished by growing buckwheat during the first summer, and sowing rapeseed and Indian mustard that same winter. The following summer, one may plant adzuki bean and mung bean, and in the winter, hairy vetch and other hardy leguminous plants that grow well without fertilizers. The only problem with these is that they tend to inundate the young fruit tree saplings.
As the garden matures, it will support any type of crop.
The Non-Integrated Garden: Gardens are normally created on hillsides and well-drained fields at the foot of larger mountains. Most of the crops grown in these gardens are annuals and the period of cultivation is generally short, in most cases lasting from several months to about a half-year.
Most vegetables rise to a height of no more than three feet or so and are shallow-rooting. The short growing period allows this cycle to be repeated several times a year,
subjecting the surface of the soil to considerable exposure to the sun. A dry-farmed field, then, is prone to erosion and soil depletion by rainfall, susceptible to drought, and has low resistance to the cold.
Soil movement being the greatest concern when establishing a garden, the garden should be built in terrace fashion with the surface of the field on each terrace level. The first task in setting up a garden is to build a series of lateral embankments or stone walls running across the slope of the hill. Knowledge of the soil and the ability to build earthen embankments that do not crumble or to skillfully lay stones dug up from the field can be a determining factor in the success of a garden.
Whether the individual terraces in a terraced garden are level or slightly graded makes a large difference in crop returns and the efficiency of farming work. As I mentioned earlier, the most basic method for improving soil is to bury coarse organic matter in deep trenches. Another good method is to pile soil up to create high ridges. This can be done using the soil brought up while digging contour trenches with a shovel. The dirt should be piled around coarse organic material. Better aeration allows soil in a pile of this sort to mature more quickly than soil in a trench. Such methods soon activate the latent fertility of even depleted, granular soil, rapidly preparing it for fertilizer-free cultivation.
**Creating a Rice Paddy**
Today, a rice field can easily be prepared by clearing the land with large machinery, removing rocks and stones, and leveling the surface of the field. Yet, although well-suited to increasing the size of single paddy fields and promoting mechanized rice production, such a process is not without its drawbacks:
1) Because it is crude, it leaves a thickness of topsoil that varies with the depth of the bedrock, resulting in uneven areas of crop growth.
2) The load that heavy machinery places on the soil results in excessive settling, causing ground water to stagnate. This situation can induce root rotting and at least partial suppression of initial crop growth on the new field.
3) Levees and walkways are all made of concrete, upsetting and destroying the community of soil microbes. The danger here is of gradually turning the soil into a dead mineral matter.
**Traditional Paddy Preparation:** Most people might expect open, level ground to be the most sensible place on which to set up rice paddies. But rather than settling on the flat and fertile banks of large rivers, Japanese farmers of old chose to live in mountain valleys where there was far less cause to fear violent flooding and strong winds. They set up small fields in the valleys or built terraced rice fields on the hillsides.
To these farmers, the work of digging channels for drawing water from the valley steams, of constructing rice fields, and of building rock walls and terraced fields was not as hard as the people of today imagine. They did not think of it as hardship.
By spreading the field with the cuttings from ridge grasses, bordering weeds, and young foliage from trees, rice could easily be grown each year without using fertilizers. A tiny field of maybe a hundred square yards supplied the food needs for one individual indefinitely. The spiritual peace and security, the simple joy of creating a rice paddy were
greater than can be imagined. From these activities, our farming ancestors gained pleasure and satisfaction of a sort that cannot be had through mechanized farming.
I can recall occasionally happening upon small paddy fields deep in the mountains far from populated areas and my surprise at how well someone had managed to set up a field in such a location. To the modern economist, this would appear as utter wretchedness, but I found the field a wonderful masterpiece reminiscent of the past—built alone by someone living happily in the seclusion and quiet solitude of the wilds with nature as his sole companion.
In truth, this place, with its artfully built conduit snaking in the shade of valley trees for drawing water, the rockwork that displays a thorough knowledge of the soil and terrain, and the beauty of the moss on the stones, was in reality a splendid garden built with great care by an anonymous farmer close to nature who drew fully on the resources about him.
As the agrarian scenes of yesterday are rapidly swept off by the tide of modernization, we might do well to consider whether we can afford to lose the aesthetic spirit of our farming forbears, who saw the rice paddy as the arbor of their souls and gazed upon a thousand moons reflected in a thousand paddies. But of one thing I am certain: fields and rice paddies imbued with this spirit will reappear again somewhere, someday.
These are not just the fond recollections of bygone days by a misty-eyed old fogey. The general method of establishing a rice paddy I have described here accords with reality as it exists on uncultivated open plains and meadows.
**Crop Rotation**
Modern farming has brought about destruction of the soil and a loss in soil fertility because it breaks crops up into many different use categories and grows each in isolation, often single-cropping continuously over extensive areas.
On the complete natural farm, fruit trees, vegetables, grains, and other crops must all be planted and grown in an organic and mutually favorable arrangement. More specifically, a reliable crop rotation scheme must be established in order to be able to make essentially permanent use of the land while maintaining soil fertility.
Fruit trees must not be dissociated from the trees of a bordering wood or the weed undergrowth. Indeed, it is only by having intimate associations with these that they are able to show normal, healthy growth. As for vegetables, when left to themselves in a field, they appear at first glance to grow without order, but these develop into splendid plants while nature solves the problems of continuous cropping, space, disease and pest damage, and the recovery of soil fertility.
Ever since primitive man began slash-and-burn agriculture, the question of what crops to plant when has been the greatest problem faced by farmers everywhere. Yet a clearly decisive system of crop rotation has yet to be established. In the West, systems of rotation based on pasturage have been established for some time, but because these were designed for the benefit of ranchers and their animals rather than for the land itself, they have brought about a decline in soil fertility that calls for immediate improvement.
In Japan as well, although farmers do grow a wide variety of different crops using an excellent system of crop rotation, a basic crop rotation scheme worthy of more widespread use has yet to be developed. One reason for this is the staggering number of possible crop combinations, and the essentially infinite number of elements that must be considered in stabilizing and increasing yields. To bring all these together into a single system of crop rotation would be an exceedingly difficult undertaking.
The diagrams on the following pages are intended to serve as aids to an understanding of crop rotation.
*Rice/Barley Cropping:* Japanese farmers have long practiced the continuous rotation of rice with barley. This has enabled them to reap the same harvest year after year indefinitely, something which they have always regarded as perfectly natural. Yet this type of rotational cropping is an extraordinary method of farming that has taken hold nowhere else in the world.
The reason rice and barley can be grown in continuous succession each year is that the rice is grown in paddy fields, the soil fertility of which has been built up by a superior method of irrigation. To tell the truth, I am proud of the outstanding cultivation methods developed by Japanese farmers and would like to see these introduced abroad.
Still, some very simple yet significant improvements could be made. For example, about seventy percent of the nitrogenous components absorbed by rice and barley are supplied directly by the soil, while about thirty percent are furnished artificially by fertilization. If all the straw and chaff from the threshed grain were returned to the fields, farmers would only have to apply at most fifteen percent of the nitrogenous components required by the plants.
Reports have begun appearing recently in scientific journals on the possibilities of developing cultivars of rice not requiring fertilization. These propose the creation of strains of rice capable of fixing nitrogen by incorporating the root nodule genes of soybeans into rice genes. One has to admit, though, that nature has achieved a smarter method of non-fertilizer cultivation. True, because my method of rice-barley cropping under a cover of green manure is, in a sense, just a mimicry of nature, it is incomplete in itself. But there remains much that man can and should try before he resorts to genetic engineering, a technology with the frightening potential to utterly destroy nature.
*Upland Rice:* Wheat and rice are each the staple foods of about half the world’s population, but if the cultivation of upland rice were to spread and this grain became easy to harvest in high yield, a large jump would occur in the number of rice-eating peoples. Growing upland rice could even possibly become one effective way of coping with the worldwide scarcity of food.
Generally speaking, upland rice is an unstable crop often subject to drought. Yields are lower than for rice grown in paddy fields, and continuous cropping gradually depletes soil fertility, resulting in a steady decline in yields. A workable solution appears to be rotational cropping in combination with various green manure crops and vegetables, as this raises the ability of the soil to retain water and gradually builds up soil fertility.
Fig. 4.2 Natural continuous cropping system.*
*These basic natural crop rotation schemes should be carefully studied and used when switching from scientific farming to natural farming.
Fig. 4.3 Crop rotations for major grains and vegetables.*
(a) Rotation of rice/barley (or wheat) succession
Barley/wheat
Spring
Mar. Jun. Sep. Rice
Dec. Winter
Year 1
Barley/wheat (Oct.–May)
+ Bur clover
Year 2
Rice (paddy/upland)
Barley/wheat (Oct.–May)
Year 3
Rice
Rapeseed (Oct.–Jun.)
Lettuce (Oct.–May) (onion)
Year 4
Rice
Barley/wheat (Oct.–May)
Clover
Bur clover
Year 5
Rice
Buckwheat
Soybean
Year 6
Buckwheat
Daikon (Oct.–Feb.)
Year 7
Rice
Broad bean
Garden pea
Year 8
Rice
Lupine
Year 9
Rice
Potato (Feb.–Jun.)
Year 10
Lupine
Daikon (Oct.–Feb.)
Vetch, Chinese milk vetch (winter-spring cropping)
(b) Mixed grain/vegetable rotation (1)
Barley/wheat (Oct.–May)
+ Bur clover
Celery (carrot) (Feb.–Jun.)
+ Cabbage (Oct.–May)
Peanut (May–Nov.)
Upland rice (May–Oct.)
Sweet Potato (May–Oct.)
Upland rice (Jun.–Oct.)
Corn (Apr.–Oct.)
Stevia, Kidney bean
Spring burdock (Apr.–Nov.)
Peanut (Apr.–Oct.)
Watermelon (Apr.–Aug.)
Upland rice (Jul.–Oct.)
Taro (Apr.–Nov.)
Clover
Autumn buckwheat (Mar.–Oct.)
Soybean (May–Oct.)
Chinese yam (Mar.–Dec.)
Upland rice (Mar.–Dec.)
(c) Mixed grain/vegetable rotation (2)
Butterbur (Nov.–May)
+ Upland rice (Jun.–Oct.; Barnyard millet
Barley/wheat (Oct.–May)
+ Ginger (Apr.–Nov.)
Spring daikon (Sep.–Feb.)
+ Clover
Spinach
Proso millet (Apr.–Aug. May–Sep. Jul.–Oct.)
Clover + Garlic (Sep.–May)
Chayote (Apr.–Oct)
Bottle gourd (Apr.–Oct)
Broad bean (Oct.–May)
Oats (Oct.–May)
Vetch (Oct.–May)
Chinese milk vetch (Sep.–Oct.)
Potato (Feb.–Jun.)
Lettuce (Oct.–Mar.)
Spinach
Squash (Apr.–Sep)
Bottle gourd (Apr.–Sep)
Garden pea (Oct.–Apr.)
Barley/wheat (Oct.–May)
Garlic (Sep.–Apr.)
Strawberry (Oct.–May)
Rapeseed (Oct.–Jun.)
Minor Grains: This group includes members of the grass family such as millet and corn, as well as buckwheat, Job’s tears, and other grains. Compared with rice, barley, and wheat, these grains generally receive short shrift because of their “inferior” taste and a lack of research on methods for their use, but they deserve more attention for their very
great value as prototypic health foods essential for maintaining the physical well-being of human beings.
The same is true also for vegetables and other plants in general. The wilder and more primitive the food, the greater its medicinal value.
With changes in popular taste, the cultivation of these minor grains as food for man has rapidly receded to the point where even seed preservation has become difficult. Yet, above and beyond their importance as a food for humans and animals, they have also played a vital role as coarse organic matter essential for soil preservation. When single-cropped or grown continuously, these grains deplete the soil, but if rotated with green manure crops and root vegetables, they improve and enrich the soil. This is why I believe the minor grains should be repopularized.
**Vegetables:** People tend to think of vegetables as frail crops that are difficult to grow, but with the exception of several types that have been genetically over-improved, such as the cucumber and tomato, these are surprisingly hardy crops that can thrive even under extensive cultivation.
Cruciferous winter vegetables, for example, when sown just before the emergence of weeds, grow vigorously, overwhelming the weeds. These also send down roots deep into the soil, and so are highly effective in soil improvement. That leguminous green manure suppresses summer weeds and enriches the soil hardly needs repeating. Clearly these too should play an important part in a crop rotation.
Judicious combinations of vegetables in a sensible mixed cropping scheme can be grown in fair yield, free of disease and pest damage, without resorting to pesticides. I have found also, through personal experience, that most vegetables, when cultivated in a semi-wild state that could be considered a natural rotation, can be grown almost entirely without fertilizers.
**Fruit Trees and Crop Rotation:** Because fruit trees are continuously cultivated perennials, they are subject to the difficulties associated with continuous cropping. The purpose of having a protected wood and a ground cover of weeds is to resolve such problems naturally and extend the life of the fruit trees. These trees exist, together with the companion-planted manure trees and the weed undergrowth, in a three-dimensional rotational cropping relationship.
When vegetables are grown beneath fruit trees, the number of insect pests tends to be low. Some diseases and pests are common both to fruit trees and vegetables, and some are not. These in turn have a host of different natural enemies that emerge at various times of the year. As long as a balance is maintained between the fruit trees, the vegetables, the insect pests, and their natural predators, real damage from disease and insect attack can be prevented. For the same reason, the planting of manure trees and windbreak trees, and the combination planting of evergreens and deciduous trees may also be helpful in diminishing damage.
In most cases, serious disease and pest damage in fruit trees, such as by long-horned beetles and scale insects, is triggered by diminished tree vigor due to depleted soil fertility, a confused tree shape, poor ventilation, inadequate light penetration, or a combination of all of these factors. Because they help sustain soil fertility, a ground cover
of green manure crops and the combination planting of manure trees may thus be regarded as basic defensive measures against disease and pest damage.
Using natural farming methods to cultivate fruit trees creates a truly three-dimensional orchard. More than just a place for growing fruit, the orchard becomes an organically integrated community that includes fowl, livestock, and man as well. If a natural orchard is managed and run as a single microcosm, there is no reason why one should not be able to live self-sufficiently.
By looking with equal detachment at insects, which man categorizes as beneficial or harmful, people will see that this is a world of coexistence and mutual benefit, and will come to understand that farming methods which call for heavy inputs of fertilizer and energy can only succeed in robbing the land of its natural fertility.
Nature is sufficient in and of itself; there never was a need for human effort and knowledge. By returning to a “do-nothing” nature, all problems are resolved.
2. **Rice and Winter Grain**
**The Course of Rice Cultivation in Japan**
In the Land of Ripening Grain, as the Japanese people have long been fond of calling their country, rice cultivation held a deeper meaning for farmers than simply the growing of a staple food crop. The farmer did not grow the rice, nature did; and the people born to this land partook of its blessings. The words “bountiful Land of Ripening Grain” expressed the joy of the Yamato people, who were able to receive the rich blessings of heaven and earth with a grateful heart.
However, once man began to think that he grew the rice, scientific discrimination arose, creating a rift between the rice and the land. People lost a sense of unity with nature, leaving in its place only man’s relationship with rice cultivation and his relationship with the soil. Modern thinking reduced rice to just another foodstuff. It began to view the work of farmers engaged in rice cultivation—service to God—as an economically inefficient and unscientific activity. Yet has rice really been just a food, a material object, all along? Was the labor of farmers merely one field of economic activity? And have farmers been nothing more than laborers engaged in food production?
The Japanese people have lost sight of the true value of rice. They have forgotten the spirit of gratitude with which farmers made offerings of their ripened rice to the gods to celebrate the fruits of autumn. From the scientific perspective, this substance we call rice has a value equivalent only to its nutritional value as a human food. Although the ripened grain may be seen as a reward for human labor, there is no joy in the knowledge of this as the product of a common effort by heaven, earth, and man. Nor is there any awe at the emergence of this life of infinite majesty from nature’s midst. More than just the staff of life, the rice grown on Japanese soil was the very soul of the Yamato people.
But as the activities of the farmer have been lowered in the common perception to the production of rice as another foodstuff, a commercial article, the original purpose of rice production has gradually been corrupted. The object no longer is the cultivation of rice, but starch production, and more precisely, the pursuit of profits through the manufacture
and sale of starch. A natural consequence of this can be seen in the efforts by farmers today to raise income by raising yields.
**Changes in Rice Cultivation Methods:** Rice farming in Japan has passed through several stages recently which can be represented as follows:
1) 1940—*Primitive farming* (improvements in tilling methods)
2) 1950—*Animal-powered agriculture* (increased fertilizer production)
3) 1960—*Scientific farming* (mechanization)
4) 1970—*Agribusiness* (energy-intensive systemized agriculture)
Prior to the development of scientific agriculture, rice farmers devoted themselves entirely to serving the land that grows the crops. But they gradually turned their attention from the land to the problem of boosting soil fertility and discussion came to dwell on what constitutes soil fertility.
Those familiar with the recent history of Japanese farming will know that, once it became clear that the most effective way to boost soil fertility was to till more deeply and add more organic material to the soil, campaigns to improve plows and hoes and to increase compost production from grass cuttings and straw spread throughout the country. Soil scientists showed that tilling the soil to a depth of one inch can yield five bushels of rice per quarter-acre, and from this concluded that working the soil down to five inches would yield 25 bushels.
Animal-powered agriculture was later pushed because heavy applications of manure and prepared compost were known to help achieve high yields. Farmers learned, however, that preparing compost is not easy work. Yields failed to improve enough to justify the heavy labor required, peaking at about 22 bushels per quarter-acre. Efforts to push yields even higher resulted in unstable cultivation, relegating animal-powered agriculture largely to the status of a model practice used by few farmers.
Much research is being done today on the morphology of rice at various stages of growth. Scientists are attempting also to achieve high yields through detailed comparative studies on the planting period, quantity of seed sown, number and spacing of transplanted seedlings, and depth of transplantation. However, because none of the resulting techniques has more than about a five percent effect on yields, efforts are underway to combine and consolidate these into one unified high-yielding technology.
Yet such efforts have failed to make any notable gains, save for occasional increases in yield in low-yielding areas through basic improvements, better water drainage, and other correctives. Although Japanese agricultural technology appears to have progressed rapidly over the last fifty years, the productivity of the land has declined. In terms of quality, this period has been one of retreat rather than advance.
Because the emphasis in paddy-field rice production today is on the productivity of labor, farmers scramble after returns and profits; they have abandoned animal-powered farming and wholeheartedly embraced scientific farming, especially mechanization and the use of chemicals. Much has been made of the organic farming methods taken up by a small number of farmers out of concern over the polluting effects of scientific farming, but organic farming too is an outgrowth of scientific farming that is oriented toward petroleum energy-intensive commercial agribusiness.
The only course available today for successfully rejecting scientific farming and halting its rampant growth is the establishment of a natural way of farming the agricultural mainstays: rice, barley, and wheat.
**Barley and Wheat Cultivation**
Until recently, barley and wheat, grown in most parts of Japan as winter grains, have been second only to rice in their importance as food staples of the Japanese people. Along with brown rice, the taste of cooked rice and barley was something dear to Japanese farmers. Yet these winter grains are today in the process of vanishing from Japanese soil.
As recently as fifteen or twenty years ago, the paddy field was not neglected after the rice harvest in the fall; something was always grown there during the winter months. Farmers knew that productivity per unit area of paddy was never better than when a summer rice crop was followed by a crop of barley or wheat in the winter. As soon as the rice was harvested in the fall, the paddy field was plowed, ridges formed, and the barley or wheat seed sown. This was done because winter grain was thought to have a poor resistance to moisture.
Planting barley was no easy process. The farmer began by plowing up the field. He then broke up the clods of earth, made seed furrows, sowed the seed in the furrows, covered the seed with dirt, and applied prepared compost. When this process was finally over, but before the year was out, he had to do the first weeding. He followed this early in the new year with a second and third weeding. While weeding, he passed his hoe along the rows, loosening the soil. Then he would gather soil around the base of the plants to prevent frost damage, and trample the shoots to promote root growth. After repeating this process several times, he sprayed the young plants twice with pesticide and left them to mature.
All this work was done during the cold months, but harvesting time came at the end of May, which felt even more swelteringly hot than midsummer. What’s more, if the crop was late-maturing wheat or barley, the harvest usually took place during the rainy season, which meant farmers had to go through the considerable trouble of drying the harvested grain. Winter grain cultivation, then, was a very taxing process.
Some fifty years ago, domestic wheat varieties were improved and the use of wheat encouraged to hold down wheat imports from the United States. Wheat was widely planted in place of barley and naked barley, but wheat grown for bread-making is late-maturing for the Japanese climate and so its use resulted in unstable harvests. Then, from around 1945, the Japanese Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry, deciding that wheat grown domestically could not compete with cheaper foreign-grown grain, adopted a policy of increased dependence on other countries for the supply of food and feed provisions. This had the effect of causing farmers in the domestic wheat belt to abandon their production of wheat.
It was neither money nor labor that supported the arduous practice of double cropping paddy fields with wheat or barley. It was pride. The farmer, afraid of being called lazy or wasteful if he left his fields fallow over the winter, plowed every inch of available Japanese soil. So when the farming authorities started saying that nobody had any need for expensive wheat and talking about a euthanasia of domestic wheat production, this
knocked the moral support out from under the farmer, speeding his physical and spiritual downfall. Over the past five years or so, wheat and barley production has almost disappeared in some localities.
Thirty years ago, Japan was still essentially self-sufficient in food production, but over the last several years, calorie self-sufficiency has dropped below the 40 percent level. This caused many to question Japan’s ability to secure necessary food resources and has led once again to encouragement of domestic wheat and barley production. But is it really possible to revive the former pride and spirit of the farmer?
Back when everyone was sold on the idea that domestic wheat production was unnecessary, I kept telling people that there is a method of wheat and barley cropping that will give us grain as inexpensive as foreign grain. I also maintained that the prices of farm products should basically be the same everywhere, and that the only reason they were not was because economic manipulations made prices higher for some and lower for others.
Few field crops yield as many calories as barley. This crop is well-suited to the Japanese climate and should be double-cropped, as in the past, with rice. With a little resourceful planning and effort, most Japanese paddy fields could be readied for growing winter grain. Knowing this, I have consistently maintained that a continuous rice and barley or wheat succession must be made the mainstay of Japanese agriculture.
**Natural Barley I Wheat Cropping:** I passed through three stages in moving toward the natural cultivation of barley and wheat: 1) tillage and ridge cultivation, 2) level-row, light-tillage or no-tillage cultivation, and 3) natural Cropping based on no-tillage cultivation.
1. **Tillage, ridging, and drilling:** In Japan, naked barley and wheat seed was normally drilled at a seeding width of 6 to 7 inches on ridges spaced 3 feet apart.
Forty years ago, most farmers and agricultural experts thought that broad, shallow seeding gave high yields, so I tried increasing the sowing area by 25 percent, 30 percent, and 40 percent. First I increased the seeding width to 10 to 12 inches or more; not only was there no observable improvement in yield, this reduced stability of the crop. I then tried sowing in two rows per ridge at a seeding width of 7 to 10 inches in ridges 4 feet apart, but this resulted in excessive vegetative growth and a small number of heads.
Noting that a narrower seeding width increases yield, I reduced the width and increased the distance between rows. By sowing in two rows on ridges spaced 3 feet apart and setting the rows far enough apart to prevent plants in adjacent rows from crowding each other, I was able to raise my yields. But this sowing method made the furrows between ridges narrower and shallower and reduced ridge height, so that all intertilling and weeding had to be done entirely by hoe.
To increase harvest yields, I raised the number of rows per ridge from two to three, then four. Recently, farmers have taken narrow seeding widths a step further and are drilling seeds in single file.
2. **Light-tillage, low-ridge or level-row cultivation**: Since seeding in three or four rows on a 3-foot ridge results in a low ridge almost level with the ground, I switched to light-tillage and drilled individual seeds in straight, narrow rows.
Although I had thought that naked barley had to be grown on high ridges, I found that it can be grown using a simple light-tillage method. I noticed, moreover, that because the young barley shoots are susceptible to moisture damage during light-tillage, a no-tillage process works even better. So in 1950, I began studying seeding techniques that would allow me to drill narrow rows on an unplowed field. This set me on the road toward a natural method of growing barley and wheat.
There remained the problem of weed control, however. I tried sowing ladino clover as a ground cover together with the barley, and scattered rice straw over the planted field. No farmer at the time spread his paddy fields with fresh straw and agricultural experts strictly forbade anyone from leaving straw on the paddy for fear of disease. I went ahead and used rice straw anyway because I had earlier confirmed beyond any doubt that rice straw left on the ground during the autumn decomposes entirely by the following spring, leaving no trace of pathogenic microbes. This cover of fresh straw showed great promise in weed control.
3. **No-tillage, direct-seeding cultivation**: I built an experimental seeding device and tried dibbling, then drilling, and finally individual seeding in furrows. As I was doing this and also making full use of a straw cover, I grew increasingly certain of the validity of direct seeding without tillage. I went from sparse seeding to dense seeding, then returned again to sparse seeding before I settled on my present method of broadcasting seed.
Table 4.3 Naked barley* yield—1965.
(The Fukuoka Farm) (survey by Ehime Prefectural Agricultural Testing Center)
| Yield of milled grain | Weight per 1,000 grains | Grade |
|-----------------------|-------------------------|-------|
| (lb./1/4-acre) | (oz./yd²) | (oz.) |
| Section A | 1,450 | 21.1 | 0.94 | Good |
| Section B | 1,314 | 21.2 | 0.91 | Very Good |
Section A: 8 sample quadrats on 1/4-acre fertilized field
Section B: 8 sample quadrats on 1/4-acre unfertilized field
Actual yield on 1 acre was 5,488 lbs. of milled grain plus 201 lb. of gleanings.
Growth Survey:
- average tillers per plant ........... 23–32
- average heads per plant ............ 1,800–2,500
- average grains per head ............. 62–72
*Variety: early-maturing Hinode
Fig. 4.4 Progression of seeding methods.
My experiments convinced me of the following:
a) No-tillage cultivation not only does not degrade the land being worked, it actually improves and enriches it. This was demonstrated by more than ten years of no-tillage direct-seeded rice/winter grain succession cropping.
b) This method of cultivation is extremely simple, yet it provides total germination and weed control and is less laborious and higher yielding than other methods.
c) The full potential of this method can be tapped only by combining it in a natural farming rotation with direct-seeded rice.
From the very outset, I had wondered why rice and barley, both members of the grass family, should be grown so differently. Why was it that barley could be sown directly while rice had to be seeded in a starter bed then transplanted? And why was it that barley was grown on ridges while rice was grown on a level field? All along, I had felt that the most natural method of cultivation for both was direct seeding on a level field. Yet, for a long time the idea that rice and barley could be grown in the same way was nothing more than pure conjecture.
But after long years of failure upon failure, somehow my methods of growing rice and barley merged. I found mixed seeding and even simultaneous seeding to be possible. This is when I became convinced that I had at last arrived at the foundation for a natural way of farming.
**Early Experiences with Rice Cultivation**
As a youth, I set out first to become an agricultural specialist. Being the eldest son in a farming family, I knew that I would have to return to the land someday, but until that time came I was determined to travel a free road.
My field of specialty was plant pathology. I learned the basics from Makoto Hiura at Gifu Agricultural High School and got my practical training under Suchiko Igata of the Okayama Prefecture Agricultural Testing Center. Afterwards, I transferred to the Plant Inspection Division of the Yokohama Customs Bureau, where I did research under Eiichi Kurosawa at the Division’s research laboratory in Yamate. I had embarked on a most ordinary course in life and could have spent those early years in the full bliss of youth.
But my fate flew off in an unexpected direction. I had been grappling with the meaning of life and humanity when one night the truth came to me in a flash. I saw all of a sudden that nature is an astounding thing that cannot be named. In that instant, I understood the principle of “nothingness,” of Mu. This later gave birth to my method of natural farming, but at first I was totally absorbed by the conviction that there is nothing in this world, that man should live only in accordance with nature and has no need to do anything.
Researchers at agricultural testing stations still had a measure of freedom in 1940. I did my work at the plant disease and pest section with just the right measure of diligence and was thus able to live within my dreams. I was fortunate indeed, as a heretic, to have the freedom of working within science and exploring farming techniques that refute science and technology.
However, as the war situation intensified, increasing food production became a more urgent priority than basic scientific research and so all researchers at the laboratory were mobilized for this purpose. The directives stated that starch production was to be increased, even if this meant cutting the production of other crops. I was sent to the agricultural testing station in Kochi Prefecture.
While I was there, the local agricultural administration implemented a bold new plan of a type rarely attempted before. This called for the eradication of the yellow rice borer through post-season rice cultivation. Because post-season cultivation made collective use of the most advanced rice growing technology of the day, knowing something about this method gave one a good idea of where scientific farming stood technically at the time.
Rice cultivation practices throughout Kochi Prefecture were everywhere different. Farmers on the centrally located Kacho Plain, for example, double-cropped their rice, while farmers in other areas of the prefecture variously practiced early-season, midseason, or late-season cropping pretty much as they wished. As a result, transplanting started in April and continued on through early August.
In spite of its warm climate, which seemed ideal for rice production, Kochi had the second lowest rice yields of any prefecture in Japan. What was needed here then was not technology for expanding production so much as an understanding of the causes for the low yields. The situation called for the immediate development of methods to stem production losses. I remember commenting on how there wasn’t “a single healthy rice plant on the Kacho Plain,” an indiscretion for which I was roundly criticized. But facts are facts, and there was no disputing that to increase production in Kochi, the first step would have to be curbing production losses by diseases and pests. The upshot was that a
plan for eradicating the yellow rice borer was drawn up, leading to the promulgation by prefectural edict of a rice cultivation control ordinance.
All the scientists and technicians in the prefectural crop production, agricultural testing, and agricultural cooperatives divisions joined in a common effort to guide the prefecture’s farmers in carrying out this post-season cultivation program. Now that I think of it, although this happened during the war, I cannot help marveling at how such an ambitious pest control program was conducted. Not only was this sort of rice-growing reformation virtually unheard-of in Kochi, it is rare in the annals of rice cultivation in Japan. The program was to be carried out in phases, covering a different part of the prefecture during each of three successive years.
We took advantage of the fact that the yellow rice borer does not feed on plants other than rice. The idea was to eliminate the rice borers through starvation by ensuring the absence of all rice plants during the first period of rice borer emergence. Farmers in a one- or two-district area were forbidden from planting rice until July 8 of that year. Although the reasoning behind this eradication plan was quite simple, I can remember agonizing over which day in July to set as the end of the rice borer’s first emergence period. A mistake would have been a very serious matter.
Specialists in another area had it even tougher. Waiting until early July to begin growing rice meant drastically shortening the growing season, a risky proposition for both the farmer and the technician. This was Kochi, where farmers began transplanting very early-season rice in April and continued planting early-season, midseason, and late-season rice, followed in some cases by a second crop, right through to early August. Add also the fact that local farmers saw this as the best possible method of cultivation in their area, both in terms of business and improving yields. It should not be hard to imagine then how much trouble we had in gaining the understanding and cooperation of farmers with a program that brought local growing practices under government control and placed all bets on a single post-season rice crop that could not be transplanted until early July.
Other technicians had their hands full too, since all tilling and seeding methods, as well as the fertilizing schedules, had to be changed to accord with July transplanting. There were also many other changes to make, such as modifications in cultivation practices and in the rice cultivars used. It was a true technical reformation in every respect.
The crop science division, for example, had to take measures to cope with delayed transplantation. These included 1) increasing the number of rice plants and seedlings transplanted to the paddy; 2) expanding the size of nursery beds; 3) getting farmers to prepare raised, semi-irrigated rice seed beds; 4) selection of post-season varieties and procurement of seed rice; 5) securing labor and materials; and 6) overseeing the preceding barley crop. The fertilizer division had its hands full with changes in the fertilization schedule and making sure that farmers adhered to the new schedule. They had to come up with a schedule that would curb declines in harvests from post-season cultivation and actually push for expanded production. Specialists in each division were expected to be familiar with plans and affairs in all other divisions. Professional opinions from each division were combined into a single collective plan of action. All specialists acted in concert, and familiarizing themselves with the same overall set of techniques in
the program, went out one by one to their appointed towns and villages where they supervised local implementation of the program.
Before the prefectural edict was issued, local farmers lodged a hundred objections against post-season rice cultivation, but once the policy was set, the farmers of Kochi Prefecture made a full about-face and gave their total, undivided cooperation. It was an enterprise carried out on a grand scale.
**Second Thoughts on Post-Season Rice Cultivation**
The outcome of the Kochi post-season cultivation program, conducted to exterminate the yellow rice borer and increase food production through rice/barley double-cropping, was mixed: the yellow rice borer was completely eliminated, but we were unable to increase crop production. What is one to make of these results?
First, it might be good to examine the viability of post-season cultivation as a means for controlling the rice borer. Just how well was the real extent of rice borer damage investigated and understood initially? Damage by rice borers always tends to be overestimated since white heads of grain due to post-heading damage stand out in the field. This degree of damage is often mistakenly assumed to translate directly into harvest losses. Even when the crop seems a total loss, damage is generally at most about thirty percent and actual losses are no more than twenty percent. And damage is generally at most ten to twenty percent even during severe infestations. More importantly, the reduction in final yield is almost always under ten percent, and often even less than five percent. The overall rate of damage over a wide area then is usually grossly overestimated.
Damage by disease and insect pests is usually highly localized. Even in a large regional outbreak of rice borer, close examination reveals widely differing degrees of infestation; there may be some fields with thirty percent damage and others with virtually no damage at all. Science prefers to overlook those fields that have been spared and focus instead on severely infested fields. Natural farming, on the other hand, devotes its attention to the fields that escape damage.
If one small section of a large rice field contains rice grown with lots of fertilizer, rice borers congregate on this soft, vulnerable rice. The farmer could take advantage of this behavior by collecting the insects in one area and destroying them; but what would happen if he left them alone? Although one might expect them to spread out to surrounding fields and cause extensive damage, this just does not happen. Damage would be limited to the small sacrificial area—maybe no more than one percent of the field under cultivation.
During the fall, sparrows gather about the ripening heads of grain, causing serious damage. If, unable to stand by and do nothing, one puts out scarecrows to chase the birds away, then the farmer in the next field feels he has to put scarecrows out too. This snowballs and before you know it everyone in the village is busy chasing away sparrows and laying netting over their fields to keep the birds out. Does this mean that if no one did anything the sparrows would devastate the fields? Certainly not. The number of sparrows is not determined simply by the amount of grain available. Other factors such as minor crops and the presence of bamboo groves in which to roost all come into play. So do
climatic factors such as snow in the winter and summer heat, and, of course, natural enemies. Sparrows do not multiply suddenly when the rice begins heading.
The same is true also of rice borers. They do not multiply or go into a decline all of a sudden simply because of the amount of rice growing. Rice borers were singled out in Kochi because they feed only on rice. Nature does not go on unbalanced rampages. It has mechanisms for self-control in places unknown to man. What sense does it make if, having exterminated yellow rice borers, damage by rice stem borers and cutworms increases? Insect pests and crop diseases sometimes offset each other. On the other hand, a decline in insect infestation, followed by rice blast disease or sclerotium rot can open up a new can of worms. No in-depth study was conducted so there is no way of knowing for certain, but the lack of a significant increase in yields despite elimination of the rice borers suggests that this is what may have happened in Kochi.
The first thing that pops into the head of an agricultural scientist when he sees a pest emerge in the fields is how to kill it. Instead, he should examine the causes of the outbreak and cut off the problem at its roots. This, at any rate, is the way natural farming would handle the matter. Of course, scientific farming does not neglect, in its own way, to determine the cause of rice borer emergence and take measures against this. It was easy enough at Kochi to imagine that the large infestation of yellow rice borers probably arose from developments in vegetable growing such as the spread of forced vegetable cultivation. This and other factors, including the disorderly and continuous planting of rice, provided an ideal environment for just such an outbreak.
But we doubled back before finding the true cause and concentrated all our efforts on eradication of the visible pest. For instance, we did not bother to investigate whether the disorder in the rice planting schedules invites outbreaks of the rice borer. The number of borers that emerge in the first generation each year is thought to be dependent on normal overwintering of the insects, but so long as the connection between the rice stubble in which the borer spends the winter and the chaotic local planting practices remains unclear, one cannot attribute a borer outbreak to disorderly planting merely because lots of food is available for the borers. There must have been other reasons why the yellow rice borer, rice stem borer, and other insect pests were so numerous in Kochi Prefecture. I think that the cause had less to do with the environment than with poor methods of cultivating rice.
There is something basically wrong with arbitrarily deciding that this insect in front of one is a pest and trying to destroy it. Before the war, attempts were made to wipe out the rice borer by putting up light traps all over the Kochi Plain. The same thing was tried again after the war with a blanket application of organo-phosphate pesticides. The campaign against the yellow rice borer through post-season cultivation may have appeared as a drastic measure, but eradicating one pest out of dozens was bound to end up as nothing more than a temporary expedient.
It must be remembered that diseases and pest damage are self-defense measures taken by nature to restore balance when the natural order has been disturbed. Pests are a divine warning that something has gone wrong, that the natural balance of rice plants has been upset. People must realize that nature’s way of restoring an abnormal or diseased body is to fight fire with fire, to use naturally occurring disease and infestation to counter further disease and pest damage.
Rice growth in Kochi Prefecture, with its warm temperatures and high humidity, is too luxuriant. Disease and pest attack is one method taken by nature for suppressing excessive growth, but man applies a near-sighted interpretation, seeing such damage rather as injury and harm. These outbreaks have a role to play in the natural scheme of things.
If someone were to ask me then just how successful our post-season cultivation program in Kochi was at increasing food production—the goal of the program, I would have to answer that such cultivation, in spite of the daring methods used, never had the makings of an enduring yield-increasing technique.
Even in the selection of a cultivar, for example, scientific farming normally chooses a thermo-sensitive variety for early planting and a photosensitive variety for late planting, so for post-season cultivation we factored in both photosensitivity and cumulative temperature, and selected a cultivar appropriate for July planting. What we were doing, very simply, was selecting a cultivar suited to an artificially chosen period. There were no real standards to guide us. The only role of the cultivar was to meet certain goals established according to the needs of the moment. The post-season cultivar selected was merely one that would not reduce yields when planted in July; in no way was it capable of positively raising yields.
We had no idea either of what the best time was for planting, a factor thought to play a key role in determining yields. We chose post-season planting simply as a measure against the rice borer. Crop cultivation techniques based on late planting are all mere stopgap measures for holding crop losses to a minimum. These, like the techniques we employed in post-season cultivation, have no other effect than to maintain the status quo.
That this post-season cultivation program, which represented a cross-section of the most advanced agricultural technology of the time, succeeded only in preventing further losses was very significant, for it demonstrated that, since the purpose of scientific agriculture is always and everywhere convenience to man, no matter how large and complete the technology amassed, it will never amount to more than a temporary expedient.
This incident taught me not to rely on human action and strengthened my resolve to move toward a natural way of farming.
**First Steps Toward Natural Rice Farming**
At Kochi, while I took part in the common effort to scientifically increase food production, I inwardly searched for what I believed to be the true path of agriculture—natural farming. I had yet no clear image of natural farming; all I could do was grope blindly for a way of farming I had never seen but knew must exist. During this period, I did stumble across a number of important clues, one of which was the ability of nature to “plant without sowing seed.”
*Natural Seeding:* The year that we began our program of post-season cultivation to eradicate the yellow rice borer, I was assigned to an eastern district of the prefecture. My job was to make certain that not a single stalk of rice remained standing as food for the season’s first generation of rice borers until the end of June. I combed the entire district, making my rounds from the hilly back country and mountains to the coast.
Once, as I was passing through a pine wood along the shore at Kotogahama, I spotted a large number of young rice seedlings that had sprouted from unhulled seed spilled where farmers had threshed rice the year before. This volunteer rice later led to my method of biennial, or overwintering, cultivation. Curiously enough, having caught sight of this once, I later noticed, again and again, overwintered rice germinating from seed still attached to rice straw.
Nature then “plants without sowing seed.” This realization was my first step toward natural rice cropping, but it was not enough in itself. I learned from this only that rice seed sown by man in the autumn does not easily survive the winter.
In nature, the grain ripens in the autumn and falls to the ground as the leaves and stalks of the rice plant wither and die. And yet, nature is very subtle. Long ago, rice shattered as easily as other grasses, the grains falling in a certain order, starting at the top of the panicle and going on down. The chances of a seed that falls to the ground of surviving intact until the following spring are less than one in a million. Almost all are consumed by birds and rodents or destroyed by disease. Nature can be a very cruel world.
However, a closer look reveals that the vast quantity of grain which appears as unnecessary waste serves a very important purpose by providing food for insects and small animals during the winter months. But nature was not so indulgent as to leave enough grain lying around to feed people who just sit and do nothing.
Well over ten years later, I finally succeeded in developing a long-lasting protectant—consisting of a mixture of pesticide and synthetic resin—with which to coat rice seed for protection against winter damage by rodents and other pests. My next step was to eliminate the need for this protectant, which I was able to do by sowing seed enclosed in clay pellets.
While at Kochi, I also observed shoots growing from rice stubble in harvested fields. I was traveling all over the prefecture investigating how summer and fall leafhoppers overwinter—of which little was known at the time—when I observed the ability of regenerated rice shoots and certain harmful grasses to survive the winter.
In areas not hit by frost, it should be possible to make use of such rice shoots. If new shoots growing from the stubble of a harvested first crop or a crop of early-maturing rice are rejuvenated by an application of fertilizer, a goodly quantity of regenerated rice might be reaped from a quarter-acre. Surely nothing could be better than growing a biannual crop or two crops successively rather than having to repeatedly transplant. Why should we cling to the narrow view of rice as an annual crop that is sown in the spring and harvested in the fall? Although I have been intrigued by the possibility of harvesting rice twice after one seeding or even overwintering it and growing it as a perennial, I have not yet succeeded in finding a practical way to do this. I believe, however, that the idea definitely warrants investigation in warmer parts of Japan and in certain other countries.
The conclusions of natural farming were evident from the start, but it was achieving these in practice that took so long. I had to spend many years observing in order to understand the conditions under which rice seed will overwinter. And even if I understood why it would not overwinter in a particular instance and was able to eliminate the reasons, I preferred not to use scientific means or pesticides. I pondered too the meaning and worth of cultivating perennial rice.
Natural farming does not treat the planting of seed separately, but relates it to all other aspects of rice production. In contrast, scientific farming divides rice cultivation into narrow specialties; experts on germination attend to problems of seed germination, specialists in tillage address tilling problems, and likewise with seeding, transplanting, and other areas.
Natural farming treats everything as part of a whole. The problems may differ, but solving them independently is totally meaningless. In rice cultivation, preparing the field, sowing the seed, tilling, covering the seed with soil, fertilizing, weeding, and disease and pest control are all organically interrelated. No problem in any one area is truly solved unless a common solution is found for all areas.
One thing is all things. To resolve one matter, one must resolve all matters. Changing one thing changes all things. Once I made the decision to sow rice in the fall, I found that I could also stop transplanting, and plowing, and applying chemical fertilizers, and preparing compost, and spraying pesticides.
Biennial cultivation proved to be both a step forward and a step back because I had to decide first whether to transplant or to seed the fields directly.
*Natural Direct Seeding:* I began studying direct seeding when I realized that all plants in nature seed directly. It occurred to me that, the transplantation of rice seedlings being a human invention, natural rice cultivation must involve direct seeding. So I tried sowing rice seed in the autumn. But my seed did not survive the winter and the attempt was a total failure. The reason was perfectly clear. Modern rice and other cultivated grains have been genetically improved for centuries; they are no longer natural and can never return to nature. In fact, sowing today’s improved seed by a method that approximates nature is unnatural in itself. These plants require some form of protection and human care.
Yet, making use of an unnatural method of cultivation just because a cultivar is unnatural only moves the rice even further away from nature and evokes stronger natural repercussions. The grain was no longer natural, yet there had to be a more natural way to grow it. In addition to which, simply giving up all attempts because “overwintering rice seed is difficult” and “barley cannot be carried through the summer” would have ended the matter then and there without the least hope of getting an insight into the deepest designs of nature. So I set my sights on learning why rice does not overwinter.
In 1945, before I had gotten very far on this, I ran a different experiment in which I direct-seeded onto a plowed and flooded paddy field in the spring. I followed the same procedure as for preparation of a rice nursery bed, first plowing the field, then flooding and tilling it. After this was done, I seeded directly.
The experiment consisted of drilling, seeding in straight rows, and broadcasting. The main object was to examine the effects of different sowing techniques and the sowing rate and density. I planted approximately 20, 30, 60, 100, 230, and 1000 seeds individually per square yard. The results were pretty much as I had expected and yet surprising. Aside from the extremely dense planting, the number of heads per square yard was about 400-500 in all cases, and the number of grains per head from 60 to 120. Yields were therefore about the same.
Several problems did arise. For example, where the soil was rich in organic matter and bad water collected, the seed sunk into the ground and germination was poor. I also
noticed that deep flooding of the field resulted in plants that tended to lodge easily. But, all in all, rice generally grew well when direct-seeded on plowed and irrigated paddy.
I spent so much time weeding that I doubt this method had much practical value at the time. But with the good herbicides around today, direct seeding on an unplowed, poorly drained, or moderately drained field is definitely possible.
**Early Attempts at Direct-Seeding, No-Tillage Rice/Barley Succession**
I tried many different ways of direct seeding, but since the method J used initially to plant the preceding barley crop was to drill seeds on high ridges, I picked up the idea of drilling the rice seed in the furrows between the ridges from a “lazy man’s” method of sowing attempted by some farmers long ago. This led to a later technique I used of direct-seeding rice between rows of barley. I direct-seeded rice between barley for several years, but I had so much trouble with rice germination and weed control that I finally gave this method up as impractical. During this period, however, I was experimenting with many other methods, which gave me some fresh ideas. Here are a few of the things I tried.
**Direct Seeding of Rice between Barley:**
1) Germination of the rice seed was poor. There was no way to fight off mole crickets, sparrows, and mice. I tried using pesticides, but was unable to achieve full germination.
2) After harvesting the barley, I tried intertilling the soil on the ridges with a hoe, and also leveling the field by transferring ridge soil into the furrows between the ridges, but this was arduous work.
3) Even when I irrigated the fields, water retention was poor and weeds grew on high ridge areas exposed above the surface of the water. I had a great deal of trouble dealing both with weeds along the water’s edge and in the water, and with the complicated pattern of weed emergence. Use of herbicides was more difficult than for transplanted rice, which further complicated weed control.
4) Finally, after having pondered over the best way to weed, I thought of controlling weeds with weeds, and tried sowing the clover and Chinese milk vetch that I was experimenting with in my orchard over the ridges of maturing barley one month before the barley harvest so as to get a rich growth of these herbs among the barley. This method was not immediately successful, but it gave me another important clue that was to lead later on to my method of rice and barley cropping in a ground cover of clover.
5) I tried sowing vegetable seeds such as mustards, beans, and squash, and although none of these grew well enough to be of much use for home consumption, this taught me something about the relationships between specific crops in a rotation.
6) I then tried the opposite: seeding and growing rice in fields of tomato, eggplant, and cucumber. Rice yields were better here than my attempts at raising vegetables in a rice paddy and growing rice after harvesting the vegetables, although I did have some problems with field work.
**Direct-Seeding Rice/Barley Succession:**
I mentioned earlier that because my research on the direct seeding of rice on drained fields was tied in with the direct seeding of barley, as my method of barley cropping progressed from high-ridge to low-ridge to level-field cultivation, my method of direct seeding rice followed suit, moving toward level-field, direct-seeding cultivation. From seeding in single rows at wide, 18-inch intervals, I went to planting in narrowly spaced rows 6 to 8 inches apart, then to planting seeds individually at intervals of 6 by 8 inches, and finally I direct-seeded naked barley over the entire surface of the field without plowing or tilling. This was the start of the no-tillage direct-seeding of naked barley. Because my method resulted in the high-yield cultivation of barley and the dense individual planting of seed, I found it increasingly difficult to sow rice seed among the barley. One reason was the lack of a planter at the time that could seed effectively between barley plants.
I had learned therefore that naked barley can be grown quite well by sowing seeds individually on a level, unplowed field. Having also found that rice sown at the same seeding interval among the barley stubble grows very well, it dawned on me that, since I was using exactly the same method for growing both rice and barley, and was growing these two crops in succession one after the other, both crops could be grown as a single cropping system. I chose to call this system “direct-seeding, no-tillage rice/barley succession.”
However, this system was not the result of a sudden flash of inspiration. It was the outcome of many twists and turns. When I learned the inconvenience of direct-seeding rice between barley stubble, I decided to run tests to determine whether to direct-seed rice after harvesting the barley or to broadcast the rice seed over the heads of barley ten to twenty days before cutting the barley.
Scattering rice seed over the standing heads of barley is truly an extensive method of cultivation, but seed losses due to sparrows and mole crickets were lighter than I had expected and percent germination quite good. Although I thought this to be an interesting method, I practiced it only in one corner of my field and did not pursue it any further at the time, preferring instead to concentrate on the direct-seeding of rice following the barley harvest.
I did make an attempt to plant rice seed directly onto the harvested barley field without plowing, but this did not work out well with the planter and the rice seed merely fell to the ground resulting in a shallow planting depth. I remember feeling then that sowing the rice seed over the standing barley would have been preferable, but for various reasons having to do with the method of cultivation and ease of lodging, I decided to try direct seeding on a shallow-tilled field instead. Also, because I continued to believe at the time that the most important condition for high barley and rice yields was deep plowing, I felt that tilling was a necessary precondition for the direct seeding of rice.
But direct-seeding with shallow plowing turned out to be more difficult than I thought, for it required harrowing and leveling just as in the preparation of a seed bed for rice. And the risks are very great, especially in only partially drained fields and during years of abundant rainfall. If rain falls on the plowed field before seeding, the field turns to mud, making direct seeding impossible. After repeated failures over a number of years, I decided to go with the principle of direct seeding without tilling of any sort.
Direct-Seeding, No-Tillage Rice / Barley Succession:
Today I use the term “direct-seeding, no-tillage rice/barley succession” without thinking twice about it, but until I was fully convinced that the field does not have to be plowed or worked, it took incredible resolve for me to say “no-tillage” and propose this method of cultivation to others.
This was at a time when, despite scattered attempts to “half-plow” wheat or adopt simplified methods of preparing the rice field for planting, the conventional wisdom held deep plowing to be necessary and indispensable for producing high yields of both rice and barley. To abstain from plowing and tilling a field year after year was unthinkable.
I have grown rice and barley without any plowing for well over twenty years now. My observations during that period, coupled with other insights, have gradually deepened my conviction that the paddy field does not need to be plowed. But this conviction is based largely on observation, as I have not conducted studies and collected data on the soil. Yet, as one soil scientist who examined my field put it: “A study can look at the changes that arise with no-tillage farming, but it can’t be used to judge the merit of no-tillage farming based on conventional ideas.”
The ultimate goal is the harvest. The answer to this question of merit depends on whether rice yields decline or increase when no-tillage farming is continued. This is what I wanted to find out. At first, I too expected that yields would drop off after several years of continuous no-tillage farming. But perhaps because I returned all rice and barley straw and hulls to the land, during the entire period that I have used this method, I have never seen any sign of a decline in yields due to reduced soil fertility. This experience sealed my conviction that no-tillage farming is sound in practice and led me to adopt this as a basic principle of my farming method.
In 1962, I reported these experiences of mine in an article entitled “The Truth about Direct-Seeding Rice and Barley Cultivation,” published in a leading farming and gardening journal in Japan. This was regarded as a highly singular contribution, but apparently acted as a strong stimulus on those interested in the direct seeding of rice. One high-ranking official in the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry at the time was delighted, calling it “research in a class by itself … a guiding light for Japanese rice cultivation ten years hence.”
Natural Rice and Barley/Wheat Cropping
I adopted the standpoint of natural farming early on, and discontinuing the transplantation of rice, sought my own method of rice and barley direct seeding. In the process, I gradually approached a unified technique of direct-seeding naked barley and rice without tilling that brought me a step closer to my goal. This can be thought of as the antecedent of the direct-seeded upland rice cropping methods practiced widely today. At the time, nobody would have thought that rice and naked barley could be grown on a level field left continuously unplowed.
Later, as a result of determined efforts to reject the use of pesticides and fertilizers, I began a method of cultivation in keeping with my goal of natural farming: a very simple form of continuous, no-tillage rice/barley cropping involving direct seeding and straw mulching. I adopted this as the basic pattern for natural farming.
This method was studied at a large number of agricultural testing stations throughout Japan. In almost every instance, researchers found there to be no basic problem with the no-tillage, succession cropping of rice and barley using straw mulch. But weed control remained a problem, so I worked on this and after a great deal of effort and repeated experimentation, modified my basic method by adding a ground cover of green manure, the mixed seeding of rice and barley, and biennial cultivation.
I called this the basic pattern of natural rice and barley fanning because I was certain that this technique enabled the farmer for the first time to farm without using any pesticides or chemical fertilizers. And I referred to it also as the “clover revolution” in rice and barley cropping to voice my opposition to modern scientific farming with its use of chemicals and large machinery.
**Direct-Seeding, No-Tillage Barley/Rice Succession with Green Manure Cover**
This is a method for the companion cropping of leguminous green manure plants with rice and barley or wheat, all members of the grass family.
*Cultivation Method*: In early or mid-October, I sow clover seeds over the standing heads of rice, then about two weeks before harvesting the rice, I sow barley seed. I harvest the rice while treading over the young barley seedlings, and either dry the cut grain on the ground or on racks. After threshing and cleaning the dried grain, I immediately scatter the straw uncut over the entire field and apply chicken manure or decomposed organic matter. If I wish to overwinter my rice, I enclose rice seed in clay pellets and scatter these over the field in mid-November or later. This completes the sowing of rice and barley for the coming year. In the spring, a thick layer of clover grows at the foot of the maturing barley, and beneath the clover, rice seedlings begin to emerge.
When I cut the barley in late May, the rice seedlings are perhaps an inch or two high. The clover is cut together with the barley, but this does not interfere with the harvesting work. After leaving the barley on the ground to dry for three days, I gather it into bundles, then thresh and clean it. I scatter the barley straw uncut over the entire field, and spread over this a layer of chicken manure. The trampled rice seedlings emerge through this barley straw and the clover grows back also.
In early June, when the rich growth of clover appears about to choke out the young rice seedlings, I plaster the levees around the field with mud and hold water in the field for four to seven days to weaken the clover. After this, I surface-drain the field in order to grow as hardy plants as possible. During the first half of the rice growing season, irrigation is not strictly necessary, but depending on how the plants are growing, water may be passed briefly over the field once every week to ten days. I continue to irrigate intermittently during the heading stage, but make it a point not to hold water for more than five days at a stretch. A soil moisture level of eighty percent is adequate.
During the first half of its growing season, the rice does well under conditions similar to those in upland rice cultivation, but in the second half of the season irrigation should be increased with plant growth. After heading, the rice requires lots of water and without careful attention could become dehydrated. For yields of about one ton per quarter-acre, I do not make use of standing water, but careful water management is a must.
*Farm work*: This method of rice cultivation is extremely simple, but because it is a highly advanced technique, quite unlike extensive farming, each operation must be
performed with great precision. Here is a step-by-step description of the operations, starting at the time of rice harvest in the fall.
1. **Digging drainage channels:** The first thing one has to do when preparing a normal paddy field for the direct-seeded no-tillage cropping of rice and barley is to dig drainage channels. Water is normally held in the paddy throughout the rice growing season, turning the soil to a soft mud. As harvest time approaches, the surface must be drained and dried to facilitate harvesting operations. Two or three weeks before the rice is cut, a water outlet is cut through the levee surrounding the field and the surface of the field drained. A row of rice about the perimeter is dug up with a cultivator, transferred inward out of the way, and a drainage channel dug.
For good drainage, the channel must be dug deeply and carefully. To do this, make a furrow in the soil with the end of a long-handled sickle, dig up the rice plants along the furrow, then shape a channel about 8 inches deep and 8 inches wide by lifting the soil aside with a hoe.
After the rice has been harvested, dig similar drainage channels in the field at intervals of 12 to 15 feet. These provide sufficient drainage to enable good growth of green manure crops and barley even in a moist field. Once dug, these drainage channels can be used for many years in both rice and barley cultivation.
2. **Harvesting, threshing, and cleaning the rice:** Cut the rice while trampling over the clover and the young, two- to three-leaf barley shoots. Of course, the rice may be harvested mechanically, but where the size of the field permits, it is both sufficient and economical to harvest with a sickle and thresh with a pedal-powered drum.
3. **Seeding clover, barley, and rice:**
**Seeding method:** When seeded over the standing heads of rice, the clover and barley seed readily germinate because of the high soil moisture. Winter weeds have not yet appeared, so this is helpful for controlling weeds. The barley and rice seed may be drilled or sown individually in straight rows following the rice harvest, but broadcasting directly over the maturing heads of rice requires less work and is beneficial for germination, seedling growth, and weed control.
**Seeding date and quantity per quarter-acre:**
| Crop | Quantity | Time |
|----------|----------|-----------------------|
| Clover | 1 lb. | September-October and March-April |
| Barley | 6.5-22 lbs. | end of October to mid-November |
| Rice | 6.5-22 lbs. | mid-November to December |
When aiming for high yields, it is a good idea to seed sparsely and evenly, but seed 22 pounds each office and barley initially.
**Variety:** For normal yields, use varieties suited to your area, but for high yields, use hardy, panicle weight type varieties with erect leaves.
**Overwintering rice:** The seed will have to be coated. Seeds coated with a synthetic resin solution containing fungicide and pesticide and sown in the autumn will survive the
winter. To eliminate the use of pesticides, enclose the seeds in clay pellets and scatter the pellets over the field.
*Preparing the clay pellets:* The simplest method is to mix the seeds in at least a five- to ten-fold quantity of well-crushed clay or red earth, add water, and knead until hard by treading. Pass the kneaded mixture through a half-inch screen and dry for a half-day, then shape the clay mixture into half-inch pellets by rolling with the hands or in a mixer. There may be several (4-5) seeds in each pellet, but with experience this can be brought closer to the ideal of one seed per pellet.
To prepare one-seed pellets, place the seed moistened with water in a bamboo basket or a mixer. Sprinkle the seed with clay powder while spraying water mist onto the mixture with an atomizer and moving the basket in a swirling motion. The seeds will become coated with clay and grow larger in size, giving small pellets a quarter- to a half-inch in size. When a large quantity of pellets is to be prepared, one alternative is to do this with a concrete mixer.
Topsoil-containing clay may also be used to form the pellets, but if the pellets crumble too early in spring, the seed will be devoured by rodents and other pests. For those who prefer a scientific method of convenience, the seeds may be coated with a synthetic resin such as styrofoam containing the necessary pesticides.
**Table 4.4 Growing seasons for direct-seeded rice and barley/wheat cultivation.**
| Cultivation Method | Previous Crop | Month | Rice Crop |
|--------------------------------------------------------|---------------------|-------|-----------|
| (1) Direct-seeding rice after barley/wheat harvest | Naked barley | Nov. | Early |
| | Wheat | Dec. | Early |
| | | Jan. | Late |
| | | Feb. | |
| | | Mar. | |
| | | Apr. | |
| | | May | |
| | | Jun. | |
| | | Jul. | |
| | | Aug. | |
| | | Sep. | |
| | | Oct. | |
| | | Nov. | |
| (2) Direct-seeding rice among maturing barley/wheat | Naked barley | | Early |
| | Wheat | | Late |
| | | | |
| (3) Simultaneous direct-seeding of rice and barley/wheat (autumn) | Naked barley (early) | | Early (Late) |
| (4) Winter/spring direct-seeding of rice | Autumn vegetables | | Early (Late) |
| (5) Direct-seeding of rice and barley/wheat in ground cover of clover | Naked barley Clover | | Late |
O……Planting date x……Harvesting date
*Single cropping:* Even when rice is single-cropped rather than grown in alternation with barley, clover seed may be sown in the fall, and the following spring rice seed scattered over the clover and the field flooded to favor the rice. Another possibility is to sow Chinese milk vetch and barley early, then cut these early in spring (February or March) for livestock feed. The barley will recover enough to yield 11 to 13 bushels per quarter-acre later. When single-cropping rice on a dry field, bur clover or Chinese milk vetch may be used.
Shallow-tillage direct-seeding: Twenty-two pounds each of barley and rice seed may be sown together in the autumn and the field raked. An alternative is to lightly till the field with a plow to a depth of about two inches, then sow clover and barley seed and cover the seed with rice straw. Or, after shallow tilling, a planter may be used to plant seed individually or drill. Good results can be had in water-leak paddy fields by using this method first, then later switching to no-tillage cultivation. Success in natural farming depends on how well shallow, evenly sown seeds germinate.
4. Fertilization: Following the rice harvest, spread 650-900 pounds of chicken manure per quarter-acre either before or after returning the rice straw to the fields. An additional 200 pounds may be added in late February as a top dressing during the barley heading stage.
After the barley harvest, manure again for the rice. When high yields have been collected, spread 450-900 pounds of dried chicken manure before or after returning the barley straw to the field. Fresh manure should not be used here as this can harm the rice seedlings. A later application is generally not needed, but a small amount (200-450 pounds) of chicken manure may be added early during the heading stage, preferably before the 24th day of heading. This may of course be decomposed human or animal wastes, or even wood ashes.
However, from the standpoint of natural farming, it would be preferable and much easier to release ten ducklings per quarter-acre onto the field when the rice seedlings have become established. Not only do the ducks weed and pick off insects, they turn the soil. But they do have to be protected from stray dogs and hawks. Another good idea might be to release young carp. By making full, three-dimensional use of the field in this way, one can at the same time produce good protein foods.
5. Straw mulching: Natural rice farming began with straw. This promotes seed germination, holds back winter weeds, and enriches the soil. All of the straw and chaff obtained when harvesting and threshing the rice should be scattered uncut over the entire surface of the field.
Barley straw too should be returned to the field after the harvest, but this must be done as soon as possible following threshing because once dried barley straw is wet by rain, it becomes more than five times as heavy and very difficult to transport, in addition to which the potassium leaches out of the straw. Often too, attempting to do a careful job can be self-defeating, for with all the trouble it takes to get out the cutters and other motorized equipment, one is often tempted to just leave the straw lying about.
No matter how conscientious a farmer is in his work, each operation is part of a carefully ordered system. A sudden change in weather or even a small disruption in the work schedule can upset the timing of an operation enough to lead to a major failure. If the rice straw is scattered over the field immediately after threshing, the job will be done in just two or three hours. It does not really matter how quick or carelessly it is done.
Although it may appear to be crude and backward, spreading fresh straw on a rice field is really quite a bold and revolutionary step in rice farming. The agricultural technician has always regarded rice straw as nothing but a source of rice diseases and pests, so the common and accepted practice has been to apply the straw only when fully decomposed as prepared compost. That rice straw must be burned as a primary source of
rice blast disease is virtually gospel in some circles, as illustrated by the burning of rice straw on an immense scale in Hokkaido under the urging of plant pathologists.
I deliberately called composting unnecessary and proposed that all the fresh rice straw be scattered over the field during barley cultivation and all the barley straw be spread over the field during rice cultivation. But this is only possible with strong, healthy grain. How very unfortunate it is then that, overlooking the importance of healthy rice and barley production, researchers have only just begun to encourage the use of fresh straw by chopping part of the straw with a cutter and plowing it under.
Straw produced on Japanese rice fields is of great importance as a source of organic fertilizer and for protecting the fields and enriching the soil. Yet today this practice of burning such invaluable material is spreading throughout Japan. At harvest time in the early summer, no one stops to wonder about the smoke hanging over the plain from the burning barley straw in the fields.
A number of years ago, a group of farming specialists and members of the agricultural administration, most of whom had no first-hand idea of how much hard work preparing compost is, did start a campaign urging farmers to enrich the soil by composting with straw. But today, with the large machinery available, all the harvesting gets done at once. After the grain has been taken, the problem for many seems to be how to get rid of all the straw; some just let it lay and others burn it. Are there no farmers, scientists, or agricultural administrators out there who see that whether or not we spread straw over our fields may decide the fate of our national lands?
It is from just such a small matter that shall emerge the future of Japanese agriculture.
6. Harvesting and threshing barley: Once the barley has been seeded and the mulch of rice straw applied, there is nothing left to do until the barley is ready for harvesting. This means one person can handle whatever needs to be done on a quarter-acre until harvest time. Even including harvesting and threshing operations, five people are plenty for growing barley. The barley can be cut with a sickle even when broadcast over the entire field, A quarter-acre will yield over 22 bushels (1,300 pounds) of grain.
7. Irrigation and drainage: The success of rice and barley cropping depends on germination and weed control, the first ten to twenty days being especially critical.
Water management, which consists of irrigation and drainage, is the most important part of crop management in rice cultivation. Irrigation management throughout the rice growing season can be particularly perplexing for the novice farmer, and so merits special attention here.
Farmers making use of these methods of direct-seeding rice-barley cultivation in areas where most farmers transplant their rice will be seeding and irrigating at times different from other local farmers. This can lead to disputes, especially as the irrigation canals are communally controlled; one cannot simply draw large amounts of water from a long canal whenever one pleases. Also, if you irrigate when the neighboring fields are dry, water leakage into other fields can greatly inconvenience the farmer next door. If something like this happens, immediately plaster your levees with mud. With intermittent irrigation, fissures tend to develop in the levee, causing leakage.
Then too there is always the problem of moles. Most people might dismiss a mole tunnel as nothing much to worry about, but a mole running along the length of a freshly
plastered levee can in one night dig a tunnel 40-50 feet long, ruining a good levee. By burrowing straight through a levee, a mole weakens it so that water even starts leaking out of mole cricket and earthworm holes; before you know it, these can develop into sizable holes. Finding holes in levees may appear to be easy, but unless the grass along the top and sides of the levee is always neatly cropped (it should be cut at least three times a year), there is no way of knowing where the entrance or exit is. More often than not, one notices a hole for the first time only after it has enlarged considerably.
A hole may appear small from the outside, but inside it widens into larger pockets that just cannot be stopped up with a handful or two of mud. If dirt has flowed out of a hole for an entire night, you will have to carry in maybe 50 to 100 pounds of earth to repair it. Use stiff earth to plug up the hole; if it is plugged with soft earth, this might work free overnight. Avoid makeshift repairs as these only lead to eventual crumbling of the levee, which will spell real trouble.
Do not leave grass cuttings and bundles of straw on a levee because these draw earthworms which moles come to feed on. If moles are present, they can be gotten rid of using a number of devices. For example, these can be caught merely by placing a simple bamboo tube capped at both ends with valves at a hard point in the mole tunnel. There is a trick to catching moles, but once you have gotten the knack of it and are finally able to keep your entire field filled with water by plugging all the holes, then you too will be a full-fledged rice farmer.
After having experienced the tribulations of water management, you will be better prepared to fully appreciate the hardships and rewards of natural farming.
Lately, highland paddy rice farmers have been constructing their levees of concrete or covering the footpaths with vinyl sheeting. This appears to be an easy way of holding water, but the earth at the base of the concrete or below the sheeting are ideal places for moles to live. Give them two or three years and repairs on these might be a lot more difficult than on normal earthen levees. In the long run, such methods do not make things easier for the farmer.
All one needs to do, then, is to rebuild the levees each year. To build a levee that does not leak, first carefully cut the grass on the old levee with a sickle, then break down the levee with an open-ended hoe. Next, dig up the soil at the bottom of the levee and, drawing some water alongside, break up and knead the earth with a three-pronged cultivator. Now build up the levee and, after letting this stand for awhile, plaster the top and sides with earth.
All the traditional farming tools used from ancient times in Japan come into play during the building of an earthen levee. Observing the processes by which these simple yet refined implements efficiently modify the arrangement of soil particles in the paddy field, I get a keen sense of just how perfectly designed and efficient they are. Even in soil engineering terms, these tools and their use represent a very sophisticated technology.
Such a technology is clearly superior to poured concrete and vinyl sheeting. Erecting a well-built levee in a paddy field is akin to making a work of art. Modern man sees the mud-coated farmer plastering his levees and transplanting his rice as a throwback to a crude, pre-scientific age. The mission of natural farming is to peel away this narrow vision and show such labor in its true light as artistic and religious work.
8. Disease and pest “control”: After thirty to forty years of farming without pesticides, I have come to believe that, while people need doctors because they are careless about their health, crops do not indulge in self-deception. Provided the farmer is sincere in his efforts to grow healthy crops, there will never be any need for pesticides.
To the scientific skeptics, however, the matter is not so easily settled. Yet my years of experience have shown me the answers to their doubts and pointed questions—questions such as: Wasn’t that just a chance success? Why, you had no large outbreak of disease or pest damage, did you? Aren’t you just benefiting from the effects of pesticides sprayed by your neighbors? Aren’t you just evading the problem? So where do the pests go, then?
There have been massive local outbreaks of leafhoppers on two or three occasions over the past thirty years, but as the record of the Kochi Prefecture Agricultural Testing Station bear out, no ill came of a lack of control measures. No doubt, if such surveys were conducted on a regular basis year in and year out, people would be more fully convinced. But of even greater importance, certainly, is a sense of the complexity and drama which fills the world of small creatures that inhabit a rice field.
I have already described just how profound are the effects of pesticides on a living field. My field is populated with large Asiatic locusts and tree frogs; only over this field will you find hovering clouds of dragonflies and see flocks of ground sparrows and even swallows flying about.
Before we debate the need to spray pesticides, we should understand the dangers posed by man’s tampering with the world of living things. Most damage caused by plant diseases and pests can be resolved by ecological measures.
**High-Yield Cultivation of Rice and Barley**
Many people assume that yields from natural farming are inferior to those of scientific farming, but in fact the very reverse is true.
Analytic and scientific reasoning leads us to believe that the way to increase yields is to break up rice production into a number of constituent elements, conduct research on how to make improvements in each, then reassemble the elements once they have been improved. But this is just like carrying a single lantern to guide one’s way through a pitch-dark night. Unlike one who makes his way without a lantern toward the single, faraway light of an ideal, this is blind, directionless progress. The scientific research from which technology unfolds lacks a unity of purpose; its aims are disparate. This is why techniques developed through research on rice that yields 15 bushels per quarter-acre cannot be applied to rice that gives 30 or 40 bushels. The quickest and surest way to break through the 20-bushel barrier is to take a look at 30* or 40-bushel rice and, setting a clear goal, concentrate all one’s technical resources in that direction.
Once the decision has been made to go with rice plants having a given panicle-to-stalk length ratio such as 8:1, 6:1, or 3:1, say, this clarifies the goal for farmers producing the rice, enabling the shortest possible path to be taken towards achieving high yields.
*The Ideal Form of a Rice Plant:* Aware of the inherent problems with the process of breaking down and analyzing a rice plant in the laboratory and reaching conclusions from these results, I chose to abandon existing notions and look instead at the rice plant from
My method of growing rice may appear reckless and absurd, but all along I have sought the true form of rice. I have searched for the form of natural rice and asked what healthy rice is. Later, holding on to that image, I have tried to determine the limits of the high yields that man strives after.
When I grew rice, barley, and clover together, I found that rice ripening over a thick cover of clover is short-stalked, robust right down to the bottom leaf, and bears fine golden heads of grain. After observing this, I tried seeding the rice in the fall and winter, and learned that even rice grown under terrible conditions on arid, depleted soil gives surprisingly high yields.
### Table 4.5 Dimensions of ideal rice plants.
| Cultivar | A | B | C |
|----------|-----|-----|-----|
| Head length | | | |
| 1st | 9.4 | 9.6 | 9.1 |
| 2nd | 5.3 | 6.1 | 6.3 |
| 3rd | 4.3 | 3.9 | 5.1 |
| 4th | 1.2 | 2.4 | 2.8 |
| 5th | 0 | 0 | 1.2 |
| Stalk length | 20.2 | 22.0 | 24.5 |
| 1st | 9.1 | 8.7 | 8.3 |
| 2nd | 11.4| 12.2| 11.4|
| 3rd | 9.8 | 15.7| 14.2|
| 4th | 7.5 | 16.5| 15.0|
| 5th | — | — | 11.8|
| Total | 37.8| 53.1| 60.7|
| Leaf blade length | | | |
| 1st | 9.4 | 9.1 | 8.7 |
| 2nd | 7.1 | 7.1 | 6.7 |
| 3rd | 6.5 | 7.1 | 6.7 |
| 4th | 5.5 | 7.5 | 7.1 |
| 5th | — | — | 6.3 |
| Total | 28.5| 30.8| 35.5|
### Table 4.6 Stalk length and first internode length.
| Cultivar | A | B | C |
|----------|-----|-----|-----|
| Stalk length (S) | 20.3 | 22.0 | 24.4 |
| First internode length (F) | 9.4 | 9.6 | 9.1 |
| Ratio (F/S × 100) | 46 | 44 | 37 |
### Table 4.7 Length of leaf blade + leaf sheath.
| Cultivar | A | B | C |
|----------|-----|-----|-----|
| First leaf | 18.5 | 17.7 | 16.9 |
| Second leaf | 18.5 | 19.3 | 18.1 |
| Third leaf | 16.1 | 22.8 | 20.9 |
| Fourth leaf | 13.0 | 24.0 | 22.0 |
| Fifth leaf | — | — | 16.1 |
This experience convinced me of the possibilities of growing high-yielding rice on continuously untilled fields, so I began experimenting to learn the type of field and manner in which rice having an ideal form will grow. Eventually I found what I thought to be the ideal form of high-yielding rice. Tables 4.5 through 4.7 give the dimensions of ideal rice. Each value indicated is the average for three plants.
**Analysis of the Ideal Form:** What follows is a description of the major characteristics of rice plants with an ideal form.
1. Short-stalked dwarf rice of robust appearance; leaves are short, wide, and erect. While lyo-Riki rice is erect and short-stalked to begin with, this variety has an extremely short stalk, the stalk height being just 21 inches. Seen growing in the paddy field, its small size makes it appear inferior to rice plants in surrounding fields, although it does have about 15 to 22 tillers per plant. At maturity, the stalks are heavy with bright golden heads of grain.
2. The weight of the unhulled grain is 150 to 167 percent that of the straw. In ordinary rice, this is less than 70 percent, and generally 40 to 50 percent. When a dried stalk of rice is balanced on a fingertip, the point of equilibrium is close to the neck of the panicle. In ordinary rice, this is located near the center of the stalk.
3. The length of the first inter-node at the top of the plant is more than fifty percent of the stalk length, and when the plant is bent downward at the first node, the panicle extends below the base of the stalk. The longer the length of this first inter-node and the larger the ratio of this length to the overall stalk length, the better.
4. An important characteristic is that the leaf blade on the second leaf down is longer than that of any other leaf. Thereafter, the leaf blade becomes shorter as one moves down the stalk.
5. The leaf sheaths are relatively long, the longest sheath being that on the first leaf. The sheaths become progressively shorter on moving down the plant. The total leaf length, representing the sum of the leaf blade length and sheath length, is longest for the first and second leaves, and decreases downward. In rice that is not high-yielding, the lower leaves are longer, the longest being the fourth leaf.
6. Only the top four nodes grow, and the fourth is at ground level or lower. When the rice is cut, the straw includes no more than two or three nodes. Normal rice has five or six nodes, so the difference is startling. When the rice is harvested, four or five leaves remain alive, but seeing as the top three fully formed leaves alone are enough to yield more than 100 full grains per head, the surface area required for starch synthesis is less than would otherwise be expected. I would put the amount of leaf surface needed to produce one grain of rice at perhaps-0.1 square inch, no more.
7. A good plant shape naturally results in good filling of the grain. Weight per thousand grains of unpolished rice is 23 grams for small-grained rice, and 24.5-25 grams for normal-grained rice.
8. Even at a density of 500 stalks to the square yard, hardy upright dwarf rice will show no decline in the number of grains per head or percent of ripened grains.
**The Ideal Shape of Rice:**
1. Both the plant height and length of the leaf blades are much smaller than in ordinary varieties. This is no accident. I had for some time thought large plants unnecessary in rice production, and so endeavored to suppress rather than promote vegetative growth of the plant. I did not irrigate during the first half of the growing season and by applying fresh straw to the field checked plant response to a basal application of fertilizer. As it turned out, I was correct. I have come to believe that internodal growth between the fifth and sixth nodes should be suppressed. In fact, I even believe that rice can do fine with just three above round nodes.
2. In ideally shaped rice, the internode lengths each decrease by half from the top to the bottom of the plant. Not only does this indicate steady, orderly growth of the rice, it also means that internodal growth occurs only starting at the young panicle formation stage.
3. The long second leaf and the decreasing leaf length as one moves down the stalk is the exact reverse of what is generally thought to be the correct shape of rice, but I believe that this inverted triangular shape gives a rice plant that does well in the fall.
When all the leaves are erect, large top leaves give a better yield, but if the leaves are unhealthy and droop, highest yields are obtained with small, erect top leaves that do not shield the lower leaves from the sun. Thus, if plants with large upper leaves are grown
but these leaves droop and yields decline as a result, this is because the rice plant is unhealthy and the lower leaves are too large.
4. The leaf sheaths are longer than the leaf blades and enclose the stem of the plant. The long leaf sheath and blade on the flag leaf ensure the best possible nutritional state during the young panicle formation stage.
5. After the seedling stage, the ideal rice plant remains small and yellow during the vegetative stage, but the leaves gradually turn greener during the reproductive stage. As measurements of the internode lengths show, changes in the nutritional state are steady and entirely unremarkable; fertilizer response increases with growth of the plant but never inordinately so.
Ideally then, the heads of rice are large and the plant short, having just three or four nodes above the ground. The leaves get longer in ascending order toward the top and the internode length between the fourth and fifth nodes at the bottom is very short. Instead of a feminine form with a high head-to-body ratio of six or even eight to one, this plant has a more sturdy, masculine, short-stalked, panicle weight type shape.
Of course, depending on the variety of rice, an ideal plant may have a long stalk and be of the panicle number type. Rather than deciding that some characteristic is undesirable, one should avoid producing weak, overgrown heads and strive always to practice methods of cultivation that suppress and condense. Concentrated rice carries a tremendous store of energy that provides high yields because it maintains an orderly shape receptive to sunlight, matures well, and is resistant to disease and pest attack—even in a very dense stand.
The next problem is how to go about growing an entire field of such rice.
**A Blueprint for the Natural Cultivation of Ideal Rice:** Although raising one high-yielding rice plant with good photosynthetic efficiency is easy, it was no simple matter to grow full stands of such rice.
Healthy individual rice plants growing in nature have plenty of space to grow. The sparse seeding of individual seeds allows the rice to assume the natural form that suits it best and to make full use of its powers. In addition, rice grown in its natural form puts out leaves in a regular, phyllotaxic order. The leaves open up and spread in alternation, breaking crosswinds and ensuring the penetration of sunlight throughout the life of the plant, each leaf maintaining a good light-receiving form.
Knowing all this, I anticipated from the start that healthy rice farming would require that I sow individual seeds sparsely. But because I was initially plagued with problems of poor germination and weed control when I began direct-seeded no-tillage cultivation, to ensure a stable crop I had no choice but to plant and seed densely.
However, dense planting and seeding tended to result in thick growth. The poor environment of individual plants made attempts to suppress growth ineffective, and the situation was doubly aggravated in wet years, when the rice would shoot up into tall, weak plants that often lodged, ruining the crop. To secure stable harvests of at least 22 bushels per quarter-acre, I resumed sparse seeding. Fortunately, thanks to gradual improvements in the weed control problem and soil fertility, conditions fell into place.
that made it possible for me to seed sparsely. I tried broadcasting—a form of individual seeding, and also seeding at uniform intervals of from 6 to 12 inches. My results appear in Tables 4.9 and 4.10.
Although I did run into a number of crop management problems, I found that sparse seeding gives healthy, natural rice plants that grow well and provide the high yields that I had expected. In this way, I was able to obtain yields of over one ton per quarter-acre with naturally grown rice. I should add that there is nothing absolute or sacred about the seeding rate and interval. These must be adjusted in accordance with other growing conditions.
**The Meaning and Limits of High Yields:** In natural farming, high yields rely on the absorption and storage of as much of nature’s energy as possible by the crop. For this, the crop must make the fullest possible use of its inherent powers. The proper role of the natural farmer is not to utilize the animals and plants of nature so much as to help invigorate the ecosystem. Because crops absorb energy from the earth and receive light and heat from the sun, and because they use these to synthesize energy which they store internally, there are limits to the help man can provide. All he can do really is keep watch over the earth.
Rather than plowing the fields and growing crops, man would be better occupied in protecting the vitality of all the organisms inhabiting the earth and in guarding the natural order. Yet, it is always man who destroys the ecosystem and disrupts the natural cycles and flow of life. Call him the steward and keeper of the earth if you will, but his most important mission is not to protect the earth so much as to keep a close control over those who would ravage and waste it.
The guardian of a watermelon patch does not watch the watermelons, he looks out for watermelon thieves. Nature protects itself and sees to the boundless growth of the organisms that inhabit it. Man is one of these; he is neither in control nor a mere onlooker. He must hold a vision that is in unity with nature. This is why, in natural farming, the farmer must strictly guard his proper place in nature and never sacrifice something else to human desire.
Scientific farming consists of producing specific crops selected from the natural world to suit our human cravings. This interferes with the well-being of fellow organisms, setting the stage for later reprisal.
The scientist planning to cultivate high-yielding rice on a field sees the weeds growing at his feet only as pests that will rob sunlight and nutrients from the rice plants. He believes, understandably, that he will be able to achieve the highest possible yields by totally eradicating such “intruders” and ensuring that the rice plants monopolize the sun’s incident rays. But removing weeds with herbicides is all it takes to upset the delicate balance of nature. The herbicides destroy the ecosystem of the insects and microorganisms dependent on the weeds, abruptly changing the current of life in the soil bio-community. An imbalance in this living soil inevitably throws all the other organisms there off balance as well. Unbalanced rice is diseased rice, and therefore highly susceptible to concentrated attack by disease and insect pests.
Those who believe that the monopoly by rice, in the absence of weeds, of the sun’s rays will provide the highest possible yields are sadly mistaken. Unable to absorb the full
blessings of the sun, diseased rice wastes it instead. With its limited perception, scientific farming cannot make the same full use of solar energy as natural farming, which views nature holistically.
Before pulling the weeds growing at the base of the rice plants, natural farming asks why they are there. Are these grasses the by-product of human action or did they arise spontaneously and naturally? If the latter, then they are without doubt of value and are left to grow. The natural farmer takes care to allow natural plants that protect the natural soil to carry out their mission.
Green manure thriving at the foot of the rice plants and, later, algae growing on the flooded field are thought to detract from yields because they directly and indirectly shield the sun, reducing the amount of light received by the rice plants. But we reach a different conclusion if we see this as a nearly natural state. The total energy absorbed by the rice, green manure, algae, and earth is greater than the energy stored from the sun’s rays by the rice plants. The true value of energy cannot be determined merely by counting the number of calories. The quality of the energy produced within the plant by conversion from absorbed energy must also be taken into account. There is a world of difference between whether we look only at the amount of energy received by the rice plant or take a three-dimensional view of its quantitative and qualitative utilization of energy from the sun’s rays.
| Table 4.8 Breakdown of harvest yields. |
|--------------------------------------|
| Cultivar: | A | B | C |
| Plants per square yard | 20 | 20 | 20 |
| Heads per plant | 18 | 20 | 20 |
| Ripened grains per head | 115 | 70 | 53 |
| Unripened grains per head | 10 | 18 | 21 |
| Range in total grains per head | 90–150 | 62–128 | 56–116 |
| Ripened grains per plant | 2,070 | 1,400 | 1,060 |
| Weight of unhulled rice per plant (grams) | 55.9 | 38.5 | 28.6 |
| Weight of unpolished rice per plant (grams) | 47.6 | 32.2 | 24.4 |
| Weight of straw per plant (grams) | 33 | 46 | 45.6 |
| Weight ratio of unhulled rice to straw (%) | 167 | 83 | 62 |
| Weight of unhulled rice per thousand grains (grams) | 27 | 27.5 | 27 |
| Weight of unpolished rice per thousand grains (grams) | 23 | 23 | 23 |
| Yield per quarter-acre (kg) | 1,165 | 787 | 597 |
| Yield per quarter-acre (lbs.) | 2,568 | 1,735 | 1,316 |
Energy from the sun is absorbed by the green manure plants. When the field is flooded, these wither and die, passing on their nitrogen to algae, which in turn become a source of phosphate. Using this phosphate as a nutrient source, microbes in the soil flourish and die, leaving nutrients that are absorbed by the roots of the rice plants. If man were able to comprehend all these cycles of energy and elements at once, this would become a science greater than any other. How foolish to focus only on solar energy apart from the rest of nature and think that merely by examining the amount of starch synthesis in the leaves of rice plants, one can gauge utilization of the sun’s energy.
People must begin by understanding the futility of knowing bits and pieces of nature, by realizing that a general understanding of the whole cannot be acquired through value judgments of isolated events and objects. They must see that the moment the scientist endeavors to attain high yields by using the energy of the wind or sun, he loses a holistic view of wind power and sunlight, and energy efficiency declines. It is a mistake to think of the wind and light as matter.
I too raise rice and analyze its growth, but I never seek to attain high yields through human knowledge. No, I analyze the situation we have today, where man has upset the natural order of things and must work twice as hard to prevent harvest losses, and I try to encourage people to see the error of their ways.
True high yields come about through the spirited activity of nature, never apart from nature. Attempts to increase production in an unnatural environment invariably result in a deformed and inferior crop. Yields and quality only appear to be high. This is because man can add or contribute nothing to nature.
Since the amount of solar energy that can be received by a field of rice is finite, there is a limit to the yields attainable through natural farming. Many believe that because man has the ability to conceive and develop alternative sources of energy, there are no absolute upper limits to scientific development and increases in harvest. But nothing could be further from the truth. The power of the sun is vast and unlimited when seen from the standpoint of Mu, but when made the object of man’s wants and cravings, even the sun’s power becomes small and finite. Science cannot produce yields that exceed those possible through nature. Effort rooted in human knowledge is without avail. The only course that remains is to relinquish deeds and plans.
The question of whether the method of cultivation I propose, a direct-seeding no-tillage rice/barley succession in a ground cover of green manure, is a true prototype of nature must be judged according to whether it is a methodless method that approaches closer to nature.
I believe that, since rice is best suited to Japanese soil as a first crop, and barley or wheat as a second crop, a successive cropping of rice and barley or wheat that provides a large total caloric output makes good use of Japanese land by utilizing the full powers of nature. The reason I concentrated on a method of biennial cultivation that begins by sowing rice seed in the autumn and devotes a full year to the growth of rice was because I thought that this would enable the rice to absorb the most natural energy throughout the year.
The cover of green manure makes three-dimensional use of space in the field, while straw mulching and the breakdown of materials in the soil encourage revitalization of the natural ecosystem. These can be thought of as manifestations of an effort to approach the ultimate goal of a “do-nothing” nature. One look at the diagram in Fig. A at the beginning of this book, depicting the centripetal convergence of my research on rice cultivation, will immediately make clear what I have aimed at from the very beginning and where my efforts have brought me.
Table 4.9 Blueprint for high-yield rice cultivation.
| Category | Target yield (kg/ha) | Seeding rate (kg/ha) | Germinated seeds** per m² | Spacing/seed*** (cm²) | Tiller per plant | Total heads per m² | Grains per head | Total grains per m² | Extra-heavy panicle type | Heavy panicle type | Extremely high yields |
|----------|---------------------|----------------------|---------------------------|-----------------------|-----------------|-------------------|----------------|---------------------|------------------------|---------------------|----------------------|
| 1 | 1,500 | 1 | 10 | 30 | 25 | 40 | 200 | 350 | 300 | — | — |
| 2 | 1,200 | 2 | 15 | 27 | 20 | 25 | 300 | 450 | 250 | 120 | 75,000 |
| 3 | 900 | 3 | 30 | 17 | 12 | 20 | 350 | 500 | 200 | 110 | 70,000 |
| 4 | 750 | 4 | 50 | 15 | 8 | 13 | 400 | 550 | 180 | 90 | 60,000 |
| 5 | 600 | 5 | 100 | 10 | 4 | 10 | 450 | 600 | 160 | 80 | 50,000 |
*1 kg = 2.2 lb. **1 m² = 1.2 yd² ***1 cm² = 0.155 in²
Table 4.10 Outline of rice cropping.
| Category | Variety | Planting Time | Soil | Chicken Manure* (kg) | Water Management | Seeding Method |
|----------|---------|---------------|------|----------------------|-----------------|----------------|
| 1 | Extra-heavy panicle type | Autumn (Nov.–Dec.) | Rich soil | 600 (basal application—3, topdressing—1, during heading—2) | No standing water | Individual planting of seeds |
| 2 | Heavy panicle type | Winter (Dec.–Mar.) | Rich soil | 500 (3, 0, 2) | No standing water | Planting of 1, 2, or 3 seeds at a time |
| 3 | Heavy panicle type or intermediate type | Spring (Apr.–May) | Normal soil | 400 (2, 0, 2) | Intermittent irrigation | Planting of 1 to 6 seeds at a time |
| 4–5 | Same as above or panicle number type | Late-seeded (Jun.–Jul.) | Poor soil | 300 (1, 0, 2) | Water-conserving cultivation | Broadcasting |
*1 kg = 2.2 lb
Note (1) Extra-heavy panicle type—Happy Hill Nos. 2, 3; non-glutinous, glutinous Heavy panicle type—Happy Hill No. 1; non-glutinous, glutinous Intermediate type—Japanese and Korean heavy panicle types Panicle number type—standard Japanese varieties
(2) This table also applies to planting during barley and wheat cropping.
closer to nature. But to the scientist, this method is just one among many different ways of farming.
3. Fruit Trees
Establishing an Orchard
The same general methods used in reforestation can also be used to plant fruit trees and set up an orchard. One should not clear and smooth the land with a bulldozer because this disturbs the humus-rich topsoil built up over a long period of time. Land developed with a bulldozer and left virtually bare for ten years is washed free of its topsoil, greatly shortening the economic life of the farm. Rather than carting the trunks, branches, and leaves of felled trees off a contour-cleared orchard site, it makes more sense to arrange this material along contour lines and wait for it to decompose naturally. The branches, leaves, and roots of the trees decompose after several years, becoming a source of organic fertilizer that supplies nutrients to the growing fruit trees. At the same time, a cover of organic matter helps to curb weed growth, prevents soil washout, stimulates the proliferation of microorganisms, and serves to enrich and otherwise improve the soil.
Because tree branches and leaves cut down when land is cleared interfere with farming operations, these are generally burned. But, like slash-and-burn agriculture, this sends the fertility of the land up in flames. As for tree roots, these work their way down to the deepest soil strata, contributing physically to the aggregation and structure of the soil. In addition, they also serve as a nutrient source and have a chelating action that solubilizes insoluble nutrients in the soil. If such valuable organic matter is dug up and disposed of when the land is cleared, this drastically changes natural conditions and so damages the soil that it is unable to recover, even if holes are later dug in the ground and the same amount of coarse organic matter returned.
In general, one foot of topsoil holds enough nutrients to sustain fruit trees for ten years without fertilization; similarly, three feet of rich soil can probably supply enough nutrients for about thirty years. If it were possible to use the rich, fertile soil of a natural forest in its natural form as a hot bed, cultivation without fertilizer might even be feasible.
People might expect tree growth and fruit harvests to suffer when fruit trees are planted without clearing the land at all, but in fact not only do these compare favorably, the economically productive lifetime of the land also tends to increase.
After preparing the orchard soil, the next concern is planting. Fruit saplings should be planted at equal intervals along hill contours. Dig a fairly deep hole, fill it with coarse organic matter, and plant the sapling over this.
Natural Seedlings and Grafted Nursery Stock: Obviously, from the standpoint of natural farming, one would expect trees grown from seed to be preferable to grafted nursery stock. The reasons usually given for planting grafted saplings are to make the plant early-bearing, to ensure consistent fruit size and quality, and to obtain early-ripening fruit. However, when a tree is grafted, the flow of sap is blocked at the graft
juncture, resulting either in a dwarf tree that must be heavily fertilized or a tree with a short lifetime and poor resistance to temperature extremes.
When I tried the direct planting of mandarin orange seed, although I found that trees grown from seed are inferior and generally useless because they revert or degenerate, this gave me a clue as to the true form of the tree and its natural rate of growth. I will come back to this later.
While in principle a young tree grown from seed grows faster than grafted stock, I learned that natural seedlings do not grow as rapidly during the first two or three years as grafted stock that is initially one to two years old and care is also difficult. However, when raised with great care, trees grown from seed develop more quickly. Citrus rootstock takes more time and sends down shallower roots.
Citrus trees may generally be grown from nursery plants grafted with rootstock, which, although shallow rooted, are cold-hardy. Apple trees can be trained into dwarf trees by using dwarfing stock, but it may also be interesting in some cases to plant seed directly and grow the young saplings into majestic trees having a natural form. Such a tree bears fruit of vastly differing sizes and shape that is unfit for the market. Yet, on the other hand, there always exists the possibility that an unusual fruit will arise from the seed. Indeed, why not multiply the joys of life by creating a natural orchard full of variety and surprises?
**Orchard Management:** To establish a natural orchard, one should dig large holes here and there among the stumps of felled trees and plant unpruned saplings and fruit seed over the site, leaving these unattended just as one would leave alone a reforested stand of trees. Of course, suckers grow from the cut tree stumps and weeds and low brush flourishes. Orchard management at this stage consists primarily of coming in twice a year to cut the weeds and underbrush with a large sickle.
1. **Correcting the tree form:** Some pinching back is generally necessary on a young transplanted sapling to correct the arrangement of the branches. This is because, if dieback occurs at the tip or if too much of the root system has been cut, an unnaturally large number of suckers may emerge, causing the branches to become entangled. When the young tree lies in the shadow of a large tree, it tends to become leggy, in which case the lower branches will often die back. Left to itself, such a tree will acquire an unnatural form that will result in years of unending labor for the grower; to hasten the tree’s approach to a more natural form, shoots and buds emerging from unnatural places must be nipped off as soon as possible.
Trees that show normal, steady growth right from the start assume a nearly natural form and can thereafter be left alone. Cutting the first one or two shoots is therefore very important. How well this is done can determine the shape of the tree over its entire lifetime and is a major factor in the success or failure of an orchard.
It is often hard to tell, however, which shoots to leave and which to pinch off. The grower may decide, often prematurely, which branches are to be the primary scaffold branches and which the secondary scaffolds when the tree is still very young only to find later that these branches have tangled under other, unanticipated growth conditions. Early pruning can turn out to be unnecessary and even harmful when done unwisely.
It is all too easy to assume that a tree grown in a natural state will more easily acquire a natural form anyway. Yet it is not through abandonment that a cultivated tree takes on a natural form, but only through the most careful attention and protection.
2. Weeds: I was especially interested in the growth and control of other trees and weeds in a natural orchard. Initially, four to five years after planting fruit trees, I found eulalia and other weeds growing thickly among the brush and assorted trees. Weeding was not easy and sometimes it was even hard to locate the fruit trees.
Although the growth of fruit trees among this other vegetation was irregular and yielded poor, harvests in some cases, there was very little damage from disease and insects. I found it hard to believe that, with the odd assortment of trees in my orchard and some of the fruit trees even growing in the shadow of other trees, these were spared attack by diseases and pests.
Later, with continued cutting back of the underbrush, the non-fruit trees receded and weeds such as bracken, mugwort, and kudzu grew up in their place. I was able to control or suppress weed growth at this point by broadcasting clover seed over the entire orchard.
3. Terracing: Five to six years after planting, when the trees begin to bear fruit, it is a good idea to dig up the earth on the uphill side of the fruit trees with a hoe and construct terrace-like steps and a road on the orchard slope. Once these terraces have been built and the original weeds replaced, first with soft weeds such as chickweed, knotweed, and crabgrass, then with clover, the orchard begins to look like an orchard.
**A Natural Three-Dimensional Orchard**
To create a natural orchard, one must observe the principle of the right crop for the right land. Hillside land and valley land must be treated as such.
Avoid the monoculture of fruit trees. Plant deciduous fruit trees together with evergreen fruit trees and never forget to interplant green manure trees. These may include acacias which, as members of the pea family, produce nitrogenous fertilizer, myrtle—which produces nutrients such as phosphoric acid and potash, alder, and podocarpus. You may also, with interesting results, interplant some large trees and shrubs, including climbing fruit vines such as grapevine, akebia, and Chinese gooseberry.
Leguminous green manure plants and other herbs that enrich the orchard soil may be planted as orchard undergrowth. Forage crops and semiwild vegetables can also be grown in abundance, and both poultry and livestock allowed grazing freely in the orchard.
A natural orchard in which full, three-dimensional use of space is made in this way is entirely different from conventional orchards that employ high-production techniques. For the individual wishing to live in communion with nature, this is truly a paradise on earth.
**Building Up Orchard Earth without Fertilizers**
The purpose of soil management is to promote the conversion of weathered material from bedrock and stone into soil suitable for growing crops, and enrichment of this soil. The soil must be turned from dead, inorganic matter into living, organic material.
Unfortunately, soil management as it is normally practiced today consists basically of clean cultivation that turns the soil into mere mineral matter. Of course, there is a reason for this: repeated weeding, the application of chemical fertilizers, and careful management increase yields and provide a good product.
The soil in many orchards has become depleted with constant plowing and weeding, so some farmers haul rice and barley straw from their paddy fields up into their hillside orchards and spread it below the fruit trees. This began more as a means of reducing weeding work than as a fundamental change in soil management. However, relying on straw from the field as the ground cover is hardly an ideal approach. All it does is keep the farmer busy hauling straw from the paddy up the hill and carrying weeds from the hillside down into the fields.
Soil management divorced from the field, garden, and hillside is meaningless; only a method that enriches all at the same time makes any sense.
*Why I Use a Ground Cover:* In order to make full use of the soil, soil management must be based on the use of a ground cover. This enables soil in the field, garden, and hillside orchard to become naturally enriched. It is far wiser to plant green manure trees and encourages the soil within the orchard to enrich naturally than to apply fertilizer.
When I set out to revive my father’s orchard of old citrus trees following World War II, I began by studying soil conditioning, and especially ground cover cultivation, for the following reasons.
First of all, with all the topsoil washed away and only red clay remaining, passive efforts to reinvigorate the old trees by applying lots of fertilizer, root-grafting, and thinning blossoms would only have invited a further decline in the trees. Nor would planting new saplings have worked any better since these would not have thrived in the poor soil.
The second reason was that, when looking at how my father had fared financially with the orchard, I found that the first thirteen years the orchard had been run at a loss, the next twenty years it had made money, and the following ten years were again run in the red. Even though the war had dealt the orchard a severe blow, still, I was amazed that what had at one time been regarded as one of the best local orchards had failed to make a net profit over more than forty years of operation.
Table 4.11 Herbs used as orchard cover crops.
| Type of Herb | Growing Season | Uses |
|-------------------------------------|----------------------|----------------------------------------------------------------------|
| **Grass Family** | | |
| Italian ryegrass | spring - summer | deciduous fruit tree undergrowth |
| orchardgrass | | |
| timothy | summer/winter - spring | with fruit vines (control of summer weeds) |
| wild oats | | |
| winter grains | | |
| **Pea Family** | | |
| common vetch | winter - spring | evergreen trees, deciduous trees (control of spring weeds) |
| hairy vetch* | | |
| common vetch, Saatwicke* | | |
| mung bean | spring - summer | large evergreen trees (control of summer weeds) |
| cowpea | | |
| *kudzu* | | |
| ladino clover* | year-round | year-round weed control for all fruit trees |
| red/white clover | | |
| alfalfa* | | |
| crimson clover | | |
| sweet clover | | |
| sub clover | | |
| bur clover* | winter - spring | fruit trees and summer vegetables (control of spring weeds) |
| Chinese milk vetch* | spring | |
| peanut* | spring - summer | control of summer weeds (green manure) |
| soybean* | | |
| adzuki bean* | | |
| lupine* | winter - spring | control of spring weeds (green manure) |
| broad bean* | | |
| garden pea* | | |
| Japan clover | spring | control of spring weeds |
| bush bean | | |
| **Mustard Family** | | |
| daikon* | fall - winter | winter weed control for all fruit trees |
| turnip* | | |
| Indian mustard* | | |
| other mustards | | |
| Chinese cabbage | | |
| rapeseed* | | |
| other vegetables | | |
*Important cover crops
Why? The answer is simple. While my father celebrated his profit-making citrus crops, his sturdy trees, and his growing wealth, the orchard soil had become depleted.
I set out to raise fruit trees that grow as the soil enriches. This was one of the main reasons why I grew cover crops.
*Ladino Clover, Alfalfa, and Acacia:* What helps to rehabilitate depleted soil? I planted the seeds of thirty legumes, crucifers, and grasses throughout my orchard and from observations of these came to the general conclusion that I should grow a weed cover
using ladino clover as the primary crop and such herbs as alfalfa, lupine, and bur clover as the secondary crops. To condition the deeper soil strata in the hard, depleted soil, 1 companion-planted fertilizer trees such as black wattle, myrtle, and podocarpus.
**Features of Ladino Clover:**
1) When used as a cover crop, this eliminates weeds. Annual weeds are displaced in one year, and biennials disappear in two years. After 2 to 3 years, almost all garden weeds have vanished, leaving a solid field of clover.
2) Improves soil down to a depth of 16 to 18 inches.
3) Seed does not have to be sown again for another 6 to 8 years.
4) Does not compete strongly with fruit trees for fertilizer or moisture.
5) Grows back easily after being cut, and remains healthy and hardy even when trampled upon.
6) Does not hinder farming operations.
The only disadvantages of ladino clover are that it is susceptible to summer-killing and sclerotium disease during hot, dry weather, and that growth is retarded in the shade and under trees.
**Seeding Ladino Clover:** The seed should be drilled the first autumn. Delayed seeding invites insect damage. Do not cover the seeds with soil as this often hampers germination; merely firm the soil after drilling. If the clover seed is broadcast in late autumn among the dying weeds and grasses on levees and roadsides, clover growth gradually thickens. When the clover is sown initially in the spring among the weeds, cut it back a year later to stimulate growth. Ladino clover vine may additionally be planted in spring in the same manner as sweet potato vine so as to ensure a full cover of clover by summertime.
**Managing Ladino Clover:** Clover does not choke out other vegetation, but gradually becomes dominant by growing so thickly as to prevent the germination and establishment of other weeds. Moreover, when trampled and cut, most weeds weaken but clover grows all the more vigorously. Failure to understand this and properly control the clover will lead to certain failure. At first, when the clover coexists with weeds, there may be no cause for concern. But if, after the clover takes well and flourishes, it is left alone, it becomes excessively luxuriant, leaving it open to attack by diseases such as leaf spot and the reemergence and eventual dominance of weeds again in five to six years. To maintain it over the years, clover requires the same meticulous care that one gives a lawn. Areas where perennial weeds such as sorrel and dandelion, twining plants such as bindweed, and cogon, bracken, and other herbs grow in abundance should be cut more frequently than other places, and wood ashes or coal ashes scattered.
The rate of lateral growth by clover is slow, so when starting the orchard, sow the seed from one end of the orchard to the other. With proper management, this clover cover will eliminate the need for weeding, and mowing will be incomparably easier than in an orchard overrun with weeds. Ladino clover can and should be sown in citrus orchards as well as deciduous fruit orchards.
**Alfalfa for Arid Land:** Nothing surpasses ladino clover in dealing with weeds, but in warm regions where it tends to lose its vigor in the summer, and in cold, dry areas, mixed
seeding with alfalfa is desirable. This works especially well on earthen levees, for example.
Alfalfa is very deep-rooted, sending roots down to depths of six feet or more. This makes it ideal for improving the deeper soil strata. A hardy perennial, it is of great practical value, being resistant to droughty and cold conditions as well as to high temperatures. When mixed with clover, alfalfa helps to eliminate other herbs and grasses. Wider use of this valuable legume should be made in Japan for soil improvement and as a feed and forage crop. Other legumes such as lupine (a summer crop) may also be used with good results.
Bur clover, useful in controlling spring weeds, withers in the summer but grows back again in the fall and suppresses winter weeds as well. A useful orchard cover crop, it is also valuable in the rotation as a crop preceding summer vegetables.
**Black Wattle:** Although the black wattle, a type of acacia, serves as a fertilizer tree, I would like to include it here because it plays a role also in association with ground cover cultivation. Up to about ten of these trees should be planted per quarter-acre among the fruit trees. A member of the pea family, this tree is effective in the following ways:
1) rapid improvement of deep soil layers;
2) can be used to form a shelterbelt, but may serve also as a windbreak when planted between fruit trees;
3) serves as a shade tree during the summer in warm regions and protects the soil from depletion;
4) effective in preventing the emergence of orchard pests, especially mites.
Nor is this all. The bark of the tree is rich in tannin and can be sold for a good price. In addition, the wood is excellent as a material for making desks and chairs, and the nectar of the flower serves as a source of honey.
No other evergreen tree of the pea family grows as quickly as the black wattle.
It grows five feet or more in a year, creating a shelterbelt in just three to four years and becoming about the size of a telephone pole in seven to eight years.
After five to six years of growth, I felled these and buried the trunks and tops in trenches within the orchard. Saplings do not take well, so it is better to plant the seed directly. All one has to do is scatter seed here and there throughout the orchard and, in six years or so, it becomes hard to tell from a distance whether one is looking at a citrus grove or a forest.
Along with growing cover crops, I started early on to dig trenches and fill them with organic matter to speed up the process of soil enrichment. I tried using a variety of organic materials such as straw, hay, twigs and small branches, ferns, wood and bark chips, and lumber. After comparing the results, I found that hay, straw, and ferns, which I would have expected to be the least expensive, were in fact quite costly, while wood chips were not. The only problem was hauling this material in. As it turned out, the best material was lumber, which was relatively inexpensive, but this too was at times difficult to carry in. That is when I first decided to produce lumber right there in my orchard. Figuring that the easiest and most beneficial way was to return to the orchard what had
been grown there, I tried planting various types of trees and found the black wattle to be the best for the purpose.
Five or six years after planting acacias, an area of more than 100 square yards of what had been hard, lean soil about each tree had become soft and porous. This was far easier than blasting with dynamite and burying organic matter, and much more effective. In addition, when cut, each tree gave as much as a half-ton of high-quality organic material for burying. It was hard to feel enthusiastic about digging trenches when there was nothing to bury in them, but with organic material on hand, the trenches got dug.
**Black Wattle Protects Natural Predators:** I recommend the use of the black wattle even when replanting an old, rundown orchard. For example, in the case of a 40- to 50-year-old orchard, one could plant a large number of these acacia among the fruit trees and five or six years later fell all the fruit trees and acacias at once, then replant the entire orchard with three- to four-year saplings. Not only would this be a far better method of replenishing the soil than running a bulldozer through the orchard and replanting, it would also rejuvenate the land.
The black wattle grows constantly throughout the year, always sending out new shoots. These attract aphids and scales, which support a growing population of ladybugs. One important role of the black wattle then is to serve as a protective tree for beneficial insects. Planting five or so of these trees per quarter-acre keeps scales and mites down to a minimum. In addition to these acacias, other trees that support populations of beneficial insects will certainly be developed in the future.
**Some Basics on Setting Up a Ground Cover:** I would like to go into a bit more detail here on the actual procedure for building up the soil with cover crops.
Once sown, a cover crop of clover remains hardy for about six to seven years, after which growth gradually slows. Although good management can extend the life of a stand of clover, by about ten years after the original planting the crop has declined to the point where weeds begin to reemerge. These weeds include primarily vines and climbing herbs such as bindweed and kudzu, and perennials such as the various sorrels. What happens is that those herbs resistant to clover survive and reestablish themselves.
Thus, perhaps ten years after the clover crop has been planted, the orchard is again overrun with weeds, but this need not present a problem as long as the weeds do not interfere with farming operations. In fact, when one stops to think about it, the soil tends to become imbalanced when a stand of one type of plant is grown year after year on the same land; the emergence and succession of different weeds is more natural and more conducive to soil enrichment and development.
I have no intention of insisting on a cover of clover; a weed cover will probably do just as well. The only concern I would have is that the weed growth become so thick as to be hard to cut back when necessary. If this happens, then one should sow clover seed again or switch to a cover of vegetable plants.
What should or should not be used as a cover crop for soil improvement depends largely on local conditions. All plants emerge for a reason. A succession of different herbs takes place over the years as the soil becomes richer. By sowing vegetable seeds of the same family as the weeds growing in the orchard, vegetable plants can eventually be made to replace the weeds.
These vegetables are fitting food for the young people living on a natural diet in the huts in my orchard. Large, hardy vegetables can be grown simply by scattering the seeds of cruciferous vegetables in the fall, solanaceous vegetables in the spring, and leguminous vegetables in the early summer among the orchard weeds. I will come back to this later, but suffice it to say here that, in addition to being an effective means of controlling weeds, sowing vegetable seed among the weeds is also a powerful soil improvement technique.
One can understand the nature of the soil more quickly by examining the weeds growing in it than by examining the soil itself. Weeds solve the problems of both the soil and the weeds. All I did was apply this belief to the restoration of barren soil and the trees and earth of an orchard tended for many years by scientific methods. It has taken me over forty years and I admit it may not be much, but I have learned through natural farming how to naturally replenish the soil and what the natural form of a citrus tree is.
**Soil Management:** Soil improvement by natural farming takes a long time. Of course, with the large bulldozers around today, soil can be upgraded in a short time just by tearing everything up and throwing large amounts of coarse organic matter and organic fertilizer onto the land. Yet this requires tremendous outlays for equipment and materials.
Five to ten years are needed to build up six inches of topsoil through soil improvement by the cultivation of cover crops. To current economic perceptions, one disadvantage of natural farming methods is that they take too long. Perhaps these appear inferior in a world pressed for time, but if farmland were to be correctly understood as a legacy to be preserved for future generations, the general opinion of natural farming would improve. Land that grows fertile over time without plowing, weeding, or chemical fertilizers represents not only an accumulation of labor and capital, but an increase in intangibles as well.
Physical improvement and the application of human effort alone have only a temporary effect. Natural farming makes use of the forces of living organisms to physically and chemically improve the soil, a process that goes hand-in-hand with the overall process of fruit growing. The beneficial effects of this approach ultimately show up in the longer lifetime of the fruit trees, which is perhaps two to three times that of fruit trees grown by scientific methods.
This is because, like the chickens, hogs, and cattle raised on artificial feed in cramped batteries and pens, fruit trees grown in artificially prepared soil with artificial fertilizers are inevitably weak, becoming either dwarfs or leggy, and unable to live out their natural span of life.
Another reason has to do with the qualitative improvement in the soil. Obviously, scientific farming makes use of certain methods to improve poor soil. For example, if the soil is acidic, one applies lime or takes steps to prevent the excessive uptake of manganese or a deficiency in phosphates or magnesia. And if the soil is poorly aerated, root growth is poor, or insufficient zinc is present, a corrective is taken, such as replenishing the zinc. On the other hand, if the soil becomes alkaline, this leads again to a manganese and zinc deficiency. So even adjusting the soil acidity is no easy matter.
But there is far more to the quality of a soil than its acidity. An infinitude of factors and conditions—physical, chemical, biological—go into the overall assessment. Nor can
one justifiably call a soil healthy or diseased as there are no criteria by which to judge whether a handful of soil contains the right number of certain microbes, the right amount of organic matter, and the right percentage of water and air.
Because it is convenient and for no other reason, we compare the merits of soil obtained through scientific farming with the soil of a natural orchard by looking at the amount of tree growth, the quantity and quality of harvested fruit, and whether the trees bear a full crop every year or only in alternate years. Even under such criteria, my thirty years of natural farming compare favorably with scientific farming in every respect. In fact, such comparison leaves the strong impression that scientific farming is more labor intensive and less efficient than natural farming.
I did not apply lime or any type of micronutrient, and yet noted no deficiencies. At no time did this ever become a problem. The constant change in the conditions of the cover crop within the orchard showed only that the soil changes constantly and that the fruit trees growing within that soil adapt constantly to such changes.
**Disease and Insect Control**
In nature, trees are constantly attacked and parasitized by insects and disease, but the widely accepted belief that unless the grower sprays his trees they will succumb and die just does not hold under natural conditions. Crops are more susceptible to such attack because they have been artificially improved, reducing their innate resistance, and the environment in which they are grown is unnatural. If varieties of fruit trees closer to their natural ancestors are selected and grown properly, pesticides become unnecessary. But certain insects and diseases present special problems in some types of fruit trees. Table 4.12 shows the degree of resistance various types of fruit trees have to disease and insect pests.
Trees listed under “moderate” and “strong resistance” can be grown without the use of pesticides, provided some attention is given to a few specific diseases and pests. Clearly, the fruit grower should be thoroughly familiar with the characteristics and behavior of these important diseases and pests, and should take steps to prevent them from arising, such as selecting resistant varieties of trees.
Table 4.12 Resistance of fruit trees to pests and disease.
| Evergreen Fruit Trees | Major Pests | Control |
|-----------------------|-------------|---------|
| **Strong Resistance** | | |
| wax myrtle | | |
| kumquat | | |
| **Moderate Resistance** | | |
| loquat | long-horned beetles, weevils | handpick |
| Japanese summer orange | scale insects | bags over fruit, natural enemies |
| Iyo orange, shaddock | scale insects | natural enemies |
| **Weak Resistance** | | |
| Satsuma orange | scale insects, mites | natural enemies |
| sweet orange | long-horned beetles | handpick |
| Deciduous Fruit Trees | Major Diseases/Pests | Control |
|-----------------------|----------------------|---------|
| **Strong Resistance** | black spot | companion planting |
| plum, apricot, Chinese quince, Japanese apricot | | |
| fig | wasps | |
| akebia, Chinese gooseberry, wild grape | | |
| cherry | | |
| persimmon (astringent) | | |
| pomegranate, jujube, oleaster, currant | | |
| ginkgo, walnut | | |
| **Moderate Resistance** | tree borers | companion planting |
| nectarine | | |
| chestnut | tree borers | cleaning around tree |
| persimmon (sweet) | chestnut gall wasp | resistant variety |
| | persimmon fruit worm | cleaning around tree |
| **Weak Resistance** | tree borers | companion planting or bags over fruit |
| peach | | |
| apple | tree borers | companion planting |
| pear | rust | resistant variety |
| grape | scarab beetles | lure and kill |
Even so, the most difficult problem facing anyone growing fruits naturally will undoubtedly be the control of diseases and pests. There are a goodly number of fruit trees that can be grown without spraying. Although resistant types such as the peach, pear, grape, and Satsuma orange may not require the use of powerful pesticides, care must be taken with regard to certain pests. Let me give some of my observations regarding several of the most important.
*Arrowhead Scale*: Infestation of the Satsuma orange, Iyo orange, and shaddock by arrowhead scales has become so severe that an immediate stop to the spraying of citrus trees would be quite difficult, but damage by this pest can be overcome with natural predators and by correcting the form of the trees. Parasitic wasps and four or five different types of ladybugs emerged in my natural orchard. In areas where these feast in large number on the scales, I have not sprayed and yet the trees have escaped serious damage. But even when these natural enemies are present, places where branches
crisscross and are congested will sustain considerable damage unless the trees are pruned. No degree of spraying can succeed in effectively destroying arrowhead scales in trees with excessive branches and foliage.
Since the extent of disarray in the tree form and the degree of shade and sunlight have a large effect on the outbreak and persistence of scale infestation, I believe that the quickest and most effective solution is to protect the natural enemies that feed on this insect and to improve the microenvironment.
I find that spraying the trees with a machine oil emulsion in the winter or with a lime-sulfur mixture in the summer during the larval stage is effective. The latter application also destroys mites. There is no need to apply anything stronger than this. In fact, if you are not concerned about a minor loss in the tree’s appearance, then you can certainly do without any spraying at all.
**Mites:** Up until about twenty to thirty years ago, a mixture of lime and sulfur was regarded as effective against fruit mites, and so growers in Japan sprayed their fruit trees with this twice each summer. As a result, mites never were an important pest.
Then after World War II, orchardists started applying powerful organophosphate and organochlorine pesticides and were delighted that these destroyed all insect pests. But it was not long before many found that, no matter how often they sprayed, they were unable to prevent large outbreaks of mites from recurring.
Researchers offered a number of different explanations. Some said that the mites had developed a resistance to the pesticides, others that a different species of mite had emerged, and yet others that the outbreaks resulted from the disappearance of natural enemies. One new pesticide was developed after another, but this only aggravated the problems of pest control and pesticide pollution.
Instead of speculating on the causes for these outbreaks, I prefer to concentrate on the fact that mite infestation at one time was not a problem. Many types of mites exist and each emerges under different conditions, but we can be sure of one thing: cultivation in the total absence of mites throughout the year is just not possible. Our goal should be to hold the damage they cause to a minimum, not total extermination.
Although the chances were always there for the emergence of mites in nearby trees, in shelterbelts, and in weeds, one never saw major outbreaks that killed trees and grasses. The causes for the recent infestations and the extensive damage to fruit trees lie not in the mites themselves but in human actions.
Mites are even more sensitive to microclimatic changes in the tree than are scales. When black wattle is used as a windbreak or shade tree, depending on the amount of sunlight and breeze to which the tree is exposed, the number of mites and scales may drop dramatically or almost entirely vanish. Certainly part of the reason is that the black wattle, which produces tannin, excretes a substance that repels insects. But the most direct cause of such rapid changes in population are changes in the microclimate.
The interplanting of evergreen trees with deciduous trees is also an effective preventive measure against infestation by these pests.
Given that not even the most rudimentary studies have been done on the effects of sunlight, ventilation, temperature, and humidity on mite infestation, how totally reckless
it is then to try to control these with pesticides. What we have done is to spray potent pesticides without knowing anything about the relationships between the pesticides and the natural predators and beneficial fungi that feed on these mites. We have put the cart before the horse.
I do not expect this basic problem to be solved by the scientists. They are headed in some other direction with such plans as the development of new pesticides that destroy pests at minimal harm to beneficial insects.
If man had left the mite alone, it would never have become a major pest. I never had any problem with mites in the citrus trees in my orchard. Or if I did, the problem solved itself.
*Cottony-Cushion Scale:* At one time this was considered one of the three major citrus pests in Japan, but it disappeared naturally with the release more than forty years ago of the vedalia, a kind of ladybug. After the war, a serious outbreak of this pest occurred in many orchards with the spraying of organophosphate pesticides, and it became impossible to contain them. In my natural orchard, where I did not use strong pesticides, these continued as before to serve as the prey for several types of ladybugs, and so I saw almost no damage.
*Red Wax Scale:* This scale insect used to be another of the three major citrus pests and had to be destroyed by spraying a pine rosin mixture. In perhaps what was a stroke of good luck, at about the same time that applications of pine rosin compound were discontinued because of a wartime shortage of the rosin material, parasitic wasps emerged that preyed on this scale, making it no longer necessary to exterminate them.
But after the war, although the red wax scale was no longer much of a problem, farmers began to use a potent fluorine pesticide reputed to be effective against the scale. Severe outbreaks of the pest arose at once. Because this agent was highly toxic and even responsible for a number of local deaths, its use was later banned. Infestation by the scale declined almost immediately, demonstrating that the most intelligent way of controlling this particular pest is not to spray.
*Other Insect Pests:* There are an endless number of other fruit tree pests, such as aphids, tree borers, beetles that feed on grapevines, insects such as leaf rollers that attack leaves, and other insects such as springtails and grubs that feed on fruit. These become a problem in abandoned orchards in which no effort whatsoever is made to provide a good environment for the fruit trees or to improve their form. How much wiser it would be to keep the orchard clean and cope with insects while they overwinter in the larval stage. It is necessary, for example, to directly pick off and destroy the larvae of long-horned beetles that enter at the base of citrus and chestnut trees. These tend to attack weakened trees and trees in neglected orchards.
Now I would like to take a look at two pests of foreign origin that may become a problem in Japan.
*Mediterranean fruit fly and Codling Moth:* With the current “liberalization” of international fruit trade, we have recently been seeing unrestricted imports into Japan of oranges and grapefruit from Europe and Africa as well as apples from northern countries. It seems almost inevitable that with these fruit we shall soon see the entry of the
Mediterranean fruit fly and the codling moth, pests capable of becoming a far greater headache to the Japanese farmer than the fruit imports that he so fears.
The maggots of the medfly attack not only Japanese citrus trees, pears, peaches, apples, and melons, but also vegetables such as eggplants, tomatoes, and cucumbers—indeed, all major fruit and vegetable crops. The codling moth ravages apples, pears, and other fruit of the rose family. Extermination of these will be difficult if not impossible; once they have entered Japan, they may very well cause incredible damage. It is no exaggeration to say that one vital mission of plant quarantine operations at Japanese customs is to prevent the entry of these pests into Japan. That these operations have been successful thus far is a testimony to their thoroughness.
The importation of fruits and vegetables grown along the Mediterranean Coast in Europe and in Africa, and apples from Manchuria and other northern countries is strictly banned at customs to prevent the entry of these two pests. Until now, strict laws have been enforced forbidding the entry of even one of these fruits from these areas, but with the open and unrestricted importation of fruits likely in the future; the arrival of these pests on Japanese soil is almost inevitable. The consequences are certain to be far greater than a mere lightening in the duties of plant inspection officials.
The larval worms and maggots of these pests bury deep into the fruit where outside spraying and fumigation has no effect. The only possibility is physical measures such as cold storage, but these are not likely to be effective without damaging the quality of the fruit. The spread of these pests in Japanese fields and orchards will be a strong blow to Japanese farmers and become an immense burden.
I would simply like to warn that the free movement of fruit may satisfy the fleeting desires of people, but the price we will have to pay will be enormous. This is exactly what happened recently in the United States with the medfly.
**The Argument against Pruning**
Pruning is the most difficult of the skills practiced by fruit growers. Growers prune their fruit trees to shape them and adjust the vigor of the tree so as to maintain a balance between tree growth and setting of the fruit. Trees are also pruned to increase the yield and quality of harvested fruit and to facilitate orchard management and operations such as pesticide spraying, tillage, weeding, and fertilization.
*No Basic Method:* Although pruning is of utmost importance in fruit growing, no single basic method is practiced. In addition, it is often difficult to know how much pruning is enough. The grower usually has no choice but to switch back and forth among a variety of different pruning methods as the immediate circumstances seem to require. With all the local variance in methods and opinions, and perhaps also because of the many years of experience and experimentation that have been devoted to it, pruning has done more to confuse fruit growers than any other aspect of orcharding. One question that deserves to be asked then is whether pruning really is a necessary part of fruit growing in the first place. Let us examine the motives and reasoning that led farmers to start pruning.
If pruning is discontinued on a fruit tree, the form of the tree becomes confused, the primary scaffold branches entangle, and the foliage grows dense, complicating all
orchard management. Heavy spraying of pesticides becomes ineffective. As the tree grows older, the branches become ridiculously long, crossing with the branches of neighboring trees. Sunlight ceases to penetrate the canopy to the lower branches, which weaken as a result. Ventilation is poor, encouraging infestation by disease and insects. Dead and dying branches abound. Fruit ends up by forming only at the surface of the tree. It is quite possible that, having observed this occurring in their orchards, growers came to regard pruning as absolutely essential.
Another motive for pruning has to do with the reciprocal relationship between tree growth and fruit bearing effects. When tree growth is too vigorous, the tree bears little fruit; on the other hand, when a tree bears too much fruit, growth declines. Thus, in years when a poor crop is anticipated, one prunes to promote fruit setting and the bearing of high-quality fruit. But in years when a tree looks as if it will bear too heavily, then it must be pruned to increase vigor and growth. The grower has to constantly adjust tree growth and fruit formation to prevent the tree from growing into a tangled and disorderly shape and bearing a full crop only in alternate years. This certainly seems to justify the development of intricate and complicated pruning techniques.
But if, instead of being neglected or abandoned, the tree is left to grow in its natural form, this is altogether a different matter. Yet no one has ever really seen a totally natural fruit tree or given any thought as to what a natural fruit tree is. Nature is a world simple and close at hand, yet at the same time distant and inaccessible. Although man cannot know what a truly natural tree is, he can search for the shape of a tree that comes closest to its natural form.
When a tree is left to grow by itself under natural circumstances, how likely are its primary scaffold branches to crisscross and its smaller branches and foliage to crowd each other? Would it be reasonable to expect the tree to put out leaves and branches not touched by the sun? Would it seem normal for lower and inner branches to die back? For fruit to form only at the ends of branches? This is not the form that a natural tree takes, but one most commonly seen in trees that have been pruned haphazardly then abandoned.
Take a look at the pines and cedars that grow in natural forests. The trunks of these trees never branch or twist as long as they are not cut or harmed. The branches on the right and left sides of the tree do not run up against each other or cross. There are no dense lower branches that die back. Upper and lower branches do not grow so close that sunlight cannot reach some of the leaves. No matter how small the plant or large the tree, every leaf, every shoot and branch grows out from the stalk or trunk in an orderly and regular arrangement. No part of the plant is in disarray or confusion.
For instance, in a given plant, leaves always grow either alternately or oppositely. The direction and even the angle at which a leaf grows is always the same; never is there even the slightest deviation. If the angle between one leaf on a fruit tree branch and the next leaf is 72 degrees, then the next leaf and all the other leaves too will emerge at respective angles of 72 degrees. The arrangement of the leaves on a plant always and unerringly obeys a fixed law called phyllotaxy. Thus, the sixth leaf on the branches of peach, persimmon, mandarin orange, orange, and cherry trees is always located directly above the first leaf, and the eleventh leaf is always directly above the sixth leaf. When the distance along the branch between two consecutive buds is one inch, then the distance
from one leaf to the next leaf directly above it is always five inches. Two leaves will not overlap, or two branches emerge, within any five-inch length along the branch.
The direction, angle, and divergence of a shoot or branch is regular and orderly. Never does one branch cross over another; lower and upper branches maintain the same distance over their entire length, never overlapping. This is why the branches and leaves of natural plants all receive equal ventilation and sunlight. Not a single wasted leaf, not a single branch lacking—that is the true form of a plant.
All this is abundantly clear when one looks carefully at a mountain pine. The central trunk rises straight and true, putting out branches at equal vertical spacings in a radial arrangement. One can clearly make out the chronology of branch emergence, the spacing and angle of the branches being also regular and orderly. Never does one branch grow too long or cross with another branch.
In the case of bamboo, the emergence of a branch or leaf follows a fixed law for that type of bamboo. Likewise, cryptomeria, Japanese cypress, the camphor tree, camellia, Japanese maple, and all other trees observe the phyllotaxy and divergence specific for that species.
What happens if we simply let fruit trees and mountain pines grow to their full size under natural conditions? The very goal at which the gardener or fruit grower aims through pruning is attained naturally by the tree without the intertwining, clustering, or dying back of branches. Had the persimmon, the peach, and the citrus tree been left to grow of their own accord, it would never have been necessary to cut the trunk with a saw or lop off branches to control erratic growth.
Just as no one is so foolish as to strike his left hand with his right, no persimmon or chestnut tree has branches on the right that compete with those on the left and eventually have to be cut back because they grow too long. A branch on the east side of the tree does not wander over to the south side, cutting off light. And what tree grows inner branches only to have them die off because they receive no light? There is something strange about having to prune a tree in order for it to bear a full crop of fruit each year, or having to balance growth of the tree with fruit formation.
A pine tree produces pine cones, but if someone were to prune the pine to promote growth or retard fruit formation, the result would be quite curious. A pine tree grows just fine under natural conditions and requires no pruning. In the same way, if a fruit tree is grown under natural conditions right from the start, there should never be any need for pruning.
**Misconceptions about the Natural Form:** Orchardists have never tried growing fruit trees in their natural form. To begin with, most have never even given any thought as to what the natural form is. Of course, pomologists will deny this, saying that they are working with the natural form of fruit trees and looking for ways to improve on this. But it is clear that they have not really looked in earnest at the natural form. Not a single book or report has been published which discusses pruning based on such basic factors as the phyllotaxy of a citrus tree, or which explains that a divergence of so much gives such-and-such a natural form with primary and secondary scaffold branch angles of X degrees.
Many have a vague idea of the natural form as something akin to the shape of a neglected tree. But there is a world of difference between the two. In a sense, the true
natural form of a tree may be unknowable to man. People will say that a pine tree should look like this, and a cypress or cedar like that, but knowing the true form of a pine tree is not all that easy. It is all too common for people to ask whether a low, twisted pine on the seashore is the natural form, and to become perplexed as to whether a lone cryptomeria standing tall in a meadow with alternate branches drooping downward in all directions is the natural form for this tree or whether the branches should be inclined upward at an angle of 50 degrees and ranged radially about the trunk like a mountain pine.
Like the camphor tree transplanted into a garden, the flowering camellia buffeted by high winds on an exposed coast, the Japanese maple perched above a waterfall, and other trees scratched, pecked, and attacked by bird, beast, and insect, plants grow under an incredible diversity of conditions. And so it is with fruit trees. To go off in pursuit of *the* natural form of the peach tree, or the citrus tree, or the grapevine is to miss the point altogether.
Scientists say that the natural form of a citrus tree is hemispherical with several primary scaffold branches extending out like the ribs of a fan at an angle of from 40 to 70 degrees, but in truth no one knows whether the true form of a citrus tree is that of a large, upright tree or a low bush. It is not known whether this grows like a cryptomeria with one tall central trunk, in the manner of a camellia or Japanese maple, or round like paperbush. Persimmon, chestnut, apple, and grape too are pruned by growers who have not the slightest idea of what the natural forms for these are.
Fruit growers have never really been too concerned with the natural form of a tree and are not likely to become so in the future. This is not without reason.
In a system of cultivation based largely on activities such as weeding, tillage, fertilization, and disease and pest control, the ideal form of a tree is the form best suited to these various human operations and to harvesting. Thus it is not the natural form that gardeners and growers seek, but a shape artificially pruned and trained to the convenience and benefit of the grower. But is it really in the best interests of the farmer to rashly prune his trees without having any idea of what the natural form is or the slightest inkling of the powers and subtlety of nature?
Fruit growers have more or less decided that, if one considers such operations as harvesting of the fruit, pesticide spraying, and fumigation, the ideal form of citrus trees grown in a hillside orchard is a round, flat-topped shape measuring at most about 9 feet high and 14 feet in diameter. To improve fruit production, the grower also thins the trees and does some cutting back here and there with the pruning shears. Deciding that a grapevine should be trained on a single main trunk or on a trunk and two laterals, he prunes all other branches. He takes a saw to the leader on a peach sapling, saying that a “natural” open-center shape with a scaffold of three strong branches is best. In pear trees, the two or three main branches are set at angles of 40 or 50 degrees or drawn out horizontally, and all the other smaller branches pruned during the winter. A modified leader system is said to be best for persimmon trees, so leader growth is checked by nipping the tip, and many branches either cut back or removed altogether.
*Is Pruning Really Necessary?*: I would like to turn back now and look at why pruning is necessary, why growers must remove so many branches and leaves. We are told that pruning is essential because lower branches get in the way during tillage, weeding, and fertilization, but what happens when we eliminate the operations of weeding and tillage?
We no longer have to worry about the convenience of the tree shape for any operations other than fruit-picking. Pruning has always been just something that fruit growers felt they had to do to bring the shape of the tree in line with the form they visualized as ideal for all other orchard operations.
Pruning is necessary for another reason as well. Like the transplanted mountain pine to the top of which the gardener takes his shears, once pruned, a tree cannot be left untended. The branches of a tree growing naturally never cross or entangle, but once even the smallest part of a new shoot is damaged, that wound becomes a source of confusion that follows the tree for life.
As long as the shoots on a tree emerge in an orderly fashion according to the natural law for that species, guarding the correct angle front and back, left and right, there is no crossing or entangling of the branches. But if the tip of just one of these branches is pinched off, several adventitious buds emerge from the wound and grow into branches. These superfluous branches crowd and become entangled with other branches, bending, twisting, and spreading confusion as they grow.
Because even lightly pinching new buds on a pine seedling totally alters the shape of the emerging branches, the young tree can be trained into a garden pine or even a bonsai. But although the first pruning can make a bonsai of a pine, once a bonsai, the pine can never be restored to a full-size tree.
The gardener prunes the young shoots of a pine planted in the garden and the second year several suckers grow out from each of these wounds. Again he cuts the tips of these and by about the third year, the branches of the pine become entangled and crooked, taking on an incredibly complex shape. Since this is precisely what gives it its value as a garden tree, the gardener delights in topping confusion with more confusion.
Once the pruning shears have been taken to the tree and branches emerge in complicated shapes, the tree can no longer be left alone. Unless it is carefully tended each year and each branch meticulously trained and pruned, the branches entangle, causing some to weaken and die. Seen from a distance, there may not seem to be much difference between a garden pine and a mountain pine, but on closer inspection one can see that the confused and complicated shape of the garden pine has been artificially modified to allow sunlight to fall on each branch and leaf, while the natural pine achieves the same goal without any help from man.
The question of whether a fruit tree should have a natural form or an artificial form is directly analogous to the question of which is preferable, a natural pine or a garden pine. A fruit tree sapling is first dug up and the roots trimmed, then the stem is cut back to a length of one or two feet and the sapling planted. This first pruning operation alone robs the tree of its natural form. The sapling begins to put out buds and suckers in a complex and confused manner that requires the fruit grower to be always at the ready with his pruning shears.
People will stand in front of a citrus tree and, saying that these branches here are growing so closely that they are shutting off sunlight, casually make a few quick cuts with the shears. But they never stop to consider the enormous impact this has on the tree. Because of this single pruning, the grower will have to continue pruning the tree for the rest of its lifetime.
Just by nipping one bud at the tip of a sapling, what should have grown into a straight pine with one trunk develops instead into a complex tree with several leaders; a persimmon comes to resemble a chestnut and a chestnut takes on the form of a peach tree. If the branches of a pear tree are made to crawl along a netlike trellis seven feet off the ground, then pruning is absolutely indispensable. But if the tree is allowed to grow up straight and tall like a cedar, initial pruning is no longer necessary. Grapevines are grown over metal wires, but they can also be grown upright like a willow tree with pendant branches. How the first leader is trained determines the shape of the vine and the method of pruning.
Even slight training of the branches or pruning when the tree is young has an enormous effect on the later growth and shape. When left to grow naturally from the start, little pruning will be needed later on, but if the natural shape of the tree is altered, a great deal of intricate pruning becomes necessary. Training the branches at the start into a shape close to the natural form of the tree will make the pruning shears unnecessary.
If you draw a mental picture of the natural form of a tree and make every effort to protect the tree from the local environment, then it will thrive, putting out good fruit year after year. Pruning only creates a need for more pruning, but if the grower realizes that trees not in need of pruning also exist in this world and is determined to grow such trees, they will bear fruit without pruning. How much wiser and easier it is to limit oneself to minimal corrective pruning aimed only at bringing the tree closer to its natural form rather than practicing a method of fruit growing that requires extensive pruning each and every year.
**The Natural Form of a Fruit Tree**
The art of pruning fruit trees is the most advanced skill in orcharding, and is even said to separate the good farmer from the bad. Although I have, as I advocated in the preceding section, grown fruit trees without pruning, I found this very difficult going at first because I did not know what the natural forms of the different types of fruit trees were. To learn of these forms, I began observing various plants and fruit trees.
The natural forms shown from time to time in journals on fruit growing are not at all what they are made out to be. These are just abandoned trees of confused shape that have been left to grow untended after having been initially pruned and otherwise cared for. It was relatively easy to determine that the natural form of most deciduous fruit trees is a central leader system, but I had a lot of trouble determining the natural form of citrus trees, and especially the Satsuma orange.
I first tried applying the methods of natural farming to an established grove of Satsuma orange trees with a couple of hundred trees to the acre. Trees at the time were trimmed in the shape of a wineglass and the height held to about six or seven feet. Because I simply discontinued pruning, letting these trees grow untended, large numbers of scaffold branches and laterals grew out at once. Before I knew it, these began crisscrossing, doubling back, and growing in strange, twisted shapes. Places where the branches and leaves grew tangled became disease sites and drew insects. One dying branch caused other branches to wither and die. The confused shape of the tree resulted in irregular fruit formation. Fruit grew either too far apart or too close together and the tree
produced a full crop only every other year. After this experience, even I had to admit that abandoning the trees to their own devices was a sure path to ruin.
To correct these gross disorders I then tried the reverse: heavy pruning and thinning. I left only several of the rising suckers remaining. Yet, because four or five primary scaffold branches were still too many, there was too little space left between adjoining branches and there may also have been too many laterals. In any case, growth at the center of the trees was poor and the inner branches gradually withered, causing a sharp drop in fruit production in the interior portion of the trees. Well, this experience taught me that abandoning the trees was the wrong way to approach their natural form.
Following the end of the war, specialists began advocating a natural, open-centered system. This consisted of removing scaffold branches at the center of the tree, but leaving several scaffolds projecting outward at angles of about 42 degrees, with two or three laterals growing from each scaffold branch. Since abandoned wineglass-shaped trees on which the rising scaffold branches had been thinned closely resembled this natural open-centered form, I gave some thought to moving in this direction.
Yet my ultimate goal remained to practice natural farming and so the question I faced was how to make it possible not to prune. I thought that pruning would not be needed if the tree assumed its natural form. As I went from a wineglass shape to a neglected tree form to corrective pruning, I began to ask what shape was truly the natural form of the citrus tree. This led to my doubts about existing views.
The natural forms shown in illustrations in technical books and journals all showed hemispherical shapes with several scaffold branches meandering upwards. But my own unpleasant experiences had taught me all too clearly that these so-called natural forms were not true natural forms at all, but the shapes of abandoned trees. A natural tree does not die of its own accord. This is the result of some unnatural element. For reasons I will get into later, in my search for the natural form, I was to sacrifice another 400 citrus trees—about half of those in my care.
If a tree dies when left unpruned, this can be explained scientifically as the result of overcrowding between adjoining scaffold branches and laterals, which implies a need to know the proper spacing of these branches. These spacings can eventually be determined—or so it is thought—through experimentation and the application of human knowledge, and the proper number of inches calculated for given conditions. But never do we get a definitive spacing that is okay for all situations. A different result is obtained for wineglass-shaped trees, for trees with natural open-centered shapes, and for every other shape. The conclusion that each has its merits and demerits leaves the door open to continuous change with each passing age. This is the way of scientific agriculture.
If one takes the viewpoint of natural farming, however, there is no reason why the branches and foliage of trees having a natural form should ever become tangled and wither. If the tree has a natural form, then there should be no need for research on the desirable number of scaffold branches, the number and angle of the lateral branches, and the proper spacing between adjoining branches. Nature knows the answers and can take care of these matters quite well by itself.
Everything is resolved then if we let the tree adopt its natural form through natural farming. The only problem that remains is how to induce the tree to grow in its natural
form. Simply abandoning it leads only to failure. Before being abandoned, my citrus trees had been trained and pruned into a wineglass shape. The trees had an unnatural form from the moment they were transplanted as saplings. This is why, when left unpruned, they did not return to a natural form but became instead increasingly deformed.
Obviously, the proper way to grow a citrus tree having a natural form would be to plant the seed directly in the orchard. But the seed itself, if I may press the point, is no longer truly natural. This is the product of extensive cross-breeding between different varieties of artificially cultivated citrus trees; if allowed to grow to maturity, the tree either reverts to an ancestral form or produces inferior hybrid fruit. Direct planting of the seed, therefore, is not a practical option for fruit production. Yet this is very helpful in gaining an idea of the natural form of the citrus tree.
I planted citrus seed and observed the trees growing from these. At the same time, I allowed a large number of various types of citrus trees to go unpruned. From these results, I was able to divine with considerable certainty the natural form of a citrus tree.
When I reported my findings at a meeting of the Ehime Prefectural Fruit Growers Association, stating that the natural form of the citrus tree is not what it had been thought to be, but a central leader type form, this created a stir among several specialists present, but was laughed off as just so much nonsense by the farmers.
The natural form of a citrus tree is constant and unchanging in natural farming and permits pruning to be dispensed with. Whatever new pruning techniques may arise in the future, knowing the true natural form of citrus and other fruit trees and how to train a tree to its natural form can never be a disadvantage.
For example, even when performing surgery on a tree in a mechanized orchard, it makes more sense to work on a tree trained on a single stem than to allow the tree to grow as much as it can and later cut it with a saw. The closer the form of the tree to nature, the more reasonable on all counts. When for purely human reasons there is absolutely no alternative, then the wisest choice is to adopt a form that is basically natural but makes some compromises.
The very first thing that one must do when preparing to grow a type of fruit tree by the methods of natural farming is to know the natural form for that fruit tree. In the case of Satsuma orange trees, the scaffold branches do not grow all that straight because the tree is not very vigorous. As a result, there is a great deal of individual variation between the trees, making it most difficult to discern the natural form. Few trees are as sensitive as these in the way they take on myriad different forms upon the slightest human tampering or injury. To determine the natural form of citrus trees, I chose to look at a cross-section of hardier and more vigorous citrus varieties than the Satsuma orange. The summer orange and the shaddock were especially useful in this regard. Both are clearly of the central leader type.
To determine the natural forms of persimmon, chestnut, pear, peach, and other trees, it was necessary to look at these from a broad perspective. Of course, each is grown in many different forms, but all are basically central leader type trees. Their differences in form arise primarily from the differing number, angle, and directions of the scaffold branches that grow from the central leader. In form, they resemble forest trees such as the cryptomeria, Japanese cypress, pine, and live oak. People have merely been misled by the
various forms that these fruit trees have taken after being disturbed by their environment and human intervention.
**Examples of Natural Forms:**
- early-ripening Satsuma orange low, pyramidal form
- late-ripening Satsuma orange tallish, cypress-like conical form
- summer orange, shaddock, persimmon, chestnut, pear, apple, loquat tall, cedar-like conical form
**Attaining the Natural Form:** The shaddock and summer orange tend to have an upright central trunk and a height greater than the spread. These can even resemble a cedar in aspect, whereas the Satsuma orange generally has an irregularly flattened or hemispherical shape. This basic central leader type conical shape can occur in an essentially infinite number of variations depending on the type of tree and the cultivation conditions. The fact that few mandarin orange trees grown in their natural form take on a central leader type form, but adopt instead various modifications indicates that these trees have weak terminal bud dominance and tend to develop an open crown. They are frutescent, having several scaffold branches extending with equal vigor that produce a confused form. It is clear then that while many types of trees do fully retain their innate character, other trees have natural forms that are easily upset during cultivation.
Natural Form in Fruit Tree Cultivation: I adopt the natural form of a tree as the model for the basic tree shape in citrus cultivation. Even when something causes a tree to
take on a shape that deviates from the natural form or adapts to the local environment, any pruning and training done should attempt to return the tree to its natural form. There are several reasons for this.
1. The natural form permits tree growth and development best suited to the cultivation conditions and environment. No branch or leaf is wasted. This form enables maximum growth and maximum exposure to sunlight, resulting in maximum yields. On the other hand, an unnatural form created artificially upsets the innate efficiency of the tree. This reduces the tree’s natural powers and commits the grower to unending labors.
2. The natural form consists of an erect central trunk, causing little entanglement with neighboring trees or crowding of branches and foliage. The amount of pruning required gradually decreases and little disease or pest damage arises, necessitating only a minimum of care. However, in natural open-center systems formed by thinning the scaffold branches growing at the center of the tree, the remaining scaffold branches open up at the top of the tree and soon entangle with adjacent trees. In addition, secondary scaffold branches and laterals growing from several primary scaffold branches oriented at unnatural angles (such as in three-stem systems) also crisscross and entangle. This increases the amount of pruning that has to be done after the tree has matured.
3. In conical central leader type systems, oblique sunlight penetrates into the interior of the tree, whereas in open-center systems, the crown of the tree extends outward in the shape of an inverse triangle that reduces the penetration of sunlight to the base and interior of the tree, inviting the withering of branches and attack by disease and pests. Thus, expanding the shape of the tree results in lower rather than higher yields.
4. The natural form provides the best distribution and supply of nutrients to the scaffold branches and laterals. In addition, the external shape is balanced and a good harmony exists between tree growth and fruit production, giving a full fruit harvest each year.
5. The root system of a tree having a natural form closely resembles the shape of the aboveground portion of the tree. A deep root system makes for a healthy tree resistant to external conditions.
Problems with the Natural Form: Although having many advantages, the natural form is not without its share of problems in fruit growing.
1. The natural forms of young grapevines and persimmon, pear, and apple trees have low branch, leaf, and fruit densities, and thus produce small yields. This can be resolved by discreet pruning to increase the density of fruit and branch formation.
2. Fruit trees with a central leader system grow to a good height and may be expected to pose climbing problems when it comes time to pick the fruit. While this is true when the tree is still young, as it matures, scaffold branches grow out from the leader at an angle of about 20 degrees to the horizontal in a regular, spiraling arrangement that make it easier to climb. In tall trees such as persimmon, pear, apple, and loquat, this forms a framework that can be climbed much like a spiral stairway.
3. Creating a pure natural form is not easy, and the tree may deviate from this if adequate attention is not given to protective management at the seedling stage. This can be corrected in part by giving the tree a modified central leader form. To achieve an ideal natural form, the tree must be grown directly from seed or a rootstock tree grown in a planting bed and field-grafted.
4. Enabling the seedling to put out a vigorous, upright leader is the key to successfully achieving a natural form. The grower must observe where and at what angle primary and secondary scaffold branches emerge, and remove any unnatural branches. Normally, after five or six years, when the saplings have reached six to ten feet in height, there should be perhaps five or six secondary scaffold branches extending out in a spiral pattern at intervals of about six to twelve inches such that the sixth secondary scaffold branch overlaps vertically with the first. Primary scaffold branches should emerge from the central trunk at an angle of 40 degrees with the horizontal and extend outward at an angle of about 20 degrees. Once the basic shape of the tree is set, the need for training and pruning diminishes.
5. The tree may depart from a natural form and take on an open-center form if the central leader becomes inclined, the tip of the leader is weak, or the tree sustains an injury. There should be no problem though, as long as the grower keeps a mental image of a pure natural form and prunes and trains the tree to approach as closely as possible to that form. A tree that has become fully shaped while young will not need heavy pruning when mature. However, if left to grow untended when young, the tree may require considerable thinning and pruning each year and may even need major surgical reconstruction when fully grown. Considering the many years of toil and the losses that may otherwise ensue, it is certainly preferable to choose to do some formative pruning early on.
Armed with confidence in my understanding of the natural form of these fruit trees, I saw clearly the basic approach I had to take in fruit cultivation. Later, when I extended my orchard by planting a new slope with fruit trees, I began with the goal of achieving this natural form in all the trees. But because this involved planting several thousand additional trees almost single-handedly, I was unable to establish the natural form I had intended. Still, these were closer to the natural form than the previous trees and thus required far less pruning. In fact, I managed to get by with almost no pruning at all.
Here then are the greatest merits of using the natural form in fruit growing.
1. Attaining the natural form through early formative pruning minimizes waste and labor on all counts, and enables high fruit production.
2. A deep-rooted tree adapted to the local environment, in which there is a good balance between the aboveground portion of the tree and the root system, grows rapidly, is healthy, cold-hardy, frost and drought resistant, and stands up well to natural disasters.
3. The absence of unnecessary branches minimizes the amount of pruning. Good light penetration and ventilation reduce the possibilities of bearing a full crop only in alternate years and of attack by disease or insects.
4. Should the form of the tree have to be changed to adapt to local topography or mechanized practices, pruning back can be done smoothly and without undue difficulty.
5. The pruning techniques used in fruit growing tend to change with the times, but the natural form of a tree remains always the same. Use of the natural form is the best approach possible for stable, labor-saving, high-yield fruit cultivation. Success is especially easy with trees such as the persimmon, chestnut, apple, pear, and loquat, which can readily be trained to a natural form. Considerable success can also be had with vines such as the Chinese gooseberry and grape.
**Conclusion**
Fruit growing today relies heavily on practices such as weeding, tillage, fertilization, and pruning. I have described above the basics of an alternative way of orcharding, a natural method founded on a return to nature that allows a young sapling to grow into a tree with a close-to-natural form. Weeding is not used; instead, the living orchard soil is preserved and actively enriched. The fruit trees grow up sturdy and healthy without fertilizers, orderly and beautiful without pruning. These principles of no weeding, no fertilization, and no pruning cannot be achieved independently; they are closely and inextricably tied to each other.
Soil management techniques such as green manure cultivation and sod cultivation that eliminate the necessity of weeding and tillage at the same time make fertilizer-free cultivation possible, but attempts to suddenly do away with fertilization or weeding are not likely to succeed.
With pest and disease control it is the same; the best method of control is no control at all. In principle, disease and pest damage do not exist. If a fanning system without weeding, fertilization, or pruning is established, crop damage by diseases and pests will gradually decline.
One reads in the news these days of how rangers are spraying mountain forests with fertilizers and herbicides to stimulate growth, but this is likely to have the undesirable effect of inducing disease and pest damage, thus necessitating even more complex spraying and fertilization operations. Plants grown without fertilizers in rich soil have strong, healthy roots and tops that are resistant to disease. Weeding, fertilization, and pruning confuse the soil and the tree, and reduce its disease resistance. The result is poor ventilation, branches and leaves not reached by sunlight, and infestation by disease microbes and insects. It is this that has created a need for disease and pest control. Today, by spraying their orchards with pesti-cides, fruit growers increase disease and pest damage; by pruning, they create strange, misshapen trees; and by applying fertilizer, they promote nutrient deficiencies.
Whether man will decide ultimately in favor of scientific farming or of natural farming will depend entirely on what it is that he seeks.
4. Vegetables
Natural Rotation of Vegetables
Ideally, crops should be left in nature’s care and allowed to grow in an almost natural state rather than being grown under artificial conditions by man solely for his own purposes. Crops know where, when, and how to grow. By sowing a mixture of many field crops, allowing them to grow naturally, and observing which thrive and which do not, one finds that, when grown in the hands of nature, crops superior to what would normally be imagined can be obtained.
For instance, when the seeds of different grains and vegetables are mixed together and scattered over growing weeds and clover, some vanish and some survive. A few even flourish. These crops flower and set seed. The seed drops to the ground and is buried in the soil where the seed casing decomposes and the seed germinates. The seedling grows, competing with or being assisted by other plants. This process of growth is an amazing natural drama that appears at first disordered, but is eminently rational and orderly. There is much to be learned from the wondrous hand of nature.
Although this method of mixed, semi-wild cultivation may appear reckless at first, it more than suffices for the small family garden or for vegetable gardening on barren land by those who seek to live self-sufficiently.
However, for permanent cultivation on large acreages, this type of natural cultivation must be carried a step further. Systematic rotation schemes must be set up and cultivation planned and carried out in accordance with these. The natural crop rotation diagrams in Figs. 4.2 and 4.3 at the beginning of this chapter are intended to serve as a guide. The basic aim of such a system, which borrows some ideas from natural cropping, is to permanently preserve nature. But of course, it falls short of nature and must be complemented by whatever means and resources are called for under the circumstances.
The rotations in these diagrams provide for soil enrichment with leguminous green manure plants, the replenishment of organic materials with gramineous plants, deep working and conditioning of the soil with root vegetables, and reduced disease and pest damage as well as cooperative effects through the segregation of key vegetables of the Potato, Gourd, and Mustard families, and also the intermittent mixed planting of vegetables and herbs of the Lily, Mint, Carrot, and Composite families. This I have made the basis for a natural rotation system.
Although not all of the rotation schemes in the diagrams are ideal from the standpoint of nature, they are designed to move away from existing short-term rotation schemes that primarily benefit man and toward systems that benefit the earth. Their ultimate aim is to do away with tilling, fertilizers, pesticide application, and weeding.
No tilling: This consists typically of ridging the field at intervals of 3 to 6 feet or digging drainage channels every 13 to 16 feet the first year, then either not plowing the next year or, at most, shallow plowing followed by seeding and rotary tillage.
No fertilizer: Leguminous green manure is grown as a basic crop each year and a mixture of coated crop seeds sown. If direct sowing is not possible, seedlings are transplanted. In addition, the land is enriched without plowing or tilling by planting root crops throughout.
No weeding: The second crop is either seeded over the maturing first crop or transplanted prior to harvest so as to minimize the period during which the field is left fallow. The straw and leaves from the crops just harvested are used as a mulch to retard weed emergence while the second crop in the rotation is still very young.
No pesticides: Of course, one can also make use of plants that prevent or inhibit the emergence of diseases and insect pests, but true non-control can be achieved when all types of insects and microorganisms are present.
An effective natural-crop rotation scheme therefore allows plants of all kinds to coexist, enables the soil to enrich itself, and provides soil microbes with a good environment in which to thrive.
Semi-Wild Cultivation of Vegetables
Producing and shipping naturally grown vegetables out to market for sale as natural food is far from easy. Problems exist both with the producer and with the market and consumer. However, as long as the farmer adheres closely to the natural vegetable rotation scheme and pays attention to the following points, productivity will be high.
A Natural Way of Growing Garden Vegetables: Vegetables grown for home consumption are most likely to be raised either for a five-or six-member family on a small plot of perhaps 100 square yards next to the house, or in a larger field. When grown in a small garden plot, all that is involved is growing the right crop at the right time in rich soil built up by the addition of manure and other organic matter.
Some people have reservations about applying animal manure and human wastes to the land, but the reply to this is very simple and clear. Life in nature is a continuous cycle between animals (man and livestock), plants, and microorganisms. Animals live by feeding on plants. The wastes excreted daily by these animals, and their bodies when they collapse and die, are buried in the soil where they become food for small animals and microorganisms in the soil—the process of rotting and decomposition. The microorganisms that abound in the soil live and die, supplying growing plants with nutrients that are absorbed through the plant roots. All three—animals, plants, and microbes—are one; they prey on each other and they also coexist and mutually benefit each other. This is the natural scheme of things, the proper order of nature.
Only man—a creature of nature—can be called a heretic. If he is to be regarded as unclean, then perhaps he should be removed outside of the natural order. But in all seriousness, man, as a mammal, and his wastes, as a part of normal nature, must be permitted to take part in the workings of nature. Primitive societies grew vegetables naturally next to their simple homes. Children played under fruit trees in the garden. Pigs came and poked at the stools left behind and rooted up the earth. A dog chased the pigs away and people scattered vegetable seed in the rich earth. The vegetables grew fresh and green, attracting insects. Fowl came and pecked at the insects, faying eggs that the children ate. This was still a common sight in farming villages throughout Japan until
about a generation ago. Not only was this way of living the closest to nature, it was also the least wasteful and most sensible.
To view such extensive vegetable gardening as primitive and irrational is to miss the point. Lately it has become popular to grow “clean” vegetables in greenhouses without soil. Plants are grown using gravel culture, sand culture, hydroponics, liquid nutrient culture, and by irrigating or spraying nutrient-containing water. People are making a big mistake if they intend in this way to grow “clean,” microbe-less vegetables free of insect damage without using animal or human wastes.
Nothing is less scientific and complete than vegetables grown artificially using chemical nutrients and sunlight filtered through glass or vinyl panels. Only those vegetables grown with the help of insects, microbes, and animals are truly clean.
*Scattering Seed on Unused Land:* What I mean by the “semi-wild” cultivation of vegetables is a method of simply scattering vegetable seed in fields, orchards, on earthen levees, or on any open, unused land. For most vegetables, mixed sowing with ladino clover gradually gives a vegetable garden with a cover of clover. The idea is to pick a good time during the sowing season and either scatter or drill a seed mixture of clover and many vegetables among the weeds. This will yield surprisingly large vegetables.
The best time to sow vegetables in the autumn is when weeds such as crabgrass, green foxtail, wheatgrass, and cogon have matured and started to fade, but before the winter weeds have begun to germinate. Spring-sown vegetables should be seeded in late March and April after the winter weeds have passed their prime but before the germination of summer weeds. Winter weeds include paddy weeds such as water foxtail and annual bluegrass, and field weeds such as chickweed, bog stitchwort, speedwell, common vetch, and hairy vetch. When vegetable and clover seed are scattered among the still-green weeds, these act as a mulching material in which the sown seeds germinate with the first rain. However, if not enough rain falls, the germinated seedlings may be done in by sunny, dry weather the next day. One trick here then is to sow the seed during the rainy season. Leguminous plants are especially prone to failure and unless they grow quickly risk being devoured by birds and insects.
Most vegetable seeds germinate quite easily and the young seedlings grow more vigorously than generally thought. If the seeds sprout before the weeds, the vegetables become established before the weeds and overwhelm them. Sowing a good quantity of fall vegetables such as *daikon*, turnip, and other crucifers will hold back the emergence of winter and spring weeds.
When left in the orchard until the following spring, however, these flower and age, becoming something of a nuisance in gardening work. If a few of these vegetables are left to grow here and there, they will flower and drop seed. Come June or July, the seeds will germinate, giving many first-generation hybrids close by the original plants. These hybrids are semi-wild vegetables that, in addition to having a taste and appearance quite different from that of the original vegetable, generally grow to absurdly large proportions: great big *daikon*, turnips too large for children to pull up, giant Chinese cabbages, crosses between black mustard and Indian mustard, Chinese mustard and Indian mustard,... a garden of surprises. As food, they are likely to overwhelm and many people may be hesitant about sampling them, but depending on how they are prepared, these vegetables can make for very flavorful and interesting eating..
In poor, shallow soil, growing *daikon* and turnips sometimes look as if they are ready to roll down the hill, and the only carrots and burdock that can be grown have a short, thick, sinewy root with many root hairs. But their strong, pungent flavor makes these the very best of vegetables. Once planted, hardy vegetables such as garlic, scallion, leek, homewort, dropwort, and shepherd’s-purse take hold and continue producing year after year.
Leguminous vegetables should be included in the seeds sown among the weeds in spring to early summer. Of these, vegetables such as asparagus bean, cowpea, and mung bean are especially good choices because they are inexpensive and high-yielding. Birds will feed on the seeds for garden peas, soybeans, adzuki beans, and kidney beans, so these must be encouraged to germinate very quickly. The best way to get around this is to sow the seed in clay pellets.
Weak vegetables such as tomatoes and eggplants tend to become overwhelmed at first by weeds. The safest way to grow these is to raise young plants from seed and transplant them into a cover of clover and weeds. Rather than training tomatoes and eggplants into single-stem plants, after transplantation they should be left alone and allowed to grow as bushes. If, instead of supporting the plant upright with a pole, the stem is allowed to creep along the ground, this will drop roots along its entire length from which many new stems will emerge and bear fruit.
As for potatoes, once these are planted in the orchard, they will grow each year from the same spot, crawling vigorously along the ground to lengths of five feet or more and never giving in to weeds. If just small potatoes are dug up for food and some tubers always left behind, there will never be any want of seed potatoes.
Members of the Gourd family such as bottle gourd and chayote may be grown on sloping land and allowed to climb up tree trunks. A single hill of overwintered chayote will spread out over a 100-square-yard area and bear 600 fruit. Cucumbers should be of varieties that trail well along the ground. The same is true for melons, squash, and watermelons. These latter have to be protected from weeds at the seedling stage, but once they get a little larger, they are strong crops. If there is nothing around for them to climb, scattering bamboo stalks with the tops remaining or even firewood will give the vines something to grasp onto and climb; this benefits both plant growth and fruit production.
Yam and sweet potato grow well at the foot of the orchard shelterbelt. These are especially enjoyable because the vines climb trees and produce fairly large tubers. I am currently growing sweet potato vines over the winter to achieve large harvests. If I am successful, this will mean that sweet potatoes can be grown also in cold climates.
With vegetables such as spinach, carrot, and burdock, seed germination is often a problem. A simple and effective solution is to coat the seeds with a mixture of clay and wood ashes or to sow them enclosed in clay pellets.
**Things to Watch Out For:** The method of semi-wild vegetable cultivation I have just described is intended primarily for use in orchards, on earthen levees, and on fallow fields or unused land. One must be prepared for the possibility of failure if the goal is large yields per unit area. Growing one type of vegetable in a field is unnatural and invites disease and pest attack. When vegetables are companion-planted and made to
grow together with weeds, damage becomes minimal and there is no need to spray pesticides.
Even where growth is poor, this can generally be improved by seeding clover together with the vegetables, and applying chicken droppings, manure, and well-rotted human waste. Areas unfavorable for vegetable growing are generally not conducive to weed growth, so a look at the types and amount of natural weed growth on the land can tell a lot about soil fertility and whether there are any major problems with the soil. Taking measures to bring about a natural solution to any problem may make it possible to produce a surprisingly rich growth of enormous vegetables. Semi-wild vegetables have a pungent aroma and good body. Because these have been produced in healthy soil containing all the necessary micronutrients, they are without question the most healthy and nutritious food man can eat.
By following the crop rotation systems described earlier and growing the right crop at the right time, it may even be possible to grow vegetables in a semi-wild state over a large area.
**Disease and Pest Resistance**
Vegetable gardening in Japan has traditionally consisted of intensive cultivation in small garden plots for home consumption. The main sources of fertilizer were chicken droppings, livestock manure, human wastes, ashes from the furnace, and kitchen scraps. Pesticides were rarely used, if ever. In fact, pesticide use on the scale we see today is really a very recent phenomenon. Recently, I came upon an old, dust-covered booklet I had written—and forgotten about—long ago while I was at the Kochi Prefecture Agricultural Testing Station during the war. It is entitled “Proposal for the Control of Disease and Pest Damage in Vegetables.”
I had written it as a practical manual for anyone intending to study disease and pest damage on their own. It contains reference tables on diseases and insect pests for different vegetables, and gives the most detailed possible descriptions of individual diseases and pests, the characteristics of pathogenic microbes, infection in plants, and the stages of development and behavior of insect pests. The methods of control I described in the booklet were all primitive and consisted almost exclusively of skillful trapping or some form of repulsion. There was almost nothing to write about insecticides. The agents most widely in use at the time were herbs such as pyrethrum, tobacco, and derris root. Aside from this, lead arsenate was used in a very minor amount. Bordeaux mixture was used as a universal remedy for bacterial and fungal diseases, and sulfur preparations saw occasional use against certain diseases and mites.
Now that I think of it, it was fortunate that there were no pesticides at the time, for this allowed farmers and agricultural technicians to learn the characteristics of crop diseases and pests, and concentrate on preventing damage by these through repulsion and sound farming practices. Today, with pesticides uniformly produced in massive quantities, growing vegetables without pesticides seems to many unthinkable, but I am convinced that by reviving the pest control measures of the not-so-distant past and practicing semi-wild cultivation, people can easily grow more than enough vegetables for their own consumption.
With the vast number of diseases and insect pests about, many farmers believe control to be impossible without proper expertise and pesticides. Yet, although from ten to twenty types of pests and diseases generally attack any one kind of vegetable, the only ones that are really major pests are cutworms, borers, leaf beetles, certain types of ladybugs, seed-corm maggots, and aphids. The others can generally be controlled by proper management.
Farmers a while back almost never used pesticides on vegetables in their kitchen gardens. All they did was to catch insects in the morning and evening on some gummy earth at the end of a piece of split bamboo. This worked well for caterpillars feeding on cabbage and other leaf vegetables, melon flies on the watermelon and cucumbers, and ladybugs on the eggplant and potatoes. Disease and pest damage to vegetables can usually be prevented by being familiar with the nature and features of such damage rather than attempts at control. Most problems can be taken care of by practicing a method of natural farming that gives some thought to what a healthy vegetable is. Because hardy varieties are used, the right crop is grown at the right time in healthy soil, and plants of the same type are not grown together. Companion-planting vegetables of many different types in place of weeds in an orchard or on idle land is an eminently reasonable method of cultivation.
As an additional precaution, T would also recommend that pyrethrum and derris root be planted at the edge of the garden. Tests were conducted on different varieties of derris root at the Kochi testing center before the war, and those varieties that are cold-hardy, suited to outdoor cultivation, and have a high content of the active ingredient were selected for use. Pyrethrum flowers and derris root may be dried and stored as powders. Pyrethrum is effective against aphids and caterpillars, while derris root works well against cabbage sawflies and leaf beetles. However these may be used against all insect pests, including melon flies, by dissolving the agent in water and sprinkling the solution onto the vegetable plants with a watering can. Both agents are harmless to man and garden vegetables.
While working in Kochi Prefecture, I remember seeing local chickens black as ravens strutting through a vegetable patch in a farmyard and deftly picking at insects without scratching the earth or harming the vegetables. Letting fowl loose in a vegetable patch can be one very effective way of keeping insect pests in check.
Try raising vegetables as the undergrowth in an orchard and letting native fowl loose in the orchard. The birds will feed on the insects and their droppings will nourish the fruit trees. This is one perfect example of natural farming at work.
**Resistances of Vegetables to Disease and Insects:**
**High Resistance (require no pesticides)**
Yam family: Chinese yam, Japanese yam
Arum family: tare
Goosefoot family: spinach, chard, Chinese cabbage
Carrot family: carrot, honewort, celery, parsley
Composite family: burdock, butterbur, lettuce, garland chrysanthemum
Mint family: perilla, Japanese mint
Ginseng family: udo, ginseng, Japanese angelica tree
Ginger family: ginger, Japanese ginger
Morning-glory family: sweet potato
Lily family: Chinese leek, garlic, scallion, Nanking shallot, Welsh onion, onion, dogtooth violet, asparagus, lily, tulip
**Moderate Resistance (require little pesticides)**
Pea family: garden pea, broad bean, adzuki bean, soybean, peanut, kidney bean, asparagus bean, Egyptian kidney bean, sword bean
Mustard family: Chinese cabbage, cabbage, daikon, turnip, Indian mustard, rapeseed, leaf mustard, potherb mustard, sea-kale, black mustard
**Low Resistance (require pesticides)**
Gourd family: watermelon, cucumber, Oriental melon, pickling melon, squash, white gourd, chayote, bottle gourd
Potato family: tomato, eggplant, potato, red pepper, tobacco
*Minimal Use of Pesticides:* In principle, pesticides should not be used in natural farming. But at times there may be no alternative. The following chart is a simple guide for compounding pesticides and their proper and safe use.
5. THE ROAD MAN MUST FOLLOW
1. The Natural Order
Organisms of all manner and form inhabit the earth’s surface. Broadly divided into animals, plants, and microorganisms, they differ from each other but are united in a single community of organic interrelationships. Man characterizes these interrelationships either as a competitive struggle for dominance and survival or as cooperation and mutual benefit. From an absolute perspective, however, these are neither competitive nor cooperative, but one and the same.
All living things belong to an endless food chain; all live by feeding on something and die at the hand of something else. This is the proper order of living nature. Matter and energy on the earth’s surface are also in a constant state of flux, passing through continuous cycles without birth or death. Such is the true image of the universe.
Plants that grow on the earth are fed upon by bird and beast. Some of these animals become prey to other animals, while others eventually succumb to disease or age. Their
wastes and remains are broken down by microorganisms which in turn proliferate and die, returning to the earth nutrients that are taken up once more by plants,
Among the microorganisms there are the bacteria, fungi (including the true fungi and molds), slime molds, and yeasts. Predator-prey relationships exist between members of this vast group as well. There are fungi that wrap mycelia about their prey and kill it by dissolution, bacteria which secrete substances that kill fungi, bacteriophages that kill bacteria, and viruses that kill both bacteria and fungi. Some viruses kill other viruses. And there are viruses, bacteria, and fungi that parasitize and kill plants and animals.
The struggle for survival among animals is identical. There are spiders that kill the rice borers and leafhoppers which feed on rice, mites that kill the spiders, predaceous mites that feed on these mites, ladybugs that feed on predaceous mites, earwigs that feed on the ladybugs, cricket moles and centipedes that eat the eggs of earwigs, swallows that feed on centipedes, snakes that eat small birds, and kites and dogs that kill snakes.
Bacteria and viruses attack these birds, beasts, and insects. Amoebae and nematodes feed on the bacteria, and the remains of nematodes are fed on in turn by earthworms, which are relished by moles. Weasels feed on the moles, and microorganisms break down the carcass of the weasel, providing a nutrient source for plants. The plants are parasitized by various pathogens, fungi, and pests, and serve as food for animals and man. The natural ecosystem is therefore an incredibly complex array of interdependently linked organisms, none of which live separate from the rest, none of which simply die and are done with. This must not be seen as a world of intense competition for survival or of the strong eating the weak, but as a united family of many members that live together in a single harmony.
Fig. 5.1 Cycles of the natural world.
Witches'-broom (fungus)
Mistletoe (plant) (Natural enemies)
Pine caterpillars
Aphids
Ants
Beetles
Snails
Slugs
Matsutake
Mushrooms
Parasitic mites
Mites, small parasitic animals
Fungi
Fallen fruit
Strawberries
Orchids
Roots
Resin disease (fungus)
Leaf spot (bacteria)
Canker (fungus)
Rice blast disease (fungus)
Rice dwarf virus
Viruses
Fungi
Bacteria
Mayflies / Chalcid flies
(Swallows
Dragonflies
Horseflies
Spiders (Beneficial and harmful microbes)
Fungi
Bacteria
Viruses
Bacteria
Viruses
Chickens
Cattle
Straw
Starch and sugar
decomposing bacteria
Fibrin decomposing bacteria
Lignin decomposing bacteria
Fungi
Lipoid
decomposing bacteria
Mineral world
Bacteria
(Harmful microbes)
(Beneficial microbes)
Microbes as Scavengers
The farmer dreads nothing more than to be caught loafing and despised by others for he will be told; “Don’t think that you can live all by yourself. There are days of darkness too. When you die, you’ll need the services of four people.” However well we manage to get on without others in life, we always need four pallbearers at the funeral.
Actually, it takes more than four people to dispose of a corpse. Countless microbes and small animals in the soil are engaged in what could almost be called an assembly-line operation consisting of the dismantling, decomposition, rotting, and fermentation of the body. To completely return a corpse to the soil, billions upon billions of microorganisms appear one after another, making by turns the final service to a human being.
The days of man are filled with birth and death. A person’s cells live on in his children and grandchildren where they continue multiplying day after day. At the same time, the body gradually breaks down, growing old and infirm. After death, the corpse is decomposed as food by bacteria, so one’s ultimate form may be that of a microbial cell. And since the last to offer up incense to the departed soul are probably lactic acid bacteria, a person vanishes as a sweet, acrid aroma through lactic fermentation.
Thanks to the microbes that dispose of the remains of animals and plants, the earth’s surface is always clean and beautiful. If animals died and the carcasses just remained there without decomposing, a couple of days is all it would take to make the world an intolerable place to be. People look on casually at this activity by microbes and small animals, but there is no greater drama in our entire world.
No species of bird flying in the air should become extinct. The earthworms that burrow through the soil must not vanish. Nor should the mice and spiders proliferate too greatly. If one type of fungus thrives just a little too well, this throws everything out of balance. Tens of millions of species live on in perfect harmony without increase or decrease; they are born and they die unseen by man. The mastery of the conductor performing this drama of natural transformation at once casual and intense is truly something to behold. What can the mechanism be by which all the organisms of the world propagate in just measure—becoming neither too numerous nor too scarce? Such natural, self-governed providence is indeed a mystery.
But there is one who disrupts this natural order. It is man. Man is the sole heretic in the natural order. Only he acts as he pleases. Instead of burying his corpses in the earth, he douses them with heavy fuel oil and cremates them. Much is made of the sulfurous gases discharged from the crematorium chimney, but the polluting effects on other smaller animals and plants are surely greater than the effects on man. People think of cremation as fast, convenient, and hygienic because a corpse can be entirely disposed of in just two hours. But what about the fuel oil that is mined, transported, and burned in the crematorium furnace? If this and antipollution treatment of the stack gases are taken into account, cremation is neither fast nor clean. Perhaps simple burial or open burial in which the corpse is left exposed to the elements may seem primitive and inefficient to the shortsighted, but these are the most sensible and complete ways to dispose of a corpse.
Designs for the most advanced refuse processing plants are child’s play compared with the infinitely elaborate methods of treating garbage used by nature. Human society
almost has more than it can handle in just treating the garbage that issues from the kitchen, but nature works on a totally different scale-
It takes from twenty minutes to an hour for one bacterium or yeast to divide and become two, and the same amount of time for two to become four. Assuming multiplication to continue unchecked in the presence of food and suitable temperatures and humidity, after two or three days, a single bacterium such as *Escherichia coli* could leave a mass of progeny equivalent to the total mass of all living organisms on the face of the earth. This means that if the self-governing mechanisms by which nature regulates and controls the reproductive power of one type of bacteria were to cease operating for just several days, the earth would become a morass of bacterial remains. The ability of the earth’s organisms to multiply is far more powerful than people imagine. At the same time, their ability to destroy and dispose of organisms is also very great.
The balance between multiplication and destruction, the equilibrium between production and consumption, the fact that nature has seen to the growth and propagation of organisms and also to the treatment of their wastes and remains, carrying out both rapidly and harmoniously without the least hitch for untold thousands and millions of years, all this is of enormous consequence. It is here that one must turn for a just comparison of the powers of man with those of nature.
A look at how nature disposes of the carcass of an animal will show a method that is perfect in every sense—biologically, physically, and chemically. If man were to try the same thing himself, his method would be plagued with problems and would invariably create pollution in some form.
I would like to give one more example of just how amazing nature is when we take even a casual look at what transpires there. I remember searching once, while at the Kochi Prefecture Agricultural Testing Center, for a beneficial bacterium with which to prepare compost from straw and brush. I needed an organism capable of quickly decomposing straw and other coarse plant material. This was something like the beneficial bacteria scientists search for today to convert garbage and sludge into artificial manure for use as fertilizer.
I collected refuse from garbage sinkholes as well as cattle, hog, chicken, rabbit, and sheep droppings. From these, I isolated and cultured microorganisms, obtaining samples of many different bacteria, fungi, slime molds, and yeast. I was able in this way to collect a large number of microbes suited to preparing compost. I then inoculated samples of each of these into straw in test tubes or within concrete enclosures and observed the rotting rates.
Later, however, I realized that such an experiment was really quite worthless. To one concerned with how long things take, an investigation such as this may seem useful, but a closer look reveals that nature makes use of far better methods of treating garbage and preparing compost.
Rather than going to all the trouble of isolating beneficial microbes and inoculating straw with this “fermentation promoter,” all I had to do was scatter a handful of chicken droppings or clumps of soil over the straw. Not only was this the quickest way, it also gave the most completely rotted compost.
There is no call for making a lot of fuss over “microbial” and “enzymatic” farming methods. The following transformations take place on a rice straw casually dropped onto the earth.
The straw draws a lot of flies and other small insects that lay eggs from which maggots and other larva soon emerge. Before this happens, however, rice blast disease, leaf blotch, and rot-causing fungi already present on the rice leaves spread rapidly over the straw, but spider mites are soon crawling over this fungal growth. Next, different microbes begin to proliferate at once. The most common include yeasts, blue mold, bread mold, and trichoderma fungi, which destroy the pathogens and begin to decompose the straw. At this point, the number and types of organisms drawn to the straw increase. These include nematodes that feed on the fungi, bacteria that feed on the nematodes, mites that consume the bacteria, predaceous mites that feed on these mites, and also spiders, ground beetles, earwigs, mole crickets, and slugs. These and other organisms mingle and live in the straw, which undergoes a succession of “tenants” as it gradually decomposes.
Once the fibrin-decomposing fungi run out of food, they stop growing and are supplanted by lipoid- and lignin-decomposing bacteria which feed on the fungi and the scraps left over by the fungi. Before long, parasitism and cannibalism sets in among the aerobic bacteria, and these are gradually replaced by anaerobic bacteria. Lactic acid bacteria round off the process with lactic acid fermentation, at which point all trace of the straw disappears. This is just the briefest of looks at the total decomposition of a single piece of straw on the ground over a period of several days.
Microbiologists are well aware of how rapidly and perfectly the processes of decomposition and rotting break down garbage in the natural world. Yet man, believing that he has to make intensive use of beneficial microbes to speed up putrefaction or that he must raise the temperature to promote bacterial growth, prepares compost. He should stop and consider how worthless and undesirable such efforts are. Frankly, anything that he does just disturbs the rapid and perfect natural processes.
People must not forget, in looking at the rotting of a straw, at the fertilizer response, at soil improvement, and at all the other processes that take place in nature, that what man knows is only the most minute, infinitesimal part of the natural order. In addition to the very visible lead roles are an infinite number of supporting roles that perform important yet unknown functions. If man jumps onto center stage and begins giving out directions like a know-nothing director, the play will be ruined. When something goes wrong in nature, the biosystem changes course. Unlike in a factory where the damage may consist of only a broken gear, in nature a disruption gives rise to an unending series of repercussions.
**Pesticides in the Biosystem**
Plants and animals seem to live freely and without constraints of any sort, but in fact they belong to a close-knit order. Man casts stones into this order, the biggest of which are pesticides, fertilizers, and agricultural machinery. He goes ahead and uses pesticides, for example, because of their ability to destroy specific pests or pathogens, but is almost totally ignorant of the ripple effects pesticides have on the rest of the biological world.
Here, as a small example, is an incident that occurred locally. My village is noted for its Karakawa loquats. Once, as I was touring the village with officials from the local agricultural cooperative, we passed in front of a loquat orchard and I remember someone saying: “This year’s loquats have been hit again by the cold and aren’t blooming well at all. With this happening year after year, farmers are losing interest in growing loquats.” Finding this a bit hard to believe, I stopped the car and went in to check the orchard. I found most of the flower corollas rotted and noticed on these the spores of a botrytis fungus. Explaining that this was not cold-weather damage but a botrytis disease, I described how the problem could be taken care of by spraying and suggested two or three ways of doing so. The astonished head of the horticulture cooperative immediately got in touch with the local agricultural testing station and, with the whole village cooperating in a pesticide spraying program, the organism was soon brought under control.
The loquats gradually came back and everything appeared to look rosy again, but one question remained unanswered. Why had this outbreak occurred in the first place? My theory is that it was triggered by the sudden spraying of a whole series of new pesticides following the war in an attempt to control citrus diseases.
I cannot be absolutely certain as F did not run any laboratory experiments on this, but I believe the organism responsible to have been a botrytis fungus of as-yet undetermined identity. Either it belonged to the species *Botrytis cinerea*, which causes gray mold in citrus fruit, or was a variant of the same. Based on this supposition, the severe outbreak of gray mold may have been caused by the following:
1) Interplanting of citrus trees in loquat groves due to the boom in citrus production.
2) The rapid transition in local orchards from clear cultivation to mulching and sod cultivation, creating a soil surface environment of increased moisture ideal for the propagation of microbes.
3) Promotion of the practice of thinning fruit. Young fruit were dropped to the ground, and there colonized by the fungi.
4) Use of the Bordeaux mixture, which is effective against fungi, was discontinued and new pesticides used in its place.
This fungus is partially saprophytic and inflicts serious damage when present in large numbers. Causes for emergence are usually poor orchard sanitation, excess humidity, low tree vigor, and entanglement of the branches and foliage. Since, of these, the single largest factor is the microclimate in the orchard, the chief cause of the fungus outbreak was probably excess humidity. If this is the case, then I was partly to blame.
Immediately after the end of the war, I encouraged farmers, as part of a public campaign for eliminating widespread malnutrition, to sow clover in the citrus orchards and idle village land and to raise goats. This practice caught on quite well and in many cases resulted in sod orchards. The high humidity in these orchards may very well have been a cause for the proliferation of gray mold and rotting of the loquat blooms. If so, the farmers had sown the seeds of their own misfortune, but the one most responsible may have been me.
The matter does not end here. Having identified the problem as a botrytis disease and sprayed with strong pesticides such as zineb, organoarsenic, or organo-chlorine agents
and applied herbicides, farmers are now rejoicing that the disease has been brought under control, but do they really have cause for celebration?
The fungus remains dormant throughout the winter in the corollas of fallen flowers, following which the hyphae fuse to form a sclerotium about the size of a poppy seed. A small mushroom forms within this sclerotium and in the mushroom is formed an acospore, or spore-containing sac. This sac, which measures less than one millimeter across, contains eight tiny, genetically distinct spores. If the acospores of this fungus are octopolar, then it may be capable of producing more variants than even the tetrapolar *shiitake* fungus.
What I mean to show by all this is that, although new strains of advanced animals and plants do not arise easily, the chances of this happening in lower bacteria and fungi are very great and can lead to frightening consequences. Spraying pesticides with high residual toxicity and mutagenic chemicals onto easily mutated microbes is asking for trouble, for who knows what strange mutants may arise.
The result may very well be new pesticide-resistant pathogens and highly parasitic microbes. Another personal experience showed me just how possible this is. Because the resin disease fungus that attacks lemon and grapefruit trees grown in the United States and the fungus that attacks Satsuma oranges and summer oranges in Japan bear different scientific names, I thought they were different species, but when I tried crossing them, mycelial conjugation took place and acospores were formed. By crossing these eight spores in various ways, I was able to produce different strains.
**Leave Nature Alone**
People might object to new strains of pathogens, but to the scientist these are a source of great fascination. Conversely, there is no way of telling when something that is beneficial to man today may suddenly become harmful. Apart from the basic stance of not opposing nature, we have no absolute criteria for judging what is good or bad, what is an advantage and what a liability. Although the common rule is to make such judgments on a case-by-case basis under the imperatives of the moment, nothing could be more dangerous. As the use of new pesticides grew more widespread following the war, reports of major outbreaks of pesticide-resistant pathogens and pests *suddenly started appearing*. *Dozens of organisms were involved, including mites, leafhoppers, rice borers, and beetles.* Although one possible explanation is the selection and survival of organisms resistant to the pesticides, another possibility is that hardy organisms adapted to pesticides arose. Even more frightening is the distinct possibility that the use of pesticides may have triggered the emergence of ecospecies and mutants. Some scientists are concerned about the chances of a “retaliation” by insects, but I believe that much more is to be feared from bacteria, fungi, and viruses. New pesticides about which only the degree of toxicity in the human body is investigated, breeding experiments for the creation of new plant varieties through radiation…. Scientists believe they are wrestling in earnest with the problem of pollution when in fact they are just sowing the seeds for future pollution.
When the various plants in a field are doused with radiation, the scientists running such experiments give no thought to the changes these effects in the soil and airborne
microbes. As I watched a television program on such experiments not too long ago, I felt far greater concern over the microbial mutants and spores that could reasonably be expected to arise in such an irradiated field than admiration or expectations over what new and aberrant types of plants might result. Because microbes are invisible to the unaided eye, it is harder to tell whether any new and monstrous varieties have been created.
Monsters belong to the world of comics, but don’t they already exist in the microbial world? With the development of rockets and space shuttles, no scientist would guarantee that there is no danger of non-terrestrial microbes being brought to earth from the moon or other heavenly bodies. What is unknown is unknown. If an organism exists that cannot be detected by terrestrial methods of identification, then there is no way to quarantine it. Verification that an organism originated from a heavenly body is not likely to occur until it has flourished on the earth. How can man hope to correct the accidents in the biosphere that have begun happening about us and the abnormalities we are seeing in the natural cycles?
Although I have no way of knowing for certain, I suspect that what happened was that atmospheric pollution killed off the microbes which attack various botrytis fungi, and that this triggered the rotting of apple, loquat, and plum blossoms and a massive outbreak of gray mold on citrus fruit. The explosive increase in this mold led to a sudden rise in nematodes that feed on the mold, resulting in an abnormally large increase in the number of dead pine trees. This prolific gray mold was also responsible for the destruction of the *matsutake* fungus that lives parasitically at the roots of the pine trees.
The true cause may be unclear, but one thing is certain: an inauspicious change has overtaken the strongest form of life on the Japanese islands—the Japanese red pine, and the weakest form of life—the *matsutake* fungus.
Agriculture arose from human cravings over food. It was man’s desire for tasty and abundant food that was responsible for the development of agriculture. Farming methods have constantly had to adapt to changes in the human diet. Unless the diet is basically sound, agriculture too cannot be normal.
The Japanese diet has undergone rapid development recently, but has this really been for the good? The failure of modern agriculture has its roots in abnormal dietary practices and the low level of basic awareness people have regarding diet.
**What is Diet?**
The very first step that must be taken in setting the proper course for agriculture is to reexamine what “diet” represents. Correcting man’s eating habits by establishing a natural diet erects a foundation for natural farming.
Has man been correct in developing systems of agriculture based on his eating habits or was this a major error? Let us turn back to examine the driving forces behind the development of diet: the original cravings of man, the sense of starvation, the emotions which cry out that food is scarce, the will that seeks after plenty.
Primitive man fed himself on whatever he could find about him—vegetation, fish and shellfish, fowl and animals; everything served a purpose, nothing was useless. Most
natural products served either as food or as medicine. There was surely more than enough food to feed the entire human population of the earth.
The earth produced in abundance and food enough to satisfy everyone was always to be had. Had this been otherwise, man would not have emerged on the face of the earth. The smallest insects and birds are provided with more than enough food without having to cultivate and grow some for themselves. How odd then that only man laments over a want of food and frets over an imbalance in his diet. Why, under circumstances where the lowest of organisms thrived quite well, did only man become concerned over diet and feel compelled to develop and improve food production?
Animals are born with an instinctive ability to distinguish between what they can and cannot eat, and so are able to partake fully of nature’s plentiful stores. In man, however, the stage of infancy during which he feeds instinctively is short. Once he starts to become familiar with his surroundings, he makes judgments and feeds selectively according to impulse and fancy. Man is an animal that feeds with his head rather than his mouth.
Scientifically, we characterize foods as sweet, sour, bitter, hot, tasty, unsavory, nutritious, unnourishing. But what is sweet is not always sweet, nor is something tasty always tasty. Man’s sense of taste and his values change constantly with time and with the circumstances.
When we are full, the most delectable food is unpalatable, and when we are hungry, the most awful-tasting food is delicious. Nothing tastes good to a sick man and nothing is nutritious to one who is not healthy. Unconcerned over whether taste is associated with the food proper or the person eating it, man has elected to produce food with his own hand. Differentiating among foods and calling them sweet or sour, bitter or hot, tasty or bad-tasting, he has gone in pursuit of flavors that please the palate, letting his fancy take the better of him. This has resulted in an unbalanced and deficient diet. Also, as he has selected the foods that suit his taste, man has lost the native intelligence to partake of what is really necessary to him.
Once man eats something sweet, food that he had felt until then to be sweet loses its appeal. Once he samples epicurean food, plainer fare becomes unacceptable and he goes off in search of even greater culinary extravagance. Unconcerned about whether this is good or bad for the body, he eats according to the dictates of his palate.
The food that animals eat by instinct constitutes a complete diet, but man, with his reliance on discriminating knowledge, has lost sight of what a complete diet is. As the harm caused by an unbalanced diet becomes clear, man grows concerned over the incompleteness and contradictions in his diet. He attempts to resolve this through science, but the desires from which spring his cravings proceed one step ahead of these efforts, aggravating the problem.
As man works to correct his unbalanced diet, he studies and analyzes food, calling this a nutrient, that a calorie, and trying to combine everything into a complete diet. This seems to bring him closer to his goal, but the only real outcome of his efforts is the fragmentation of diet and even greater contradiction. Someone that has no idea of what a complete diet is cannot rectify an unbalanced diet. His efforts never amount to more than a temporary solace. The best solution would be to find a complete diet that satisfies human cravings, but this will never happen.
Scientific investigations on food are confined to analytic research. Food is broken down into a limitless array of components—starch, fat, protein, vitamins A, B, C, D, E, F, Bi, 62 and so on, and each studied intensively by specialists. But this process leads nowhere other than to infinite fragmentation.
We can safely say that what primitive man ate instinctively comprised a complete diet. On the other hand, instead of leading us toward a complete diet, modern science has resulted in the discovery of a more sophisticated yet imperfect diet. Man’s quest for a complete diet has led him in the opposite direction.
Although the development of new foods that satisfy human cravings continues, such cravings are merely illusions spun by man over things in the phenomenological world. These illusions invite other illusions, widening the circle of human delusion. The day that these cravings are fully satisfied will never come. Indeed, the rapid advance of his cravings and desires only increases man’s frustrations. No longer content with food available close at hand, he travels off in search of whales in the south seas, marine animals in the north, rare birds in the west, and sweet fruit in the east. Man goes to no ends to satisfy the cravings of his palate.
Although he could have lived quite well just by working a tiny strip of land, he now rushes about in a frenzy because there is no food, or the food is bad-tasting, or delicious, or unusual. What this amounts to is that the entire world is rushing about to lay their hands on choice foods.
If these were really delicious, then one could understand all the activity; if favorites such as liquor, cigarettes, and coffee were really as good as they are made out to be, then nothing could be done about it. But the fact remains that, no matter how enjoyable these may be, they have never been essential to the human body. Tastiness exists in the minds of people who believe something to taste good. The absence of delicacies does not prevent the feeling of “deliciousness” from arising. People who do not consume delicacies may not experience ecstasy at the dinner table as often, but this does not mean they are unhappy. Quite the contrary.
A look at the food industry, which has worked tirelessly to develop new popular foods and a complete diet, should give a clear idea of the likely outcome of the progress that man strives for. Just look at all the food products flooding the stores. Not only are there full assortments of vegetables, fruits, and meat in all seasons, the shelves are overflowing with an endless variety of canned foods, bottled foods, frozen and dried foods, instant dinners packed in polyester bags. Is this vast array of food products, from raw foods to processed foods in a variety of forms—solid, liquid, powdered—with their complement of additives for tickling the palate, really essential to man? Does it really improve his diet?
This “instant” food that panders to consumer cravings and was created for greater rationality and convenience in the diet has already deviated far from its original goal. Food today is thought of less as something that supports life than as something to please the human palate and titillate the senses. Because it is “convenient” and “quick and easy to prepare,” it is highly valued and produced in large quantities.
Man thinks he has made time and space his, but people today no longer have any time. This is why they are delighted with instant foods. As a result, food has lost its essence as
real food and become only a concoction. Yet, even so, some people believe that with further advances in food technology it will eventually be possible to produce complete instant foods in factories, liberating man from his tiresome dietary habits. Some even expect to see the day when one small food tablet a day will fill the stomach and sustain physical health. What utter nonsense.
A complete food for man that includes all the necessary nutrients in sufficient quantity must, in addition to containing every one of the components in the roots, leaves, and fruits of vegetation growing on the earth, in the flesh of all birds and beasts, fish and shellfish, and in all grains, must also have added to it some as yet unknown ingredients. Creating such a complete food would require incredibly huge expenditures of capital for research and production, not to mention long hours and great labor in sophisticated plants. The end product would be horrendously expensive, and far from being as compact as a pill, would probably be extremely bulky. Those forced to eat such food would probably complain: “Complete food takes so much labor and time to produce. How much easier, cheaper, and tastier it used to be to eat raw food grown in the garden under the sun. I’d rather die than have to go on packing my guts with such strange, foul-smelling food as this.”
People talk of eating delicious rice and growing delicious fruit, but there never
**Tasty nice**
*More* than thirty years have passed since the days of famine and hunger in Japan following the end of World War II. Today, those times appear as but a bad dream of the past. With the bumper crops of grain we have been seeing over the last dozen years or so, rice surpluses have formed and there is no longer enough warehouse space to store all the old grain. Dissatisfied consumers are furious, complaining that the price of rice is too high, that they have no need for “bad-tasting” rice that they want to eat “good-tasting” rice, that new and more palatable varieties of rice had better be produced. Politicians, traders, and the agricultural cooperatives representing farmers have added their voices to the angry din, pounding the desks and huddling together to come up with a hundred brilliant ideas. Agricultural technicians have been ordered to keep farmers from setting up new paddy fields and to encourage farmers to stop growing “bad-tasting” rice and grow “tasty” varieties instead or switch to other crops.
But this sort of controversy is possible only when people have no idea of the true nature of the food problem. This debate over “good-tasting” rice alone gives a clear view of the world of fantasy in which man lives. It might be helpful to consider whether tasty rice really exists in this world at all, whether the angry movement to secure such rice can really bring *joy* and happiness to man, and whether such a movement is worthwhile to begin with.
I do not mean to deny that “tasty” rice and “untasty” rice do not exist, only to point out that the difference in taste between different varieties is very small. For example, even were a farmer to select a good-tasting variety of rice and, sacrificing yields, willingly devote himself wholeheartedly to perfecting techniques for growing good-tasting rice, just how delicious would the rice that he grew be? No rice would win unanimous praise
by a panel of samplers. And even if it did, the difference with other varieties would be very, very minor.
Tasty rice cannot always be produced from a tasty variety. It is far too simplistic to think that the original difference in taste between varieties will be sustained right up to the dinner table. Depending on the land on which it is grown, the method of cultivation, and the weather, poor-tasting varieties may approach tasty varieties in flavor, while tasty rice, when hit by bad weather and heavily attacked by disease and pests, is often less palatable than poor-tasting rice. The minor differences in taste between varieties are always subject to reversal. And even when it appears as if tasty rice has been produced, the taste may deteriorate during harvesting, threshing, or processing. The chances of a rice being produced that retains the inherent properties of that variety are less than one in several hundred.
As hard as the farmer may try to produce tasty rice, this taste can be destroyed or retained depending on how the rice dealer processes the grain. The dealer grades the rice from various farming districts, processes the rice by milling it to various degrees, and mixes it in given proportions to create hundreds of varieties with distinctive flavors. Tasty rice can be converted into tasteless rice, and tasteless rice into tasty rice. Then again, when the rice is cooked at home, whether one soaks the rice overnight in water and drains it in a bamboo sieve, how much water one uses, how high the flame, the type of fuel, and even the quality of the rice cooker can all have an effect on the taste of the rice. The difference between good- and bad-tasting varieties of rice and between old and new rice can fall either way depending on how the grain is processed and cooked. One could say that it is the farmer, the rice dealer, and the housewife who create tasty rice. But in a sense, no one creates tasty rice.
Fig. 5.2 shows that, even if we consider just a few of the production conditions, the chances that a tasty variety of rice will be grown, properly processed, and cooked skillfully to give rice of outstanding taste is not more than one in a thousand. This means that, even with the best of luck, someone may encounter truly tasty rice perhaps once in every two or three years. And if that person does not happen to be very hungry at the time, all will have been for naught.
This campaign for tasty rice has placed a great burden on the farmer and forced the housewife to buy high-priced rice without knowing what is going on. The only one likely to benefit from all this is the merchant. Bitten by the illusion of slightly tasty rice, people today are all floundering about in a sea of mud and toil.
Getting a Natural Diet
My thinking on natural diet parallels that on natural farming. Natural farming consists of adapting to true nature, that is, nature understood with non-discriminating knowledge. In the same way, a true natural diet is a way of eating where one feeds randomly with an undiscriminating attitude on food taken from the wild, crops grown by natural farming, and fish and shellfish caught using natural methods of fishing. One must then abandon an artificial diet designed on the basis of discriminating scientific knowledge and, gradually liberating oneself from philosophical constraints, ultimately deny and transcend these.
Knowledge useful for living may be permitted, however, if it can reasonably be thought to have arisen from undiscriminating knowledge. The use of fire and salt may have been man’s first steps away from nature, but these were heavenly inspired and were first used in cooking when primitive man perceived the wisdom of nature.
Agricultural crops which for many thousands of years have merely adapted to the environment and at some point survived through natural selection to become fixtures of human society may be thought of as foods that arose naturally rather than as artificial foods which originated through the application of discriminating knowledge by the farmer. This of course does not apply to crops that have been developed more recently through breeding programs and are considerably alienated from nature. These, along with artificially bred fish and livestock, should be firmly excluded from the diet.
Natural diet and natural farming are not separate and distinct ideas, but united intimately as one whole. They are one too with natural fishing and animal husbandry. Man’s food, clothing, and shelter, and his spiritual existence must all be blended together with nature in perfect harmony.
*Plants and Animate Live in Accordance with the Seasons:* I drew Fig. 5.3 thinking that this might help one to understand a natural diet that encompasses the theories of Western nutritional science and the Eastern philosophy of yin and yang, but transcends both.
Here I have crudely arranged foods according to the colors of the four alternating seasons, based on George Ohsawa’s application of yin and yang. Summer is hot and yang, winter is cold and yin. In terms of light, summer is said to be represented by red and orange, spring by brown and yellow, fall by green and blue, and winter by indigo and purple. The diet is such that a balance is maintained between yin and yang and the color arrangement is harmonic. Thus, in the summer (yang) one should eat yin foods, and in the winter (yin) one should eat yang foods.
Foods are represented by different colors: vegetables are green, seaweed is blue, cereal grains are yellow, and meat is red.
Meat is yang and vegetables yin, with grains in between. Because man is an omnivorous animal that is yang, this leads to a set of principles which says that, when grains, which are intermediate, are eaten as the staple, yin vegetables should be consumed and meat (very yang)—consumption of which is essentially cannibalism—should be avoided.
However, even if these principles are essential medically or in the treatment of disease, too much concern and attention over whether something is yin or yang, acidic or alkaline, and whether it contains sodium and magnesium and vitamins and minerals leads one right back into the realm of science and discriminating knowledge.
The mandala in Fig. 5.4 gives a somewhat systematic arrangement of foods readily available for consumption by man. This will give an idea of just how vast a variety of foods exists on the earth for man’s survival. Those who live at the perimeter of spiritual enlightenment have no need to differentiate between any of the plants or animals in this world; all may become the exquisite and delectable fare of the world of rapture. Unfortunately, however, having alienated himself from nature, only man cannot partake directly of its bounty. Only those who have succeeded in fully renouncing the self are able to receive the full blessings of nature.
Fig. 5.4 Nature’s food mandala—plants and animals.
Fig. 5.5 is a mandala showing the foods available during each of the months of the year. This shows that, as long as man accepts and lives in accordance with the divine dispensation, a complete natural diet will arise of itself without his needing to know anything and without his having to ponder the principle of yin and yang. Of course, the foods consumed will vary with time and circumstances, and with the degree of health or malady.
Eating with the Seasons: The food that farmers and fishermen have taken locally for thousands of years is a splendid example of natural diet in accordance with the laws of nature. The seven herbs of spring—Japanese parsley, shepherd’s purse, cudweed, chickweed, bee nettle, wild turnip, and wild radish—emerge early in the new year from the slumbering brown earth. As he enjoys the flavors of these herbs, the farmer meditates joyfully on his having survived a harsh winter. To go along with the seven herbs, nature provides shellfish—a brown food. The savory taste of pond snails, fresh water clams, and sea clams in early spring is a special treat.
A little later, in addition to such popular edible wild herbs as bracken and osmund, almost anything can be eaten, including young cherry, persimmon, peach, and Chinese yam leaves. Depending on how they are cooked, these may also serve as seasonings. Just as the first broad beans are ready for picking, edibles from the fields suddenly increase. Bamboo shoots are delicious with rockfish. Red sea bream and grunt can be caught in quantity and are excellent at the time of the barley harvest in late spring. Spanish mackerel sashimi in the spring is so good you want to lick your plate clean. During the festival of the Japanese iris, an offering is made of hair tail prepared with Japanese iris.
Spring is also a season for taking walks along the seashore, where seaweed—a blue food—is to be had. Loquats glistening in the early summer rains not only are a beautiful sight to see, this is a fruit that the body craves. There is a reason for this. All fruits ripen at the right time of the year, and that is when they are most delicious.
The time for pickling, the green Japanese apricot (ume) is also one for enjoying the bracing flavor of the pickled scallion. This is when the rainy season lets up and summer makes its arrival. One quite naturally hankers for the fresh beauty and taste of the peach, and the bitter and sour flavors of the oleaster berry, plum, and apricot. Those who would refrain from eating the fruit of the loquat or peach have forgotten the principle of using the whole plant. Not only can the flesh of the loquat be eaten, the large seeds can be ground and used as coffee while the leaves can be infused to give a tea that serves as the best of all medicines. The leaves of the peach and persimmon give a potion for longevity.
Under the hot midsummer sun, one may even eat melon, drink milk, and lick honey in the cool shade of a tree. Rapeseed oil and sesame oil revive the body worn down by the summer swelter.
Many fruits ripen in early autumn, a time when yellow foods such as cereal grains, soybeans, and adzuki beans also become available. Millet dumplings enjoyed under the moonlight; taros and green soybeans cooked in the pod; corn-on-the-cob, red beans and rice, matsutake mushrooms and rice, and chestnuts and rice in late autumn also make sense. And most welcome of all are the ripened grains of rice that have fully absorbed the yang of summer, providing a food staple rich in calories in preparation for the winter.
Barley, another staple that is slightly more yin than rice, is harvested in the spring and can be eaten with rice or as iced or hot noodles; it is almost uncanny how this suits the palate just as the appetite lags under the summer heat. The buckwheat harvested in late summer and early fall is a strongly yang grain, but is most essential during the summer.
A. shallot, garland chrysanthemum, butterbur flower, creeping saxifrage, beet, lettuce, Indian mustard, Chinese cabbage, spinach, small turnips, burdock
B. Japanese parsley, honewort, celery, butterbur flower, *daikon*, Chinese cabbage, potherb mustard, Welsh onion
C. wild rocambole, leek, field horsetail, mugwort, spring *daikon*, scallion, comfrey, chard, lettuce, Indian mustard, carrot, seven herbs of spring, shallot
D. *shiitake*, leaf buds, Japanese pepper, Japanese angelica tree buds, *udo*, Chinese box thorn, osmund, bracken, Japanese knotweed, thistle, violet, Chinese milk vetch, aster, bamboo shoot, spring onion, Chinese cabbage, garland chrysanthemum, parsley, garden pea
E. wild rocambole, leek, perilla shoots, chard, cabbage, pepper, garden pea, broad bean, kidney bean, young turnip, bamboo shoot, butterbur, agar-agar, *wakame*
F. scallion, bracken, burdock (leaves), ginger (leaves), honewort, perilla (leaves), garden pea, asparagus, garlic, early-maturing green soybean, onion, young potato, summer *daikon*, spring-sown carrot, eggplant, cucumber
G. young turnip, okra, leek, Japanese ginger (flower), perilla (panicle), squash, eggplant, cucumber, summer *daikon*, Egyptian kidney bean, mid-season green soybean, onion, spinach
H. cucumber, squash, ginger, Chinese box thorn, knotweed, perilla (seed), winter melon, pickling melon, tomato, spring-sown burdock, cabbage, parsley, kidney bean, asparagus bean, early sweet potato
I. corn, arrowhead, autumn eggplant, green soybean, early-maturing taro, ginger, red pepper, *hatsutake*, *shimeji*, knotweed, sesame
J. mushrooms, *matsutake*, *shiitake*, lily bulb, shallot, honewort, garland chrysanthemum, sweet potato, soybean, peanut, taro, Chinese yam, lotus root, burdock, Welsh onion, Chinese cabbage
K. ginkgo nut, celery, chrysanthemum, green laver, *wakame*, *hijiki*, kelp, autumn *daikon*, summer-sown burdock, autumn potato, Indian mustard, Chinese cabbage, spinach, potherb mustard
L. Chinese yam, Chinese cabbage, leaf mustard, *daikon*, turnip, cabbage, summer-sown burdock, summer-sown carrot, onion, lotus root, arrowhead
a. edible fowl, snapping turtle, edible frog, oyster, sea urchin, sea cucumber, gray mullet, carp, river fish, sea bream, flying fish, herring
b. pond snail, sea cucumber, squid, mackerel, sardine, bluefish, Spanish mackerel, yellowtail
c. short-necked clam, clam, fresh water clam, river trout, goby with spawn, whitebait, lobster
d. squid, mantis shrimp, plaice, sea bream, clam, bonito, mackerel, rainbow trout, conger eel
e. black rockfish, red sea bream, grunt, shrimp, bluefish, Spanish mackerel
f. freshwater shrimp, sharp-toothed ell, sea bass, bluefish, sweet fish
g. abalone, freshwater shrimp, crab, octopus, ray, grunt, eel, conger eel, sharp-toothed eel, flounder, sea bass
h. turbo, abalone, sweet fish, trout, loach, flounder, sea bass, sea bream
i. sea bream, sweet fish, jellyfish, conger eel, sea bass, sharp-toothed ell, sardine
j. mantis shrimp, mackerel, trout, grunt, hair tail
k. crab, squid, tiger shrimp, mackerel pike, tuna, yellow fish
l. fresh water clam, pond snail, sea urchin, sea cucumber, squid, puffer, yellowtail, tuna, salmon, gray mullet, wild boar, beef
Autumn is the season for cooking mackerel pike at home. With the first frost, one wants to check out the local grilled chicken stalls. This is when heavy catches of very yang fish such as yellowtail and tuna are made, and at no time are they more delicious. The exquisite flavor of yang fish during a yin season is certainly a part of nature’s grand design, *Daikon* and leafy vegetables ready to gather from the garden go very well with
these fish. People also know how to turn yin fish into yang food by salting or grilling, so meals are enjoyable and can be elevated to works of art.
Nothing surpasses the culinary artistry of home-made *miso* and *tofu* cooking, and of fish cooked on the rocks by the river or at the fireside after flavoring with crude, natural salt prepared by burning sea salt with brush and seaweed.
And so with *osechi-ryori* dishes prepared for New Year’s. As cooking that celebrates the joy of the new year, the wisdom of pairing salted salmon and herring roe with kelp and black soybeans, and adding sea bream and lobster goes beyond tradition to a perfect pairing of man and nature.
During the harsh cold of the winter months, mallard, jackrabbit, and other wild game served with welsh onions, leek, and wild rocambole warms the body. Even though food is scarce, the flavor of pickled vegetables gathered in the fall puts a fragrant finishing touch to a winter meal. And how can one describe the delightfully exotic taste of oysters, sea urchins, and sea cucumbers?
In late winter, on the verge of spring’s arrival, the edible butterbur flower peeks through the cover of snow and the leaves of the creeping saxifrage beneath the snow are ready to be eaten. Hardy green herbs such as Japanese parsley, shepherd’s purse, and chickweed can be found beneath the spring frost, and as one is appreciating the buds of the Japanese angelica tree, spring returns beneath one’s window.
Spring comes quickly to Shikoku and by about the vernal equinox, field horsetails are emerging. This is a time for taking walks through fields of clover and picking the flowers. Some drink hot *sake* with their *sukiyaki* while others prefer sipping tea flavored with the petals of floating cherry blossoms.
In this way, the Japanese take foods of the seasons available near at hand, and while savoring well their excellent and distinctive flavors, are able to see the providence of the heavens in the modest fare on which they live. Within a quiet life passed leisurely and tranquilly according to the cycles of nature lies hidden all the grandeur of the human drama.
This farmer’s diet, this diet of the fisherman on the coast who eats sardines with his potatoes and barley, these are also the common diets of the village people. Yes, they know what is delicious, but they have not neglected the subtle and curious flavors of nature.
A natural diet lies at our feet—a diet that obeys the laws of heaven and has been followed naturally and without want by the people of fanning and fishing villages.
**The Nature of Food**
We normally think of food only as something needed by the body to live and grow, but what connection does food have with the human soul?
For animals, it is enough to eat, play, and sleep. Nothing could be better than if man too were able to live a life of contentment enjoying nourishing food, health, and tranquil sleep. What does it mean to enjoy and take pleasure in food? This, along with nourishment and nutrition, is a question of both matter and spirit.
Buddha said, “Form is emptiness and emptiness is form.” Since “form” in Buddhist terminology refers to matter and “emptiness” to spirit, matter and spirit are one. Matter has many aspects, such as color, shape, and quality, each of which affect the spirit in many ways. This is what is meant by the unity of matter and spirit.
Chief among the aspects of matter serving as food are color and flavor.
*Color:* (The Chinese character for color is used in Buddhist texts to represent form or matter.) The world appears to be filled with the seven prismatic colors, but when combined these seven colors become white. In a sense, one could say that what was originally white light was divided into seven colors with a prism. Viewed with detachment, all things are colorless and white. But to one distracted, seven moods (spirit) engender seven colors (matter). Matter is spirit and spirit is matter. Both are one.
Water undergoes countless transformations but remains always water. In the same way, beneath the infinite variety of creation, all things are essentially one; all things have basically one form. There was never any need for man to categorize everything. Although differences may exist between the seven colors, they are all of equal value. To be distracted by these seven colors is to fail to note the matter and spirit underlying them, to be sidetracked by the inconsequential.
The same is true of food. Nature provided man with a vast array of foods. Discerning what he thought were good and bad qualities, he picked and chose, thinking, that he had to create harmonious combinations and blends of color, that he should always partake of a rich variety. This has been the root of his errors. Human knowledge can never compare with the greatness of the natural order.
We have seen that there never was an east or west in nature; that left and right, yin and yang did not exist; that the Right Path, the path of moderation as seen by man, is not that at all. People may say that there is yin and yang, that seven colors exist in nature, but these are only products of the entanglement of the labile human spirit and matter; they change constantly with time and circumstance.
The colors of nature remain constant and immutable, but to man they appear to change as readily as hydrangea blossoms. Nature may seem ever-changing but because this motion is cyclical and eternal, nature is in a sense fixed and immobile. The moment that man halts the seasonal cycle of foods on whatever pretext, nature will be ruined.
The purpose of a natural diet is not to create learned individuals who support their selection of foods with articulate explanations, but to create unlearned people who gather food without deliberate rationale from nature’s garden, people who do not turn their backs on Heaven but accept its ways as their own.
A true diet begins through detachment from shades of color, by delighting in colors without hue as true color.
*Flavor:* People will say: “You can’t know what something tastes like unless you try it.” Yet a food may taste good or bad depending on when and where it is eaten. Ask the scientist what flavor is and how one comes to know a flavor, and he will immediately begin analyzing the ingredients of the food and investigating correlations between the minerals extracted and the five tastes—sweet, sour, bitter, salty, and hot. But flavor
cannot be understood by relying on the results of a chemical analysis or the sensations at the tip of the tongue.
Even were the five tastes perceived by five different organs, a person would be unable to sense the true flavor if his instincts themselves were confused. Scientists may extract minerals and study the movement of the heart and the physical response following sensations of deliciousness and pleasure, but they do not know what makes up the emotions of joy and sorrow. This is not a problem that can be solved with a computer. The physician thinks that an investigation of the brain cells will give the answer, but a computer programmed to think that sweet is delicious is not likely to feed out the result that sour is delicious.
Instinct does not investigate instinct; wisdom does not turn back and scrutinize itself. Studying how the seven flavors of the seven herbs of spring act upon the human sense of taste is not what is important. What we must consider is why man today has parted with his instincts and no longer seeks to gather and eat the seven herbs of spring, why his eyes, ears, and mouth no longer function as they should. Our primary concern should be whether our eyes have lost the ability to apprehend real beauty, our ears to capture rare tones, our nose to sense exalted fragrances, our tongue to distinguish exquisite tastes, and our heart to discern and speak the truth. Flavors caught with a confused heart and numbed instincts are a far cry from their true selves.
Evidence that the human sense of flavor has gone haywire is difficult to find, but one thing is certain: people today chase after flavor because they have lost it. If this sense were intact, they would be able to judge accurately for themselves. Even though natural man gathers his food without discrimination, his instincts are intact so he eats properly in accordance with natural laws; everything is delicious, nourishing, and therapeutic. Modern man, on the other hand, bases his judgments on mistaken knowledge and searches about for many things with his five deranged senses. His diet is chaotic, the gap between his likes and dislikes deepens, and he hurtles on toward an even more unbalanced diet, drawing his natural instincts further away from true flavor. Delicious food becomes increasingly rare. Fancy cooking and flavoring just compound the confusion.
The problem then, as I can see, is that man has become spiritually alienated from food. True flavor can be perceived only with the five senses, the mind, and the spirit. Flavor must be in consonance with the spirit. People who think that flavor originates in the food itself eat only with the tip of the tongue and so are easily deceived by the flavor of instant cooking.
An adult who has lost his instinctive sense of taste no longer appreciates the taste of rice. He normally eats white rice prepared by polishing brown rice to remove the bran. To make up for the loss in flavor, he adds meat sauce to the white rice or eats it together with sashimi. Tasty rice thus becomes rice that is easy to flavor and season, and people delude themselves into thinking of white rice, which has been stripped of the aroma and taste peculiar to rice, as high-grade rice. I imagine that some people think it better to eat enriched rice than to try and squeeze any nutrition out of highly polished rice, or they rely on side dishes of meat or fish for the necessary nutrients. Nowadays it is all too easy to believe that protein is protein and vitamin B is vitamin B regardless of where these come from. But through a major lapse in thinking and responsibility, meat and fish have gone
the same route as rice. Meat is no longer meat and fish no longer fish. Refinements in flavoring with petroleum-derived protein have created people unaware and unconcerned that their entire diet has been converted into an artificial diet.
Today, the locus of flavor is the food product. Thus beef and chicken are “delicious.” But it is not eating something “delicious” that satisfies the palate. All the conditions must be right for something to be sensed as delicious. Even beef and chicken are not delicious per se. The proof is that to people who have a physical or mental aversion to meat, these are unpalatable.
Children are happy because they are happy; they can be happy playing or doing nothing. Even when adults are not especially happy but believe they are enjoying themselves, as when they watch television or go to see a baseball game, a happy mood may gradually come over then and they may even break out laughing. Similarly, by removing the original conditions that planted the idea in someone’s head that something is unappetizing, this can become delicious.
One Japanese folk tale tells of how, deceived by a fox, people are made to eat horse manure. But it is not for us to laugh, for people today eat with their minds and not with their body. When they eat bread, it is not the flavor of the bread they enjoy, but the flavor of the seasonings added to the bread.
People nowadays seem to live by feeding on a mist of notions. Man originally ate because he was alive, because something was delicious, but modern man eats to live and thinks that if he does not prepare and dine on choice cuisine, he will not be able to eat delicious food. Although we should pay more attention to creating individuals who can enjoy eating anything, we put aside thoughts of the person and spent all our efforts on preparing delicious food. This has had the opposite effect of reducing the amount of delicious food we eat.
In our efforts to make bread tastier, bread has ceased to taste good. We have grown energy-extravagant crops, livestock, and fowl to create a world of plenty, and instead triggered famine and starvation. What foolishness, all of this. But man’s inability to recognize the folly inherent in his efforts has thrown him into greater confusion. Why is it that the more he strives to produce delicious rice, fruit, and vegetables, the more inaccessible these become? I often run into people who are perplexed as to why delicious food can no longer be found in Tokyo.
They fail to notice that man’s efforts to set up all the conditions for producing delicious rice or apples have distanced him from true flavor. Unfortunate as it may be, city dwellers have lost a true sense of taste. Everyone works so hard to make something delicious that they end up deceiving themselves into thinking it so. No one attempts to look directly at the truth of flavor. The only ones that win out are the manufacturers which exploit these deceptions and the merchants who hop a ride to make a buck.
What does it take to come by truly delicious food? All we have to do is stop trying to create delicious food and we will be surrounded by it. However this will not be easy since cooking and cuisine are regarded as worthwhile and essential activities—part of the culture of food. Ultimately, true cooking and the pursuit of true flavor are to be found in a comprehension of the subtle and exquisite flavors of nature.
People today who cannot eat wild herbs without removing their natural astringency are unable to enjoy the flavors of nature. The practical wisdom of early man who sun-dried root vegetables and pickled them in salt, rice bran, or *miso*, enjoying their special taste and aroma at the end of his meals; the delicious flavor and nourishment of food cooked with salt; the subtle and singular flavors created from an existence that relied on a single kitchen knife;... these are understood by everyone everywhere because they touch the essence of the flavors of nature.
Long ago, people of the aristocratic classes in Japan used to play a game called *bunko* (HI?) in which players had to guess the fragrances of various types of burned incense. It is said that when the nose was no longer able to distinguish the aromas, the player bit into a *daikon* root to restore the sense of smell. I can just imagine the expression on the face of an aristocrat chomping into a length of pungent *daikon*. This shows plainly that taste and aroma are exuded by nature.
If the purpose of cooking is to delight people by modifying nature in order to bring out an exotic flavor that resembles nature but is unlike anything in nature, then we are dealing with deceit. Like a sword, the kitchen knife may do good or evil, depending on the circumstances and who wields it. Zen and food are one. For those who would sample the delights of a natural diet, there is Buddhist vegetarian cooking and Japanese high tea. An unnatural afternoon tea may be served in high-class restaurants to which farmers shod in work boots are not welcome, but modest, natural teas have disappeared. When coarse green tea sipped by the open hearth is more delicious than the refined green tea of the tea ceremony, this spells an end to the tea culture.
Culture is seen as a human product created, maintained, and refined through human invention by the separation of man from nature. However, the culture actually associated intimately with daily existence and handed down and preserved to later generations always originates in a return to the source of nature (God), forming of itself when nature and man fuse into a single whole. A culture born of human recreation and vanity that is divorced from nature cannot become a true culture. True culture arises from within nature, and is pure, modest, and simple. Were this not so, then man would surely be destroyed by that culture. When mankind forsakes a natural diet for a civilized diet, he turns away from a true culture and sets off on the road to decline.
I noted above that the knife which the cook wields is a two-edged sword. It can lead to the way of Zen. But because diet is life, a diet that strays from the true principles of nature robs man of his life and sends him down the wrong path.
*The Staff of Life:* Nothing is better than eating delicious food, but how often do we hear that food is eaten to support the body and draw nourishment? Mothers are always telling their children to eat their food, even if they do not like it, because it is “good” for them. Here we have another example of a reversal in human thinking. This is the same as saying that we nourish ourselves so that we can work harder and live longer.
Taste and nutrition should not be separated. What is nourishing and good for the human body should stimulate the human appetite of its own accord and serve as delicious food. Flavor and nutrition must be one.
Not so long ago, farmers in this area enjoyed simple meals of barley and rice with unrefined soy sauce and pickled vegetables. This gave them strength and long life.
Stewed vegetables and rice cooked with adzuki beans was a once-a-month treat. How was this enough to supply their nutrient needs? Rather than thinking in terms of “drawing nutrition” it makes more sense to say that working hard in the fields made one hungry, which is why coarse fare tasted delicious. And, of course, a strong body can draw sustenance from a simple diet.
In contrast with the simple Eastern diet of brown rice and vegetables that provides everything the body needs; Western dietetics teaches that health cannot be maintained unless one has a balanced diet with a full complement of nutrients: starch, fat, protein, vitamins, minerals, and so on. It is no surprise then that some mothers stuff “nutritious food” into their children’s mouths, regardless of whether it tastes good or not.
Because dietetics is built upon careful scientific reasoning and calculation, the general tendency is to accept its pronouncements at face value. But this carries with it the potential for disaster. First of all, dietetics lacks any awareness of man as a living, breathing creature. Menus leave the impression that one is merely supplying energy to mechanical humans cut off from the source of life. There is no evidence of any attempt to approach closer to a natural existence, to conform to natural cycles. In fact, because it relies so heavily on the human intellect, dietetics appears useful rather in the development of anti-natural man isolated from nature.
Secondly, it seems almost as if we had forgotten that man is a spiritual animal that cannot be fully explained in organic, mechanical, and physiological terms. He is an animal whose body and life are extremely fluid and which undergoes great physical and mental vicissitudes. Things might be different if there were guinea pigs that could speak, but there are limits to how far scientists can go in extrapolating the results of dietetic experiments on monkeys and mice to man. The food that man eats is linked directly and indirectly with human emotion, so a diet devoid of feeling is meaningless.
Third, Western dietetics understands things only within a narrow temporal and spatial framework; it cannot grasp things in their entirety. No matter how the scientist may attempt to assemble a full array of ingredients, this will never approach a complete diet. The powers of the intellect will succeed only in the creation of an incomplete diet far removed from nature. Unmindful of the simple truth that “the whole is greater than the parts,” modern science commits blunder after blunder. Man can dissect a butterfly and examine it in the greatest detail, but he cannot make it fly. And even were this possible, he cannot know the heart of the butterfly.
Let us look at what goes into the preparation of a daily menu in Western fashion. Naturally, it will not do to eat randomly anything that comes one’s way. A daily menu is normally drawn up by thinking of what and how much one should eat each day to achieve a balanced diet. I would like to take as my example the four-group scoring method used at the Kagawa Nutrition College in Japan. Here are the four groups with the type of food they represent and the number of points allotted daily to each.
*Group 1*: Good protein, fat, calcium, and vitamin foods such as milk and eggs for complete nutrition—3 points.
*Group 2*: Bluefish, chicken, and *tofu* as nutrients for building muscle and blood—3 points.
Group 3: Light-colored vegetables, green and yellow vegetables, potato and mandarin oranges to provide vitamins, minerals, and fiber for a healthy body—3 points.
Group 4: White rice, bread, sugar, and oils as sources of sugar, protein, and fat for energy and body temperature—11 points.
Since each point represents 80 calories, a day of balanced meals gives 1,600 calories. Because it provides 80 calories, 80 grams of beef is worth one point, as is 500 grams of bean sprouts, 200 grams of mandarin oranges, and 120 grams of grapes. Eating 40 oranges or 20 bunches of grapes each day would give the necessary calories but would not make for a balanced diet, so the idea here is to eat a mixture of foods from all four groups.
This appears to be eminently sensible and safe, but what happens when such a system is employed uniformly on a large scale? A year-round supply of high-grade meat, eggs, milk, bread, vegetables and other foods has to be kept ready, which necessitates mass production and long-term storage. This just might be the reason why farmers have to grow lettuce, cucumbers, eggplant, and tomatoes in the winter.
No doubt, the day is not far off when farmers will be told to milk their cows in the winter, and ship out mandarin oranges in early summer, persimmons in the spring, and peaches in the fall. Can we really have a balanced diet by gathering together many different foods at all times of the year, as if there were no seasons? The plants of the mountains and streams always grow and mature while maintaining the best possible nutrient balance. Out-of-season vegetables and fruit are unnatural and incomplete. The eggplants, tomatoes, and cucumbers grown by natural farming methods under the open sun twenty or thirty years ago are no longer to be found. Without a distinct fall or winter it is hardly surprising that the eggplants and tomatoes produced in greenhouses no longer have the flavor or fragrance they used to. One should not expect these to be packed with vitamins and minerals.
Scientists see themselves as working to ensure that people get all the nourishment they need anywhere and anytime, but this is having the opposite effect of making it increasingly difficult to obtain anything but incomplete nourishment. Nutritionists are unable to grasp the root cause of this contradiction for they do not suspect that the first cause for error lies in the analysis of nutrition and the combination of different nutrients.
According to the principle of yin and yang, the basic foods listed above such as meat, milk, chicken, and bluefish are highly yang and acidic, while potato is a very yin vegetable. None of these agree with the Japanese people. This then is the worst possible list of foods. Today in Japan we have more rice than we know what to do with and barley is being phased out. But if we grew rice suited to the climate of this “Land of Ripening Grain,” stopped importing wheat, grew early-maturing naked barley that can be harvested during May before the early summer rains, and revived the practices of eating brown rice and rice-and-barley like the farmers and samurai of old—if we did all these things, then we would see an immediate improvement in Japan’s food situation and the health of her people. If all this is asking too much of modern man, with his weakened heart and stomach, then I would recommend at least that he make brown rice bread or delicious bread from naked barley.
Farmers too give no thought to the meaning of a natural diet or natural farming and, without a trace of skepticism, see the production of food out of season as a method for increasing the food supply. Scientists and engineers follow suit, working on the development of new food products and research on new methods of food production. Politicians and those in the distribution industry believe that markets well stocked with a full range of goods means food is abundant and people can live in peace and security. But such thinking, and the follies of people, are dragging mankind to the abyss of destruction.
**Summing Up Natural Diet**
There are four major types of diet in this world:
1. A lax, self-indulgent diet, influenced by the external world that submits to cravings and fancies. This diet, directed by the mind, might be called an empty diet.
2. The physically centered diet of most people, where nutritional food is consumed to sustain the body. This is a scientific diet that spins centrifugally outward with increasing desires.
3. The diet of natural man based on spiritual laws. Extending beyond Western science and centered on Eastern philosophy, it places restrictions on foods, aiming for centripetal convergence. This could be called a diet of principle and includes what is normally referred to as “natural diet.”
4. A diet that lays aside all human knowledge and by which one eats without discrimination in accordance with divine will. This is the ideal natural diet and constitutes what I call a “non-discriminating diet.”
People should begin by discarding empty, self-indulgent diets that are the root of a thousand diseases and, failing to find satisfaction in a scientific diet that does no more than sustain the life of the organism, move on to a diet of principle. But they must then go beyond theory and strive toward the ultimate goal of becoming true people who partake of an ideal natural diet.
*The Diet of Non-Discrimination:* This is founded on the view that man does not live through his own efforts but was created and is supported by nature.
The diet of true man is life and sustenance provided by the heavens. Food is not something that man selects from within nature, it is a gift bestowed upon him from above. Its character as food lies neither exclusively in itself nor in man. A true natural diet becomes possible only when food, the body, and the soul fuse together completely within nature. What could be called a diet of non-discrimination achieved by the union of nature and man is a diet that the self, which is infused with and embodies the will of heaven, takes subconsciously.
True man with a truly healthy body and mind should be naturally equipped with the ability to take the right food from nature, without discrimination or error. To follow the will of the body and desire freely, to eat when a food is delicious and forbear when it is not, to partake without restraint, without plan or intention, is to enjoy the most subtle and exquisite fare—an ideal diet.
Ordinary man must work toward the ultimate goal of an ideal natural diet by first practicing a natural diet that falls one step short of this ideal and striving earnestly to become natural man.
*The Diet of Principle:* All things exist in nature. Nothing is lacking; nothing is present in excess. The foods of nature are complete and whole in and of themselves. It should always be remembered that nature too is a single, harmonious whole, ever complete and perfect.
It is only fitting that nature is not subject to man’s criteria, to his choosing and rejecting, his cooking and combining. Man thinks that he can explain and expound on the origin and order of the universe, on the cycles of nature. It appears as if, by applying the principle of yin and yang, he can achieve harmony of the human body. But if, ignorant of their limits, he becomes caught up in these laws and tenets and uses human knowledge indiscriminately, he commits the absurdity of looking closely at the small and insignificant without catching sight of the larger picture, and of taking a broad view of nature while failing to notice the details at his feet.
Man can never understand one part of nature, much less the whole. Mankind may think itself the orphan of the natural world, but the position taken by those who long earnestly for a natural diet is to renounce human knowledge and submit to the will of nature by reaffirming one’s obeisance to divine providence. It is already enough to eat cooked and salted food, to consume all things in moderation, to gather foods of the seasons that grow close at hand. What one must then do is to devote oneself fully to the principles of holism, the inseparability of the body from the land, and a simple local diet. People must realize that a diet of surfeit which relies on foods from far-off lands leads the world astray and invites human ills.
*The Diet of the Sick:* A natural diet appears irrelevant, primitive, and crude to people who practice an empty diet of self-indulgence in pursuit of flavor and to those who think of food only as matter needed for sustaining biological life. But once they realize that they are in poor health, even they will begin to show an interest in natural diet.
Illness begins when man moves away from nature, and the severity with which he is afflicted is proportional to his estrangement. This is why if a sick person returns to nature he is cured. As mankind distances itself from nature, the number of sick people rises rapidly and desires for a return to nature intensify. But attempts to return to nature are thwarted because people do not know what nature is, nor do they know what a natural body is.
Living a primitive life deep in the mountains, one may learn what non-intervention is but will not know nature. Yet taking some action is also unnatural.
Lately, many people living in the cities have been trying to obtain natural food, but even if they succeed, without a natural body and spirit prepared to receive such food, merely consuming it does not constitute a natural diet. Farmers today are simply not producing natural foods. Even if urban people wished to establish a natural diet, no materials are available. Moreover, it would probably take almost superhuman skills and judgment to live on a complete natural diet in a city under such conditions and eat meals with a yin-yang balance. Far from returning to nature, the very complexity of eating a natural diet in this way would just drive people further away from nature.
To push upon people living in different environments and of different races and temperaments a rigid, standardized natural diet is an impossibility. This does not mean, however, that various types of natural diet exist. Yet just look at the different natural diet movements being espoused around the world.
One such movement claims that because man is basically an animal he should eat only uncooked food. A few say that man should drink broth prepared from raw leaves, while some physicians warn that following a raw diet without knowing fully what one is doing is dangerous. There are natural diets based on brown rice and scientists who proclaim the merits of white rice. Some claim that cooking food enriches the human diet and is good for the health, while others argue that this only helps to create sick people. To some, fresh water is good; to others, bad. Some acclaim salt to be invaluable while others attribute a whole range of diseases to excessive salt intake. One camp sees fruits as yin and food fitting for monkeys perhaps but not for man while another contends that fruit and vegetables are the best possible foods for health and longevity.
Given the right circumstances, any one of these views is correct, so people end up thoroughly confused by what appear to be so many contradictory claims. Nature is a fluid entity that changes from moment to moment. Man is unable to grasp the essence of something because the true form of nature leaves nowhere to be grasped. People become perplexed when bound by theories that try to freeze a fluid nature. One misses the mark if he relies on something that is unreliable. Right and left do not exist in nature, so there is no happy medium, no good and evil, no yin or yang. Nature has given humanity no standards to rely upon.
It is senseless to arbitrarily decide, independent of the land and the people, what the food staple and the minor foods should be. This just moves one further away from true nature.
Man does not know nature. He is like a blind man without any idea of where he is headed. He has had no choice than to take science’s cane of knowledge and tap out the road at his feet, relying on the principle of yin and yang to set the direction of his travels, like the stars in the night sky. Whatever direction he has taken, he has thought with his head and eaten with his mouth. What I wish to say is that he must stop eating with his head and clear his mind and heart.
The food mandates I have drawn (Figs. 5.4 and 5.5) are more valuable than the most lengthy discourse. I meant these to be used as a compass by which to set one’s course, according to the circumstances and the degree of sickness or health, either for a centrifugal diet or a centripetal diet. But once these mandates have been examined, they may be discarded. By this I mean that people should not eat on the basis of human intellect and action, but should merely receive with gratitude the food that grows in nature.
Before this can be done, however, people must first become natural people and the ability of the body to select foods and properly digest them must be restored. If natural people arise who, instead of following a natural diet that prescribes this and proscribes that, are satisfied without anything, then everything will be resolved. Rather than pursuing a natural diet that cures the sick, the first priority should be to return to nature and to a healthy natural man. Those very people normally thought of as healthy I would call the seriously ill; saving them is of the greatest importance. Doctors are busy saving
sick people, but no one is reaching out to save the healthy. Only nature itself can do so. The greatest role of a natural diet is to return people to the bosom of nature. The young people living primitively in the orchard huts on the mountain, eating a natural diet and practicing natural farming, stand closest to the ultimate goal of mankind.
**Conclusion:** Natural farming, natural diet, and natural healing are all part of one whole. Without an established natural diet, farmers have no idea what it is they should produce. Yet nothing is clearer than that, in the absence of an established method of natural farming, a true natural diet will never take hold and spread. Both natural diet and natural farming can be achieved only by natural people. This trinity begins and is realized at once. The goal of all three elements is the creation of ideal man.
However, man’s ideals today are in a state of confusion; a hundred schools of thought on natural diet and natural farming compete for our attention. The bookstores are flooded with books on natural diet, and magazines and journals are full of methods that depart from scientific farming. But to me, these all look pretty much the same. They are all on the same level and amount to no more than just one field of scientific agriculture.
People look on complacently, thinking that the world goes on developing in the midst of repeated chaos and confusion. But fragmented development without a goal can lead only to chaotic thinking and, ultimately, destruction of the human race. Unless we succeed very soon in clarifying what nature is and what man should and should not do, there will be no turning back.
### 4. Farming for All
Advances in modern civilization appear, to have made our lives easier and more convenient. Life in Japan’s large cities has reached about the same level of affluence as in advanced Western countries, and the youth who glorify freedom seem to be easy at heart. But all that has really grown is the economy. The inner life of people has become stunted, natural joy has been lost. More and more people have turned to standardized forms of recreation such as television, the *pachinko* parlor, and mah-jongg, or seek temporary solace through drinking and sex,
People no longer tread over the bare earth. Their hands have drawn away from the grasses and flowers, they do not gaze up into the heavens, their ears are deaf to the songs of the birds, their noses are rendered insensitive by exhaust fumes, and their tongues have forgotten the simple tastes of nature. All five senses have grown isolated from nature. People have become two or three steps removed from true man in the same way that someone riding in his car over asphalt-paved roads is two or three steps removed from the bare earth.
Progress in Japan since the Meiji Reformation has brought material confusion and spiritual devastation. Japan can be likened to a patient dying of cultural disease who is submitted to a medical experiment. This condition is the fruit of the “cultural flowering” to which all of Japan applied itself throughout the Meiji, Taisho, and Showa periods following the reformation. We must call a halt to this flowering of destruction now. The objective of my “do-nothing” philosophy is the revival of villages of true man where
people can return to the original form of nature and enjoy genuine happiness. The program to achieve this I shall refer to simply as “Farming for All.”
**Creating True People**
False materialistic culture and agriculture begin and end by “doing.” But the way of true man begins and ends by “doing nothing.”
The road of true man is an inner road. It cannot be followed by advancing outward. We can unearth the precious kernel of truth that lies buried within each of us by first throwing off the delusions in which we are attired.
The path of a “do-nothing” nature where all one does is to plunge into the bosom of nature, shedding body and mind, this is the road that true man must walk. The shortest path to attaining the state of true man is an open existence with simple garments and a simple diet, praying down to the earth and up to the heavens.
True and free happiness comes by being ordinary; it is to be found only by following the extraordinary, methodless road of the farmer, irrespective of the age or direction. Spiritual development and resurrection are not possible if one strays from this road of humanity.
In a sense, farming was the simplest and also the grandest work allowed of man. There was nothing else for him to do and nothing else that he should have done.
Man’s true joy and delight was natural ecstasy. This exists only in nature and vanishes away from the earth. A human environment cannot exist apart from nature, and so agriculture must be made the foundation for living. The return of all people to the country to farm and create villages of true men is the road to the creation of ideal towns, ideal societies, and ideal states.
The earth is not merely soil, and the blue sky is more than just empty space. The earth is the garden of God, and the sky is where He sits. The farmer who, chewing well the grain harvested from the Lord’s garden, raises his face to the heavens in gratitude, lives the best and most perfect life possible.
My vision of a world of farmers is founded on the responsibility of all people to return to the garden of God to farm and their right to look up at the blue skies and be blessed with joy. This would be more than just a return to primitive society. It would be a way of life in which one constantly reaffirms the source of life (‘life’ being another name for God). Man must also turn away from a world of expansion and extinction, and place his faith instead in contraction and revival.
This society of farmers may of course take the form of peasant fanning, but it must comprise natural farming that transcends the age and searches earnestly for the wellsprings of agriculture.
**The Road Back to Farming**
Recently, led by individuals aware of the danger of being swallowed up by urban civilization, people in the great metropolises, cut off from the natural world, have sensed within themselves a heightened need for nature and have even begun seeking a road back
to farming. What is it that keeps them from realizing their dreams but themselves, the land, and the law? Do people really love nature? Do they really intend to return to the land and here build up a society where they may live in peace and comfort? Somehow, it does not look that way to me.
Even when I think that the hopes and views of these people are absolutely correct, I cannot help feeling a sense of futility and distance in the end. It is something like scooping up duckweed floating on the surface of a pond and watching it slip through one’s fingers. There do not seem to be any links between people, between man and nature, between up and down, right and left.
Although both encounter the same nature, the city youth sees a natural world that is nothing more than a vision or dream, while what the rural youth works is not earth, but merely soil. Between the producer and consumer, both of whom are concerned with the same problems and should handle these jointly, lies an endless parade of organizations, merchants, and politicians. Superficial connections exist between these, but one can sense the internal gaps, the misery of those who share a common task but different dreams, the impatience of those who float on the same waves but do not notice that they drink the same water.
The consumer, who denounces food contamination, has himself sown the seeds of pollution. He does not think it strange that agricultural science has flourished and the farmer declined. The politician who laments the course taken by modern agriculture rejoices at the decrease in the number of farmers. The very corporations that have prospered from an agricultural base have brought farmers to ruin.
Farmers themselves have destroyed the earth while praying for its protection. People attack the destruction of nature yet condone destruction in the name of development. They make compromises in the name of harmony and prepare for the next wild rampage.
The foremost cause for the discord and contradictions of human society is that everyone in the towns and cities act independently and in their own interest without seeing things clearly. People all claim to love nature, but each pushes his interests without feeling the least contradiction or concern.
The lack of coherence in this world and the flood of disjointed campaigns attest to one thing: what everyone really loves is not nature but himself. The painter who sketches the mountains and rivers appears to love nature, but his real love is sketching nature. The farmer who works the earth merely loves the thought of himself laboring in the fields. The agricultural scientist and administrator believe they love nature, but the one only really loves the study of nature and the other enjoys studying and passing judgment on the farmers at work. Man has glimpsed but one tiny portion of nature. People only think they understand its true essence; they only think they love nature.
Some people transplant trees from the mountains into their garden as a token of their love for nature while others plant trees in the mountains. Some say that going to the mountains is faster than planting trees or demand that roads be laid down to make the mountains more accessible while others insist on walking to the mountains rather than going by car. All wish to adore nature but by different means so they believe that the only solution is to advance while maintaining harmony in some way. However, because their perception and understanding of nature is superficial, these methods of appreciating
nature are all at odds with each other. If each and every individual penetrated to the very core of nature and truly understood its essence, then no differences of opinion would arise.
No “method” is needed for loving nature. The only road to nature is non-action, the only method is no method at all. All one must do is to do nothing. The means will become clear of itself and the goal absurdly easy to attain.
This is what I mean by doubting the degree of resolution in those who profess a wish to return to nature. Are they really drawn to farming? Do they really love nature? If you have a genuine love for nature and wish to return to farming, the way will open with great ease before you. But if your love for nature is superficial and what you do amounts simply to making use of farming for your own purposes, the road will be closed off to you; returning to nature will be impossibly difficult.
The first obstacle that blocks the movement back to the land is people; it lies within yourself.
**Enough Land for All**
The second obstacle blocking the return of people to the land is the availability of farmland. With 120 million people squeezed together in a small island nation and land prices soaring out of sight, purchasing farmland would appear to be next to impossible. I have chosen nevertheless to call my program “Farming for All.”
Japan has about 15 million acres of farming land, which works out to about a quarter-acre per adult. If Japan’s land were divided evenly among 20 million households, this would give each household three quarters of an acre of farmland plus two and a half acres of mountain and meadow land. With total reliance on natural farming, all it takes to support a household of several people is a quarter-acre. On this amount of land, one could build a small house, grow grains and vegetables, raise a goat, and even keep several chickens and a hive of bees.
If everyone were capable of being content with the life of a quarter-acre farmer, then this would not be impossible to achieve. More to the point, everyone has a right and a duty to live their lives within narrow bounds. This is the basic condition for achieving an ideal life.
People, feeling shackled by laws and stratospheric land prices, view the possibility of land ownership as hopeless, but there is plenty of land to be had. Laws exist basically to protect an ideal society. Why then have land prices risen to such dizzying heights out of the reach of the nation’s people?
Rises in land prices over the past several years were triggered first by massive purchases of land for housing and public use. This arose both from a general perception, aided by publicity to this effect, that land in Japan is in short supply—a limited resource that cannot be increased, and the convergence of people, drawn by false rumors of economic growth, on the cities. But the truth is that, no matter how much the population grows in Japan, there will always be more than enough land to build houses on. There is land aplenty, but that land classified as “housing land” has become a life-threatening cancer.
The law breaks the land up into different zones according to use: forests, farmland, housing land, and so forth. The City Planning Law was enacted, based upon which lines were drawn and farmland divided into areas lying within urban planning zones, areas within land adjustment zones, and areas outside of the lines. The conversion of farmland to housing land was prohibited. This forced a sharp reduction in housing land that pushed up prices. Enforcement of the National Land Use Law may have made land easy to come by for those enforcing it, but it made land even more inaccessible to the ordinary person.
As laws proliferate, they appear to move toward perfection, but they only become more imperfect and preposterously complex, breaking man and the land apart. Only those who know the law well and can change the official category of a piece of land are able to buy land and later sell it. Every time housing land changes hands, the price goes up. If it were possible, just for the sake of argument, for anyone to build a simple hut or house anywhere he pleases without any legal formalities, then there would be an essentially unlimited supply of housing land. But for some reason, lawyers and legislators are under the impression that such a house would not be an ideal house.
So many legal constraints exist to building a house satisfying the legal definition of a house that the house cannot be built. A mountain hut or shed such as a woodcutter or farmer might use for his work is permitted, but if someone were to erect a small house in which he laid *tatami* mats, hung a lantern, and installed water pipes, the land on which it was built would have to be housing land. But land classified as housing land must be serviced with a 13-foot-wide road and plumbing for tap water and sewage. Thus the prospective homeowner has no choice but to buy land developed for housing at a high price from a real estate firm and build a costly house that satisfies all the standards and codes. This system of legal stipulations has set into motion a negative cycle that has shot prices for housing land out of sight. Unscrupulous business practices taking advantage of the situation have further complicated the housing land problem, causing prices to jump even higher and driving people who want a house and land into a state of frenzy.
This also makes it difficult for people with aspirations of becoming quarter-acre farmers to purchase farmland. It is not that there is no farmland available, but that there is no category of land that anyone can freely work. There is no need to go into a sparsely populated mountainous area to find an example. Not one square yard of land that goes by the name of farmland is available for purchase by city people. Such land cannot be bought by anyone other than a farmer. Legally, a “farmer” is someone who owns at least 1-1/4 acre of farmland. The Agricultural Land Law has brought a halt to the transfer of farmland.
Unless someone from the city buys up at least 1-1/4 acre of land at once, he cannot become a farmer. In fact, non-farmers can neither buy land nor formally lease and work it as tenant farmers. But there are always loopholes in the law. For example, if earth is carried onto a piece of farmland or if the land is gradually turned into a lumberyard or flowers and trees planted there, then with time it can be converted into a category called “miscellaneous land.” Once this is done, the land can easily be sold or a house built on it. Even so, in sparsely populated areas, unused land is left abandoned because it cannot be transferred or leased for the simple reason that the use category cannot be changed.
The mountains, forests, and other wilderness land that accounts for about eighty percent of Japan’s land area is tied up by titles and laws that prevent its practical use. If
even a small portion of this area were freed for use as agricultural land, homesteading would begin immediately. These farmlands can be expanded and made fluid not by establishing new laws but by abolishing unnecessary ones. Laws that do not arise and are not consummated naturally do not remain in force very long.
The current price of farmland has been artificially inflated over the natural price. Until recently, the price of farmland has always been stable, remaining more or less fixed at a given level. For prime farmland, the best price was 110 bushels of rice per quarter-acre. Assuming a bushel of rice to cost $20, this comes to $2,200 per quarter-acre. Figuring that whoever bought the land could not make ends meet if prices went any higher, farmers used this rate as a yardstick whenever they bought and sold land to each other. This standard should continue to be maintained.
Prices and taxes on farmland became unjustly high when it began to be assessed on the same scale as housing land by local government. This was clearly designed to drive farmers off the land by burdening them with taxes too high for them to afford with the meager earnings generated on their land. Support was easily drummed up among city dwellers with the argument that once farmland was freed for use as housing land, the increase in housing land would probably drive down prices. But this turned out to be just wishful thinking; land released in this way never came within the reach of the common man. The oases of green left in the towns and cities are no longer farmlands and are vanishing from the reach of the farmer. This tragedy will surely come to trouble all the farmers of this land. Someday too, these hardships of the farmer will return, in the form of calamity, to threaten the well-being of those living in the cities.
The problem boils down to this: only scoundrels, the clever, and those in power stand to gain from the issuance and abuse of a barrage of capricious laws. The net result is that the land is being taken out of the hands of farmers. The Agricultural Land Law, established to protect tenant farmers, today serves no other purpose than to thwart the hopes of those wishing to become farmers.
No one knows more about farmland than farmers. If things had been left in their hands, there would have been no need for any laws. The farmer would have passed the land into the hands of his children or grandchildren when the time came to do so. If for some reason it became necessary to transfer ownership of the land, the farmer would have resigned himself to the inevitable and passed his fields into the hands of his neighbor smoothly and without the least trouble.
When people can do without a law, it is best not to have that law. Only the barest minimum of laws is needed—to create a world that can get along without laws. Were it necessary to have a single law, then it should be: “One shall build one’s house at least sixty feet from one’s neighbor.” If people were to scatter out and build a small house on a quarter-acre wherever they pleased, then the food problem would take care of itself, water and sewage lines would not be needed, and the problem of pollution would be licked. That is not all; this would also be the quickest path to making our lands a paradise on earth.
It is not that land is not available for housing and farming. For individuals burning with a desire to farm the open land and willing to learn some basic skills, farmland exists everywhere. There is no limit to the places one can live.
Running a Farm
Even if farming aspirants are able to purchase land, what are the chances that they will be able to support themselves? Up until a few decades ago, seventy to eighty percent of the Japanese people were small farmers. Poor landed peasants were called “one-acre farmers.” If peasants were barely able to eek out a living on one acre, then what hope is there for someone planning to live off a quarter-acre?
But the reason the farmers of the past were poor and hungry was not that their land was too small to support them. Their poverty was not of their own making. They were the victims of outside forces: an oppressive social system and political and economic mechanisms beyond their control.
A quarter-acre of land is enough to supply the food needed for supporting a family. If anything, a full acre is too large. Had the peasants been exuberant at heart and ruled over by a benevolent government, instead of living in mean poverty, they could have lived like princes on their acre of land.
Farmers at the time were said to grow a hundred crops. In the paddy field and vegetable gardens, they raised rice, barley, and other grains, as well as sweet potato and many different vegetables. Fruits ripened on trees next to the farmhouse, which was surrounded by a shelterbelt. A cow was kept under the same roof and chickens ran about loose in the farmyard, protected by a dog. A beehive hung from the eaves.
All peasants were totally self-supporting and enjoyed the richest and safest possible diet. That they are seen as having been poor and hungry may well reflect the envy of modern man more than anything else. People today have never had the experience of living independently by their own devices, so they know neither spiritual nor material poverty and abundance.
The proof is there before us. Following the war, farms increased steadily in size as the method of cultivation changed, going from one, to two, to four acres. Although the amount of farmland increased, more and more peasants abandoned farming and left the land. Today, full-time farm households in Japan have grown to 15 and even 25 acres in size, as large as farms in many Western countries. At the same time, they have become increasing unstable and even run the danger of collapse.
Farming operations are usually discussed in terms of economics, but what may appear economically critical is often quite insignificant while something that seems economically trivial may be of overriding importance.
To give one example, the viability of a farming operation is generally determined on the basis of income. Does this make sense? Japan has the world’s highest land productivity and output per unit of farmland, but labor productivity and output per farm worker is very low, as is the level of income. Economists have maintained all along that, no matter how high the yields per acre, this means nothing if the remuneration per worker is low. Their ultimate target has been to search for a way of raising income by expanding the scale of operations and raising labor productivity. Granted Japan’s farmers are among the most diligent in the world and with their highly advanced skills and techniques reap high yields. But their small fields make conditions for low-cost farming operations poor.
Economically, this means poor productivity of labor and costly farm products that appear to be no match for foreign products.
All of which makes importing and selling foreign farm products, which are relatively inexpensive because of their low production costs, more attractive commercially. The way agricultural scientists and administrators see it, because farming in Japan is economically unjustifiable, we should move toward an international division of labor in food production and have perhaps the United States produce our food for us. This has become the core of Japan’s current agricultural policy.
If anything, the low labor productivity of Japan’s farmers in spite of their high yields is cause for pride rather than shame. Low income merely indicates either that prices for produce are unreasonably low or that farming equipment and materials are unfairly high, inflating production costs. The farmers have never had any control over the price of farm produce or the costs of materials used in crop production. It is the consumer who determines whether the prices of farm products will be high or low. Farmers never calculated the wages for their labor because farming was done aside from any considerations over money.
Agriculture has nothing to do, fundamentally, with profitability. The overriding concern is how to make use of the land. The goal of farming is to produce plentiful harvest by bringing out the full forces of nature, because this also happens to be the shortest road to knowing and approaching nature. Farming is not centered on income or on man; at its core are natural fields that transcend man. The fields of nature are the representatives of nature; they are God. The farmer is in the service of God, so immediate gain is a secondary concern. He should rejoice and feel gratified when his fields bear richly.
In this sense, the Japanese farmer, who lived off the smallest possible piece of land, was faithful in bringing out the utmost in both the land and himself. One-acre farmers and quarter-acre farmers are the original image of farming. My proposal for quarter-acre farming is a call to escape from a currency-based economy and devote oneself to fulfilling the true purposes of man.
When I say that crops do not need to be priced, I mean that whether they have prices or not make no difference to the farmer who dedicates himself to natural farming. Because he has no use for various chemical-based farming materials and does not reckon household labor into his expenses, then his production costs are zero. If all the farmers of the world thought along these lines, crop prices everywhere would settle to the same level and would no longer be needed. Prices are a man-made device; they do not exist in nature. Nature was free, non-discriminating, and fair to begin with. Nothing has less to do with the crops of nature than money.
The price of Japanese rice, the price of Thai rice, and the farmer’s price for rice should all be the same. No one should find fault with the shape of a cucumber or the size of a fruit. Bitter cucumbers and sour fruit too each have their proper worth.
What sense is there in importing oranges from the United States and exporting mandarins back? People of each land need only eat food grown close at hand and be contented. What has occurred is that a money-crazed economy has bred senseless competition in food production and thrown dietary habits into chaos.
Agricultural crops grown by natural farming should be assessed on the basis of a natural economy, not a monetary economy. For this to happen, it is necessary that a new system of economics founded on Mu* be developed. Establishing Mu economics will require us to get rid of our false system of values and unearth the original and true value of agriculture. In addition, Mu natural farming must be supported and implemented with Mu economics and Mu government.
In a nation where everyone tends small farms, circumstances might require that there be some consignment farming, sharecropping on a contractual basis, mutually cooperative cultivation, and even some trading of farm goods grown by natural farming, although this would be limited to the occasional exchange of surplus products on a small scale in open-air markets.
**Cosmic nothingness.** Refers here to the state where willful human actions are cast aside. Following the end of the war, Japanese agriculture was regarded as an economic sphere of activity and turned into a business-like occupation. This set a course of destruction from within that has continued unabated ever since. The destruction of an agriculture stripped of its basic meaning has already reached a perilous state. Economic relief measures are being attempted today, but the most important step that must be taken is not increasing the price of rice. Nor is it lowering the price of materials or cutting back production expenses or raising labor productivity with labor-saving techniques and mechanization or reorganizing the distribution system. None of these are radical measures. Everything depends on whether people are able to return to the viewpoint that “all is unnecessary,” that one must “act without acting.” Turning around to return to the source of Mu and dedicating ourselves to a Mu economy will not be easy, but it is the only choice we have.
This is the purpose of quarter-acre farming for all the people of the land. If people have a change of heart, they will not need vast green fields to achieve this rebirth; it will be enough for them to work small fields. Our world has fallen into a state of chaos because man, led astray by an embarrassment of knowledge, has engaged in futile labors. The road back to the land, back to the bosom of a pure, innocent nature still remains open to us all.
**Epilogue**
When the frog in the well gazes outward and observes an image of itself reflected in the mirror of the world, it does not see the mystery of the mirror, but only its distortions and irregularities; it notices only the ugliness and foolishness of its own image reflected in the mirror.
Although I could have remained shut up in my own shell and there carried on as I pleased, I thought that I could face the winds of the world and speak freely to all. I found, however, that I was unable to move.
When I see the flood of fine books in the bookstores, I realize that I too, in my harangues against the worth of books, have been righting windmills.
Having argued that all is useless ever since I was a youth, I attempted to put my thinking—which denies the understanding of people and posits the principles of “no knowledge,” “no worth,” and “non-action”—into practice through natural farming. My
goal was not to compare natural farming, which has no need for human knowledge, with scientific farming, which is a product of human knowledge. The results were already clear for everyone to see.
I was convinced that excellent rice and barley could be grown without doing anything, so it was enough for me to merely grow these. I secretly hoped that, if people saw that I was able to produce rice and barley naturally in this way, then they might reflect upon the meaning of human knowledge and science.
I did not know, however, that the people in today’s world are so steeped in scientific and specialized knowledge that they remain unconvinced by such a simple and direct answer. What has amazed me most is that, even when people see the splendid rice and barley that can be grown in a permanently unplowed field without fertilizers or pesticides, even when I explain to them the superiority of natural farming, they hardly seem surprised at all.
People always look at a problem from their own narrow specialty or perspective, limiting commentary to an area within which they themselves are capable of analysis and interpretation; they never try to arrive at a conclusion based on total self-reflection.
Even if it produces splendid rice, most farmers will reject outright a method of rice cropping that leaves even a few weeds standing. Agronomists do not try to spread and popularize herbicides until they are fully effective. What happens to the soil assaulted year after year with these powerful chemicals? The concerns of people over disease and insect damage also continue to grow without end.
One soil scientist who came to examine my fields was unusual in admonishing his colleagues that, while it is all right for them to examine the changes in the soil of my fields, they should refrain from criticizing or commenting on the basis of conventional wisdom. He told them that scientists should modestly and quietly observe the changes and that is all. Here was one scientist who knew the limits of science.
Most people who see rice and barley grown entirely by the forces of nature feel no sense of wonder. They do not look back on the road I have traveled, and show little interest in the direction in which I am trying to go. All they do is silently examine one instance by the roadside and comment that “this is good” and “that needs improvement.”
Yet I am unable to reproach these people. Scientists have a great talent for interpreting nature but are hardly ones for approaching and knowing nature. To explain to scientists how natural farming is better than scientific farming would have been an exercise in futility.
People do not have a clear idea of what is natural and what is not. This is why, although they may understand the differences between the shape, form, and methods of natural farming and scientific farming, they are unable to see these as being on entirely different planes and diametrically opposed to each other.
It is a mistake for me to explain the superiority of natural farming to scientists such as these and expect them to reflect on the meaning of science. I might just as well try telling someone from the city who knows nothing of nature that the taste of fresh natural water is better than that of tap water, or telling a sick person that walking is easier than riding a car. To them, whether it is fifty paces or a hundred paces is all the same. This is because they have no idea where the starting point is and are traveling in a different direction.
A true dialogue between man and nature is impossible. Man can stand before nature and talk to it, but nature will not call out to man. Man thinks he can know God and nature, but God and nature neither know man nor tell him anything. Instead, they look the other way.
God and man are travelers passing in opposite directions. Likewise for natural farming and scientific farming. These two paths start from the opposite sides of nature. One seeks to approach closer to nature, the other to move farther away.
Nature on the exterior shows only facts, but says nothing. However these facts are stark and clear. There is no need for explanation. To those who fail to acknowledge these facts, I mutter in my heart: “The farmer is not concerned about high-yield theories and interpretations. What counts is that the yields are the highest possible and the methods used the best there are. This in itself is enough. Certainly you are not telling a farmer to furnish by himself the proof with which to convince physicists, chemists, biologists, and specialists in all the other disciplines. And if I had gone to all that trouble, this barley you see here would never have been grown. I don’t have the time to do research just for research’s sake. And to begin with, I don’t accept the need to spend one’s entire life engaged in such activity.”
Nor do I welcome the well-meaning but misguided kindness of some scientists who, wishing to make natural farming universally accepted, try to explain it in scientific terms and support it with theoretical arguments. Natural farming is not a product of the knowledge of clever people. Applying human knowledge and reasoning to natural farming can only distort it, never improve it. Natural farming can criticize scientific farming, but cannot itself be evaluated scientifically.
Back about ten years ago, a large group of specialists, including technical officials from agricultural testing stations in southern Honshu and Shikoku, officials from the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry, and university scientists from Kyoto and Osaka visited my farm. “This field has not been plowed in more than 25 years,” I explained. “Last autumn, I broadcast clover and barley seed over the standing heads of rice. After harvesting the rice, I scattered the rice straw uncut back over the field. I could have sown the rice seed over these heads of barley, except that I sowed the rice seed last autumn together with the barley seed.”
Everyone was dumbfounded. As they listened in amazement to how for 25 years I had grown rice and barley in succession by direct seeding and without tilling the soil, how I had relied entirely on grazing ducks to fertilize my field and had never used commercial fertilizers, how I had managed to grow such fine barley without pesticides, some of the assembled scientists grew visibly perturbed.
But I was delighted to see the reactions of Professor Kawase, an authority on pasture grasses, who was openly impressed with the splendid barley growing among the green manure, and Professor Hiroe, a paleobotanist, who merrily pointed out a number of different weeds growing at the foot of the barley.
The visitors took photos of the chickens running about the citrus orchard, spun out a haiku: “Thickly growing grass/Mandarins luxuriant/So sweet a flavor,” and drew sketches of the fresh, green natural orchard. This made my day.
As gorgeous and imposing as are the flowers that bloom on the garden plants that people breed, these have nothing to do with me. Man erred when he tried comparing the flowers created by human intelligence with the weeds. The weeds by the roadside have significance and value as weeds. This is something that cannot be violated or taken away by garden varieties. Let weeds be weeds. Clover belongs to the meadows. Clover has value as clover.
The violet growing along a mountain path blooms for no one in particular, but people cannot overlook or forget it. The moment they see it, they know. If people did not change, the world would not change; farming methods would not change.
I am fortunate to have grown rice and barley. Only to him who stands where the barley stands, and listens well, will it speak and tell, for his sake, what man is.
As I look out now at the ripening heads of barley standing golden before me under the sunny May sky, I recall the words of a young visitor from a southern island. After seeing this barley, he left, saying, “I have felt the awesome energy of the earth. What more can I say?”
On the same day, a university professor told me, “It’s best to keep philosophy and religion out of the world of science.” If the barley had heard, it probably would have answered, “Don’t bring science into the world of barley.”
Just because science has exploded earlier divinely inspired religious myths, this is no cause for conceit. Science has not overthrown true religion, nor even been able to explain it. What the barley does not tell us is that only religion and philosophy can expose and pass judgment on the horror of the evils that flow through this world of ours.
In spring, daikon, turnip, and rape blossoms bloom beneath the flowering cherry trees. Come the season of the barley harvest, and the sweet fragrance of mandarin flowers drifts over the barley field and out to the Inland Sea. At this time, my natural farm truly becomes a garden of paradise. The young people who come to my farm from the cities live in the crude huts on the mountain among the chickens and goats roaming the orchard. In the evenings, they gather around the sunken hearth and talk and laugh loudly.
I tried to transfer this vision of nature, the fireside chats of these natural people, to the evening conversation of farmers. But my efforts turned out to be nothing more than idle play. Our world of rapid change had no time to lend an ear to the foolish talk of a farmer.
**Appendix**
**Greening the Deserts:** Having distanced himself from nature, man finds it almost impossible to return to the world he formerly knew. However, the recuperative powers of nature are more potent and rapid than most of us suspect. The restoration of an arid desert to a rich land of flourishing vegetation might seem inconceivable to the human mind, but at the core of the “green philosophy” is the principle that nature always returns to its former state.
What I have in mind is not the creation of green oases in the deserts through the construction of artificial irrigation systems, but the return of entire deserts to their former state as earthly paradises. If deserts first arose when man parted from the hand of God
and began to till the Garden of Eden, then nature can be made to recover naturally by applying natural farming to the deserts. I propose that natural farms be established in the deserts to green them over.
To grasp the basic concept for designing a natural farm, one must begin by looking for the true image of nature. The hills, streams, grasses, and trees must be allowed to create for themselves a place on the farm. The natural farm is a harmonious whole arising from a combination of woods and fruit trees and vegetables and grains.
The idea should not be to build irrigation systems that carry river water to the fields and there produce only specific crops, but to allow vegetation to thrive by the riverside, to create forests there and wait for water to gradually penetrate deep into the ground through the roots of the forest trees. This principle, which I have tentatively called the “plant irrigation” method, is applied in Figs. API, AP2. For example, when acacias are planted every 60 feet along the side of a stream or river, the trees reach a height of 30 feet five years later, by which time the root system has spread over an area of 120 square yards. In addition to increasing the amount of humus, this absorbs and retains moisture. The net effect is to transport water a distance of 60 feet. In other words, a single tree creates the equivalent of a small, 60-foot channel.
By utilizing the principle of plant irrigation and using a river or stream as the source of water, a natural forest can be created as a “plant-irrigated” green belt. Fields and gardens can then be set up on either side of this forest to increase the vegetative cover. Later, by extending the forest, the adjoining fields can be expanded and the green belt widened.
As I mentioned in the preface to this book, man today is concerned over the desertification of the earth. There is no question that this global loss of vegetation has its roots in the errors of farming methods that arose from the arrogance of the human intellect. I strongly believe that, rather than attempting to cultivate the deserts by building elaborate irrigation systems, it would make more sense to establish natural forests and farms using “plant irrigation.” This would encourage the return of vegetation to the deserts with minimal human intervention.
Many people are skeptical that seeds will grow in the deserts, but quite a few methods for successful seeding exist. One such method consists of enclosing the seeds of suitable plants in clay pellets and scattering the pellets in the deserts—a natural farming technique. This could be done, for example, by taking a mixture of the seeds of green manure trees such as acacias that grow in areas of scant rainfall, of clover, alfalfa, bur clover and other green manure plants, and of grain and vegetable seeds, enclosing this seed mixture in a double coating of earth and clay as pellets, and scattering the pellets by hand over the desert and savanna. The seeds within the hard pellets are protected from predation by mice and birds, and do not germinate until rain has fallen and conditions are just right. A year later, several of the plants sown will have survived, giving a clue as to
how best to proceed. Any types of plant will do as long as the deserts are soon covered once again with vegetation. Such a method will surely bring the rains back to the desert.
**Glossary of Japanese Words**
*daikon;* a large Japanese radish.
*ganpi, Diplomorpha sikokiana,* a thymelaeaceous shrub the bark of which is used to make paper.
*hatsutake; Lactarius hatsudake,* an edible fungus that grows in the shade of pine trees.
*hijiki; Hizikia fusiforme,* an edible brown algae.
*hikikokoshi; Isodon japonicus,* a very bitter perennial of the Mint Family the roots of which are used as a stomachic.
*koji; Aspergillus oryzae,* an amylase-bearing ascomycete mold used in making *miso.*
*koshida; Gleichenia dichotoma,* a fern of the family *Gleicheniaceae.*
*matsutake; Armillaria matsudake,* an edible fungus that grows at the base of the Japanese red pine.
*miso;* fermented soybean paste.
*Mu (無);* nothingness; the absolute state that transcends being and nonbeing; all existence arises from *Mu* and ultimately returns to *Mu.*
*osechi-ryori;* Japanese New Year’s cooking, consisting of various vegetables and fish boiled down in a sweet sauce.
*pachinko;* a game similar to pinball, played individually on an upright machine using small metal balls.
*sashimi;* sliced raw fish.
*shiitake; Cortinellus shiitake,* an edible mushroom widely cultivated in Japan.
*shimeji; Lyophyllum aggregatum,* a highly flavored edible fungus that grows in thick clumps.
*tatami;* thick straw mats used as flooring in Japanese homes.
*urajiro; Gleichenia glauca,* a fern of the family *Gleicheniaceae.*
*wakame; Undaria pinnatifida,* an edible seaweed of the family *Phaeophyceae.*
**Translator’s Note**
This is a translation, with minor revisions, of *Shizen Noho,* first published in Japanese in 1976. Every effort has been made to remain faithful to the substance and tone of the Japanese version.
The reader will have noticed that the book deals almost exclusively with things Japanese; Japanese farming practices, crops, weeds, insects, and even agricultural history are covered, much of which is unfamiliar outside of Japan. This is the context of Mr. Fukuoka’s personal experiences, which serve as an example of what can and has been done with natural farming by one farmer on the Japanese island of Shikoku. Obviously, as the author repeatedly suggests in the book, application of the principles discussed takes a different form under other conditions in other environments, but the local setting should not be allowed to detract from the universality of the message.
In the translation, the precedents for terminology set in Mr. Fukuoka’s first book in English, *The One-Straw Revolution*, published by Rodale Press, have been followed in most cases. Thus, for example, the Japanese term *mugi* (麦), referring generically to both barley and wheat, was translated alternatively as “winter grain,” “barley,” or “barley and wheat.” In general, what is said about barley applies equally to wheat, and vice versa, although barley, and especially naked barley, is more widely grown in Japan.
Abstract terms such as “do-nothing farming,” “discriminating knowledge,” “non-discriminating knowledge,” and “Mu” are described or defined as they appear.
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Eggs are a nutrient dense choice, providing a good or excellent source of eight essential nutrients. Recent recommendations from the 2015-2020 Dietary Guidelines for Americans and other organizations such as the American Diabetes Association include eggs as part of healthy eating patterns and no longer include a limit on dietary cholesterol.
So what is a heart-healthy diet? Experts agree that healthy eating patterns include nutrient-dense foods such as fruits, vegetables, whole grains, low-fat or fat-free dairy and lean protein sources.
Nutrient-rich eggs are a perfect complement to an overall heart-healthy diet.
REFERENCES:
1. Shin et al. Egg consumption in relation to risk of cardiovascular disease and diabetes: a systematic review and meta-analysis. Am J Clin Nutr. 2013;98:146-59.
2. Rong et al. Egg consumption and risk of coronary heart disease and stroke: dose-response meta-analysis of prospective cohort studies. Am J Clin Nutr. 2013;97:120-8.
3. Sawrey-Kubicek L et al. Whole egg consumption compared with yolk-free egg increases the cholesterol efflux capacity of high-density lipoproteins in overweight, postmenopausal women. Am J Clin Nutr. 2019 (e-pub ahead print).
4. DiMenna JM, et al. Intake of up to 3 Eggs/Day Increases HDL Cholesterol and Plasma Choline while Plasma Trimethylamine-N-oxide is Unchanged in a Healthy Population. Lipids. 2017;52:255-263.
5. Alexander DD, et al. Meta-analysis of Egg Consumption and Risk of Coronary Heart Disease and Stroke. J Am Coll Nutr. 2016;35:704-716.
6. Key et al. Consumption of Meat, Fish, Dairy Products, and Eggs and Risk of Ischemic Heart Disease. Circulation. 2019;139:2835-2845.
KEY MESSAGES
• Cholesterol is no longer a nutrient of concern. Government & health organizations have removed dietary cholesterol limits & include eggs in recommended healthy eating patterns.
- The 2015-2020 Dietary Guidelines for Americans include eggs in all three recommended eating patterns, including the Healthy Vegetarian, Healthy Mediterranean and Healthy U.S. patterns.
• The majority of scientific evidence demonstrates that eggs, when consumed as part of an overall healthy diet, do not affect risk factors for heart disease. In fact, some studies demonstrate a benefit to egg consumption:
- One study demonstrated that consumption of two whole eggs/day improved the function of HDL cholesterol.
- A recent study shows that eating 1-3 eggs per day resulted in increased HDL (“good”) cholesterol, decreased blood pressure and did not change LDL (“bad”) cholesterol levels.
- A recent meta-analysis shows daily egg intake is linked to a 12 percent decreased risk of stroke and is not associated with CHD.
- In a large cohort of over 400,000 men and women, every ½ an egg per day was linked to a 7% decreased risk for heart disease.
HEART HEALTH
HOW EATING AN EGG IMPACTS YOUR HEALTH
EGG NUTRIENTS FOR HEALTH VIDEO
Watch the video @ EggNutritionCenter.org/EggsBenefitTheBody
RECIPE IDEA
Shaka-Zoodles
Download recipe @ EggNutritionCenter.org/ShakaZoodles
SHAREABLE GRAPHIC
Eating 1 egg a day...
Reduces risk of stroke by 12%
STROKE RISK
EggNutritionCenter.org/StrokeRisk
EATING 1-3 EGGS PER DAY RESULTED IN:
- ↑ HDL ("good") cholesterol
- ↓ Blood pressure
- No Change in LDL ("bad") cholesterol
1-3 EGGS PER DAY
EggNutritionCenter.org/EggsPerDay
DIETARY CHOLESTEROL
Are you up-to-date on the latest recommendations?
The 2015 Dietary Guidelines for Americans place no daily limit on dietary cholesterol intake.
- Eggs are a nutrient powerhouse
- Eggs are a complete protein
- Eggs are a good source of choline, an important nutrient for brain health
- Eggs are a great source of lutein and zeaxanthin, two carotenoids that support eye health
Eggs are a perfect complement to an overall heart-healthy diet, and INCLUDED IN ALL HEALTHY EATING PATTERNS recommended in the 2015 Dietary Guidelines for Americans. EggNutritionCenter.org/HealthyEatingPatterns
SCIENTIFIC EVIDENCE DEMONSTRATES, that eggs, when consumed as part of a healthy diet, do not negatively impact risk factors for heart disease. Learn more here: EggNutritionCenter.org/BroaderScience
THERE ARE MANY WAYS EATING EGGS CAN BENEFIT THE BODY.
One example is increased HDL ("good") cholesterol levels and the association with decreased stroke risk. Find out more in this video: EggNutritionCenter.org/EggsBenefitTheBody
DOWNLOAD THESE EGG NUTRITION CENTER RESOURCES FOR MORE Delicious TIPS & NEWS ABOUT EATING FOR HEART HEALTH.
Spread the Word
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Have you ever wanted to touch something from outer space? Now you can! The Kutztown University Astronomy program is happy to announce the impact (we mean arrival) of our very own meteorite collection. Thanks to a generous alumni donation, you can learn about the formation of planets and the Solar System while holding some of the evidence in your hands. This January, our first three specimens arrived. The first was a gibeon meteorite with the distinctive crystal Widamstatten Pattern that preserves the cooling metal core of an asteroid. The Seymchan meteorite was found in Northeast Russia and contains small, green olivine crystals embedded in metal surroundings. The Seymchan meteorite is the frozen evidence of differentiation. Finally, we have an entire stony meteorite found in Northwest Africa. The crust of this meteorite melted as the friction of the atmosphere eroded it. Meteorites preserve the early processes in our Solar System and are one of the ways that we know how our Sun and planets formed and how long it took. We can use radioactive decay to figure out how old these meteorites are, and that tells us about the age of our Solar System. Scientists who study meteorites are called meteoritist and have a strong background in chemistry and geology.
Our new meteorites will make their KU debut in two special planetarium events on February 3rd and April 7th with Dr. Erin Kraal describing the story of each meteorite, followed by a planetarium show. Stay tuned, starting in the fall they will be available to go on tour visiting schools, groups, and classes.
| DATE | TIME | EVENT | COST |
|--------------------|--------|----------------------------------------------------------------------|-------|
| Wednesday, February 3 | 7:00 pm | NEW "Pieces of Planets" meteorite talk w/ Dr. Erin Kraal (includes “Birth of the Solar System” planetarium show) | FREE † |
| Wednesday, February 17 | 7:00 pm | NEW "Black Holes" planetarium show w/ Dr. Phill Reed | FREE † |
| Wednesday, February 17 | 8:00 pm | "Laser Beatles" musical laser light show | $5.00 †† |
| Thursday, March 3 | 7:00 pm | "Light Years From Andromeda" planetarium show w/ Dr. Phill Reed | FREE † |
| Thursday, March 3 | 8:00 pm | "Laser Zeppelin" musical laser light show | $5.00 †† |
| Friday, March 18 | 6:30 pm | Sesquicentennial Show: “150 years of the sky over Kutztown University”* sponsored by the Kutztown Foundation and Alumni Relations office (* To request free tickets for this show, please call 610-683-4110) | FREE * |
| Saturday, March 19 | 6:00 pm | A Celestial Spring Eve Computer Music & Visualization Seminar | FREE † |
| Thursday, March 24 | 7:00 pm | "Secret Lives of Stars" planetarium show w/ Dr. Phill Reed | FREE † |
| Thursday, March 24 | 8:00 pm | "Laser Beatles" musical laser light show | $5.00 †† |
| Wednesday, April 6 | 7:00 pm | NEW "Black Holes" planetarium show w/ Dr. Phill Reed | FREE † |
| Wednesday, April 6 | 8:00 pm | "Laser Zeppelin" musical laser light show | $5.00 †† |
| Thursday, April 7 | 7:00 pm | NEW "Pieces of Planets" meteorite talk w/ Dr. Erin Kraal (includes “Birth of the Solar System” planetarium show) | FREE † |
| Thursday, April 21 | 7:00 pm | "Ice Worlds" planetarium show with Dr. Phill Reed | FREE † |
| Thursday, April 21 | 8:00 pm | "Laser Beatles" musical laser light show | $5.00 †† |
† These educational planetarium shows are free and open to the public. No tickets are required. Seating is first-come, first-served.
†† Laser light show tickets are available for cash at the planetarium. Tickets for all shows will be available at all KU planetarium & observatory events. Available tickets will also be sold at the door on the day of the show. Proceeds support the KU Planetarium Community Outreach Program.
More To Be Announced …
www.kutztown.edu/planetarium
"Black Holes" Planetarium Show
They lurk in the universe like cosmic dragons, unseen voids with the energy of a million suns. They can devour entire stars, and once in their grasp, nothing, not even light, can escape. Few mysteries in the universe have the power and awe of the black hole. Only now are we on the verge of understanding their true nature.
Narrated by noted actor John de Lancie (“Q” in the Star Trek TV series), this new immersive theater program incorporates several of the latest theories regarding black holes. Where do they come from? Will the Earth ever be sucked into one? Do “Worm Holes” really exist?
Designed for general audiences, this full-length animated production features 3-D simulations of black holes and the strange physical effects they can create. With a host of advisors from around the country, this proves to be the most up-to-date and visually stunning shows about black holes ever produced!
February 17 and April 6 at 7:00pm – Admission is FREE.
"Pieces of Planets" Meteorite Talk
Introducing our three new meteorites, this show will explore the formation of the meteorites in our new collection. What do stories do these meteorites tell us? What can we learn about asteroids and planets by examining their structure and materials? Meteorites are pieces of asteroids, so we will discuss how asteroids form and look at new NASA images of asteroids. Then we will talk about the journey from asteroid to meteorite. What happens during a ‘shooting star’ and how do we find them after they crash into Earth? Ultimately we will trace journey crashing onto Earth and eventually into your hands at the KU Planetarium. Following the 25 minute talk, there will be a showing of planetarium show “Birth of the Solar System”. This show will be repeated twice.
February 3 & April 7 at 7:00pm – Admission is FREE.
Sesquicentennial Planetarium Show: “150 years of the sky over Kutztown University”
How has the study of astronomy changed over the 150 years since the founding of Kutztown University? What has stayed the same? And what has happened in the sky over Kutztown during the University’s first century and a half?
These questions will be answered in this one-time-only live planetarium presentation. Rare photographs will be shared and interesting stories (legends?) will be told.
This show is sponsored by the Kutztown Foundation & Alumni Relations office and requires tickets. To request FREE tickets, please call 610-683-4110.
"Light Years From Andromeda" Planetarium Show
The Andromeda galaxy is the closest large galaxy to our own, but it still takes the light from Andromeda quite a while to reach us. Where were you when the Andromeda galaxy actually looked the way you see it in the sky tonight? Had you been born yet? Were there even any humans on Earth yet?
Light Years From Andromeda, narrated by Michael Dorn (Worf from "Star Trek: The Next Generation"), takes you on the journey experienced by the very light you see every time you look up at the Andromeda galaxy.
March 3 at 7:00pm – Admission is FREE.
"Secret Lives of Stars" Planetarium Show
How are stars born? How do they die? What will happen to our Sun at the end of its life? Secret Lives of Stars, narrated by Patrick Stewart, answers these questions, and more!
Not all stars are created equal - some are extremely massive while others are relatively tiny and apparently insignificant. The specific characteristics of a star will determine what type of life it will lead, how long it might live and even the type of death it will die. During this planetarium show, you will witness the amazing variety of stars and peer into their secret lives.
March 24 at 7:00 pm – Admission is FREE.
"Ice Worlds" Planetarium Show
Ice is extremely important to life on Earth, where it exists in a delicate balance with liquid water. Outside of our own planet, ice comprises many other worlds such as Saturn's moon Enceladus and Jupiter's Europa. Narrated by Emily Watson, Ice Worlds takes us on an exploration of these icy regions of the Solar System.
April 21 at 7:00pm – Admission is FREE.
LASER Light Shows are here to stay! After a very successful run of Pink Floyd Laser Light Shows in October 2015, the KU Planetarium is offering *Laser Beatles* and *Laser Zeppelin* shows this Spring Semester! The dates are:
- **Laser Beatles**:
- Wednesday 2/17/2016 at 8:00 pm
- Thursday 3/24/2016 at 8:00 pm
- Thursday 4/21/2016 at 8:00 pm
- **Laser Zeppelin**:
- Thursday 3/3/2016 at 8:00 pm
- Wednesday 4/6/2016 at 8:00 pm
**How to get LASER Light Show tickets:**
Tickets will now be sold exclusively at the KU Planetarium – so they can be purchased at any KU Planetarium or Observatory event throughout the semester! If still available, tickets will be sold at the door on the day of each show.
The cost per ticket is $5.00, and proceeds benefit the KU Astronomy Outreach Program. The planetarium currently accepts cash only for laser light show tickets.
Lunchtime Solar Observing – Every (Sunny) Friday at Noon!
During the Spring 2016 semester, the KU Observatory will be open for Solar Observing every Friday at noon until 1:30pm. The Observatory Director, Dr. Phill Reed, or a capable astronomy student, will be on hand to show visitors how to use the specialized Solar telescope. The Solar telescope is specifically designed to look directly at the Sun and is perfectly safe … and awe-inspiring!
If the Sun is out and you have some spare time during lunch on a Friday, come out to the observatory (3rd floor of Grim Science Building) and take a live up-close look at the Sun. Observe the Sun’s magnetic activity by finding Sunspots, flares, and eruptions!
Public Nighttime Observing:
The KU Observatory will continue to be open to the community during public observing events. Since these events require a clear sky and are heavily dependent on the weather, they are announced as the opportunities arise. Oftentimes, a public observing event will be announced on the morning of the same day. A sure way to get all of the announcements is to follow the KU Planetarium & Observatory on Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/KUPlanetarium
Guests at the KU Observatory have been treated to live views of planets, star clusters, galaxies, and more!
ABOVE: These are typical views through the 24” telescope’s eyepiece of some common targets for visual observing. From left to right: a very small portion of the moon’s surface, the planet Saturn, the “Orion Nebula” (M42) – a star forming region, the planet Jupiter, and the “Hercules” globular star cluster (M13) – a collection of 300,000 stars in the Galactic halo. | 4ec884df-f67e-4ad3-922e-8cafb6c04349 | CC-MAIN-2024-46 | https://www.kutztown.edu/Departments-Offices/M-R/Observatory-Planetarium/Documents/Ursa_Minor_Report_Archive/V2I1.pdf | 2024-11-03T03:54:56+00:00 | crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2024-46/segments/1730477027770.74/warc/CC-MAIN-20241103022018-20241103052018-00718.warc.gz | 793,796,710 | 2,494 | eng_Latn | eng_Latn | 0.997891 | eng_Latn | 0.998554 | [
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46. The Live Appearance of a Spiritual Dragon
In the fall of 1953, an incident happened during the initial stage of renovation at the Tze Hing (Cixing) Chan Monastery. A poisonous snake with a red head and a green body often appeared. Whenever the residents saw it, they would capture it in a giant cauldron and release it a few miles away.
But oddly enough, before the one who freed it returned, the snake returned first. And it would appear in a prominent place where there were many people. It had a look that said, “What else could you do to me?” Despite being repeatedly sent away, it returned again and again. The strangest thing happened when it was about to be released to a distant place. They discovered it was no longer inside when the lid of the cauldron opened. They flipped the cauldron over and lightly knocked on it a few times. Suddenly, they saw half of its body fall out from the large iron pot. When the one who sent it away returned, it became a full-grown venomous snake again, as it appeared in front of the Buddha Hall, slithered around, and held its head up with its tongue forked out.
Snakes belonged to the Dragon family; only a true dragon can subdue a poisonous snake. Accordingly, the Venerable Master looked closely at the land formations of Ling Hui Mountain and Man Cheung Po. The Tze Hing (Cixing) Chan Monastery, located at the head of Man Cheung Po, has a waterfall, a stream, and a pond with a magnificent aura. From afar, it looked as if ten thousand silver veils are falling from
之下，上人選擇在寺院左後方，嵯峨的三堵巖石上，矗立一降龍石。於是，叫陳果昇居士利用天然地勢，塑造了一條金龍。金龍長約四米，昂首張目，蜿蜒坐臥在礁巖之上，龍鱗翻舞，龍爪飛騰，七彩斑斕，栩栩如生。金龍塑好之後，上人持誦〈楞嚴咒〉七天，從此毒蛇不再出現。德可伏魔，誠然不虛。（編按：這條大金龍，已成為大嶼山勝景之一。）
金龍造好以後，寺後有一巖口湧泉出水，終年水流不斷，即使天旱也不乾涸，上人稱之為「龍口水」。曾有水質學家把泉水拿去化驗，發現水質非常清純，毫無雜質。
上人自述：
在香港大嶼山造龍的那個人，胡文虎花園的雕塑都是出於他之手。我希望這個人能來美國，不知道他能不能夠來？他說如果能來，他願意在廟上的空地上，造一個三丈六尺高的觀音菩薩像。
The Master was standing on the scaffolding of the newly cast golden dragon in 1955.
The Master was blessing the golden dragon.
the sky. Thus, the Venerable Master chose a place at the back-left corner of the monastery, on high ground with a protruding tall granite rock, to make a “Dragon Subduing Rock.” He then asked Layman Chan Gwo Sing to use the natural landscape to shape a golden dragon. The golden dragon is about four meters long, with its head raised and wide-open eyes. Its claws rest on the granite rocks. It has colorful scales, and a realistic body. Following the completion of the golden dragon, the Venerable Master recited the Shurangama Mantra for seven days; after that, the poisonous snake never appeared again. Virtue indeed subdues demons. (Editor’s note: This large golden dragon has become one of the attractions of Lantau Island).
After completing the golden dragon sculpture, a spring emerged behind the monastery, and its water flowed endlessly. Even in times of drought, the spring never dries up. The Venerable Master called it “Water from the Dragon’s Mouth.” A hydrologist who analyzed the water found that it was pure and clear, with no contaminants.
Venerable Master’s Account:
The same person who built the dragon on Lantau Island, Hong Kong, also sculpted the statues at Tiger Balm Garden. I wish he could come to America, but I don’t know if he can. He said that if he could, he would build a thirty-six-foot-tall Guanyin Bodhisattva statue in the temple’s open space.
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The CPU spends almost all of its time fetching instructions from memory and executing them. However, the CPU and main memory are only two out of many components in a real computer system. A complete system contains other devices such as:
- A hard disk for storing programs and data files. (Note that main memory holds only a comparatively small amount of information, and holds it only as long as the power is turned on. A hard disk is used for permanent storage of larger amounts of information, but programs have to be loaded from disk into main memory before they can actually be executed.)
- A keyboard and mouse for user input.
- A monitor and printer which can be used to display the computer's output.
- An audio output device that allows the computer to play sounds.
- A network interface that allows the computer to communicate with other computers that are connected to it on a network, either wirelessly or by wire.
- A scanner that converts images into coded binary numbers that can be stored and manipulated on the computer.
The list of devices is entirely open ended, and computer systems are built so that they can easily be expanded by adding new devices. Somehow the CPU has to communicate with and control all these devices. The CPU can only do this by executing machine language instructions (which is all it can do, period). The way this works is that for each device in a system, there is a device driver, which consists of
software that the CPU executes when it has to deal with the device. Installing a new device on a system generally has two steps: plugging the device physically into the computer, and installing the device driver software. Without the device driver, the actual physical device would be useless, since the CPU would not be able to communicate with it.
A computer system consisting of many devices is typically organized by connecting those devices to one or more busses. A bus is a set of wires that carry various sorts of information between the devices connected to those wires. The wires carry data, addresses, and control signals. An address directs the data to a particular device and perhaps to a particular register or location within that device. Control signals can be used, for example, by one device to alert another that data is available for it on the data bus. A fairly simple computer system might be organized like this:
Now, devices such as keyboard, mouse, and network interface can produce input that needs to be processed by the CPU. How does the CPU know that the data is there? One simple idea, which turns out to be not very satisfactory, is for the CPU to keep checking for incoming data over and over. Whenever it finds data, it processes it. This
method is called polling, since the CPU polls the input devices continually to see whether they have any input data to report. Unfortunately, although polling is very simple, it is also very inefficient. The CPU can waste an awful lot of time just waiting for input.
To avoid this inefficiency, interrupts are often used instead of polling. An interrupt is a signal sent by another device to the CPU. The CPU responds to an interrupt signal by putting aside whatever it is doing in order to respond to the interrupt. Once it has handled the interrupt, it returns to what it was doing before the interrupt occurred. For example, when you press a key on your computer keyboard, a keyboard interrupt is sent to the CPU. The CPU responds to this signal by interrupting what it is doing, reading the key that you pressed, processing it, and then returning to the task it was performing before you pressed the key.
Again, you should understand that this is a purely mechanical process: A device signals an interrupt simply by turning on a wire. The CPU is built so that when that wire is turned on, the CPU saves enough information about what it is currently doing so that it can return to the same state later. This information consists of the contents of important internal registers such as the program counter. Then the CPU jumps to some predetermined memory location and begins executing the instructions stored there. Those instructions make up an interrupt handler that does the processing necessary to respond to the interrupt. (This interrupt handler is part of the device driver software for the device that signalled the interrupt.) At the end of the interrupt handler is an instruction that tells the CPU to jump back to what it was doing; it does that by restoring its previously saved state.
Interrupts allow the CPU to deal with asynchronous events. In the regular fetch-and-execute cycle, things happen in a predetermined order; everything that happens is
"synchronized" with everything else. Interrupts make it possible for the CPU to deal efficiently with events that happen "asynchronously," that is, at unpredictable times.
As another example of how interrupts are used, consider what happens when the CPU needs to access data that is stored on the hard disk. The CPU can access data directly only if it is in main memory. Data on the disk has to be copied into memory before it can be accessed. Unfortunately, on the scale of speed at which the CPU operates, the disk drive is extremely slow. When the CPU needs data from the disk, it sends a signal to the disk drive telling it to locate the data and get it ready. (This signal is sent synchronously, under the control of a regular program.) Then, instead of just waiting the long and unpredictable amount of time that the disk drive will take to do this, the CPU goes on with some other task. When the disk drive has the data ready, it sends an interrupt signal to the CPU. The interrupt handler can then read the requested data.
Now, you might have noticed that all this only makes sense if the CPU actually has several tasks to perform. If it has nothing better to do, it might as well spend its time polling for input or waiting for disk drive operations to complete. All modern computers use multitasking to perform several tasks at once. Some computers can be used by several people at once. Since the CPU is so fast, it can quickly switch its attention from one user to another, devoting a fraction of a second to each user in turn. This application of multitasking is called timesharing. But a modern personal computer with just a single user also uses multitasking. For example, the user might be typing a paper while a clock is continuously displaying the time and a file is being downloaded over the network.
Each of the individual tasks that the CPU is working on is called a thread. (Or a process; there are technical differences between threads and processes, but they are
not important here, since it is threads that are used in Java.) Many CPUs can literally execute more than one thread simultaneously -- such CPUs contain multiple "cores," each of which can run a thread -- but there is always a limit on the number of threads that can be executed at the same time. Since there are often more threads than can be executed simultaneously, the computer has to be able switch its attention from one thread to another, just as a timesharing computer switches its attention from one user to another. In general, a thread that is being executed will continue to run until one of several things happens:
- The thread might voluntarily yield control, to give other threads a chance to run.
- The thread might have to wait for some asynchronous event to occur. For example, the thread might request some data from the disk drive, or it might wait for the user to press a key. While it is waiting, the thread is said to be blocked, and other threads, if any, have a chance to run. When the event occurs, an interrupt will "wake up" the thread so that it can continue running.
- The thread might use up its allotted slice of time and be suspended to allow other threads to run. Not all computers can "forcibly" suspend a thread in this way; those that can are said to use preemptive multitasking. To do preemptive multitasking, a computer needs a special timer device that generates an interrupt at regular intervals, such as 100 times per second. When a timer interrupt occurs, the CPU has a chance to switch from one thread to another, whether the thread that is currently running likes it or not. All modern desktop and laptop computers use preemptive multitasking.
Ordinary users, and indeed ordinary programmers, have no need to deal with interrupts and interrupt handlers. They can concentrate on the different tasks or threads that they want the computer to perform; the details of how the computer manages to get all those tasks done are not important to them. In fact, most users, and many programmers, can ignore threads and multitasking altogether. However, threads have become increasingly important as computers have become more powerful and as they have begun to make more use of multitasking and multiprocessing. In fact, the ability to work with threads is fast becoming an essential job skill for programmers.
Just as important in Java and in modern programming in general is the basic concept of asynchronous events. While programmers don't actually deal with interrupts directly, they do often find themselves writing event handlers, which, like interrupt handlers, are called asynchronously when specific events occur. Such "event-driven programming" has a very different feel from the more traditional straight-through, synchronous programming. We will begin with the more traditional type of programming, which is still used for programming individual tasks,
By the way, the software that does all the interrupt handling, handles communication with the user and with hardware devices, and controls which thread is allowed to run is called the operating system. The operating system is the basic, essential software without which a computer would not be able to function. Other programs, such as word processors and World Wide Web browsers, are dependent upon the operating system. Common operating systems include Linux, Windows XP, Windows Vista, and Mac OS.
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Wow! It's week 5, halfway through the term and so much exciting and wonderful learning has been happening at school. On Friday 12th May 2023 our students embarked on their inquiry learning by sharing their "wondering" about Space. It was great to see our tamariki being confident learners to present their learning to their fellow peers. Ka rawe tamariki ma!
**Winter Sports**
Friday Basketball and Saturday Netball season have begun and it’s been great watching our tamariki out on the courts working together as a team. All teams have been filled but keep an eye out for any upcoming sporting events such as Year 5/6 Girls Day Out or Year 5-8 Rugby League tournaments. We encourage all tamariki to participate in all sports.
**Whanau Night – TODAY!**
There are 2 sessions available - 3:30 pm & 4:30 pm. This is a chance for you to meet your child’s teacher and to find out about what’s been happening in their classrooms. We look forward to seeing you all there.
Meitaki maata,
Mary Takatainga
Tumuaki
**Key dates:**
- **25 May Whanau Night**
- **28 May – 3 June Samoan Language Week**
- **9 June School Photos**
- **26 – 27 June Home School Partnership Conferences**
Visit our website for regular updates
www.manurewaeast.school.nz
more photos from our EMBARK
We are confident, resilient and will reach great heights
Our inquiry for this term is Space. In A3A4 we have been learning about Te Marama - the Moon and Tama-nui-te ra – the Sun. Throughout our exploration and investigation, we have come up with some big questions to help guide our inquiry about space.
"What is the sun? How big is the sun? How far is the sun from Earth? What is the sun made of? How do we get day and night? How do Maori and other cultures use the sun, moon and stars? How does the moon affect the tides?"
Our tamariki enjoy working together and helping each other to find the answers to the questions they are inquiring into. We look forward to seeing what they have discovered at the end of the term.
Kia ora whanau,
The Dental Clinic is on our school grounds. If your preschool child needs to be seen by a dentist, please ring the school and we will inform the dental technician that you are coming in.
A reminder, should you require any support ie. food or water, please contact the school so we can get in touch with outside providers to help you. Remember these services are available for you.
- **Counselling** for our tamariki and whanau who are experiencing difficulties.
- **Social welfare support** through Family Works, supports whanau and tamariki who have a variety of issues.
- **Health nurses** are on site every morning to check students with sore throats and skin infections. If you would like your child’s hearing and eyesight tested let your child’s teacher know.
- **Learning Support** for our tamariki.
Naku noa,
Mrs Robati (0275595479.)
---
What a lovely way to start our day by doing a bit of exercise. Exercise helps to develop a strong cardiovascular system. It also gives us the energy to think clearly and concentrate on our learning for the day.
Reminder if your child is part of this group they will need:
- to arrive on time at 8 am
- full school uniform
- appropriate work out clothes
- proper footwear
Whaea Rosa is really enjoying watching our tamariki get stronger and fitter each and every day.
Check out the learning stories from A3A4 | 8f6ab492-38cc-45e7-a381-a25042f77313 | CC-MAIN-2023-23 | https://www.manurewaeast.school.nz/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/23-May-2023-Manurewa-East-School-Newsletter-1.pdf | 2023-06-03T05:31:32+00:00 | crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2023-23/segments/1685224649105.40/warc/CC-MAIN-20230603032950-20230603062950-00799.warc.gz | 961,208,514 | 784 | eng_Latn | eng_Latn | 0.997853 | eng_Latn | 0.997753 | [
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Greenhill School authorities made a conscious decision to equip students with basic technological skills, and also to ensure that the teaching staff would become as comfortable with technology as they are with chalk and books. It’s a mission that introduced them to Tandberg Educational and the SANAKO Lab 300.
**Greenhill School**
- Co-educational, private day school
- Student enrollment of more than 1200 pupils
- A diverse group of students from pre-K to Grade 12
- Committed to integrating technology into the classroom and the curriculum
- Languages offered: Chinese, French, Latin, and Spanish
**SANAKO -a trusted brand**
- 18 position system
- Completely digital solution makes learning more efficient
- Existing cassette material can be digitized and stored
- Many different ways to improve the learning experience
**Striving for Excellence**
Located in Addison, Texas, Greenhill School is a coeducational private day school with an enrollment of more than 1,200 students, Pre-K through Grade 12. It is a diverse community of learners that strives for excellence; values individuality; fosters a passion for learning; promotes the balanced development of mind, body, and character; encourages service, and instills a respect for others.
**Greenhill’s Technology Commitment**
Six years ago, the technology committee met and outlined a set of goals that would update Greenhill School’s technology for the 21st century. The new language lab was the final piece in the technology committee’s six-year plan - with its opening on February 2003, the technology department realized its goal. The new language lab, which contains 18 computers, cost a little over $100,000, most of which came from funds from the technology initiative, a technology-based capital campaign, and gifts. Chris Bigenho, Director of Educational Technology, Mary Tapia, Chair of the Modern and Classical Languages and Beth Wing, Spanish Teacher, visited several schools and colleges in the Dallas area and attended a conference in Houston to determine what type of language lab would be best for Greenhill. “We knew that language labs all around the area were going digital, so we decided that Greenhill’s new lab would be digital too,” said Mrs. Wing. “Basically, we narrowed it down to a few types of digital systems and decided to go with the Tandberg Educational lab. Our last language lab was a Tandberg Educational IS-10 language lab so we knew that we would be working with people we trusted.”
**A Completely Digital Solution**
Mr. Bigenho felt the technological tools in the new language lab would make learning in the lab easier and more efficient. “The new language lab is completely digital,” he said.
“Students access their lessons on the computer, respond, and digitally record their voices. Teachers can then open up student recordings on file and listen to them.” In contrast, the old language lab required lessons on tape. Now the taped lessons will be digitized onto the new language lab’s servers. “The Tandberg Educational IS-10 language lab was installed when the Upper School was built in 1987, so the technology became obsolete,” said Ms. Tapia. “There are an infinite number of ways the new lab will improve the education experience.” To reduce confusion, teachers and students are being trained on how to use the new system during their lab class times. “It takes time and patience to become familiar with new technology, but students and teachers will be pleased with the changes in the long run,” said Mr. Bigenho.
**Easy-to-Use Technology**
Ms. Tapia said she is pleased with how easily students and teachers are adapting to the new technology. “The first few sessions have gone very smoothly,” she added. According to Mr. Bigenho, all of the new computers have Microsoft XP, which contains a language program that enables students studying Chinese to read and type in Chinese.
“It is going to be really nice to type in Chinese. In the writing center they have a Chinese program, but it takes too long. Also, the old lab only had a television and a tape deck, so now we can participate and react,” said sophomore Mark Henderson.
Chinese-language students are not the only ones excited about the addition of a digitally enhanced language lab. The students studying Latin will also benefit from the lab’s technological advantages. Junior Brett Lacher said, “Finally, Latin students can practice their language outside of the classroom setting.”
**Sales Partner for this system:**
Multimedia Learning Systems
800-313-2419
www.multimedialearningsystems.com
For more information about SANAKO Corporation visit:
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SEA CREATURE SEARCH
ANGLERFISH CRAB
MOLLUSK KRAKEN
SHRIMP BOOK
COMBJELLY
HOOKED ON BOOKS
Activity Kit
By Margaret Chiu Greanias
Illustrated by Kristyna Litten
Kit may be reproduced at no charge.
PEACHTREE
PeachtreeBooks.com
Illustrations © 2023 by Kristyna Litten
WRITE YOUR OWN STORY
Are you hooked on books? Write your own story! Using the space below, make sure it’s a whale of a tale!
By Margaret Chiu Greanias
Illustrated by Kristyna Litten
Kit may be reproduced at no charge.
PeachtreeBooks.com
Illustrations © 2023 by Kristyna Litten
SEA SYMBOLS
MEMORY CARD GAME
With the help of an adult, cut out the cards below. Flip them face down, then shuffle them and lay them in rows. Players take turns flipping over two cards at a time. If the cards match, the player who flipped the cards keeps them; if they don’t match, they turn the cards back over. The trick is to remember where the matching cards are. The player with the most cards at the end wins.
By Margaret Chiu Greanias
Illustrated by Kristyna Litten
Kit may be reproduced at no charge.
READING ZONE MAZE
Help Pearl find some peace and quiet away from distractions!
START
FINISH
By Margaret Chiu Greanias
Illustrated by Kristyna Litten
Kit may be reproduced at no charge.
PeachtreeBooks.com
Illustrations © 2023 by Kristyna Litten | 5b10da63-c25b-4301-b3eb-2684c19675c0 | CC-MAIN-2024-18 | https://www.peachtreebooks.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/Hooked-on-Books-Activity-Kit_.pdf | 2024-04-23T05:26:14+00:00 | crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2024-18/segments/1712296818464.67/warc/CC-MAIN-20240423033153-20240423063153-00745.warc.gz | 845,249,543 | 352 | eng_Latn | eng_Latn | 0.878087 | eng_Latn | 0.986523 | [
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Phase 2 History – Learning Journey
Why do we remember the Mayans?
The children will study the Mayans and how their society contrasts with British history.
I understand the meaning of 10 key topic words, I can spell them and know how to use them in context.
I can discuss historical changes in Britain; what caused them and the impact on life in Britain.
I can examine and compare artefacts.
I can create historically valid questions about similarities and differences.
I know that the past can be divided into different periods of time.
I can discuss and evaluate the achievements of ancient civilisations.
The Patchwork Path (Slavery)
In this topic the children will look at the impact of slavery on Britain. The focus will be areas including industry, population and leisure.
I can use dates and vocabulary related to the passing of time.
I can choose a source to answer questions about specific people and events.
I can create historically valid questions about similarities and differences.
I can identify and describe changes between specific periods of history.
I know that the past can be divided into different periods of time.
I can discuss the achievements of ancient civilisations.
I can discuss and explain the achievements of ancient civilisations.
I can use dates and vocabulary related to the passing of time.
I can examine and compare artefacts.
I can discuss the impact that significant historical events, people and places had on my locality.
I understand the meaning of 10 key topic words, I can spell them and know how to use them in context.
In this topic the children will look at the docklands and then focus on the Albert Dock. They will look at usage over time and the impact on Liverpool life.
CULTURAL CAPITAL: Visit to Chester and the DEWA Experience
The Romans
In this topic the children will find out about The Romans and the impact they had on Britain. This will include a visit to Chester.
I understand the meaning of 10 key topic words, I can spell them and know how to use them in context.
I can ask and answer questions about the past after looking at different sources.
I can describe how we can find out about the past.
I can give simple reasons for why key events happened in history.
I know that the past can be divided into different periods of time.
The Egyptians
In this topic the children will study the Ancient Egyptians and why we remember them.
I understand the meaning of 10 key topic words, I can spell them and know how to use them in context.
I can discuss historical changes in Britain; what caused them and the impact on life in Britain.
I can use a range of vocabulary including those related to the passing of time.
I can describe how we can find out about the past.
I can give simple reasons for why key events happened in history.
I know that the past can be divided into different periods of time.
Muhammed Ali
I understand the meaning of 10 key topic words, I can spell them and know how to use them in context.
I can ask and answer questions about the past after looking at different sources.
I can describe how we can find out about the past.
I can give simple reasons for why key events happened in history.
I know that the past can be divided into different periods of time.
Rosa Parks
In this topic the children will look at the impact of Rosa Parks on Britain.
I understand the meaning of 10 key topic words, I can spell them and know how to use them in context.
I can discuss historical changes in Britain; what caused them and the impact on life in Britain.
I can use a range of vocabulary including those related to the passing of time.
I can describe how we can find out about the past.
I can give simple reasons for why key events happened in history.
I know that the past can be divided into different periods of time.
Pele
I can use a range of vocabulary including those related to the passing of time.
I can discuss the impact that significant historical events, people and places had on my locality.
I understand the meaning of 10 key topic words, I can spell them and know how to use them in context.
What significance does the Albert Dock have on Liverpool Life?
CULTURAL CAPITAL: Visit to the Albert Dock and the Slavery Museum
The Roman Empire and its Impact on Britain
READING LINK: Whole Class Reading: Tiger Tiger A Text Set in Ancient Rome
Study of British History beyond 1066
READING LINK: Whole Class Reading: Entangled with the Egyptians.
Changes in Britain from Stone Age to the Iron Age
The children will find out about the changes in Britain from the Stone Age to the Iron Age. They will discover what life was like and compare it to modern day life.
CULTURAL CAPITAL: Visit to Liverpool Museums.
Stone Age to Iron Age
I know that the past can be divided into different periods of time.
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Habitat Management for Bumble Bees in Nebraska
RAE POWERS, KATIE LAMKE, JENNIFER HOPWOOD, AND RICH HATFIELD
Acknowledgments
This guide was made possible with support from the University of Nebraska–Lincoln and the Nebraska Environmental Trust. Additional support was provided by Annie’s, the Carroll Petrie Foundation, Cascadian Farm, Ceres Trust, Cheerios, CS Fund, The Dudley Foundation, General Mills, Haagen-Dazs, Justin’s, Muir Glen, Nature Valley, Turner Foundation, White Pine Fund, and Whole Foods Market.
The Xerces® Society for Invertebrate Conservation is a nonprofit organization that protects wildlife through the conservation of invertebrates and their habitat. Established in 1971, the Society is at the forefront of invertebrate protection, harnessing the knowledge of scientists and the enthusiasm of citizens to implement conservation programs worldwide. The Society uses advocacy, education, and applied research to promote invertebrate conservation.
The Xerces Society is an equal opportunity employer and provider. Xerces® is a trademark registered in the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.
© 2022 by The Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation
We thank the following for their careful review and input on this publication: Leif Richardson and Emily May of the Xerces Society, Chris Helzer of The Nature Conservancy, Scott Luedtke of the Nebraska Game and Parks Commission, Allyson Frank, Daniel Frank, Kayla Mollet, Mike Klosterman of Pheasants Forever, Elaine Evans of the University of Minnesota, Shaun Dunn of the Nebraska Game and Parks Commission, Scott Wessel of the Nebraska Game and Parks Commission.
Editing and layout: Sara Morris, The Xerces Society.
Photographs & Artwork
We are grateful to the many photographers and designers for allowing us to use their wonderful photographs and illustrations. The copyright for all photographs and illustrations is retained by the creators. None of the photographs or illustrations may be reproduced without permission from the creator. Cover photos—Flickr (clockwise from left to right): Yellow bumble bee (*Bombus fervidus*) female flying to lupine (*Lupinus* sp.); half-black bumble bee (*B. vagans*) sleeping on rough blazing star (*Liatris aspera*); brown-belted bumble bee (*B. griseocollis*) on leadplant (*Amorpha canescens*). (Photos Xerces Society / Katie Lamke [left, bottom right]; Justin Meissen / Flickr [top right].) Back: Female American bumble bee (*B. pensylvanicus*) collected, recorded, and released during the Nebraska Bumble Bee Atlas (left); bumble bees collected during a survey sit on a person’s hands to warm up after being chilled and recorded. (Photos Xerces Society / Katie Lamke.)
Citation
Powers, R., K. Lamke, J. Hopwood, and R. Hatfield. 2022. *Habitat Management for Bumble Bees in Nebraska*. 20 pp. Portland, OR: The Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation.
Disclaimer
This document is provided only as a guide. It offers science-based information to help you make informed decisions to reduce the risk of pest management efforts to pollinators and other beneficial insects. It may also contain specific pest management suggestions, including pesticide uses, but does not guarantee the efficacy of these uses. While based on guidance, advice, research literature, or other documentation, these recommendations are just that: recommendations for applicators and land managers to consider when developing or refining a specific pest management plan.
In the event of a conflict between this guide and the pesticide label, the pesticide user has sole and complete responsibility to comply with the applicable laws and the pesticide label instructions. Xerces and Xerces’ employees are not licensed pesticide applicators or advisors. Xerces makes no warranty, expressed or implied, regarding the accuracy, adequacy, completeness, legality, reliability, or usefulness of any information contained in this document and assumes no liability resulting from use of such information. Risk of personal injury or property damage from any pesticide use is assumed by the pesticide user.
Xerces does not endorse any of the ingredients or products listed in this document. Ingredients and/or products are listed for identification and reference only. The appearance of a named ingredient or product is not, and should not be construed, as an endorsement by Xerces or a rejection of similar materials.
Introduction to Bumble Bees
Bumble bees (*Bombus* spp.) are charismatic and easily recognizable pollinators, thanks to their loud buzz, large size, and distinct color patterns. In Nebraska there are up to 20 different species of bumble bees that play an incredibly important role in sustaining the health of our environment; their pollination services contribute to the successful harvest of many crops and help to maintain healthy plant communities. The bumble bee’s unique physiology enables them to fly in adverse weather conditions and their long tongues allow them to access a diversity of flower types. Paired with their large colony sizes and long flight seasons, bumble bees are a significant group of pollinators.
Unfortunately, many of our bumble bees face an uncertain future. A 2014 status assessment of bumble bees found that at least one quarter of North America’s ~50 species may be facing the threat of extinction. In the past twenty years, only 15 species of bumble bees have been observed in Nebraska, five fewer species than historically recorded between 1800–2001. Nebraska lists four bumble bee species as Species of Greatest Conservation Need (SGCN) in the Nebraska Natural Legacy Plan, including the Southern Plains bumble bee (*Bombus fraternus*), Suckley cuckoo bumble bee (*B. suckleyi*), western bumble bee (*B. occidentalis*), and variable cuckoo bumble bee (*B. variabilis*). While these declines are not fully understood, contributing factors include habitat loss, pesticide exposure, climate change, low genetic diversity, and the amplification and distribution of pathogens through commercial pollinators. The most immediate and productive steps that we can take to conserve these imperiled pollinators is to intentionally manage and restore existing habitat and/or create additional habitat.
The Bumble Bee Life Cycle
Bumble bees are social insects with colonies that last one year. The annual life cycle begins in spring when a mated queen emerges from her overwintering burrow (A). This queen, the colony foundress, spends time locating a suitable nest location. Once found, she begins to construct waxen pots to store nectar. She’ll then make a brood clump, an additional wax surface provisioned with balls of pollen, moistened with nectar. She will lay her first clutch of eggs on the brood clump and cover it with wax (B). The queen will then alternate her time between incubating the eggs and foraging. After the eggs hatch into worm-like larvae, they spend several weeks eating and growing before they pupate, and finally emerge as winged adults (total time from egg to adult is 4–6 weeks) (C).
Once the first brood of workers emerge, the queen stays in the nest to lay eggs and tend to her offspring, while the workers carry out other tasks, such as foraging, caring for developing brood, and defending the nest (D). The colony will reach peak size by mid-summer, which can range from 25–1,000 individuals depending on the species and habitat quality.
As summer fades, the colony will produce male bees (who leave the natal nest in search of a mate) and new queens—though not all colonies will successfully reach this stage. The foundress queen, worker bees, and males die at the end of the annual colony cycle (in late summer or fall), while newly mated queens (gynes) receive support in the nest from any remaining workers and spend time foraging to build up fat reserves (E). Each queen will then locate a safe place to overwinter and enter a hibernation-like state until the following spring when they will begin the cycle anew (F).
Artwork: Trenton Jung
Recommended Management Practices for Bumble Bee Conservation
Here we include recommended practices for managing lands specifically for the conservation of bumble bees in Nebraska (Note: New habitat creation is not detailed in this document; for more information on that topic, see Resources on page 13.).
These recommendations combine the latest understanding of bumble bee habitat needs with lessons learned from the Nebraska Bumble Bee Atlas (NEBBA). NEBBA is a collaborative effort between the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and the Xerces Society with support from the Nebraska Environmental Trust. NEBBA data informed this document and will continue to contribute to ongoing research, all of which is possible because of the time and effort from the many community scientists who traversed the state to conduct bumble bee and landscape surveys.
Habitat Needs
To support bumble bees throughout their life cycle, landscapes need to include three habitat components: foraging, nesting, and overwintering resources. These may not all be in the same location but will likely be in close proximity. While ideal bumble bee habitat varies by species, there is significant overlap in timing and utilization of resources.
Creating or maintaining some version of foraging, nesting, and overwintering resources (as described below) in the landscape will support bumble bees. There is a large body of knowledge regarding foraging habitat, allowing for more specific, evidence-based management recommendations. Currently, less is known about nesting and overwintering habitat, therefore these are more general recommendations.
Foraging Habitat
To successfully reproduce, bumble bee colonies need a diversity and abundance of flowering plants throughout their active season, April–October in Nebraska. Providing flowering plants at either end of the active season can be a challenge, but it is key to supporting queen bumble bees. Early blooming trees, shrubs, and flowering ground covers are great spring food sources while asters (*Symphyotrichum* spp.), sunflowers (*Helianthus* spp.), and native thistles (*Cirsium* spp.) are excellent late season resources (see Appendix B: Plant Lists on page 17).
The term ‘native’ in this guide refers to species that were indigenous to all or part of Nebraska pre-European settlement.
What Does High-Quality Bumble Bee Habitat Look Like?
You should be able to stand at various locations around your property and see:
- Blooming flowers throughout the spring, summer, and fall
- Several different species of native flowers in bloom—and pesticide-free—at any time
- Different heights of vegetation, including bunchgrasses and small patches of bare ground that will remain undisturbed from April–October
- Brush or rock piles
- Transition zones between grassland to native woody or shrubby habitats where appropriate
Black-and-gold bumble bee (*B. auricomus*) on manystem pea (*Lathyrus polymorphus*.) (Photo: Sarah Bailey / Prairie Plains Resource Institute.)
Bumble bees can be found in a variety of landscapes. Native plants on roadsides provide food and shelter for wildlife and can help connect isolated patches of habitat. Flowering cover crops or blooming field weeds can serve as a temporary source of pollen and nectar. (Photo credits [left to right]: Xerces Society / Jennifer Hopwood; Xerces Society / Kathryn Prince; Dustie Lohmeyer / Wikimedia Commons.)
Bumble bees are considered generalist foragers, meaning they will utilize many different types of flowering plants, but visit native species when they are available. Data from the NEBBA showed that 80% of bumble bee visits were to native plants. It is best to manage for a variety of flowering plants; consider flower shape, size, color, bloom period, growth habit (forbs/herbs, shrubs, trees, and vines), as well as duration (annual, perennial, biennial) when evaluating site conditions and making management decisions. Monocultures of sod forming grasses are poor bumble bee foraging habitat, as are areas invaded by eastern red cedar (*Juniperus virginiana*). Areas with a diversity and abundance of native wildflowers that are free from pesticide contamination is ideal foraging habitat for bumble bees. When selecting native plants, ensure they are adapted to your region and be careful not to select horticultural varieties that may look nice but do not offer nectar or pollen.
**Nesting Habitat**
Most bumble bees nest on or beneath the ground in a pre-existing insulated cavity, though nest site selection varies by species. They will often utilize abandoned rodent burrows but have also been observed nesting in “messy” areas—rock piles, under logs, in dense brush or brambles, hay bales, or within bunchgrasses. Some species will nest aboveground in tree cavities, bird nests, or exposed housing insulation. Bumble bee nests have been observed in open areas, as well as in woodland areas; the edges between these two plant communities also seem to be important. It is uncommon for bumble bees to reuse a nest site the following year. Due to the uncertainty associated with bumble bee nest site selection, providing a diversity of habitat types across the landscape with the features described above is recommended. Nesting habitat should remain largely untouched through the growing season.
Nesting and foraging habitats are not necessarily found in the same location; individual bees can travel up to two miles from the colony in search of food. Generally, foraging near the nest is the most efficient choice as opposed to expending energy on a long flight. However, staying close to home is not always possible or preferrable. Higher quantities and qualities of pollen and nectar may be accessible at a greater distance or the workers may have exhausted the flowers nearest the nest (depending on the density of workers or if it’s later in the season). Foraging away from the nest site might also help to protect the nest site from potential predators.
Common eastern bumble bees (near the entrance of their subterranean nest. This species will often form their nest 1–3’ underground in abandoned rodent burrows. Tunnel length leading from the surface to the nest varies from ~18” up to 9’. (Photo: Sarah Bailey / Prairie Plains.)
Overwintering Habitat
Newly mated bumble bee queens—the reproductive females responsible for starting next year’s colonies—overwinter (or hibernate) alone, outside their natal nest. This is an important and vulnerable phase of the colony cycle where the overwintering queen must survive a solitary period of inactivity for at least six months in order for the colony to reproduce. Yet, because it is difficult to find and study hibernating queens, many knowledge gaps exist for this phase of the colony cycle.
What we do know indicates that overwintering queens are typically found approximately 1–6” (2–15cm) underground or nestled into plant litter; requiring sites with adequate organic material, mossy ground cover, or loose soils. They have been found in shaded areas near tree bases without dense vegetation, as well as on sheltered north-facing slopes (though this might reflect the difficulty of conducting searches in dense vegetation as much as habitat preference). Bumble bee queens don’t usually overwinter within their natal nest, though some species have been observed overwintering nearby. Landscapes with compacted soils, very little plant litter, and frequent ground disturbance (e.g., tilling or thatch/litter removal by haying, mowing, or burning) are poor overwintering sites for bumble bees.
Supporting Bumble Bees in Towns and Cities
In addition to natural areas, bumble bees are often found within towns and cities. Providing overwintering, nesting, and foraging habitat in yards, parks, gardens, and other public spaces will attract bumble bees.
Recommended Practices for Yards, Parks, and Public Spaces:
- Native plants with overlapping bloom periods from spring through fall are the best source of food for bumble bee colonies and fit well in many landscapes.
- Avoid pesticide use, especially for aesthetic or cosmetic purposes.
- If pesticides are used, take steps to mitigate their risk: choose products that are less harmful to bumble bees, target applications to avoid drift or overspray onto flowering plants, avoid use when plants are flowering, and use during periods when bumble bees are less active (after dusk).
- Avoid the use of systemic insecticides, which are absorbed and can be transported through the plant’s tissues and expressed in pollen and nectar.
- Ask your nursery for plants grown without systemic insecticides.
- Work with your community to develop sustainable mosquito management practices that avoid harming bumble bees and other beneficial insects. See Resources for more information.
- Leave “messy” areas in your space, such as rock piles, uncut bunchgrasses, downed branches or logs, and areas with leaf litter.
- Keep patches of land that are unmown and untilled.
- To protect overwintering queens, avoid raking and mowing early in the season. If possible, delay mowing and raking until daytime temperatures are above 65°F for 14 consecutive days, especially in north-facing areas.
- Display a pollinator habitat sign to help others understand that your space is actively managed for a particular purpose.
See the Resources on page 13, for native plant/seed providers and resources for additional nesting and overwintering information.
Bumble Bee Habitat in Nebraska
Nebraska is home to many ecosystems that support a diversity of bumble bees. From oak woodland and tallgrass prairie in the east to shortgrass prairie in the west, there is a rich assortment of landscapes that provide fertile ground for bumble bee populations.
As generalist species, bumble bees will utilize a variety of ecological communities—riparian areas, woodlands, grasslands, wetlands, working lands, developed lands, etc. In Nebraska, nearly all species have been found to utilize grasslands. However, some species are associated with particular habitats, such as the half-black bumble bee (*B. vagans*) which is more likely to occur in forested areas of the state but may also be found in grasslands. Depending on the species’ range, it may occur in many types of prairies across the state like the American bumble bee (*B. pensylvanicus*), while others like Hunt’s bumble bee (*B. huntii*) rely on shortgrass prairies in western Nebraska. Some species will happily thrive in our towns, cities, and roadsides, like the common eastern bumble bee (*B. impatiens*), while others are more abundant in our natural areas like the yellow bumble bee (*B. fervidus*). Farmscapes or other working lands that foster suitable habitat (e.g., flowering field borders, windbreaks, shelterbelts) can support populations if managed appropriately, but row crops do not provide nesting or overwintering areas and are generally poor forage for bumble bees. Maintaining the incredible diversity of bumble bee habitat in Nebraska is vital to the future of bumble bees in the Great Plains and depends on active management by landowners and managers.
Management Recommendations
Historically, Nebraska’s ecosystems were shaped both by natural disturbances—such as herds of grazing bison and browsing mammals, flooding, and drought—and the active management of prairie by native people, primarily through the use of fire. Many of these managed and natural disturbances have disappeared entirely or changed over time. In order to continue the careful management of our predecessors in the native prairies of the Great Plains and shepherd these valuable ecosystems into the future, active management is required. Thoughtfully planned grazing, prescribed fire, and haying/mowing can maintain healthy ecosystems for wildlife, including bumble bees. In the short term, some management activities may temporarily reduce bumble bee populations or habitat quality; but, if done carefully, managed disturbances can increase both over the long term.
General Recommended Practices*:
*Implement with all management strategies*
- Use adaptive management strategies that monitor effects of management on vegetation, adjusting practices as necessary to achieve goals and account for contingencies.
- Maintain or restore a mosaic of foraging, nesting, and overwintering habitats.
- When implementing a disturbance treatment of any type, do not treat more than ⅓ of a managed area at a time. Do not disturb an entire site in a single year.
Providing within site refuge is critically important in all habitats. In fragmented landscapes like the prairie surrounded by agriculture (left), disturbance-free refuge areas may help maintain the bumble bee populations on the site. In large, intact landscapes, like the rangeland shown on the right, neighboring habitat can contribute to bumble bee populations on site. (Photos: Ethan Freese/Platte Basin Timelapse [left]; Jennifer Hopwood [right].)
Grazing
Bumble bees are an essential component of healthy rangelands, pollinating a wide array of wildflowers that provide and improve nutritional forage for livestock. As one of the dominant land-use types in Nebraska, rangelands are also essential for bumble bees, providing acres of contiguous grasslands with diverse floral communities, and ample spaces for nesting and overwintering. Well-managed grazing can increase plant diversity, including wildflowers, creating high-quality habitat for bumble bees and other wildlife.
Grazing can also pose risks to bumble bees. Chronic overgrazing and broadcast-spraying herbicides for broadleaf plants can lead to the long-term depletion of native prairie plants and degrade rangeland health. Grazing that encourages a high abundance and variety of native wildflowers throughout the growing season is ideal for bumble bees. Grazing events or regimes that decimate or suppress wildflowers in a local area or across the landscape are harmful to bumble bees, particularly if blooming species are not present during critical life stages (early spring and fall when solitary queens lack the support of a colony). Bumble bee colonies and overwintering queens can also be trampled by livestock; this may be more of a risk when stocking rates are high. These potential impacts vary by grazing practice and by livestock species. For example, sheep eat more wildflowers and less grass than cattle, horse, and bison; as a result, sheep-grazed pastures may support fewer bumble bees.
Well-managed rangelands are incredibly important habitats for bumble bees in Nebraska. There are several considerations for bumble bees when designing grazing practices that are compatible with livestock production and bumble bee diversity.
Recommended Grazing Practices:
- Implement a grazing system that:
- Supports native wildflower abundance and diversity.
- Avoids chronic overutilization.
- Changes season of use from year to year to ensure no unit is grazed during the same time every year.
- Provides proper rest and recovery of vegetation, allowing wildflowers periodic opportunities to bloom and set seed.
- If a unit is grazed continuously or season-long for multiple years, keep stocking rates low or moderate.
- Plan carefully to maintain native wildflower abundance and diversity in sheep-grazed landscapes. If possible, limit sheep grazing on public lands or in areas with records of SGCN bumble bee species, use sheep grazing primarily for noxious broadleaf weed control.
- Integrating prescribed fire into grazing systems can direct grazing pressure and maintain a variety of plant communities and vegetation heights. If prescribed fire is integrated into grazing systems, follow recommended management practices for both disturbance management techniques.
Left: Well-managed rangelands in Nebraska are critically important for bumble bees. Right: An American bumble bee visits a prairie larkspur (*Delphinium carolinianum*) on rangeland in south central Nebraska. (Photos: Chris Helzer / The Nature Conservancy.)
Prescribed Fire
Prescribed fire is a management tool used on rangelands and other landscapes in Nebraska. Well-planned use of controlled burns can limit woody plant encroachment, help control invasive species, and maintain healthy plant communities. The interactions between prescribed fire and bumble bees are not well understood yet but bumble bees are likely affected in different ways depending on the season and intensity of the burn. While adult bumble bees may be able to seek refuge, the colony will not survive if their nest is destroyed in the burn area. Additionally, burning can temporarily remove floral resources for bumble bees. Varying the timing and intensity of burns across years and maintaining unburned areas while also achieving land management goals will help sustain high-quality habitat for bumble bees.
Balancing the risks of fire to bumble bees and land management goals is complicated. Carefully planned prescribed burns that encourage a diverse native plant community in the long term are recommended. However, it is imperative to leave unburned areas each season that can serve as refuge for bumble bees and other wildlife. Low intensity, patchy burns on cool, humid days are ideal for bumble bee short term survival but may not achieve land management objectives that support bumble bee habitat and long-term health. For example, high-intensity burns help control eastern red cedar, a critical threat to much of Nebraska’s grasslands, but will negatively affect bumble bees in the short term (e.g., nest incineration). However, both the grassland and bumble bees will benefit from using such tools to halt cedar invasion in the long term.
The timing of prescribed burns impacts bumble bees. Dormant-season burns can be a crucial part of maintaining or restoring bumble bee habitat because they encourage early blooming wildflowers and help control invasive species that threaten bumble bees. Cool season invasive species like smooth brome (*Bromus inermis*) outcompete many native wildflowers, removing bumble bee forage (see the invasive species section below for additional guidance). However, dormant-season burns can potentially harm or kill overwintering queens resting on or just centimeters below the surface. Late spring (April–May) and early fall (September–October) burns may be particularly harmful as these are sensitive times of year. Bumble bee queens need energy from high-quality floral resources in spring to begin nesting and again in the fall to prepare for overwintering. Recognizing that these sensitive periods overlap with critical control times, it is best to develop a thoughtful prescribed fire regime that meets the intended management goal and works to improve grassland plant diversity over the long term.
**Prescribed Fire Recommended Practices:**
- When it is compatible with other prescribed fire goals, avoid high-intensity fire (work to minimize peak soil temperatures).
- Rotate burns, maintaining some unburned areas within the landscape each year.
- If small patches fail to burn within the burn unit, leave them unburned.
- Dormant season burns are recommended for bumble bees (November–March), but high-intensity burns may impact overwintering queens.
Haying and Mowing
Haying and mowing—the cutting of hayfields, roadsides, field borders, and other spaces that include wildflowers—helps prevent woody encroachment and maintain diverse plant communities. The removal of plant material through haying is more beneficial for plant diversity than mowing. However, both haying and mowing pose similar risks to bumble bees as other disturbances since they remove floral resources and can destroy nesting and overwintering sites. Varying the timing of haying each year will promote plant diversity. If possible, however, try to avoid cutting during sensitive life stages for bumble bees in late spring and early fall.
Haying and Mowing Recommended Practices:
- One haying per year is recommended, if possible.
- Provide refuge areas by haying or mowing in strips or patches instead of cutting an entire site (e.g., leave 1/3 uncut in any given year).
- Vary the month of haying and mowing from year to year to encourage plant and pollinator diversity.
- Hay during daylight hours at reduced speeds (less than 8 mph) so adult bumble bees have time to disperse.
- Using a flushing bar on the windrower may help reduce risk to adult bumble bees.
- Avoid cutting in late spring (April–May) and early fall (September–October).
- If haying an entire site is unavoidable, cut at a high height or offset the timing of haying, cutting 1/2 the site early in the season and 1/2 the site late in the season.
Invasive Plant Species Control
Invasive plant species can overwhelm native plant communities, leading to degraded floral diversity and impacting bumble bees. Treating invasive species infestations will improve bumble bee habitat but some treatments can be detrimental to bumble bee populations in the short term.
There are many methods to control invasive plant species, including mechanical control through mowing, cultural control strategies such as targeted grazing or prescribed burning, and chemical control using herbicides. In general, following the recommended practices for the management activities outlined in this document—grazing, prescribed fire, haying and mowing, and pesticide use (below)—will protect bumble bees. In some cases, bumble bees may be accustomed to floral resources of certain invasive plants. If so, it may be useful to consider how to ensure other flowers will still
It is critical to correctly identify noxious weeds or invasive species. Invasive and/or noxious plants are listed online by the Nebraska Invasive Species program at [https://neinvasives.com/ecoregions/all](https://neinvasives.com/ecoregions/all). Some native species, like this native tall thistle (*Cirsium altissimum*), are beneficial and do not need controlling but may look similar to invasive species. Additionally, many plants (native and non-native), like the native sunflowers (*Helianthus* sp.) above right, may increase in response to temporary opportunities (e.g., after intense grazing events or drought conditions) but then decrease in abundance on their own without continued disturbance, are not a threat to habitat, and treatment is not needed. (Photos: Xerces Society / Ray Moranz [left]; Xerces Society / Anne Stine [right].)
be available when those invasive plants have been suppressed or eradicated. In certain situations, adding native grass and wildflower seed following treatment can help restore diversity to the site.
**Invasive Plant Control Recommended Practices:**
- Identify nearby potential off-site seed sources for noxious weeds such as shelterbelts, roadsides, travel lands, and fence lines. Rigorously monitor areas near noxious weed seed sources.
- Prevent new invasive weed seed sources; avoid moving soil, hay, or other sources of seed, and clean tires and equipment after visiting sites with weed issues.
- Use plant identification guides to distinguish noxious and invasive weeds from nontarget species. For example, native thistles are not weeds and should not be treated. See [Resources on page 13](#).
- Target invasive species control methods to patches of infestation to avoid damage to nontarget plants.
**Pesticide Use**
Use of pesticides—insecticides, herbicides, and fungicides—can affect bumble bees directly and indirectly. Exposed bumble bees may experience a variety of lethal or sublethal effects, which may reduce their ability to forage and reproduce. Insecticides in particular can be highly toxic to bumble bees, but other types of pesticides that fall short of killing a bee can have other important impacts that could affect their ability to survive and reproduce over the long term. Fungicides have recently been found to weaken bees, making them more susceptible to disease, and can also increase the toxicity of other products when applied in combination. Some herbicides can also have direct impacts on bees, affecting their growth and reproduction or ability to navigate back to the nest. Targeted herbicide use is an important tool in invasive plant management; whereas, broadcast herbicide use can reduce the quantity and quality of flowering resources for bumble bees. Implementing cultural, mechanical, or other nonchemical pest management practices that prevent plant diseases, weeds, and problematic insects can be an effective way to reduce pesticide use.
Negative impacts of pesticide combinations can be synergistic, not just additive, so avoiding tank mixes when possible is recommended. Pesticide labels are legal instruments that must be followed, but do not contain information about how to reduce harm to bumble bees or other native bees. Toxicity information on honey bees may be included on pesticide labels but it is not a good approximation of the risk to bumble bees and other native bees. The scale and structure of a honey bee hive is different from a bumble bee colony and even pesticides with low toxicity to honey bees can have a disproportionate effect on bumble bee populations. With many products, following more conservative practices than the label instructions, as outlined below, will help minimize the risk to bumble bees.
Pesticide Use Recommended Practices:
- Use Integrated Pest Management (IPM) to guide pesticide use decisions:
- Identify and monitor for pests. Pesticides should be considered after monitoring indicates that pest populations have reached predetermined thresholds.
- Avoid prophylactic use of pesticides (including neonicotinoid and other seed treatments); pesticides should only be used when there is a demonstrated need.
- See *Pesticide Resources* for more information on IPM including tools to identify the active ingredients in trade-named seed treatments.
- Choose the least toxic option. See the *Resources* section for toxicity guidance.
- Avoid dusts and microencapsulated products which may stick to a bumble bee’s pollen-collecting hairs. Foraging bumble bees transport these pesticides back to the colony.
- Systemic insecticides are of particular concern.
- Apply the pesticide as directly and locally as possible. For example, when using herbicides to manage invasive species and restore plant communities, use targeted application methods such as cut-stem or basal bark treatments for woody plants or spot-spraying of herbaceous plants to avoid more widespread use and potential bumble bee exposure.
- If possible avoid applications to target plants when in bloom, spray when plants are most vulnerable and before seed set. If plants are most vulnerable while in bloom, avoid daytime applications.
- Avoid applying combinations of insecticides and fungicides that together may increase the risk to pollinators.
- Avoid tank-mixing pesticides and clean all equipment thoroughly between uses.
- Carefully consider the use of adjuvants—spray tank additives that improve the activity of pesticides—such as ‘sticker-spreaders’ or emulsifiers. Pesticide adjuvants can, in some cases, significantly increase the toxicity of pesticides to bees upon contact.
- Take all possible measures to limit off-site movement into field margins or flowering habitat. Reduce spray drift:
- Avoid aerial spraying and mist blowers.
- Do not spray on windy days (winds >15mph).
- Do not spray during temperature inversions, which can lead to damaging long-distance drift of volatile pesticides.
- Calibrate equipment regularly.
**Managed Bees**
An additional consideration for bumble bees is the presence and abundance of managed bees, including non-native species like the western honey bee and alfalfa leafcutter bee (*Megachile rotundata*) along with North America-native bees brought in from distant locations (e.g., commercial common eastern bumble bee colonies and blue orchard mason bees [*Osmia lignaria*]). Managed bees can transmit diseases to wild bumble bees and may compete for pollen and nectar or nesting locations.
**Managed Bees Recommended Practices:**
- Do not place managed bee hives, colonies, or artificial nest blocks in or near areas that are of special value for biodiversity (e.g., remnant prairies, state parks, national grasslands, and forests) or that have records of declining bumble bees. Ideally, no hives would be placed within four miles of these areas.
- In areas that are appropriate to support managed bees, when adding hives to the site, consider increasing the area and density of flowering habitat to help support native and managed bees. A single hive may use up to 130 lbs/year of pollen and 900 lbs/year of nectar.
- Avoid using commercial bumble bee colonies in open field settings.
Resources
Management Resources
- *Rangeland Management and Pollinators: A Guide for Producers in the Great Plains*
[https://xerces.org/publications/fact-sheets/rangeland-management-and-pollinators](https://xerces.org/publications/fact-sheets/rangeland-management-and-pollinators)
- *Nebraska Bumble Bee Identification Guide*
[https://xerces.org/publications/identification-and-monitoring-guides/guide-to-bumble-bees-of-nebraska](https://xerces.org/publications/identification-and-monitoring-guides/guide-to-bumble-bees-of-nebraska)
- *Conserving Bumble Bees: Guidelines for Creating and Managing Habitat for America’s Declining Pollinators*
[https://xerces.org/publications/guidelines/conserving-bumble-bees](https://xerces.org/publications/guidelines/conserving-bumble-bees)
- *Nesting and Overwintering Habitat: For Pollinators and Other Beneficial Insects*
[https://xerces.org/publications/fact-sheets/nesting-overwintering-habitat](https://xerces.org/publications/fact-sheets/nesting-overwintering-habitat)
- *Maintaining Diverse Stands of Wildflowers Planted for Pollinators*
[https://xerces.org/publications/guidelines/maintaining-diverse-stands-of-wildflowers-planted-pollinators](https://xerces.org/publications/guidelines/maintaining-diverse-stands-of-wildflowers-planted-pollinators)
- *Pollinator-Friendly Parks: Enhancing Our Communities by Supporting Native Pollinators in Our Parks and Other Public Places*
[https://xerces.org/publications/guidelines/pollinator-friendly-parks](https://xerces.org/publications/guidelines/pollinator-friendly-parks)
- *Roadside Best Management Practices that Benefit Pollinators: Handbook for Supporting Pollinators through Roadside Maintenance and Landscape Design*
[https://xerces.org/publications/guidelines/roadside-best-management-practices-that-benefit-pollinators](https://xerces.org/publications/guidelines/roadside-best-management-practices-that-benefit-pollinators)
- *An Overview of the Potential Impacts of Honey Bees to Native Bees, Plant Communities, and Ecosystems in Wild Landscapes: Recommendations for Land Managers*
[https://xerces.org/publications/guidelines/overview-of-potential-impacts-of-honey-bees-to-native-bees-plant](https://xerces.org/publications/guidelines/overview-of-potential-impacts-of-honey-bees-to-native-bees-plant)
- Nebraska Native Seed and Plant Producers Association
[https://nnspp.weebly.com/](https://nnspp.weebly.com/)
- Nebraska Invasive Species Program
[https://neinvasives.com/](https://neinvasives.com/)
- Center for Grassland Studies Plant Identification
[https://grassland.unl.edu/plant-identification](https://grassland.unl.edu/plant-identification)
Pesticide Resources
- *Making Decisions About Neonicotinoid Seed Treatment Use in Iowa: Scouting and Field History Reports for Early Season Corn and Soybean IPM*
[https://xerces.org/publications/guidelines/making-decisions-about-neonicotinoid-seed-treatment-use-in-iowa](https://xerces.org/publications/guidelines/making-decisions-about-neonicotinoid-seed-treatment-use-in-iowa)
- *The Effectiveness of Neonicotinoid Seed Treatments in Soybean*
[https://extension.entm.purdue.edu/publications/E-268/E-268-W.pdf](https://extension.entm.purdue.edu/publications/E-268/E-268-W.pdf)
- The UC-IPM Bee Precaution Pesticide Rating Tool
[https://www2.ipm.ucanr.edu/beeprecaution/](https://www2.ipm.ucanr.edu/beeprecaution/)
- *Protecting Pollinators from Insecticides: Fungicide Impacts on Pollinators*
[https://xerces.org/publications/fact-sheets/protecting-pollinators-from-pesticides-fungicide-impacts-on-pollinators](https://xerces.org/publications/fact-sheets/protecting-pollinators-from-pesticides-fungicide-impacts-on-pollinators)
- *Habitat Planning for Beneficial Insects: Guidelines for Conservation Biological Control*
[https://xerces.org/publications/guidelines/habitat-planning-for-beneficial-insects](https://xerces.org/publications/guidelines/habitat-planning-for-beneficial-insects)
- *What’s on your seed?*
[https://ipcm.wisc.edu/download/pubsPM/Whats_on_your_seed_web.pdf](https://ipcm.wisc.edu/download/pubsPM/Whats_on_your_seed_web.pdf)
- Searchable Systemic Insecticides List
[https://xerces.org/systemic-insecticides/list](https://xerces.org/systemic-insecticides/list)
Resources for Towns and Cities - Yards, Parks, Open Spaces
- Bee City USA and Bee Campus
https://beecityusa.org/
- *Buying Bee-safe Plants*
https://xerces.org/publications/fact-sheets/buying-bee-safe-plants
- *How to Help Your Community Create an Effective Mosquito Management Plan*
https://xerces.org/publications/guidelines/how-to-help-your-community-create-effective-mosquito-management-plan
- *Establishing Pollinator Meadows from Seed*
https://xerces.org/publications/guidelines/establishing-pollinator-meadows-from-seed
- Nebraska Native Seed and Plant Producers Association
https://nnspp.weebly.com/
- *Pollinator-Friendly Parks: Enhancing Our Communities by Supporting Native Pollinators in Our Parks and Other Public Places*
https://xerces.org/publications/guidelines/pollinator-friendly-parks
Restoration Resources
- *Interseeding Wildflowers to Diversify Grasslands for Pollinators: Guidance for the Great Plains and Midwest Regions*
https://xerces.org/publications/guidelines/interseeding-wildflowers-to-diversify-grasslands-for-pollinators
- *Habitat Installation Guide: Upper Midwest Pollinator Meadow*
https://xerces.org/publications/higs/upper-midwest-pollinator-meadow
- Prairie Restoration Technical Guide Series
https://tallgrassprairiecenter.org/technical-guides
- *Organic Site Preparation for Wildflower Establishment*
https://xerces.org/publications/guidelines/organic-site-preparation-for-wildflower-establishment
- *Pollinator Plants: Northern Plains*
https://xerces.org/publications/plant-lists/pollinator-plants-northern-plains
Nebraska is home to up to 20 species of bumble bees (*Bombus* spp.), each with their own defining color patterns, natural history, and habitat associations. Due to our central location in the United States, Nebraska contains a diversity of ecological communities, from oak woodland and tallgrass prairie in the east to shortgrass prairie in the west. As such, Nebraska provides suitable habitat for eastern U.S. species, like the black-and-gold bumble bee (*B. auricomus*), as well as western montane species, like Hunt’s bumble bee (*B. huntii*). This list contains 10 of Nebraska’s most-commonly-observed bumble bees. For additional information on the species below, or on species not listed here, refer to *Bumble Bees of Nebraska: Recognizing These Important Pollinators*.
### Species Notes
- **SIZE RANGE BY SEX**—Queen or foundress (♀); Worker (♀); Male (♂). Note: Size ranges are based off of national averages.
- **OBSERVED** population trends
- **NESTING** preferences/habits
- **INFORMATION** about species
- **NOTE** of concern regarding conservation or species status
### Range Maps
**KEY**: 1900–2018 2019–2021
**CREDITS**—Maps: Katie Lamke, Xerces Society (Feb. 2022). Data—Nebraska Bumble Bee Atlas (2019–2021); Richardson (Oct 2021), *Bumble bees of North America* occurrence records database; Galick & Ellis (2006), *An Update on the Distribution and Diversity of Bombus in Nebraska*; LaBerge & Webb (1962), *Bumblebees of Nebraska*; Svenek (1907), *Bees of Nebraska II*. **Bumble bee illustrations**—Paul Williams (identification and color patterns); Elaine Evans, Rich Hatfield (bee body design). **Photos**—Xerces Society / Katie Lamke: 1, 2R, 3R, 4R, 5R, 6R, 7R, 8R, 9R, 10R; Ted Kyster: 2L; Xerces Society / Sarah Nizzi: 3L; Sarah Bailey Sarah Bailey / Prairie Plains: 4L; Kara Keating-Stuart: 5L; Mic Rhode: 6L; Julie Thornburg: 7L; Kellie Hayden: 8L; Xerces Society / Mace Vaughan: 9L; Xerces Society / Emily May: 10L.
---
#### 1. Brown-belted bumble bee (*B. griseocollis*)
- **SIZE**: 18–23 mm (♀); 10–16 mm (♀); 12–18 mm (♂)
- **Nests**: underground, occasionally on the surface
- **Consistently the most common species observed statewide (1900–present)**
#### 2. American bumble bee (*B. pensylvanicus*)
- **SIZE**: 22–26 mm (♀); 13–19 mm (♀); 15–21 mm (♂)
- **Nests**: on the surface of the ground, sometimes underground; ability to produce large colonies
- **Frequently observed throughout the state**
- **As of 2022, this species is under review by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service for protection under the Endangered Species Act because it is showing sharp decline throughout the northern part of its range in North America; local abundance in Nebraska is likely due to the state being centrally located within this species’ range coupled with its ability to produce large colonies**
#### 3. Common eastern bumble bee (*B. impatiens*)
- **SIZE**: 21–23 mm (♀); 9–14 mm (♀); 12–14 mm (♂)
- **Nests**: underground; ability to produce large colonies
- **Long active season (emerges early in spring, persists into fall)**
- **One of the most common species found in eastern ½ of the state; modern records, while few, expand range into western Nebraska**
- **This species is used to rear commercial bumble bee colonies for greenhouses, research, and educational purposes; lab-reared colonies may be detrimental to wild bumble bee populations and should only be kept in an enclosed area**
#### 4. Black-and-gold bumble bee (*B. auricomus*)
- **SIZE**: 22–26 mm (♀); 16–19 mm (♀); 13–21 mm (♂)
- **Nests**: on the surface of the ground; typically produces small colonies
- **Most commonly found in eastern ½ of state**
Continued on next page...
5. **Yellow bumble bee (B. fervidus)**
- **Size:** 18-21 mm (♀); 11-17 mm (♀); 13-16 mm (♂)
- **Nest:** Aboveground or on surface, occasionally underground
- **Distribution:** Most commonly found in the shortgrass prairie and Sandhills ecoregions
6. **Hunt’s bumble bee (B. huntii)**
- **Size:** 19-20 mm (♀); 11-14 mm (♀); 9-13 mm (♂)
- **Nest:** Underground
- **Distribution:** Most commonly found in the shortgrass prairie ecoregion of the panhandle
7. **Two-spotted bumble bee (B. bimaculatus)**
- **Size:** 18-22 mm (♀); 10-16 mm (♀); 12-15 mm (♂)
- **Nest:** Underground, occasionally aboveground
- **Distribution:** Early emerging species, often in April; most commonly found in the tallgrass and mixed-grass prairie ecoregions; modern records, while few, expand range into western NE
8. **Southern Plains bumble bee (B. fraternus)**
- **Size:** 25-27 mm (♀); 15-19 mm (♀); 22-25 mm (♂)
- **Nest:** Underground
- **Distribution:** Most commonly observed in the tallgrass prairie ecoregion
- **Status:** Species of Greatest Conservation Need (SGCN, Tier 1)—evidence-supported species in decline; Nebraska Game and Parks Commission manages the list of SGCNs and prioritizes these species when planning conservation efforts
9. **Nevada bumble bee (B. nevadensis)**
- **Size:** 24-25 mm (♀); 15-21 mm (♀); 16-19 mm (♂)
- **Nest:** Underground, occasionally on surface
- **Distribution:** Most commonly observed in the panhandle
- **Status:** Very large, robust species
10. **Half-black bumble bee (B. vagans)**
- **Size:** 17-21 mm (♀); 11-14 mm (♀); 11-14 mm (♂)
- **Nest:** Underground, occasionally aboveground
- **Distribution:** Associated with forested areas
- **Status:** Found throughout state in relatively low abundance
Below are 50 plants that are widely distributed across the state and frequently visited by a diversity of bumble bees (data from the NEBBA). The top 10 bumble bee preferred plants that are unique to each ecoregion are also included.
### Top 50 Bumble Bee Plants of Nebraska
| Early | Mid |
|-------|-----|
| **SCIENTIFIC NAME** | **COMMON NAME** | **BLOOM PERIOD** | **LIFE CYCLE** | **FORM** |
| Amorpha fruticosa | Wild-indigo, false indigo-bush | May–Jun | P | Sh |
| Astragalus canadensis | Canada milkvetch | May–Aug | P | F |
| Glycyrrhiza lepidota | Wild licorice | May–Jul | P | F |
| Lathyrus polymorphus | Hoary vetchling | May–Jun | P | F |
| Lithospermum caroliniense | Plains puccoon | May–Jun | P | F |
| Penstemon grandiflorus | Large beardtongue | May–Jun | P | F |
| Psoralidium tenuiflorum | Slender-flowered scurfpea | May–Jul | P | F |
| Rosa arkansana | Arkansas rose | May–Aug | P | Su |
| Vicia americana | American vetch | May–Jul | P | F |
| Amorpha canescens | Leadplant | Jun–Jul | P | Sh/Su |
| Apocynum cannabinum | Dogbane | Jul–Aug | P | F |
| Asclepias incarnata | Swamp milkweed | Jun–Aug | P | F |
| Asclepias speciosa | Showy milkweed | Jun–Aug | P | F |
| Asclepias syriaca | Common milkweed | Jun–Jul | P | F |
| Bidens cernua | Nodding bur-marigold / beggarticks | Jul–Oct | A | F |
| Cirsium flodmanii | Flodman’s thistle | Jul–Aug | P | F |
| Cirsium undulatum | Wavyleaf thistle | Jun–Aug | P | F |
| Dalea candida | White prairie clover | Jun–Sep | P | F |
| Dalea purpurea | Purple prairie clover | Jun–Aug | P | F |
| Dalea villosa | Silky prairie clover | Jun–Aug | P | F |
| Echinacea angustifolia | Narrowleaf purple coneflower | Jun–Jul | P | F |
| Helianthus petiolaris | Plains / prairie sunflower | Jul–Oct | P | F |
| Heliopsis helianthoides | False sunflower | Jul–Oct | P | F |
| Monarda fistulosa | Wild bergamot | Jul–Aug | P | F |
| Oenothera clelandii (syn. O. rhombipetala) | Fourpoint evening primrose | Jun–Jul | B/A | F |
| Onosmodium bejariense | Marbleseed | Jun | P | F |
| Peritoma serrulata (syn. Cleome serrulata) | Rocky Mountain bee-plant | Jun–Aug | A | F |
| Persicaria amphibia (syn. Polygonum amphibium) | Water smartweed | Jul–Sep | P | F |
| Salvia azurea | Pitcher sage | Jul–Oct | P | F |
| Solanum rostratum | Buffalo-bur | Jun–Oct | A | F |
| Solidago missouriensis | Prairie goldenrod | Jul–Sep | P | F |
| Symphoricarpos occidentalis | Wolfberry | Jun–Jul | P | W |
| Teucrium canadense | American germander | Jun–Jul | P | F |
| Verbena hastata | Common vervain | Jul–Sep | P | F |
| Verbena stricta | Hoary vervain | May–Sep | P | F |
| Vernonia fasciculata | Ironweed | Jul–Sep | P | F |
Continued on next page...
### Top 50 Bumble Bee Plants of Nebraska continued
| SCIENTIFIC NAME | COMMON NAME | BLOOM PERIOD | LIFE CYCLE | FORM |
|------------------------------------------------------|------------------------------|--------------|------------|------|
| Cirsium altissimum | Tall thistle | AUG–OCT | P | F |
| Helianthus annuus | Common sunflower | AUG–SEP | A | F |
| Helianthus grosseserratus | Sawtooth sunflower | AUG–SEP | P | F |
| Helianthus maximiliani | Maximilian’s sunflower | SEP–OCT | P | F |
| Liatris lancifolia | Lanceleaf gayfeather | AUG–OCT | P | F |
| Liatris punctata | Dotted gayfeather | AUG–OCT | P | F |
| Liatris squarrosa | Hairy gayfeather | AUG–OCT | P | F |
| Solidago canadensis | Canada goldenrod | AUG–OCT | P | F |
| Solidago gigantea | Giant goldenrod | AUG–OCT | P | F |
| Solidago rigida (syn. Oligoneuron rigidum) | Stiff goldenrod | AUG–SEP | P | F |
| Symphyotrichum ericoides | Heath aster | AUG–OCT | P | F |
| Symphyotrichum oblongifolium | Aromatic aster | AUG–OCT | P | F |
| Symphyotrichum praealtum | Willowleaf aster | SEP–OCT | P | F |
**KEY**
- ☀️ BLOOM PERIOD
- 📅 BLOOM TIME
- 🔗 LIFE CYCLE: Annual, Biennial, Perennial
- 🌿 FORM: Forb, Subshrub, Shrub, Woody
### Top 10 Bumble Bee Plants of the Sandhills Region
| SCIENTIFIC NAME | COMMON NAME | BLOOM PERIOD | LIFE CYCLE | FORM |
|------------------------------------------------------|------------------------------|--------------|------------|------|
| Anemone canadensis | Meadow anemone | MAY–JUN | P | F |
| Cirsium canescens | Platte thistle | MAY–JUN | B | F |
| Ribes aureum | Golden currant | APR–JUN | P | SH |
| Ribes missouriense | Missouri gooseberry | APR–JUN | P | SH |
| Asclepias arenaria | Sand milkweed | JUN–AUG | P | F |
| Asclepias stenophylla | Slimeleaf / narrow-leaved milkweed | JUN–JUL | P | F |
| Grindelia squarrosa | Curlycup gumweed | JUL–OCT | P/B | F |
| Mentzelia nuda | Sand lily | JUL–SEP | B/P | F |
| Solidago speciosa | Showy / showy-wand goldenrod | AUG–SEP | P | F |
| Symphyotrichum novae-angliae | New England aster | AUG–OCT | P | F |
**KEY**
- ☀️ BLOOM PERIOD
- 📅 BLOOM TIME
- 🔗 LIFE CYCLE: Annual, Biennial, Perennial
- 🌿 FORM: Forb, Subshrub, Shrub, Woody
Continued on next page...
LEFT TO RIGHT: Black-and-gold bumble bee (*Bombus auricomus*) on wild bergamot (*Monarda fistulosa*); American bumble bee (*B. pensylvanicus*) stealing nectar from pitcher sage (*Salvia azurea*); Southern Plains bumble bee (*B. fraternus*) on Canada goldenrod (*Solidago canadensis*); male common eastern bumble bees (*B. impatiens*) on New England aster (*Symphyotrichum novae-angliae*). (Photos: Sarah Bailey / Prairie Plains.)
## Top 10 Bumble Bee Plants of Shortgrass Prairie Region
| BLOOM PERIOD | BLOOM TIME | LIFE CYCLE: | FORM: |
|--------------|------------|-------------|-------|
| Early | | | |
| Lupinus pusillus | Small lupine | May–Aug | A | F |
| Scrophularia lanceolata | American figwort | May–Jul | P | F |
| Mid | | | |
| Campanula rotundifolia | Harebell | Jun–Sep | P | F |
| Gutierrezia sarothrae | Snakeweed | Jul–Sep | P | F |
| Lactuca biennis | Tall blue lettuce | Jun–Aug | B | F |
| Mulgedium oblongifolium (syn. Lactuca tatarica) | Pretty blue lettuce | Jul–Aug | B/P | F |
| Oenothera suffrutescens | Scarlet gaura | Jun–Sep | P | F |
| Penstemon eriantherus | Crested beardtongue, fuzzytongue penstemon | Jun | P | F |
| Late | | | |
| Chrysothamnus viscidiflorus | Sticky / yellow rabbitbrush | Aug | P | Sh/Su |
| Cirsium discolor | Field thistle | Aug–Sep | B/P | F |
## Top 10 Bumble Bee Plants of the Mixedgrass Prairie Region
| BLOOM PERIOD | BLOOM TIME | LIFE CYCLE: | FORM: |
|--------------|------------|-------------|-------|
| Early | | | |
| Asclepias viridiflora | Green (comet) milkweed | May–Jul | P | F |
| Rhus aromatica | Fragrant sumac | May–Jun | P | W |
| Oxytropis lambertii | Purple locoweed | May–Aug | P | F |
| Mid | | | |
| Chamaecrista fasciculata | Showy / common partridge pea | Jul–Oct | A | F |
| Mimosa nuttallii | Sensitive brier, Nuttall’s sensitive brier | Jun–Jul | P | F |
| Rhus glabra | Smooth sumac | Jun–Jul | P | W |
| Vernonia baldwinii | Baldwin’s / western ironweed | Jul–Sep | P | F |
| Late | | | |
| Eupatorium altissimum | Tall boneset | Aug–Sep | P | F |
| Helianthus tuberosus | Jerusalem artichoke | Aug–Sep | P | F |
| Liatris aspera | Rough gayfeather | Aug–Oct | P | F |
## Top 10 Bumble Bee Plants of the Tallgrass Prairie Region
| BLOOM PERIOD | BLOOM TIME | LIFE CYCLE: | FORM: |
|--------------|------------|-------------|-------|
| Early | | | |
| Baptisia alba | White false indigo | May–Jun | P | F |
| Erigeron annuus | Annual fleabane | May–Sep | A | F |
| Mid | | | |
| Asclepias tuberosa | Butterfly milkweed | Jun–Aug | P | F |
| Chamaecrista fasciculata | Showy partridge pea | Jul–Oct | A | F |
| Veronicastrum virginicum | Culver’s root | Jun–Jul | P | F |
| Late | | | |
| Agastache foeniculum | Lavender giant hyssop | Aug | P | F |
| Cirsium discolor | Field thistle | Aug–Sep | B/P | F |
| Sicyos angulatus | Bur-cucumber | Aug–Sep | A | F |
| Symphyotrichum novae-angliae | New England aster | Aug–Oct | P | F |
| Verbesina alternifolia | Wingstem | Aug–Sep | P | F |
Help put bumble bees on the map! Join forces with conservation and science partners from Nebraska to collect information and create the first-ever bumble bee atlas for the region.
Visit [NebraskaBumbleBeeAtlas.org](http://NebraskaBumbleBeeAtlas.org) and...
1. Adopt a grid cell
2. Survey for bumble bees
3. Submit your data
The Nebraska Bumble Bee Atlas is funded through a grant from the Nebraska Environmental Trust. The Trust is funded by proceeds from the Nebraska Lottery and has awarded more than $305 million to more than 2,200 conservation projects across the state of Nebraska since 1994. | 7a82560a-2853-4a6b-a862-052b35f7f737 | CC-MAIN-2022-40 | http://www.xerces.org/sites/default/files/publications/21-040_01.pdf | 2022-10-07T15:13:04+00:00 | crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-40/segments/1664030338213.55/warc/CC-MAIN-20221007143842-20221007173842-00396.warc.gz | 95,421,046 | 13,513 | eng_Latn | eng_Latn | 0.859264 | eng_Latn | 0.99376 | [
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#FRENCHISEVERYWHERE
Flip through these pages to discover a side of France you never knew!
No matter what your academic, professional or personal interests, French is relevant, French is practical, and… #FrenchIsEverywhere!
Why learn French?
Improves English vocabulary: 30% - 50% of English comes from French or Latin through French. (French was the mother tongue of every English king from William the Conqueror (1066) until Henry IV (1399–1413).
Exposure to the French world view and values: Less money-oriented, materialistic, consumerist. Respect for intellectual and artistic endeavors.
Arguably the greatest contribution to Western Civilization since ancient Greek and Roman cultures: Political thought, philosophy, science, art, literature…
They wrote the book on human rights: The Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen (Déclaration des droits de l’homme et du citoyen), passed by France’s National Constituent Assembly in August 1789, had a major impact on the development of freedom and democracy in Europe and worldwide.
With native speakers on every continent, French is expanding fast in the fastest-growing areas of the world, especially in Africa. The latest stats anticipate that by 2050, French will be spoken by 750 million people.
6th largest economy in the world: (2016) 1 United States – 2 China – 3 Japan – 4 Germany – 5 United Kingdom – 6 France – 7 India – 8 Italy – 9 Brazil – 10 Canada – 11 Korea – 12 Russia – 13 Spain – 14 Australia – 15 Mexico
ARTS & HUMANITIES
of course...
Art
France was arguably a leader in the development of Romanesque art. What we now call Gothic art, was the French style. The Renaissance led to Italy becoming the main source of stylistic developments until France matched Italy's influence during the late Baroque period and Neoclassicism and then regained the leading role in the Arts from the 19th to the mid-20th century. Some art movements that began in France: "Gothic," Classicism, Rococo, Romanticism, Impressionism, Post-Impressionism, Fauvism, Cubism, Dada, Surrealism, Pop Art. (Wikipedia)
Dance
The “French method” of ballet can be traced back to 17th century France. This method is the basis of all ballet training. In 1661, Louis XIV created the Académie Royale de Danse where the codified technique still used today by those in the profession, regardless of what method of training they adhere to. Rudolf Nureyev, the accomplished dancer and director of the Paris Opera Ballet in the 1980s, embraced this method, and his influence revitalized and renewed appreciation for this style, and shaped ballet as a whole.
The French method is often characterized by technical precision, fluidity and gracefulness, and elegant, clean lines. The precision of footwork and the emphasis of strength and elegance define the method.
Deaf Studies
The first sign language developed in France in the 18th century. “Old French” sign language developed organically in the deaf community of Paris. Based on his observations of deaf people signing with their hands in the streets of Paris, the Abbé Charles Michel de l'Épée started the Institution Nationale des Sourd-Muets in Paris in 1760. Combined with French grammar, the manual language evolved into the first official French Sign Language. Laurent Clerc, a student of his and teacher at the school, traveled to the U.S. with Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet and, in 1817, co-founded the first school for the deaf in the U.S., the American School for the Deaf in Hartford.
I think, therefore I am.
“Je pense, donc je suis,” a philosophical proposition made by French philosopher René Descartes in 1673, is a fundamental element of Western philosophy.
**Film**
Louis Le Prince was a French artist and inventor of the motion picture camera, being the first person to shoot a moving picture sequence using a single lens camera and a strip of (paper) film (1888).
Léon Bouly invented the Cinematograph, a motion picture film camera that also serves as a film projector and printer (1892).
Auguste and Louis Lumière gave the first commercial, public screening of cinematographic films in Paris in 1895.
Georges Méliès was the first filmmaker to use the stop trick, or substitution, multiple exposures, time-lapse photography, dissolves, and hand-painted color in his films. His most famous film, A Trip to the Moon (Le voyage dans la Lune), in 1902, was the first science fiction film and the most popular movie of its time. Another of his films, *Le Manoir du diable* is also sometimes considered to be the first horror film.
**Music**
France produced some of the world’s greatest composers: Berlioz, Bizet, Debussy, Lully, Ravel, and Satie. In 1982, the first Fête de la Musique, created by the French Minister of Culture, took place. It’s a nationwide street concert every June 21st that has now been adopted in over 120 countries.
In the 1690s, Étienne Loulié invented several devices: a device for tracing music staves on paper, a metronome-like chronomètre based on the Galilean seconds pendulum, and a sonomètre for tuning harpsichords that used the monochord as a point of departure. He is credited with introducing the six-fold system of meter classification still taught today.
In 1759, Jean-Baptiste Thillaie Delaborde, invented the clavecin électrique, the earliest surviving electric-powered musical instrument, pre-dated only by the Denis d’or (a Czech invention and possibly the first electric instrument in history) which is only known from written accounts.
---
**Josephine Baker**
Born in the U.S. in 1906, she was a mega celebrity in France and a French Resistance agent. She refused to perform for segregated audiences in the United States, and France welcomed her and many other American artists with open arms.
ARTS & HUMANITIES
wait, there’s more…
Philosophy
A small few… **René Descartes**: France’s national philosopher, whose *Discourse on Method* defined thought as the essential human quality. **Voltaire**: A caustic and playful writer whose Candide savaged the complacent optimism of his age. **Jean-Jacques Rousseau**: Swiss-born but appropriated by the French as the intellectual father of their 1789 revolution. **Jean-Paul Sartre**: The theorist and living embodiment of the public intellectual, who confronted all the powerful institutions of his time (the bourgeois state, the Communist party, the university system). **Simone de Beauvoir**: Her *The Second Sex* (1949), drew on existentialist philosophy to offer a ground-breaking account of women’s oppression, thus charting the path for modern feminism. ([https://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/jun/13/10-most-celebrated-french-thinkers-philosophy](https://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/jun/13/10-most-celebrated-french-thinkers-philosophy))
Photography
**Robert Doisneau is the French photographer whose work everyone recognizes**. He was known for his modest, playful, and ironic images of amusing juxtapositions, mingling social classes, and eccentrics in contemporary Paris streets and cafes. In more than twenty books he presented a charming vision of human frailty and life as a series of quiet, incongruous moments.
**Henri Cartier-Bresson was a French humanist photographer considered a master of candid photography, and an early user of 35 mm film. He pioneered the genre of street photography**, and viewed photography as capturing a decisive moment.
World Languages
**Alsace, a French region that borders Germany, has been passed between French and German control several times** since 1681, when Strasbourg was conquered by French forces.
Alsatian is a Germanic dialect spoken in Alsace. You can say “ça geht’s?” to your friends when you see them, which is a direct mixture of “ça va?” in French and “wie geht’s?” in German, to mean “how are you?”.
Street photography born in France
Doisneau is renowned for his 1950 image *Le baiser de l’hôtel de ville* (Kiss at City Hall).
Right: Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir.
CAREER TECHNICAL EDUCATION
Great minds!
Accounting
It is generally accepted that cost accounting did not develop until the late 1880s, a period referred to as the costing renaissance. But this may be inaccurate, based on writings on cost accounting in 19th century France. Engineers contributed significantly to the development of cost accounting in 19th and 20th century France. These writings, mainly by graduates of French engineering schools, discussed overhead allocation, depreciation, transfer prices, and the distinction between fixed and variable costs long before these topics were discussed in Anglo-Saxon analysis. (www.inderscience.com)
Aeronautical & Aviation Technology
The term "aviation" was coined in 1863 by French pioneer Guillaume Joseph Gabriel de La Landelle, and the Airbus A380 is the world’s largest passenger plane.
1783: The Montgolfiers launched the first manned flight (a tethered balloon carrying people) and the first free flight with human passengers; the first manned hydrogen balloon. 1852: The first powered, controlled, sustained lighter-than-air flight is believed to have taken place when Henri Giffard flew 15 miles in France with a steam engine driven craft. 1884: The first fully controllable free-flight. 1857: A monoplane with a tail plane and retractable undercarriage made the first successful powered glide in history. 1907: The first time a manned helicopter is known to have risen off the ground. And a lot more… (Wikipedia)
Automotive Technology
French Army Captain Nicolas-Joseph Cugnot (26 February 1725 – 2 October 1804) built the first working self-propelled land-based mechanical vehicle, the world's first automobile. He was one of the first to successfully employ a device for converting the reciprocating motion of a steam piston into a rotary motion by means of a ratchet arrangement. A small version of his three-wheeled fardier à vapeur ("steam dray") was made and used in 1769.
ParisTech
Pierre Bézier attended the prestigious École Nationale des Arts & Métiers ParisTech.
The first automobile, invented by Nicolas-Joseph Cugnot, is on display at that institution.
CAREER TECHNICAL EDUCATION continued...
**Business**
France is home to some of the most well-known brands on earth, like Michelin, Perrier, Bic (yes, the pens!) and Sephora (didn’t know that was French, did you?). And then, of course, the iconic luxury brands, like Chanel, Dior, Vuitton, Saint-Laurent… Plus it’s a thriving European hub for Internet entrepreneurs!
**Computer Aided Design**
The invention of the 3D CAD/CAM is attributed to a French engineer, Pierre Bézier. After his mathematical work concerning surfaces, he developed UNISURF, between 1966 and 1968, to ease the design of parts and tools for the automotive industry. Then, UNISURF became the working base for the following generations of CAD software. (Wikipedia)
**Office Technology**
The Bic pen. In 1950.
**Computer Science**
Around 1640, Blaise Pascal, a leading French mathematician, constructed a mechanical adding device based on a design described by Greek mathematician “Hero of Alexandria.”
The Minitel was a Videotex online service accessible through telephone lines. It is considered one of the world's most successful pre-World Wide Web online services. The service was rolled out experimentally in 1978 in Brittany and throughout France in 1982. From its early days, users could make online purchases, make train reservations, check stock prices, search the telephone directory, have a mailbox, and chat in a similar way to what is now possible on the Internet. In February 2009, the Minitel network still had 10 million monthly connections. It was retired in 2012. (Wikipedia)
Biology
See Health & Safety Sciences…
Chemistry
Antoine-Laurent de Lavoisier was a French nobleman and chemist who was central to the 18th-century chemical revolution. He is widely considered the "father of modern chemistry". Lavoisier is most noted for his discovery of the role oxygen plays in combustion. He recognized and named oxygen (1778) and hydrogen (1783), helped construct the metric system, and wrote the first extensive list of elements.
Engineering
Pierre-Paul Riquet designed and built the Canal du Midi. It runs from the city of Toulouse down to the Mediterranean port of Sète and took 12,000 laborers to build. It is considered an extraordinary 17th century feat of engineering and a masterpiece of both hydraulic and structural engineering. It has been a Unesco World Heritage Site since 1996.
Mathematics
The first practical realization of the metric system came in 1799, during the French Revolution, when the existing system of measures, which had become impractical, was replaced by a decimal system based on the kilogram and the meter.
Physics
Radioactivity was discovered in 1896 by Henri Becquerel, while working with phosphorescent materials.
Marie Curie, a naturalized-French physicist and chemist, conducted pioneering research on radioactivity. She was the first woman to win a Nobel Prize, the first person and only woman to win twice, the only person to win a Nobel Prize in two different sciences, and was part of the Curie family legacy of five Nobel Prizes. She was also the first woman to become a professor at the University of Paris, and in 1995 became the first woman to be entombed on her own merits in the Panthéon in Paris.
Le Canal du Midi
Its main aim was to transport wheat, wine and textiles, primarily heavy cloth from Nîmes – where denim comes from (de Nîmes!) and silk.
Marie Curie in her laboratory.
HEALTH & SAFETY SCIENCES
saving lives for centuries...
Nutrition
Around 1770, Antoine Lavoisier discovered the details of metabolism, which was called the most fundamental chemical discovery of the 18th century.
In 1816, François Magendie identified protein as an essential dietary component.
Nursing
In Catholic lands such as France, rich families continued to fund convents and monasteries, and enrolled their daughters as nuns who provided free health services to the poor. Nursing was a religious role for the nurse, and there was little call for science. (Wikipedia)
Pasteur & the Germ Theory of Disease
Louis Pasteur confirmed the direct connection between germs and disease between the years 1860 and 1864. He discovered the pathology of the puerperal fever (postpartum infection of the uterus).
He is also the reason you don’t get sick from drinking milk! In 1864 he discovered that heating beer and wine was enough to kill most of the bacteria that caused spoilage. Today your milk is pasteurized!
And then there’s…
– Ligature of arteries, Ambroise Paré, 1565
– Blood transfusion, Jean-Baptiste Denys, 1667 and first direct modern transfusion, Émile Jeannbrau, 1914
– The first life-sized obstetrical mannequin, for teaching, Angelique du Coudray, 1750s
– Codeine first isolated, Pierre Robiquet, 1832
– Aspirin, Charles Frédéric Gerhardt, 1853
– Hypodermic needle, Charles Pravaz, 1853
– Incubator, Etienne Stéphane Tarnier, 1881. His student, Pierre-Constant Budin, created perinatology in the late 1890s
– Rabies vaccine, Louis Pasteur and Émile Roux, 1885
– Antibiotics, Louis Pasteur and Jean Paul Vuillemin (natural antibiosis)
– Mantoux test, Charles Mantoux, 1907
– Tuberculosis vaccine, Albert Calmette and Camille Guérin, 1921
– Discovery of the cause of Down syndrome, Jérôme Lejeune, 1958-1959
– First bone marrow transplant, Georges Mathé, 1959
– Insulin pump, Jacques Mirouze, 1981
– Discovery of HIV virus, Françoise Barré-Sinoussi and Luc Montagnier, 1983
The stethoscope
The stethoscope was invented in France in 1816 by René Laennec (right) because he was uncomfortable placing his ear on women’s chests to hear heart sounds.
He went on to pioneer its use in diagnosing various chest conditions.
English
Unlike other Germanic languages, English shares a large portion of its vocabulary with French and Latin, often attributed to the period of Norman French dominance in England after 1066 (because a French-speaking king sat on the throne of England for the next 300 or so years!).
The French contributed legal, military, technological, and political terminology: force majeure, reconnoitre, détente, lèse-majesté… The language also gave common words, such as the names of meats (veal, mutton, beef, pork), how food was prepared (boil, broil, fry, roast, saute, and stew), as well as words related to the nobility (prince, duke, marquess, viscount, baron, and their feminine equivalents).
Nearly 40 percent of English words (in an 80,000 word dictionary) may be of French origin.
Journalism
Charlie Hebdo is a French satirical weekly magazine, featuring cartoons, reports, polemics, and jokes. Irreverent and stridently non-conformist in tone, the publication describes itself as above all secular, skeptic, and atheist, far-left-wing, and anti-racist publishing articles about the extreme right (especially the French nationalist “Front National” party), religion (Catholicism, Islam, Judaism), politics and culture.
The magazine has been the target of two terrorist attacks, in 2011 and 2015. Both were presumed to be in response to a number of controversial Muhammad cartoons it published. In the second of these attacks, 12 people were killed, including publishing director Charb and several other prominent cartoonists. This attack gave rise to the JE SUIS CHARLIE movement. (Wikipedia)
Classic Charlie…
Jean Jullien’s graphic response to the Charlie Hebdo shootings was one of the most-shared images relating to the tragedy.
The cover of Charlie Hebdo after the deadly 2015 terrorist attacks in Paris in which 130 people were killed.
SOCIAL & BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES
Influencers of the world...
**Anthropology**
Most consider Marcel Mauss (1872–1950) to be the founder of the French anthropological tradition. Mauss and his collaborators drew on ethnography and philology to analyze societies that were not as ‘differentiated’ as European nation states. **Two works by Mauss in particular proved to have enduring relevance:** *Essay on the Gift*, a seminal analysis of exchange and reciprocity, and his Huxley lecture on the notion of the person, **the first comparative study of notions of person and selfhood cross-culturally.**
Above all, Claude Lévi-Strauss helped institutionalize anthropology in France. His theory of structuralism exerted enormous influence across multiple disciplines.
**Clothing & Textiles**
We don’t need to tell you about France and fashion. But did you know **a Frenchwoman invented the bra**? In Paris, in 1889, Herminie Cadolle opened a lingerie workshop, where she invented a two-piece undergarment called *le bien-être* (well-being). The lower part was a corset for the waist and the upper supported the breasts by means of shoulder straps. She exhibited at the Great Exposition of 1900, and by 1905 the upper half was being sold separately as a *soutien-gorge* (literally, “support for the throat”, but *gorge* in old French meant bust), the name by which bras are still known in France.
Herminie became a fitter of bras to queens, princesses, dancers, and actresses. Mata Hari was among her customers. She was also the first to use cloth incorporating rubber (elastic) thread. Cadolle’s business is still running today.
**The Jacquard loom, a mechanical loom, was invented by Joseph Marie Jacquard in 1801.** It simplified the process of manufacturing textiles with complex patterns such as brocade, damask, and matelasse.
**Denim is French!** Its name comes from “de Nîmes” (which means “from Nîmes,” the city where it was made).
---
**Le bien-être**
Herminie Cadolle and her “wellbeing.”
Clothing & Textiles, cont.
Eight of the top 10 world’s oldest luxury brands are French. **Hermès**: 1837. **Louis Vuitton**: 1854. **Lanvin** 1889. **Chanel**: 1909. **Nina Ricci**: 1932. **Dior**: 1946. **Givenchy**: 1952. **Yves Saint Laurent**: 1961.
*Chanel was arguably the most influential fashion designer of all time. She revolutionized the way women wore clothes*, making it fashionable for women to lose the corsets, wear pants, have a tan, accessorize extravagantly with costume jewelry. A true feminist!
https://www.wonderlandmagazine.com/2013/09/04/seven-wonders-how-coco-chanel-changed-the-course-of-womens-fashion/
Early Childhood Education
Jean Piaget’s constructivist theory gained influence in the 1970s and ’80s. Although Piaget himself was primarily interested in a descriptive psychology of cognitive development, he also laid the groundwork for a constructivist theory of learning. Piaget believed that learning comes from within: children construct their own knowledge of the world through experience and subsequent reflection. Within Piaget’s framework, teachers should guide children in acquiring their own knowledge rather than simply transferring knowledge.
A Piagetian approach emphasizes experiential education; in school, experiences become more hands-on and concrete as students explore through trial and error. Thus, crucial components of early childhood education include exploration, manipulating objects, and experiencing new environments. Subsequent reflection on these experiences is equally important.
More French connections coming soon… | 4ffffe44-f624-47ab-bc9b-8d41a5ffadfc | CC-MAIN-2021-43 | https://esdepartment.sdsu.edu/_resources/docs/french/french-is-everywhere-sdsu.pdf | 2021-10-19T04:38:38+00:00 | crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2021-43/segments/1634323585242.44/warc/CC-MAIN-20211019043325-20211019073325-00644.warc.gz | 328,864,811 | 4,885 | eng_Latn | eng_Latn | 0.992582 | eng_Latn | 0.994538 | [
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After your mini-adventure, ask your budding naturalist some follow up questions to gauge their interest and takeaways. Then use those answers to plan your next adventure!
- What did you expect to see?
- How can you be more observant next time?
- Should we bring or wear anything special next time?
- What animal or plant did you like best?
- What would you like to see next time?
- What kinds of plants and animals might you see at different times of the year?
- Did you notice the front half of the park looks different than the back half?
- What is different about it?
- Why is geology important and how does it impact what lives there?
- Did you see any litter?
- Why is it bad to litter and what can we do to help prevent litter?
- Would you come prepared to help pick up litter on the next visit?
- Why is it important to keep and protect wild places?
Tiny Tidbits
The Bluebonnet Swamp Nature Center is a conservation park and provides outstanding observatory experiences. Because we want to help preserve our wildlife for all to see, catching wildlife or picking plants would greatly hinder the experience for others. Leave it better than when you found it!
In order to make your journey as enjoyable as possible, we recommend bug spray, a reusable water bottle and weather appropriate clothes to start. Some other fun items to bring would be binoculars, a camera and a small notebook to record your findings.
The park is located at 10503 N. Oak Hills Parkway, Baton Rouge, LA 70810
225-757-8905
Tues-Sat: 9 a.m. - 5 p.m.
Sunday: noon - 5 p.m.
Kids $2 admission, adults $3
In addition to self-guided tours, the site also offers a wide variety of organized events, camps and shows, so check their website for information.
A naturalist is someone who studies and observes fauna and flora in their natural habitat. Some of our great naturalists like John James Audubon, Charles Darwin and Rachel Carson are considered scientists but did you know some are photographers, painters, professors and even writers! With a love for nature and a passion to protect it, anyone can be a naturalist, even you!
Recent studies have shown that outdoor time for kids builds confidence, stimulates creativity, encourages exercise and reduces anxiety. It may even ignite a passion and awareness that can help shape their future. We are lucky to have Bluebonnet Swamp Nature Center, an awesome, one-of-a-kind place in the heart of Baton Rouge, where you can introduce your children to the wonders of nature.
**Spark!: the Newbs**
If you have small children, or are trying to foster a love of nature in an older child, make your first visit easy and rewarding, to light the fire of discovery. Focus on the fun fauna that are easily viewed at the site.
In the parking lot alone, there are at least 3 species of turtles that are accustomed to people, and love to be fed (commercial turtle food is the best option, but staff says dog food can do in a pinch).
From there it’s a short walk to the gracefully designed visitor’s center where kids can see live specimens and photos of the creatures that live at the site.
**Explore: the Trekkers**
For a second visit, or a visit with a more advanced agenda, take kids to explore the nearly 2 miles of trails and boardwalks, which lead from an upland hardwood forest to a cypress tupelo swamp.
Help your kids identify any interesting plants or trees they see. The Seek App is a kid-friendly identification tool to have on your smartphone.
Remind them to look down for ground dwelling creatures, like turtles and snakes, and look up for high-flying birds. Walking the trails is also a wonderful opportunity to explain to kids the importance of wild places, and the concepts of conservation and stewardship.
**Focus: the Darwins**
Once you’ve explored the visitor center and the trails, it’s time to go back to look for the more elusive residents.
Sit with your children at the pollinator garden and see how many different insects flit in and out, and what plants they prefer.
Walk quietly and try to spot skinks, lizards and spiders. Bring your binoculars and stay a while at the boardwalk to spot the barred owl Barbara that is commonly seen in the swamp.
Guide your child to focus on a spot or feature that appeals to them, and have her watch it closely for details or movement. | b23c602c-4476-456b-97e2-ca716e3c4129 | CC-MAIN-2020-16 | https://www.lmngbr.org/uploads/1/2/5/5/12552641/the_budding_naturalist_brochure.pdf | 2020-03-31T13:53:24+00:00 | crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2020-16/segments/1585370500482.27/warc/CC-MAIN-20200331115844-20200331145844-00063.warc.gz | 989,529,259 | 932 | eng_Latn | eng_Latn | 0.998479 | eng_Latn | 0.998635 | [
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Minority Voices in Education:
A Playbook for Uncomfortable Conversations About Race
Abstract
Oftentimes, during a conversation (even while speaking the same language), educators and their respective students are not engaging in authentic dialogue. Now, more than ever, hot topic conversations regarding race are becoming more prevalent in schools across America regardless of age. This means K-12 educators can be faced with choosing to ignore or address unexpected questions or side conversations students may have in their classrooms. To supply educators with tools to build better communication amongst them and their students, a webinar series was designed to guide them on how to create a playbook. The playbook included strategies to organize active and intentional engagement in uncomfortable conversations presented to educators. This paper introduces the playbook and serves as a starting place for stakeholders to begin the work of preparing educators to become engaged in culturally responsive practices through informal conversations surrounding social issues.
Keywords: playbook, students of color, culturally responsive, educators, conversations, STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math)
Introduction
The year 2020 for America is branded by the COVID-19 pandemic, social justice protests, and deadly wildfires in California. The implications of each of these life-altering events vary across socioeconomic and racial identities. George Floyd’s murder in May of 2020 sparked unrest in Black America and racism was finally named the country’s biggest threat (Ifill, 2018). Educators from every corner of America, much like the rest of the
world, have been tasked with choosing a side. The unique responsibility of producing the next generation of professionals is accompanied by the authority to dismantle racists ideologies or perpetuate those threats during the most critical years of a child’s life in an effort to mold them as a positive contribution to society.
**Purpose of the Present Study**
Even educators who have wished to nurture children all their lives are struggling to respond to issues around race. Many are now questioning how even the best teacher education programs can prepare novice educators to engage in unforeseen conversations with their future students relating to life-altering events such as the senseless killings of unarmed Black and Brown people. These conversations cannot be avoided if educators want to connect with their students and be received as an authentic teacher who cares. This present paper serves to address the need for educators to begin to feel comfortable while having uncomfortable conversations with their students and offer strategies on how to do so.
**You Don’t Have to Lie to Kick It: Dismantling Myths**
In responding to questions and concerns about race, one might assume that there is an unspoken requirement for educators to adopt the attitudes and cultures of the students they serve. Take a moment to destroy that belief. It is both appropriate and necessary for educators to show up to their classroom, each day, as their whole self, inviting students of all backgrounds and identities to do the same. The task at hand for those in education in these sensitive times is to be open to learning more from the students they served versus assuming their students can only learn from them. Opinions are self-owned and are shaped by personal experiences, beliefs, and status in society. Albeit, each student in the classroom
carries their own opinion, uniquely constructed by their worldview. These same individuals desire to be heard and seen.
**A History of Silence**
For every child, there is an insatiable desire to communicate and relate with the world around them. For a child living in a body that has been historically vilified and labeled inferior to the mainstream, this need can be exacerbated. Ladson-Billings (1999) serves as a reminder of the origin of the cultural deprivation/disadvantaged paradigm, in which White middle-class cultural preferences were situated as the norm, silencing the cultures, contributions, and ideas of marginalized people. She later outlined three approaches to education based on the paradigm. The learning facilitated by the learners’ own social and cultural backgrounds approach by Ladson-Billings (1999) is noteworthy in this work as it aligns closely with the importance of having certain conversations with students of color.
**Lifting Student Voice**
There is no doubt that using the cultural and social backgrounds of students to guide teaching is both controversial and popular in education right now. Widely used hashtags parading culturally responsive teaching are full of photos and clips of educators celebrating ethnic traditions, holidays, and celebrations. What continues to be ignored by educators are the issues most prevalent in the lives of Black and Brown students, like oppression, White supremacy, and inequities (Gay, 2013). The realization, and subsequent transformation, that is necessary for educators to authentically engage with students from marginalized groups is a gradual and deliberate endeavor.
Play Your Part: Strategies for Tackling Uncomfortable Conversations About Race
A playbook uses an approach or strategy to reflect a plan in advance of the action needing to take place (Woods, 2018). In the interactive webinar series titled, *STEM Talks: Edifying Minority Voices in the STEM Classroom & Beyond* (Johnson, et.al., 2020), participants were invited to engage in conversations surrounding achievement and opportunity gaps in our schools in the interest of enhancing the schooling experiences of all students in urban school settings. Educators and stakeholders from various backgrounds were encouraged to create action plans and playbooks to serve as a guide in supporting and uplifting students in the urban STEM classroom and far beyond.
The strategies and resources shared below serve as entries in a playbook for educators interested in responding to and facilitating open dialogue surrounding race and other social issues. Much like a coach uses a playbook to lead players to victory, educators can use this playbook as a tool to better serve their students during these times of social tension.
**Cogenerative Dialogues**
It can be intimidating to think of ways to celebrate and include all of the diverse voices of students as a whole in the classroom. Dr. Chris Emdin (2016) took notes from his students to implement cogenerative dialogues, or cogens, in his urban science classroom as a method of making space for students to share their perspectives about the class culture and teaching practices. The cogen is modeled after rap cyphers, prevalent in Hip Hop, considering the traditions of Black and Brown urban youth and validating the value that each student shares in the space (Emdin, 2016). The model includes a plethora of strategies that can be viewed as steps to work towards the inclusiveness of students and
deemed important to include in the *playbook*. Some strategies have been simplified by the researchers and include the following:
**Step 1: Understand the Purpose of the Cogen**
The overall purpose of cogenerative dialogues in education is to gain information about the learning environment and all aspects of teaching practices from students.
**Step 2: Identify Appropriate Participants**
The broad differences of the class must first be identified and analyzed before cogens are implemented. One may elect to maintain a journal of observed differences, including interests, experiences, and ethnicity.
**Step 3: Invite Opposites**
Once the demographic makeup of the classroom is thoroughly analyzed, a small group of students representing the diversity of the class should be invited to engage in the initial “secret” cogen. Students from marginalized groups may be more reluctant to agree to take part in an activity so intimate, as their schooling experiences likely taught them that they are only singled out for misbehavior. Therefore, it is more important the invitation respects students’ time and status in the school community.
**Step 4: Make the Space**
The educational cypher space should be arranged to allow for participants to face each other and connect through eye contact. The room may be situated to invite students to share their ideas comfortably, including snacks, soft music, or oil diffusers. A major part of making the space is establishing rules that apply to all participants and the teacher. *Rule 1* should address the need for all voices to be
heard equally, *Rule 2* is the “one mic” rule and reminds participants that only one voice should be heard at a time, and finally, *Rule 3* asserts that these cogen dialogues are a safe space to problem-solve and produce action steps to improve the classroom culture.
**Step 5: Spark the Conversation**
Student participants need to be made aware of the privilege associated with their membership in this small group. They will be responsible for influencing what happens in the classroom and should be encouraged to forge their titles or names. Cogens are typically student-led, but the initial dialogue will need to be facilitated by the teacher, with the presentation of a mutual issue that can be easily solved within the group.
**Step 6: Take it Home**
When a plan of action is outlined in the initial cogen dialogue, this is an opportunity for the teacher to implement the practice during the group’s next class. This instant gratification establishes the idea that their work in the cogen group is impactful and will result in improved classroom practices (Emdin, 2016).
**Zinn Education Project: Teaching People’s History**
Launched in 2008, the Zinn Education Project is an organization that serves to expand the minds, perspectives, and beliefs of students through the history of people beyond traditional textbooks. The website (Figure 1) features countless free resources to be included in a playbook, including projects, activities, and artifacts for educators to use and share with their students.
Figure 1
Zinn Education Project Website, 2020
Note. This image is the main webpage (https://www.zinnedproject.org/). In the public domain.
Digital Resources: Creating Safe Spaces in the Virtual World
Flipgrid is a digital resource for educators who wish to incorporate the convenience of social media to convey ideas and relay messages in the form of short videos. Questions or prompts are posed and students are invited to engage in healthy video discussions. In the aforementioned webinar series, participants were given a prompt (Figure 2) and responded via Flipgrid (Figure 3) to simulate how it can be used to begin conversations in their classroom.
Facilitating the Conversation
Set the Scene
We have been studying gentrification in our city and working to understand how it impacts marginalized groups, schools, and communities. One student says, “Why do we have to be forced out of our neighborhoods, my mama grew up here.” Another student responds “What’s the big deal? Can’t y’all just go somewhere else?”
Do Your Part
1. Take 5-7 minutes to think about how one might react to this scenario, and how these reactions may create a learning experience.
2. Express your thoughts in a Jamboard or Flipgrid to be shared with the whole group.
Note. This image is a screenshot from the Webinar presentation. This prompt acted as a conversation starter to facilitate a discussion surrounding uncomfortable conversations about racial and social conflicts.
Figure 3
*Flipgrid Response to Webinar Prompt, 2020*
*Note.* This image is a screenshot of a recorded response from a Webinar participant (the recorded response can be found here [https://flipgrid.com/cdee335f](https://flipgrid.com/cdee335f)).
Nearpod is one of the leading digital platforms for teaching and learning. Entire districts have opted to support the implementation of Nearpod, as it provides educators and students opportunities to engage with each other, and with the content in various ways during virtual learning. Google Slides or Powerpoint presentations come alive with Nearpod’s Live Participation mode, equipped with formative assessment tools, virtual field trips, virtual experiments, discussion boards, and even educational games serving as a great play to be included in a playbook.
Figure 4
Sample Prompt Used in Nearpod, 2020
Note. This is a screenshot of a prompt created in Nearpod to facilitate dialogue regarding a hot topic of interest.
Google Jamboard is a G Suite resource that enhances collaboration and engagement during virtual learning. Jamboards can be incorporated into daily lessons or implemented as a tool for students to use in collaborative learning groups. During the webinar series, participants were able to view, practice and understand how jamboards (Figure 5) can play an intricate role as a part of their playbook.
Figure 5
*Equity Partner’s Playbook Jamboard, 2020*
*Note.* This is a screenshot of a Google Jamboard that participants were invited to use to share their ideas regarding the prompt (see Figure 1).
**Conclusion**
The word edify is synonymous with words like benefit, uplift, and illuminate. The webinar series, STEM Talks: Edifying Minority Voices in the STEM Classroom & Beyond (Johnson et al, 2020), was designed to benefit, uplift, and illuminate the voices, perspectives, and experiences of Black and Brown students in education. In times of social unrest, classrooms can serve as safe spaces for children from marginalized groups. A living playbook can serve as a guide for educators working to create that safe space for their students. While it is only a beginning, and these strategies will grow and evolve, to do nothing at all would be a grave disservice to the future of our nation.
References
Emdin, C. (2016). *For white folks who teach in the hood... and the rest of Y'all too: Reality pedagogy and urban education*. Beacon Press.
*Flipgrid - Educator Dashboard*. (2020). https://auth.flipgrid.com/educator?redirect_url=https%3A%2F%2Fadmin.flipgrid.com%2Fmanage%2Ftopics%2F15559190
Gay, G. (2013). Teaching to and through cultural diversity. *Curriculum Inquiry*, 43(1), 48-70. https://doi.org/10.1111/curi.12002
*Google Jamboard: Interactive business whiteboard | G suite*. (n.d.). G Suite: Collaboration & Productivity Apps for Business. https://gsuite.google.com/products/jamboard/
Ifill, S. (2018, December 18). It’s time to face the facts: Racism is a national security issue. *The Washington Post*.
Johnson, J., Simpson, C., & Parker, T. (2020). *Edifying minority voices in the urban STEM classroom and beyond*. Presented at: 2020 Virtual Summer Institute on Pedagogy, Diversity and Equitable Teaching and Learning of Languages and Culture.
Ladson-Billings, G. J. (1999). Preparing teachers for diverse student populations: A critical race theory perspective. *Review of Research in Education*, 24, 211. https://doi.org/10.2307/1167271
Nearpod. (2020). Nearpod: Make every lesson interactive. https://nearpod.com/
Woods, S. (2018, May 29). *The importance of having a business playbook*. Sterling Woods Group. https://sterlingwoods.com/blog/business-playbook/
Zinn Education Project. (2009, September 14). *About | Zinn education project: Teaching people's history*. https://www.zinnedproject.org/about/ | cdd9bd72-9ff4-4b8a-b7d1-53854868d508 | CC-MAIN-2021-49 | https://slaviccenters.duke.edu/sites/slaviccenters.duke.edu/files/site-images/Glossos%20Submission-Johnson%20and%20Simpson%20x.pdf | 2021-12-01T02:55:22+00:00 | crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2021-49/segments/1637964359082.78/warc/CC-MAIN-20211201022332-20211201052332-00308.warc.gz | 595,001,363 | 3,083 | eng_Latn | eng_Latn | 0.969202 | eng_Latn | 0.997883 | [
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Ag Fest 2018 was a success!
A group of Extension agents from all around Southern Colorado work together every year to deliver Agricultural education to 5th graders in Pueblo and Chaffee counties. The kids go through stations dealing with topics such as wind energy, dairy, water cycles, horticulture, local food production, and more. All together 12 Extension professionals from 5 different counties work together to put this amazing program on. In 2018, the team completed 3 days of education in Pueblo County and 2 days in Chaffee County, reaching over 800 children, and even teaching their teachers a little something!
The program is geared toward “city kids” who might not know how much agriculture effects their everyday lives. Pretests and post tests are given to the students to evaluate how much they learned from Ag Fest. This year we were able to get some great data, and saw that on average the student’s knowledge on agriculture increased by about 38%. These numbers are very encouraging, and we intend to keep teaching students about the value of agriculture in everyone’s lives. This will have a big impact on the future of our economy and our counties.
Counterclockwise from top: Pueblo CSUE Agents Devin Engle, Laura Krause, Sherie Caffey, Tom Laca, and Jane Crayton present AgFest sessions. 4-H Coordinator Carol Kuhns and CSUE Fremont Agent Verla Noakes coordinate lunch, snacks and rotation.
BeeWise- Spring Into Action!
Spring into Action BeeWise Pollination Maker Spring Break Camp had an impact on Pueblo youth by engaging them in project-based maker arts. The camp, held March 19th - 23rd, hosted 19 youth who completed 15 contact hours of STEAM Maker programming. We advertised the program to East Side Schools working with the District 60 STEM Coordinator and the El Centro del Quinto Sol recreation center. All of the students received scholarships to attend one of two program sessions offered. We hosted a morning session from 9am - 12pm, and an afternoon session from 1pm to 4pm Monday through Friday. We provided snacks each day and the youth took home all the things they made to help support pollinators.
We started each day by reading books on pollination while the kids ate snacks. Then we broke out into activities that engaged the youth in making. The kids made soap, lip balm, candles, hummingbird feeders, bee houses, butterfly houses, garden fairy glowing jars, terrariums and they planted mini gardens using seeds from the seedbank at the library. They also harvested seeds from the gourds (that they used to make butterfly houses) and donated them to the seed library. Each day kids completed at least one, if not two, maker activities that highlighted pollinators.
Youth also participated in activities that highlighted the honey bees’ connection to humans as a keystone organism. The youth dissected flowers and learned why the honey bees’ anatomy earned them the title “most effective pollinators in the world”. They participated in an ultraviolet light activity where the youth used an ultra violet LED to illuminate nectar guides on flowers. They used the light to select specific beads and paint for their hummingbird feeders so they could also attract bees.
The youth learned how to solder their hummingbird feeder frames and they learned to use the wood burner and power tools to make their bee houses. We brought out all the maker tools for this program and gave the kids a true maker experience, transforming the recreation center into a makerspace each day. Youth played the pheromone game with essential oils where they learn about the variety of jobs bees have in the hive. Youth were able to explore a live colony of bees using our observation hive, and explored beekeeping equipment and protective gear as they dressed up in beekeeping suites.
Assessments from pre and post surveys suggest a 41.14% increase in knowledge about pollinators over the 5 days of camp. Most importantly, youth learned that they could make a difference in their own home, community, and world by using tools and local resources to help pollinators.
4-H Youth Offered Special AKC
At the Colorado State Fair in 2017, one of the showmanship judges Dennis Corash, who also happens to be President of Colorado Kennel Club in Denver, asked if our team of trainers here in Pueblo County would like to put together a statewide seminar for youth enrolled in the 4-H dog project. We readily agreed and thought with would be a great opportunity for youth in the 4-H dog project to work with trainers at a large AKC (American Kennel Club) show.
On February 17th we packed up our supplies and headed to the Colorado Kennel Club dog show held at the National Western Stock Show in Denver. Youth had to pre-register through 4-H online and we were very excited to get an initial count of 17 youth signed up. By the time registration closed, we had 248 youth and adults attend this seminar.
We offered expert training in dog showmanship, obedience, rally and agility. The training team members from Pueblo included Kelsey Darnell and Mary Killen (showmanship); Donna Darnell (rally); Pat Lester and Jessica Storm (obedience). Anne Knudson from Boulder County helped with rally. Brian Christy, his wife, and daughter from El Paso County taught agility. Each child was given individual instruction in whichever category they needed help with their dog.
We had eighteen counties with youth who participated; some as far away as Grand, Montrose, Washington, Teller, and Sedgwick counties to name a few. Youth were also given the opportunity to participate in an AKC showmanship class. This is just the beginning of a national movement on the part of AKC and National 4-H Council to finally form a bond and realize that many of the adults that show in AKC had a 4-H background first.
Here are some comments from participants:
- This was fantastic. What a fantastic experience for the kids. Thank you so much for putting this together.
- Grooming demo and instruction was excellent! My son learned how to groom his dog. Thank you! Excellent workshop.
- This is such a cool learning experience!
- Loved being able to participate in an AKC show.
For the Love of Hummus
During 2018, FCS Agent, Laura Krause, has agreed to be part of a research team anchored by the researchers on campus in Fort Collins. The purpose of this is to collect data charting behavior change as a result of education on the Mediterranean Diet. The Mediterranean Diet focuses on limiting processed foods, eating larger quantities of whole grains, fruits and vegetables, and olive oil. It has long been known as a very “heart healthy” diet, which has shown to reduce weight, blood pressure and cholesterol. It has also been found to lower the risk of cardiovascular disease, diabetes and metabolic syndrome.
This class goes through some of the key characteristics of the Mediterranean Diet and tips for following it, and then includes a variety of hands-on activities.
The activities included making homemade salad dressing and making hummus from scratch. People have been so amazed by how easy hummus is to make, what the actual ingredients are, and the nutritional content. When asked about the top 3 things they learned on a post-class survey, the results were overwhelmingly about the hummus.
Through April, Laura has hosted 3 classes and educated nearly 100 people on the Mediterranean diet.
Students prepared a batch of hummus during a recent class. | bf56074e-cdcd-435b-b33b-a4180632f061 | CC-MAIN-2021-49 | https://pueblo.extension.colostate.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/24/2018/12/V5-I1-Pathways-Jan-Mar-2018.pdf | 2021-11-27T03:18:24+00:00 | crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2021-49/segments/1637964358078.2/warc/CC-MAIN-20211127013935-20211127043935-00391.warc.gz | 543,609,961 | 1,564 | eng_Latn | eng_Latn | 0.998442 | eng_Latn | 0.998665 | [
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Why are hummingbirds important?
Hummingbirds play an important role in the food web, pollinating a variety of flowering plants, some of which are specifically adapted to pollination by hummingbirds. Some tropical hummingbirds are at risk, like other pollinators, due to habitat loss and changes in the distribution and abundance of nectar plants.
Where are they found?
There are more than 300 species of hummingbirds in the world, all of which are found only in the western hemisphere, from southeastern Alaska to southern Chile. Many more species can be found in the tropics than in temperate zones. Many North American hummingbird species are migratory, covering enormous distances each year as they journey between summer breeding grounds and overwintering areas.
6 things you can do for hummingbirds
1. Provide food by planting nectar plants or with careful use of feeder
2. Join a citizen science project
- www.hummingbirdsathome.org
- www.ebird.org
- www.rubythroat.org
- www.feederwatch.org
3. Provide a water source (e.g. fountain, sprinkler, or birdbath with a mister)
4. Donate to organizations that support hummingbird and pollinator conservation
5. Join the Million Pollinator Garden Challenge at www.pollinator.org/million
6. Learn more at www.pollinator.org/hummingbirds
Visit www.pollinator.org/brochures.htm to order copies of this brochure.
What do they need?
Food Hummingbirds feed by day on nectar from flowers, including annuals, perennials, trees, shrubs, and vines. They also eat insects, such as fruit-flies and gnats, and will consume tree sap, when it is available.
Native Nectar Plants – The best way to support hummingbirds and other pollinators in your area is to plant native nectar plants. For planting recommendations, check out the regional land management guides at www.pollinator.org/hummingbirds.
Hummingbird Feeders – Consider putting out hummingbird feeders in order to attract and support resident and migrating hummingbird populations.
- Red colored feeders typically are the most attractive to hummingbirds.
- Place the feeder in a shady spot at least a few feet off the ground.
- There is no need to use colored nectar, it is unnecessary to attract hummingbirds and its health effects are unknown.
- Fill with purified water and 20-30% refined (white) sugar (never saccharine, artificial sweeteners, honey, or brown sugar).
- Clean frequently to prevent fermentation or proliferation of fungi and bacteria.
Water Hummingbirds get adequate water from the nectar and insects they consume. However, they are attracted to running water, such as a fountain, sprinkler, birdbath with a mister, or waterfall.
What are the hummingbird’s challenges?
Habitat Loss
Hummingbirds are often specially adapted to their particular environment and food sources. As a result, many hummingbird species are incredibly sensitive to environmental change and dependent on the continued availability of their preferred habitat. While none of the hummingbird species in the U.S. are currently of conservation concern, some in Mexico and in Central and South America are at risk mainly to conversion of their native habitats to agriculture.
Climate Change
Climate change will likely have major impacts on hummingbirds through rapid alterations of natural landscapes, especially for tropical species that have small, specialized ranges. Climate change is also predicted to enhance pressures from invasive species.
Invasive Plant Species
People often plant nonnative plants for their ornamental value, but some exotics can become invasive and rapidly crowd out local native species. Planting nonnatives to attract hummingbirds can disrupt ecosystems and should be avoided.
Maintaining and improving habitat for hummingbirds in the United States
The Pollinator Partnership teamed up with the U.S. Forest Service to develop regional land manager’s guides for maintaining and improving hummingbird habitat. The guides provide general information and native plant lists for 6 regions of the western U.S., as well as the eastern U.S. While the guides were intended for use by restoration managers, the concepts and planting recommendations apply to anyone who wishes to improve habitat for hummingbirds. Visit www.pollinator.org/hummingbirds to download your regional land management guide.
You may also be interested in the following brochures available at www.pollinator.org
- Protecting Monarchs
- Solving Your Pest Problems Without Harming Pollinators
- Your School and Pollinators
The North American Pollinator Protection Campaign (NAPPC) is a collaborative body of over 140 organizations that work for the protection of pollinators across Mexico, Canada and the United States. For more information please contact firstname.lastname@example.org or 415-362-1137 or visit www.pollinator.org. | 24be0863-0402-44d2-a343-09356ce49d0f | CC-MAIN-2021-10 | https://www.pollinator.org/pollinator.org/assets/generalFiles/NAPPC_Hummingbirds_Brochure_8x11_170624_161702.pdf | 2021-03-08T09:25:05+00:00 | crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2021-10/segments/1614178383355.93/warc/CC-MAIN-20210308082315-20210308112315-00302.warc.gz | 918,390,163 | 991 | eng_Latn | eng_Latn | 0.993681 | eng_Latn | 0.994338 | [
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“This grant allows us to expose our students to fresh fruits and vegetables they may never try at home.”
—Angie T.
Tulare City School District
“Administrators, teachers, and students all love and believe in the program! The FFVP definitely increases the students’ consumption of fresh fruits and vegetables.”
—Marilou O.
Panama-Buena Vista Union School District
Resources
CDE FFVP Resources
🍎 FFVP Web page: http://www.cde.ca.gov/ls/nu/sn/caffvp.asp
USDA FFVP Resources
🍎 USDA FFVP Web page: http://www.fns.usda.gov/cnd/ffvp/
🍎 USDA Fresh Fruit and Vegetable Program: A Handbook for Schools http://www.fns.usda.gov/sites/default/files/handbook.pdf
Nutrition Education Resources
🍎 Team Nutrition: http://www.fns.usda.gov/TN/
🍎 FFVP Toolkit: http://www.fns.usda.gov/cnd/ffvp/toolkit.htm
🍎 Farm to School Initiative: http://www.fns.usda.gov/farmtoschool/farm-school
🍎 Harvest of the Month: http://www.harvestofthemonth.cdph.ca.gov/web-links.asp
California Department of Education
Nutrition Services Division
1430 N Street, Suite 4503
Sacramento, CA 95814
Phone: 916-445-0850
E-mail: email@example.com
For more information, please visit the California Department of Education’s Fresh Fruit and Vegetable Program Web page at http://www.cde.ca.gov/ls/nu/sn/caffvp.asp
This institution is an equal opportunity provider.
The Fresh Fruit and Vegetable Program
The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Fresh Fruit and Vegetable Program (FFVP) is a federally funded grant for elementary schools. Awarded schools provide fresh fruit and vegetable snacks free of charge to all students and teach nutrition education during the school day.
Goals of the Fresh Fruit and Vegetable Program
The grant program allows schools to offer students a variety of fresh fruits and vegetables during the school year. The goals are as follows:
- Create a healthy school environment by providing healthier food choices.
- Increase the amount of fruits and vegetables that children eat.
- Help children learn how healthy eating habits improve their present and future health.
Who Can Apply
Each spring, the California Department of Education (CDE) releases an application for the FFVP grant for the following school year. Schools must meet the following criteria to apply for a grant:
- Be an elementary school as defined by the CDE.
- Participate in the National School Lunch Program.
- Have 50 percent or more of students eligible for free and reduced-price meals.
Program Guidelines
The Fresh Fruit and Vegetable Program allows schools flexibility to choose the fruit and vegetable items, location of service, and frequency of the snack and nutrition education offered. Schools must operate within the following guidelines:
Allowable Items
- Fresh fruits and vegetables (not canned, frozen, or dried) must be offered.
- Low-fat yogurt-based dips for vegetables or other low-fat or nonfat dips are permitted; other condiments may be allowed with state approval.
Methods of Service
- In the classroom
- On the playground
- In the cafeteria (not during mealtime)
- In kiosks
- In school hallways
Additional Requirements
- The CDE requires schools to offer the FFVP snack a minimum of three days per week, during a normal five-day week, and encourages schools to serve more frequently if possible.
- Schools must provide nutrition education to students once per week; a variety of methods and free materials may be used.
How the Program Works
- The CDE awards schools with the highest percentage of students eligible for free or reduced-price meals. The grant award is between $50 and $75 per student for the grant year.
- The grant period begins July 1 and ends June 30 of each school year. Each school should begin the program as close to the start of the school year as possible.
- Schools submit monthly claims for reimbursement of the cost of the produce, labor, supplies, equipment, and other administrative costs (limited to 10 percent of the grant award).
- Schools must serve the FFVP fruits and vegetables on the school campus, during the school day, and separately from lunch or breakfast meals.
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Jesus Is Baptized
Based on Mark 1:4–11
It was a hot day! Lots of people stood beside the river. The people felt the sun. They shaded their eyes with their hands. They were listening to John. John was standing in the water.
“Someone is coming to show us God’s love,” said John. “It’s time to get ready. Come and be baptized.”
Some of the people went into the water. They felt the water on their toes. They felt the water on their knees. John dipped them into the water. The people felt clean and fresh. It was a wonderful feeling.
Then something very, very special happened. Jesus felt God’s love deep inside and all around. A dove flew down and touched Jesus gently. Jesus felt as if God was speaking to him. “I love you. I am so proud of you.”
What a special time for Jesus! Now Jesus was ready to tell everyone about God’s love.
---
**Blessing Globe**
You will need a clean medium-sized baby food jar with lid and label removed, a dove pattern, flexible plastic lid (from a food container), scissors, distilled water, small bowl, tray, spoon, glitter, glycerine, waterproof adhesive.
**Instructions**
1. Trace dove pattern on flexible plastic lid and cut it out (figure 1).
2. Place the empty jar and a bowl of water on a tray. Spoon the water into the jar (figure 2).
3. Add a pinch of glitter, a few drops of glycerine, and the plastic dove shape.
4. Place some waterproof adhesive around the edge of the lid and seal the lid onto the jar.
5. Turn the jar over and back again and see the dove moving in the water.
6. Each time you look at the dove, it will remind you of how dearly God loved Jesus and how dearly God loves us.
Dove Mobile
Instructions
1. Photocopy or trace the dove pattern, decorate and cut it out.
2. Cut a slit as shown.
3. Accordion-fold a sheet of letter-size paper.
4. Insert accordion wing into the slit.
5. Bring both sides up and use a hole punch to make a hole at each end.
6. Insert yarn through the holes and tie ends to make a hanger.
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The Humane Society: Celebrating Animals, Confronting Cruelty. (4 words)
Smithsonian: The increase and diffusion of knowledge. (6 words)
Monterey Bay Aquarium: To inspire conservation of the oceans. (6)
Wounded Warrior Project: To honor and empower wounded warriors. (6)
Best Friends Animal Society: A better world through kindness to animals. (7)
Kiva: To connect people through lending to alleviate poverty. (8)
Livestrong: To inspire and empower people affected by cancer. (8)
Public Broadcasting System (PBS): To create content that educates, informs and inspires. (8)
USO lifts the spirits of America’s troops and their families. (9)
Human Rights Campaign: Working to achieve lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender equality. (9)
National Wildlife Federation: Inspiring Americans to protect wildlife for our children’s future. (9)
Oxfam: To create lasting solutions to poverty, hunger, and social injustice. (10)
Water Charity: Bringing clean, safe drinking water to people in developing countries. (10)
American Heart Association: To build healthier lives, free of cardiovascular diseases and stroke. (10)
Environmental Defense Fund: To preserve the natural systems on which all life depends. (10)
New York Public Library: To inspire lifelong learning, advance knowledge, and strengthen our communities. (10)
The Nature Conservancy: To conserve the lands and waters on which all life depends. (11)
CARE: To serve individuals and families in the poorest communities in the world. (12)
National Parks Conservation Association: To protect and enhance America’s National Park System for present and future generations. (13)
JDRF: To find a cure for diabetes and its complications through the support of research. (14)
Heifer International: To work with communities to end hunger and poverty and care for the Earth. (14)
ASPCA: To provide effective means for the prevention of cruelty to animals throughout the United States. (15)
Defenders of Wildlife: The protection of all native animals and plants in their natural communities. (15)
Amnesty International: To undertake research and action focused on preventing and ending grave abuses of these rights. (15)
Creative Commons develops, supports, and stewards legal and technical infrastructure that maximizes digital creativity, sharing, and innovation. (15)
March of Dimes: We help moms have full-term pregnancies and research the problems that threaten the health of babies. (16)
American Diabetes Association: To prevent and cure diabetes and to improve the lives of all people affected by diabetes. (16)
American Red Cross prevents and alleviates human suffering in the face of emergencies by mobilizing the power of volunteers and the generosity of donors. (21)
Susan G Komen for the Cure is fighting every minute of every day to finish what we started and achieve our vision of a world without breast cancer. (24)
The Rotary Foundation: To enable Rotarians to advance world understanding, goodwill, and peace through the improvement of health, the support of education, and the alleviation of poverty. (24)
HOW A VISION STATEMENT DIFFERS FROM A MISSION STATEMENT
MISSION
• Present tense
• Describes what you do and who/what benefits from this work
VISION
• Future Objective
• Description of a future you are ultimately working towards
Mission statements and vision statements are complementary but unique.
MISSION: To create lasting solutions to poverty, hunger, and social injustice.
VISION: A just world without poverty.
Guidelines for selecting and completing your Mission
• 5-14 words total. 20 max.
• 8th grade reading level. 10th grade max.
• Target < 20 syllables total. 30 max.
• Avoid long or complicated words
List all “What” & “Why” phrases pertaining to your project or initiative.
“WHAT” Phrases
“WHY” Phrases
The most straightforward approach is to pair the “What” with the “Why”. Combine the top 3 essential “What” & “Why” phrases.
1.
2.
3.
Critiquing Your Mission Statement
Mission Statement:
Is your Mission Statement:
- Clear – about what and why
- Concise – one sentence
- Outcome oriented
- Robust – open to different means
- Inclusive – multiple approaches
What did the process tell you about the reactions you might expect from others in your community?
How might you engage others in refining your mission statement? Who is missing from the table?
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From the outset of this 2020-21 Rotary year, Governor Frank Adamson has been urging clubs in District 7090 to find ways to increase Rotary’s presence in their communities. As one way to do this, he offered his *Little Lending Libraries (LLL) Challenge*. This involves each club investing a few dollars and some sweat equity to build and decorate at least one Rotary-branded little library for installation in its community. LLL are weather-proof structures that make a small collection of books available 24/7 to children and families. *Take a book, leave a book, and spread the word that literacy is important for all.*
District 7090’s *LLL Challenge* is modelled on the *Little Free Library* phenomenon that began in 2009 in Wisconsin with Rotarian Todd Bol, who built the original library in the shape of a one-room schoolhouse in honor of his mother, a retired teacher. In the March 2014 issue of The Rotarian, there was a substantial article entitled, “*Do-It-Yourself Libraries: Coming to a Neighborhood Near You*” by Diana Schoberg. It features the Little Free Library “international movement”, which in just 4 years had spread to 55 countries.
Several Rotary Clubs in District 7090 have already risen to the *LLL Challenge!* In keeping with Rotary International’s *Basic Education & Literacy* area of focus, these clubs have crafted and installed Rotary-branded little libraries or little shelves in their immediate communities for the benefit of all. Here’s a sampling of these LLL projects...
| RC Waterdown, ON | RC Amherst South, NY | RC Jamestown, NY |
|------------------|----------------------|------------------|
| **Waterdown’s Little Free Library promotes a love of reading**
*September 2019*
Project Lead:
Brenda Jefferies
firstname.lastname@example.org | 289-684-3416
| **https://www.facebook.com/Amherst-South-Rotary-531669696877178/**
*November 2019*
Project Lead:
Scott Marcin, Club President
email@example.com | 716-650-6455
| **Rotary Club of Jamestown Places Books for Children in City Laundromats**
*January 2021*
Project Lead:
Diana Meckley, Chair, Literacy Committee
firstname.lastname@example.org | 716-763-8270 |
ATTENTION CLUBS THAT HAVE NOT YET TAKEN UP THE 2020-21 LLL CHALLENGE…THERE’S TIME!
There are many great plans available for these little structures and clubs are urged to be resourceful and creative just like the 3 clubs featured on page 1 and the Rotary Club of Lincoln.
Lincoln Rotarians David Wood & John Kralt (l.to r.) took a simple design, which they sourced online, and adapted it for relatively easy duplication! Total maximum cost to purchase new materials required for the project = $75.00 CAD
FULL INSTRUCTIONS on the following pages
Project Lead: John Kralt - email@example.com | 905-328-5774
LET’S GET BUILDING…Recruit someone skilled in woodworking with suitable carpentry tools who can help oversee the project. Secure required building materials; organize a work party of 2 or 3 people; schedule a few hours over 3-4 days; HAVE FUN. Completion date is Monday, March 8, 2021.
A highlight of the District 7090 2020-21 Virtual Conference will be the Little Lending Libraries Showcase scheduled on Monday evening, March 15, 2021. We can’t wait to feature the results of your club’s labors in the showcase line-up.
How to Build a Little Free Library by David J. Brooks
https://scoutlife.org/hobbies-projects/projects/146078/how-to-build-a-little-free-library/
Adaptations by John Kralt & David Wood, Rotary Club of Lincoln
WHAT YOU’LL NEED
- An unfinished pine frame with an inside measurement of 8” x 10”. This will become the door.
- Pallets, or old discarded fencing or wood. This will make up the walls, roof and floor. The wood should be the same thickness, no less than 3/4”. Don’t use old wood that has been painted. (Old paint might contain lead and is a health hazard.) To take apart pallet wood, you will need work gloves, safety goggles, a flat pry bar, a claw hammer and a crowbar for stubborn nails.
- 2” x 2” x 11” board for the roof cleat
- Pocketknife
- Waterproof carpenter glue
- Pipe clamps, for gluing the recycled boards together
- Two self-closing overlay hinges
- Cabinet knob
- A sheet of clear acrylic, large enough to be cut to fit into the groove in the back of the frame
- Very fine-toothed saw (or utility knife if your acrylic is thin)
- If your wood is 3/4” thick, you will need 60 1 1/4” exterior wood screws.
- Drill and drill bits for predrilling lag bolts and screws
- Crosscut saw and ripsaw
- 1/4” drill bit for vent holes
- Sandpaper
- Exterior paint
Purchase two lengths of new 1” x 12” knotty pine plank as an alternative to using discarded lumber & unfinished pine frame.
Approximate cost to purchase new lumber = $25 CAD
WHAT YOU’LL DO
1. Collect more than enough boards to build the library, because some of the recycled wood will not be usable. Choose the cleanest wood from your pile. Remove any nails and cut off any unusable wood.
Cut the remaining boards to a rough length. The boards should not be too long when gluing and clamping them together. Sand all the edges and any rough spots.
Choose several boards close to the same length. Apply a thin layer of glue to all the edges and clamp them tightly together as shown. Allow each panel to dry overnight. Clamp and glue together enough panels to make all the parts of the library.
**Cut across and rip down the length of the pine planks. Rip boards should be no more than 4” wide to avoid warping when glued together.**
**Glue together 6 panels re: Illustration #1 that are slightly larger than the dimensions re: Illustrations #3, 4 & 5 for 2 sides, 2 roof pieces, floor, & back.**
Leave overnight for glue to set.
From remaining pieces of planks, cut/glue gable ends, door frame, door & supports for walls & roof re: Illustration #2.
2. Use the drawings as a guide to cut to size the door frame, gable end supports and roof cleat.
3. Use the drawings as a guide to cut to size the roof, walls, floor and gable end sections. Glue and screw the walls, floor, door frame and gable end supports together.
4. Glue and screw the gable ends to the supports. Screw the roof cleat to the inside of the gable ends. Glue and screw the roof in place. Drill two 1/4” holes at the top of each gable end for ventilation.
5. Cut and fasten the acrylic window inside the door. Hinge the door to the door frame, and screw on the cabinet knob.
Before assembling, paint all pieces except for surfaces to be glued. Use oil-based rust paint to protect against weathering or any high quality oil-based external paint.
Assemble by gluing every joint and reinforce using a combination of air nails & wood screws. Use spring hinges to attach door. Once assembly is complete, touch up the paint & customize with a Rotary brand - e.g. club logo, Rotary wheel
Approximate cost to purchase new glue, paint, acrylic pane & hardware = $50 CAD
6. Paint the library any colors you wish. Mount your library on a post (4” x 4” x 5’) buried 2’ in the ground. Fill it with books, and your library is complete.
*Painting & decorating with the Rotary brand can be completed once your library is constructed.*
*STAY TUNED for MOUNTING/INSTALLATION INSTRUCTIONS to be distributed in APRIL 2021.*
To meet the **2020-21 Little Lending Libraries (LLL) Challenge** in time for being featured during the **LLL Showcase** (March 15, 2021) at District 7090’s Virtual Conference, please complete the construction of your LLL by **Monday, March 8, 2021**.
**Contact:** Margaret Andrewes, Chair, District 7090 Literacy Committee
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The Church and the school community have such a strong and positive relationship, and enjoy working together for the benefit of all. At the start of the year, Church Council had shared their ideas with the Ethos Committee on planning a project that would strengthen community links even further. They talked about how good it would be to think about others and how they would like to think about ways that we could show our care more widely. After some discussion, we went back to the part of the school vision statement that said:
*Everyone at our school is valued and loved for their individual worth; we are inspired by Matthew’s gospel, to ‘Love your neighbour as yourself.’*
One of the children suggested that we could think about being ‘Good Neighbours’, and this was the start of our planning for the collaborative project. We talked about a range of ways that we could be a good neighbour- with friends and family, within school, and with our wider community. We talked about ways that we could reach out more widely, and we also considered the importance of thinking about our planet. This felt particularly significant, as we have had a strong focus on looking after our planet after our ‘courageous advocacy’ project last summer.
The school is so fortunate to have such a close and positive relationship with the local church, and the vicar is fully involved in all aspects of school life, and enjoys welcoming the children into the church whenever possible. For this project, Heather led Collective Worship, talking about the importance of being a good neighbour, and the things that we can do within our daily lives.
*“Heather always makes me think more deeply, and it made me think about how I can be kind and caring to other people. It also reminded me that I must be a good neighbour to our lovely planet.”*
*“I always feel excited about going to church. It is fun and it also makes me think about things in such a good way.”*
Every child in school had the opportunity to visit the church throughout the day, and their responses were so thoughtful.
Each activity within church encouraged the children to think more deeply about being a good neighbour, sharing love with others and with the planet. The children had the opportunity to think about ways that they could show and share their love and care.
The children plaited together strands of fabric, to show how we can strengthen relationships if we work together, referring to, “A cord of three strands is not easily broken.” The children responded to the activity, sharing,
*“It shows the strength of having friends”.*
*“It looks better when it is plaited. It shows that we are better when we are together.”*
“I really liked making the beautiful envelope, and I love how the hearts link to close it. I am going to give it to my sister to say sorry as we had a little fall out. I did say sorry but this will show that I really mean it and I know she will love it.”
Inside the envelope, the children included a picture made of nature’s beauty, with pressed flowers and leaves. This also served as a reminder of the beauty of nature and the importance of caring for it within our lives.
Amanda de Choisy, Chair of Governors, worked with children to make their envelopes, and was so impressed with the depth of their responses, even among the younger children:
“I was delighted when one little boy said he was going to give his picture and envelope to his next-door neighbour because ‘he was an elderly man and they had the same first name’.”
Within each activity, the children had the opportunity to reflect on ways that they can show care for others and for nature. They had the opportunity to have fun and to be creative, but also to deepen their understanding of being a good neighbour to others.
A really good example of this was one of the planting activities. They each had a painted pot, and were encouraged to think about someone important to them that they would like to give it to- just as God shares his love for us. They could choose a plant, and add decoupage decorations to the pot- but they had to think about the person they were giving it to when making their choices- not just themselves.
“At first I was hoping the pot was for me, but I know that my mum will really love it and I feel excited to give it to her.”
“If I was choosing for me I would have put different things on this, but I know that my nan will be so happy with all the things I have chosen as I know she loves colourful flowers.”
“It feels nice to do things for someone else. I loved this activity.”
At the heart of all of the activities, the children had the opportunity to reflect on 1 Corinthians:13. Each child had a copy of this, and as they completed the activities they reflected on the love that they had shown through each of these activities.
LOVE
IS PATIENT, LOVE IS KIND
IT DOES NOT ENVY, IT DOES NOT BOAST
IT IS NOT PROUD
IT DOES NOT DISHONOR OTHERS
IT IS NOT SELF-SEEKING
IT IS NOT EASILY ANGERED
IT KEEPS NO RECORD OF WRONGS
LOVE DOES NOT DELIGHT IN EVIL
BUT REJOICES WITH THE TRUTH
IT ALWAYS PROTECTS, ALWAYS TRUSTS
ALWAYS HOPES
ALWAYS PERSEVERES
LOVE NEVER FAILS
The children’s responses to the activities in church were overwhelmingly positive, and they had the chance to embed these further at school. Within EYFS, the children thought about showing love and care to those we know, saying thank you and sharing kindness. They made heart badges to give away, they baked loveheart cookies to share with others and they created their own tree of kindness.
Reception Class took great pride in making their heart badges and thinking of whom they could give them to; The children impressed with the high level words for their tree & placemats and thoroughly enjoying using their Maths skills to bake their cookies.
Within Key Stage 1, the children reflected on ways that they could show care within our wider school community. As part of the project we have been planning a community event, with the opportunity to show care and say ‘Thank you’ to our school and village community. The children talked about ways of sharing, and created a range of flowers that we will keep for our community event so that we can give them to others and share kindness.
Laura Allanson reflected on the impact of their work:
“The children spent time writing the words that they thought meant being a good neighbour was and decorating a beautiful heart or wreath. They took pride in their work.
Making the handprint flowers was very enjoyable. The children spent time carefully choosing which paper/pattern to use. They helped each other draw around and cut out their hands. They then wrote a message that they would want to give to someone to make them happy, cheer them up. Such as, have a good day, smile, be kind.”
I think the biggest impact was when the children wanted to take their flowers home & give them to their family. We reminded them that these were to be used in our community event where people from the community would be able to take them away as a random act of kindness. They said that made them feel special that they were doing something kind and generous for someone they didn't know.”
One year 2 pupil compared the activity to making a butterfly in the church. “When I made the butterfly I really loved it. I found out that the butterfly is like the light of the world, and so it is good to share it rather than keep it to yourself.”
In Year 3 and 4, the children thought more deeply about the messages within ‘The Good Samaritan’ and reflected on its impact within our lives today. The children enjoyed a range of drama and role play activities to add depth and understanding to the story, and they had the opportunity to reflect on how it feels to be a good neighbour.
Jo Carter and Wayne Jones worked with this group of children, and they were so impressed by the depth of their response and understanding- and their ability to discuss in such an informed and balanced way.
“Working with year 3/4 on the story of the Good Samaritan was incredible. It linked so nicely into our school vision and allowed us to put ourselves into different characters shoes to think about how and why they may have done what they did. The children loved this as they could really think deep and grow their ideas through the thoughts of others and we helped this with our conscience alley. We really wanted to bring this into modern day scenarios so they could see the link of the parable to their lives. This all resulted in some great written work.”
The children reflected on the impact of their activities.
“The story made me think about giving your time to others and showing care for one another. People need to spread kindness to the world.”
In Year 5 and 6, the children considered ways in which we can be a good neighbour to those we do not know. We discussed some of the charity work that we have done, with the impact felt more widely than our own immediate community. The children showed the depth of their understanding, making links with work and projects within the school and the church.
As a group, our oldest children thought about ways in which we could be a good neighbour more widely by planning some random acts of kindness.
The children planned some ‘random acts of kindness’ of their own. These included setting up a ‘kindness tree’, on which to hang a range of things that could be taken home by anyone who feels that they need to have their day brightened.
“It felt really lovely to think about spreading kindness.”
“I like to think that I can bring some kindness into someone’s life, even if I am not sure who has received it. It is good to think that we can make a difference in lots of ways. Hopefully it will mean that other people think about kind things they can do, too.”
As well as the Kindness Tree within school, the children also painted rocks to leave around the village, for people to take home:
“I really enjoyed painting the rocks because I enjoyed thinking that someone might be having a bad day and picks up a rock and it makes their day a bit better.”
“When people take the rocks I think they will have a smile on their face.”
We also decorated and planted flowerpots with a ‘Take me home’ message. The children really enjoyed this activity, at every level:
“It made me think about how giving to others not only makes you happy but the other person too.”
“Knowing I can give something lovely to someone makes me feel happy too.”
Jo Carter, Chair of the Ethos Committee, summed up the wider impact of the work:
“I think this project was fantastic to think about the wider impact on the community and we can impact this in different ways. From larger gestures to smaller ones like a simple smile to brighten someone’s day.
As in all our sessions we are thinking about ways we all can strive to be better versions of ourselves through our actions. The work we do with children to help shape moral behaviour supports them throughout life.”
All of the adults who worked so closely with the school and church could feel the value and impact of the work. As Amanda de Choisy said,
“Another inspiring Project to challenge our children. The activities encouraged the children to think about being kind to people they already know but also reaching out further into the community; The idea of leaving flowers, plants and rocks around the village was thought-provoking for the
younger children but when they realised how much happiness it would give the recipient, they understood the difference they could make.”
Revd Heather also recognizes the impact of the relationship between church and school, which is so beneficial for us all.
Wayne Jones shares the importance of this work within school,
“Our children have enjoyed and fully embraced the Good Neighbour project and have demonstrated values of love, kindness, generosity, and compassion. We continue to watch the children flourish by working in partnership with Revd Heather, St Peter’s Church, and our ethos governors. The whole school community has lived out our vision of Love your neighbour as yourself.”
As the DSC for the school, it always feels a privilege to work with such a committed and dedicated team, and to see the positive impact of such a creative approach on all members of the school and wider community. It was also very rewarding to receive so many positive messages from the wider community, after sharing our random acts of kindness around the village.
Everyone then worked together to plan the next stage of our project- a community ‘afternoon tea’, to share kindness and care, and to show our thanks to people within the church and village community.
Invites were sent to twenty five members of the Church and village community, and everyone accepted! It was a chance for the children to share all the things that they had made from their activities in church and at school. It brought to life the importance of caring and sharing beyond our school walls, and everyone was so positive about the kindness and care that was shown.
Some of the comments included:
“The afternoon tea was on a par with the Ritz! It felt very special.”
“It has been such a thrill to be looked after with such kindness. The children were a credit to the school and I can’t thank you enough.”
“This was the best afternoon tea I have ever had.”
“It was amazing- so much more than I would ever have expected.”
“The children were so thoughtful and kind.”
The children on the Church Council felt very proud to be involved, and recognized the importance of doing things for others, and the positive impact that this can have on so many.
“It proves how important it is to treat everyone with respect, as you would like to be treated. It was also lovely to meet other people and to remember that we are one big community.”
“It made us think about each other even more.”
“It felt so lovely to think about other people and to think that we had made the day better for all of these people. It was lovely to be a part of the tea party.”
“It shows that we include everyone here, even outside the school.”
It was a fitting end to such a rewarding project and the impact has been summed up by one of the children…
“It has been so good to think about other people and to remember that kindness makes a difference. It has made me feel happy inside, too. I know the tea party has ended but I am always going to think more about how I can spread kindness around.”
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COMPOSING COLOR: PAINTINGS BY ALMA THOMAS
In the mid-1960s, Alma Thomas created a painting style distinctly her own, characterized by the dazzling interplay of pattern and vibrant color. In her work, color can be symbolic and multisensory, evoking sound, motion, temperature, even scent. Her abiding source of inspiration was nature—whether seen through her kitchen window or from outer space. Thomas once stated, “Art could be anything. It could be behavior—as long as it’s beautiful.” During a politically charged time in American life, she maintained belief in the recuperative power of beauty and dedicated herself to its cultivation.
Born in 1891 in Columbus, Georgia, Thomas moved to Washington, DC, with her family as a teenager. She was a vital figure in the art communities of Washington for decades. In 1924, she became Howard University’s first student to earn a degree in fine art. She went on to teach art in DC public schools for more than thirty years and served as vice-president of the Barnett Aden Gallery, one of the nation’s first racially integrated and Black-owned galleries. In 1972, at age eighty, Thomas achieved unprecedented recognition for an African American woman artist, presenting solo exhibitions at both the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington and the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York.
The Smithsonian American Art Museum holds the most extensive collection of Thomas’s paintings on canvas. The museum acquired more than a dozen works during the artist’s lifetime and, upon her death, received thirteen paintings by bequest. *Composing Color* draws on these rich holdings. Organized around the artist’s favored themes of Space, Earth, and Music, this show invites you to see the world through Alma Thomas’s eyes.
*Composing Color: Paintings by Alma Thomas* is organized by the Smithsonian American Art Museum. Generous support has been provided by:
The Helen Frankenthaler Foundation
Chris G. Harris
The Wolf Kahn Foundation
Susan Talley
Resurrection
1966
acrylic and graphite on canvas
White House Collection
Like a stained-glass window in a church, *Resurrection* offers a radiant focal point for contemplation and reverence. This painting is one of several by Thomas whose title references Christian ideas or imagery. The artist had a lifelong affiliation with St. Luke’s Episcopal Church, located less than a block from her home in Washington, DC.
*Resurrection* appears here on loan from the White House. Its acquisition in 2015 made Thomas the first African American female artist to have work enter the art collection of the “people’s house.” Former First Lady Michelle Obama recalls, “We placed the painting directly in visitors’ line of sight [in the Old Family Dining Room]. . . so its warmth would greet you the moment you stepped into the room.”
Peter Souza, Passover seder in the Old Family Dining Room of the White House, 2015
**GALLERY #1**
**Gallery Panel, Gallery #1**
Space
“I love the change, I love the new. I live well with technology. I paint earth and space.”
—Alma Thomas
Thomas was born at the end of the nineteenth century—as she liked to say, in the “horse and buggy days.” She had no desire to remain there. Consciously oriented toward the future, she embraced the technological and social changes of the twentieth century. Her artistic evolution
from academic painting to abstraction reflected this forward-facing attitude—her belief in the need for “a new art representing a new era.”
Thomas’s admiration for scientific and technological breakthroughs included NASA’s human spaceflight program. While some artists and intellectuals criticized the space race as a distraction from the Vietnam War and social injustice at home, Thomas was fascinated by the Apollo missions of 1968 to 1972. She created numerous paintings inspired by their televised events and the revelatory photographs of Earth taken from space. She imagined outer space as a place beyond human conflict: “I’d love to be on the moon to feel beauty, vastness, and purity. Nothing there that was destroyed by man, no war.”
Bill Anders, *Earthrise*, a view of the Earth seen from the Apollo 8 lunar module, December 24, 1968. NASA
**Object labels, Gallery 1:**
*Snoopy—Early Sun Display on Earth*
1970
acrylic on canvas
Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Vincent Melzac, 1976.140.1
In *Snoopy—Early Sun Display on Earth*, Thomas’s reverence for the beauty of living things expands to a planetary scale. Captivated by astronauts’ accounts of seeing Earth from outer space, Thomas portrayed a rainbow-hued planet pulsating with light and vitality.
“Snoopy” was the nickname for the Apollo 8 lunar module, a reference to the *Peanuts* comic strip character (who was also a NASA mascot) and the module’s job of flying around the moon to “snoop” for a promising landing site. Thomas would likely have seen the widely circulated photograph taken from “Snoopy” as it orbited the moon. Known as *Earthrise*, the image shows a partly illuminated, vibrant blue Earth as it rises above the surface of the moon.
Antares
1972
acrylic on canvas
Smithsonian American Art Museum, Bequest of the artist, 1980.36.13
This densely patterned monochromatic canvas conjures the intensely hot surface of the star Antares. One of the brightest and most massive stars in the galaxy, Antares earned its name—meaning, in Greek, “rival of Mars”—due to its similar appearance to the red planet.
Atmospheric Effects I
1970
acrylic and pencil on paper
Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Vincent Melzac, 1976.140.3
Atmospheric Effects II
1971
acrylic and pencil on paper
Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Vincent Melzac, 1976.140.4
NOTE: *Atmospheric Effects I* and *Atmospheric Effects II* will rotate on view at SAAM.
Blast Off
1970
acrylic on canvas
On loan from the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum, Washington, DC
Thomas was enthralled by televised coverage of the Apollo missions. Writing in 1971, she expressed her delight that “through the medium of color television all can actually see and experience the thrill of these adventures.” Blast Off is one of two paintings now in the collection of the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum that allude to the launching of a spacecraft. Its fiery, upward-pointing triangle connotes the awesome power of a rocket ship achieving lift off.
The Eclipse
1970
acrylic on canvas
Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of the artist, 1978.40.3
The Eclipse was the last work Thomas created as part of her “Space” series. It was inspired by the total solar eclipse that occurred on March 7, 1970 and was visible from across the Eastern United States, including Washington, DC.
In a total eclipse, the moon blocks the view of the sun from Earth, appearing like a hole in the sky and allowing the sun’s corona, usually masked by bright light, to become visible. With its dark blue core and radiating rings of color, Thomas’s painting captures this rare moment of celestial alignment, its off-center composition suggesting the progressive movement of the moon across the sky.
Earth and the Seasons
“The seasons, the flowers, the sea—all of nature—have become a permanent part of my paintings.” —Alma Thomas
Thomas’s art shows her love of living things—how they grow, change, and renew themselves. Her deep connection to nature was formed during her childhood in the South, where she spent time wandering her grandfather’s property, witnessing “gorgeous sunsets... lovely fowl, every kind of fowl... and the most unusual wildflowers.”
Transplanted to Washington, DC, Thomas became a connoisseur of the gardens of the city, admiring the plantings at Dumbarton Oaks, the National Arboretum, the United States Botanic Garden, and other parks. She was an avid gardener who cultivated crepe myrtle trees and lush flower beds in her backyard. The abstract colors, lines, and forms of her garden were visible from the window of her kitchen studio. “I don’t want to be isolated when I paint,” Thomas said, “Here I can cook and always see the beautiful flowers.”
Thomas’s paintings reflect the shifting hues, sounds, and atmosphere of her surroundings across the seasons. They express the smell of fresh cut grass in spring, the warmth of sunny days, the fiery colors of fall, and the hush that follows a snowfall.
Unknown photographer, Alma Thomas’s backyard garden, not dated, Archives of American Art
Ida Jervis, Alma Thomas in her studio, 1968, Archives of American Art
Light Blue Nursery
1968
acrylic on canvas
Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of the artist, 1970.324
With its neatly ordered rows of brushstrokes, *Light Blue Nursery* evokes the appearance of colorful plants lined up at a nursery. The variation of touch and direction with which Thomas applied the strokes of paint creates a sense of flickering movement. She once said, “My paintings of nurseries and flower gardens have been inspired by the forms or color patterns seen from airplanes speeding through space.”
Acquired in 1970, *Light Blue Nursery* was the first painting by Thomas to enter the collection of the Smithsonian American Art Museum. It was a favorite of the museum’s director at the time, Joshua Taylor, who hung it in his office. It also spent time on loan to the White House. Stephen Hess, the National Chairman of the White House Conference on Children and Youth, later wrote in a letter to the artist, “[it] cheered me up during many dark moments.”
Aquatic Gardens
1973
acrylic on canvas
Smithsonian American Art Museum, Bequest of the artist, 1980.36.7
*Aquatic Gardens* may have been inspired by a visit to Kenilworth Aquatic Gardens, a national park in Washington, DC, devoted to the cultivation of water plants. The park features vast stretches of ponds filled with water lilies and lotuses.
Thomas did not paint outdoors, considering this to be an old-fashioned approach. She instead sought out sensory experiences she later translated into painting in her studio. She once explained that she visited gardens “not to paint but to get impressions. A friend of mine goes... and gets every leaf. I said I’d go crazy doing that. I told him, ‘Just go and look. It settles you, and then you don’t need to look at it anymore.’”
Fall Begins
1976
acrylic on canvas
Smithsonian American Art Museum, Bequest of the artist, 1980.36.1
Spring Grass
1973
acrylic on canvas
Smithsonian American Art Museum, Bequest of the artist, 1980.36.12
Autumn Leaves Fluttering in the Breeze
1973
acrylic on canvas
Smithsonian American Art Museum, Bequest of the artist, 1980.36.9
Like many of Thomas’s paintings, Autumn Leaves Fluttering in the Breeze suggests an experience of sensory immersion—it conveys not only the brilliant color of fall foliage, but also the movement and sound of branches and leaves dancing in the wind.
Music and Nature
“I would wade in the brook and when it rained you could hear music. I would fall on the grass and look at the poplar trees and the lovely yellow leaves would whistle.”—Alma Thomas
Thomas loved music and often listened to the radio or played albums and mixtapes as she worked. Her selections were eclectic, ranging from rhythm and blues to the soundtrack for *2001: A Space Odyssey*. Well-versed in the theory of how colors interact, she was attentive to the interconnections between musical and visual art—how, in each, compositional elements are put in sequence and contrast to create harmony, melody, balance, and rhythm.
Thomas also spoke of music and nature as linked. In a 1966 letter to artist Gene Davis, she wrote, “Your paintings give not only the feeling of listening to an outstanding orchestra or symphony, but the joy of Nature’s World of Color.” Thomas often assigned titles to her own paintings that connect natural phenomena, like flowers or a sunset, with song. In her art, nature and music are treated as twin expressions of a fundamental life force or spirit.
Some of the works in this gallery are among the artist’s last. They are also among her boldest and freest. In the mid-1970s, Thomas moved beyond her signature stripes to create complex mosaiclike compositions using irregular shapes she described as her “hieroglyphs.” Facing declining physical ability, she continuously adapted her methods to create and innovate until the end of her life.
Frank Stewart, Alma Thomas, 1976, Columbus Museum of Art
Earlier in her career, Thomas used a straightedge or bands of elastic to guide the striped format of her compositions. In making this work, she painted more freely, creating patterns of wedges and glyphs that loosen from left to right, as if vibrating on the surface of a drum. Despite the health challenges she faced at this stage of her life, including being hospitalized for two months after breaking her hip in 1974, Thomas continued to create large paintings, sometimes propping herself up to do so.
With its simple yet dazzling red-and-white palette, *Untitled (Music Series)* closely relates to Thomas’s largest work, the three-panel painting *Red Azaleas Singing and Dancing Rock and Roll Music*. See this work on view in SAAM’s modern and contemporary art galleries on the third floor.
*White Roses Sing and Sing*
1976
acrylic on canvas
Smithsonian American Art Museum, Bequest of the artist, 1980.36.3
*White Roses Sing and Sing* is non-representational yet strongly evocative of the natural world. Translucent pale forms float over a background of shifting green and yellow—a luminous image perhaps related to Thomas’s memories of her childhood home in Columbus, Georgia, in a neighborhood called Rose Hill. She once remarked that it “was rightly named because roses bloomed there almost the year round.” She also recalled that as a child exploring the outdoors she heard “singing [and] talking sounds in all things.”
Red Sunset, Old Pond Concerto
1972
acrylic on canvas
Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of the Woodward Foundation, 1977.48.5
Delightful Song by Red Dahlia
1976
acrylic on canvas
Smithsonian American Art Museum, Bequest of the artist, 1980.36.4
Grassy Melodic Chant
1976
acrylic on canvas
Smithsonian American Art Museum, Bequest of the artist, 1980.36.5
Elysian Fields
1973
acrylic on canvas
Smithsonian American Art Museum, Bequest of the artist, 1980.36.8
Wedge-like forms dance down the surface of *Elysian Fields*, united by a single strong color. Working with a pared-down palette, Thomas created a rhythmic composition that seems to extend beyond the edges of the canvas.
In Greek mythology, the Elysian Fields are a utopian afterlife reserved for virtuous souls. Thomas evidently felt that the reference suited the clarity and purity of this painting, composed in brilliant blue and bright white. | 9824371a-ee37-4bee-ad1c-bedd3b90476d | CC-MAIN-2024-18 | https://d3ec1vt3scx7rr.cloudfront.net/files/documents/2024-01/ComposingColorWallText2024.pdf | 2024-04-18T23:19:52+00:00 | crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2024-18/segments/1712296817249.26/warc/CC-MAIN-20240418222029-20240419012029-00297.warc.gz | 171,909,252 | 3,248 | eng_Latn | eng_Latn | 0.941916 | eng_Latn | 0.996135 | [
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Sustainable and Safe School Sanitation
How to provide hygienic and affordable sanitation in areas without a functioning wastewater system
Examples from Eastern Europe, Caucasus and Central Asia
August 2009
Publication Data August 2009
Copyright: WECF 2009
Copying parts of this report is allowed on the condition that the source is mentioned.
Autors
Stefan Deegener
Claudia Wendland
Anna Samwel
Margriet Samwel
Layout by Stefanie Murha
This brochure is intended for school-directors and teachers, administration-employees, engineers, architects and construction workers from the field and NGOs.
This publication was realized with financial support of Netherlands Ministry of Foreign Affairs Fondation Ensemble, France and European Commission DG Environment
WECF, Women in Europe for a Common Future
The Netherlands / France / Germany
Email: firstname.lastname@example.org
http://www.wecf.eu
WECF The Netherlands
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Tel: +31 - 30 - 23 10 300
Fax: +31 - 30 - 23 40 878
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Tel: +33 - 450 - 49 97 38
fax: +33 - 450 - 49 97 38
WECF e.V. Germany
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Tel: +49 - 89 - 23 23 938 - 0
Fax: +49 - 89 - 23 23 938 - 11
Bank account numbers
for tax deductible donations:
The Netherlands:
Account Number: 1266 45 11
Tenaamstelling: Wecf
IBAN: NL96 RABO 0126 6451 16
BIC: RABONL2U
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Crédit Agricole de Savoie
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BIC: SKRDEDEM
Stadtsparkasse München, Munich
Sustainable and Safe School Sanitation
How to provide hygienic and affordable sanitation in areas without a functioning wastewater system
Examples from Eastern Europe, Caucasus and Central Asia
Authors
Stefan Deegener
Claudia Wendland
Anna Samwel
Margriet Samwel
More about WECF
Women in Europe for a Common Future is a network of organisations and individuals working for sustainable development, protection of human health and environment and poverty reduction.
Our international network consists of members and partners in Western and Eastern Europe, the Caucasus and Central Asia. WECF supports partners in 13 countries with demonstrations of urine diverting dry toilets for private and public (school) use in:
- Afghanistan
- Armenia
- Azerbaijan
- Belarus
- Bulgaria
- Georgia
- Kazakhstan
- Kyrgyzstan
- Moldova
- Romania
- Tajikistan
- Ukraine
- Uzbekistan
## Contents
1. Background and Summary ................................................................. 7
2. Sustainable School Sanitation ......................................................... 9
- 2.1 Location of the Facility .......................................................... 9
- 2.2 Number of Restrooms ........................................................... 10
- 2.3 Urine Diversion Toilet Devices ............................................. 11
- 2.4 Waterless Urinals ............................................................... 11
- 2.5 Urine-Piping and Storage .................................................... 12
- 2.6 Faeces Collection and Treatment ........................................ 12
- 2.7 Ventilation system .............................................................. 17
- 2.8 Reuse of the Toilet Products ............................................... 18
- 2.9 Equipment of Restrooms .................................................... 18
- 2.10 Hand wash facilities .......................................................... 19
- 2.11 Greywater Treatment ....................................................... 19
3. Education and Trainings ............................................................... 20
- 3.1 Trainings ............................................................................. 20
- 3.2 Legal Aspects of UDDT School Toilets ................................ 21
4. More information ........................................................................... 22
Support for planning and building UDD school toilets .................. 22
Further reading – WECF publications .......................................... 22
Footnotes ..................................................................................... 23
### Annexes
- Annex 1. Tasks for the cleaning staff of urine diverting dry public or school toilets ........................................ 24
- Annex 2. What to do with a smelly UDD toilet? ........................................ 25
- Annex 3. Design details from toilet facility in Vrata, Romania ................................................................. 26
### Boxes
- Box 1. What is a UDD toilet? ......................................................... 8
- Box 2. How to avoid smell in a toilet rooms? ........................................ 11
- Box 3. Gender aspects of UDD school toilets ........................................ 20
- Box 4. Conditions for successfully planning and building UDD school toilets ........................................ 21
### Tables
- Table 1. Minimum recommended number of toilets ........................................ 10
- Table 2. Recommended volume of urine tanks ........................................ 12
### Examples
- Indoor School UDD Toilet ............................................................ 13
- Outdoor School UDD Toilet .......................................................... 16
- Map with UDD toilet facilities constructed by WECF and partner organisations ........................................ 14
Proper school sanitation is a question of children’s health and dignity. However, in many countries little attention is paid to school sanitation not only because of lacking financial resources, but also due to a lack of awareness of how important school sanitation is.
Pupils support actively the construction of the new UDD toilet facility in Kyrgyzstan. The new toilet facility will be attached to the old school building and can be entered from indoor.
Existing school toilets in rural Tajikistan without any privacy
1 Background and Summary
School sanitation
School sanitation is an important but often neglected issue for public health. Children are most vulnerable and affected by poor sanitation conditions. Related diseases, particularly diarrhoea and parasite infections hinder the children’s physical and intellectual development. In a number of countries, evaluations have shown that pupils are dropping out of school due to bad toilet conditions. This seems to be particularly the case for adolescent girls and leads to lower educational standards and attainment.
The hygienic and sanitary conditions of many rural school toilets in Eastern Europe, Caucasus and Central Asia (EECCA region) range from bad to terrible. In most cases the sanitation facilities consist of simple pit-latrines with little standard of cleansing. Also hand washing facilities are mostly lacking and privacy is missing. In addition to the bad hygienic toilet conditions and lack of privacy, the groundwater of the school community often gets polluted with faecal bacteria and nitrates by infiltration of the toilet pits. This puts the rural population at constant risk of waterborne diseases caused by polluted drinking water, and in some communities it is considered normal to have almost constant diarrhoea.
Implementing hygienic, safe and sustainable sanitation in schools contributes to solving the health and environmental problems of these rural areas. Demonstrations accompanied by a training for pupils and teachers about hygienic and sanitation issues lead to higher educational standards and raise the awareness of the whole communities via the children.
In cases where there are not reliably working flush toilets, modern dry toilet technology can be implemented. In the last years, WECF built together with local partners more than 20 Urine Diverting Dry Toilet (UDDT) Buildings for schools, as demonstration projects in different countries of the EECCA region.
A wide variety of innovative school sanitation solutions exist, for example decentralised systems with low flush toilets connected to constructed wetlands, urine diverting dry toilets and simple grey water treatment, low flush toilets connected to biogas systems and many more. These decentralised sanitation solutions are appropriate depending on the different local conditions of available funds and materials, climate functioning water supply systems, local engineering skills etc. This publication will focus on one of the available solutions, that of urine diverting dry school toilet systems.
The UDD toilet as a sustainable sanitation – or often called ecosan toilet – offers high quality and comfort. Because of the separation technology in the toilet device, these toilets do not smell or attract flies. Consequently the UDD toilet or ecosan toilet can be built inside the school like a water flush toilet, which provides a comfortable solution, especially important in winter. Water resources are saved and protected by safe storage, treatment and reuse of excreta. The installation of UDDTs leads to an immediate improvement of the hygienic sanitary and environmental situation.
Compared to conventional toilets, UDDTs offer the possibility to explain the pupils in combination with the hygiene education the inter-linkages between ecology, agriculture, nutrient- and water-cycles.
Through its pilot demonstrations of school toilets, WECF has shown that the situation can be improved with fewer financial resources compared to the installation of flush-toilets. No infrastructure such as central water supply or sewerage system is needed for the operation of the UDDT.
Another important advantage of UDD toilets is the production of organic fertilizer and soil conditioner which represents an important economic benefit for the often poor rural inhabitants who cannot always afford chemical fertilizer.
The experience showed a very high acceptance of the new sanitation system by pupils and teachers. Also many local residents are interested in the (re-)use of the toilet products (urine and faeces) although the reuse aspect is influenced by the specific local mentality and cultural practices.
Key success factors are the following:
- Good education of pupils, teachers, care takers and cleaning staff
- Regular cleaning and maintenance of the UDDT
- Early involvement of all stakeholders (director, pupils, teachers, cleaning-staff and caretaker, different levels of administration, farmers)
**What is a UDD toilet?**
A urine diverting dry toilet, also called ecosan toilet, has two outlets and two collection systems, one for urine and one for faeces, in order to keep these excreta fractions separate.
**What are the benefits of UDD toilets?**
- Offer a high level of comfort and hygiene even when there is no central sewage system
- Do not smell or attract flies
- Do not use water for flushing
- Do not need a connection to water supply and sewerage
- Do not pollute groundwater like latrines do
- Do not pollute rivers, lakes or the sea with micro pollutants and nutrients as do wastewater treatment plants
- Produce excellent fertiliser and soil conditioner
- Preserve nutrients
- Can be built inside (warm in winter, more privacy)
- Do not need electricity for water pumps
- Are less expensive to build and maintain than water flush toilets
- Less costly than conventional sanitation
In rural areas of the EECCA region where there is no reliable water supply and/or no functioning sewerage system, the urine diverting dry toilet is an excellent sustainable sanitation option.
**Box 1**
2 Sustainable School Sanitation
The major goal of sustainable school sanitation is to provide a healthy school environment which optimizes children’s learning capacity and where children and teachers feel at ease.
The needed hardware is a safe, proper and hygienic toilet with hand wash facility. To achieve sustainability, other criteria should be met additionally:
- The sanitation system should be environmentally sound, the excreta should be collected, treated and reused safely.
- And water sources should be protected.
- Technology must be robust and operation must be appropriate so that it can be maintained by local personnel.
- The software required, such as socio-cultural and institutional aspects, include provision of hygiene education (e.g. PHAEST training) and training for the use, operation and maintenance of facilities for pupils, teachers and personnel. Additionally an enabling policy environment is needed to overcome administrative hindrances towards innovative sanitation options.
Task managers from the health, education, and water and sanitation sectors must work together to ensure that school sanitation programmes will be successful in achieving their objectives. Awareness about the importance of sanitation is needed at all levels.
Last but not least the important factor for long term success is the capacity to pay for school sanitation. The affordability of the chosen sanitation investment, operation and reinvestment is crucial (financial and economic issues). Besides the direct costs, indirect benefits should be taken into account: these include health improvement and reduced needs for medicines as well as benefits from recycled products (soil conditioner, fertiliser and reclaimed water) have to be taken into account.
For the implementation of urine-diverting dry toilets and waterless urinals in schools, local engineers and architects have to be trained on the principles of UDDTs. After training and supervision of the first pilot UDDT by an expert, the following toilets could be planned, constructed and operated by local stakeholders.
2.1 Location of the Facility
The main selection at the beginning of a school sanitation project is the selection of the toilet facility location. We recommend to place the toilet inside the school or attached to the school-building where it is most convenient for the users:
- Convenient temperature, i.e. warmer in winter and colder in summer compared to a toilet in the yard. This is especially important for girls who are more prone to urinary infections (UTIs) exacerbated by cold temperatures.
- Keeping the toilet room cleaner and more hygienic is much easier if the children have not to cross the yard to get to it.
Building a new school-building is the best opportunity to properly plan and design the infrastructure of the UDD toilet inside or attached. In most projects however the school-building already exists and only the toilet-facility is newly constructed. Then it is often possible to use intelligent planning or to retrofit a room that is not needed anymore such as a storage room. In other cases, it is possible to attach a new toilet building to the school house and install a new door so that the children can directly enter into the new toilet. If there is no place available inside and no suitable place to attach the toilet, it should be implemented in the yard, as close to the exit of the school as possible to keep the distance short for the users. Hand wash facilities should optimally be installed best in a separate room in front of the toilet rooms. Otherwise they should be as close to the toilets as possible.
When selecting the location and setting of the new toilets, it is good to involve the school children as their perceptions and views differ from views of adults. Concerning the UDD system, the children understand the principles and mostly accept the new toilets faster than adults.
2.2 Number of Restrooms
Depending on the size of the school the number of toilets must be determined. Separated rooms for boys and girls are obligatory as well as walls separating the restrooms to secure the pupils’ privacy. There are WHO standards and usually national standards which define the number of restrooms per pupil. The problem of lacking financial resources often hinders the implementation of the official recommended number. The experience of WECF showed that toilet-facilities with the below given number of restrooms and urinals do not lead to queues in front of the toilets. The problem of queues when there are only few toilet rooms can also be solved by shifting the pupils’ break so that not all children need to use the toilet at the same time. Additionally it is necessary to place one toilet room for female teachers and one for male teachers which is sufficient in schools up to 500 pupils. Additionally it is recommended to implement one toilet room which provides disabled access. One of the teachers’ toilet room could be realised as barrier-free toilet so that handicapped persons can use the toilet easily, too.
Table 1. Minimum recommended number of toilets
| No of male pupils | Restrooms for boys | Urinals for boys | No of female pupils | Restrooms for girls |
|-------------------|--------------------|------------------|---------------------|---------------------|
| | WECF | WHO¹ | WECF | WHO¹ | WECF | WHO¹ |
| 25 | 1 | – | 1 | – | 25 | 1 | 1 |
| 50 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 1 | 50 | 2 | 2 |
| 100 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 100 | 3 | 4 |
| 150 | 2 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 150 | 4 | 6 |
| 200 | 2 | 4 | 3 | 4 | 200 | 4 | 8 |
| 250 | 3 | 5 | 4 | 5 | 250 | 5 | 10 |
| 300 | 3 | 6 | 4 | 6 | 300 | 6 | 12 |
| 350 | 4 | 7 | 5 | 7 | 350 | 7 | 14 |
| 400 | 4 | 8 | 5 | 8 | 400 | 8 | 16 |
| 450 | 5 | 9 | 6 | 9 | 450 | 9 | 18 |
| 500 | 5 | 10 | 6 | 10 | 500 | 10 | 20 |
2.3 Urine Diversion Toilet Devices
There are many different models of urine diverting devices possible but not all are available on the local or national market. Seat risers for sitting as well as slabs/pans for squatting are both options for urine-diversion. For public places and schools, WECF recommends slabs because most users do not sit down on public toilets to prevent contact because of hygienic reasons. The slabs should have a smooth surface for easy cleaning and should be durable. For fixing the slabs, stainless steel screws should be used to prevent stains by rust and oxidation. Unfortunately no urine diversion slabs are available on the market in the EECCA-regions yet. WECF has good experience with a Chinese model. But also self-made urine diversion slabs have shown to work fine.
Squatting slab design by Lin Jiang, China
2.4 Waterless Urinals
Waterless urinals are the best options for boys to properly collect the urine. Waterless urinals have become very common in public places in Germany and other EU countries, but in most of the EECCA countries, they are not yet available on the market. Therefore they have to be imported or, available urinals which are intended for water flushing must be modified to suit the usage as waterless urinals. In any case, the contact area between the pipes and the urine has to be reduced to avoid smell. This is achieved best by smell-traps. Since these are also not yet available in the EECCA region, an improvised odour blocker, e.g. a condom or finger of a plastic glove has to be used. Another method is to reduce the outflow of the urinal by modifying a waterflush urinal.
Installation of a smell trap in the urine pipe under the waterless urinal
Conventional urinal is used as a waterless one, the holes were sealed apart from one left
How to avoid smell in the toilet rooms?
If the UDD toilets and water less urinals are properly installed, used and maintained, there is no smell at all. Please see also the tasks of the care taker and cleaning staff in detail in Annex 1. Smell could only occur from the faeces chamber or from the urine pipes and tank, if proper conditions are lacking. It can be avoided by ensuring the following:
Faeces chamber:
- Covering with sand/ashes/soil after using the toilet by the user
- Proper installation of the ventilation (passive or active)
- Closing doors of the faeces chamber
- Proper sealing of the whole faeces chamber to prevent any uncontrollable vent
- Flattening the heap of faeces by the caretaker from time to time
Urine pipes and storage:
- Proper installation of the piping
- Sealing of the piping system to prevent any uncontrolled urine discharge and uncontrollable vent
- Installation and maintenance of the smell trap
Box 2
2.5 Urine Piping and Storage
All urine-pipes have to be accessible easily for regular maintenance. This is reached with an easily accessible corridor. Important is a slope of minimum 1% and no negative slope in the whole system to prevent stagnant urine, which can cause smell and/or blockages through precipitation. As material Poly-Propylene (PP) wastewater pipes are recommended. If these are not available, PVC-pipes can be used. The diameter should be minimum 50mm where accessible and 110mm underground. For the connection between the slabs and the PP-pipes a flexible hose with a smooth inner surface is a good choice. In general the distance between the tanks and the restrooms should be as short as possible and edges should be smooth, i.e. as few 90°-bends as possible. It is essential that the urine-pipes end at the bottom of the tank and not at the top to prevent smell and ammonia losses.
With UDDTs systems the urine has to be collected first and (in public places) then stored before reuse in agriculture. If the storage is done on site, a minimum of 2 containers have to be installed. One is used for the collection while the other one is used for storage. To switch between the containers a proper mechanism for changing the direction of the urine flow has to be applied. Plastic containers made of Polyethylene (PE) or Glassfibre Reinforced Plastic (GRP) for the collection and storage of urine are the best solution. Urine can also be stored in concrete tanks which are absolutely sealed, e.g. by a lining of plastic. If no containers with high volume are available also several smaller containers can be installed. The size of the tanks has to be big enough to assure a storage time of minimum 6 months. It is recommended to install two chambers so that one can rest during the required period. The table gives volumes for urine tanks that proved to assure a collection time of at least 6 month. These are figures on the safe side, they also depend on the school hours and duration of holiday. If the tanks fill up before, an external storage off-site, e.g. on the farmer’s land has to be found.
The tanks are best located underground near the facility in a frost free depth. The tanks can also be placed in the basement of the facility, if a sufficient slope of the urine pipes and protection against freezing is applied.
Table 2. Recommended volume of urine tanks*
| No of users [-] | Volume of urine tanks [m³] |
|----------------|----------------------------|
| 50 | 2*0,75 |
| 100 | 2*1,25 |
| 200 | 2*2,5 |
| 300 | 2*3,75 |
| 400 | 2*5 |
| 500 | 2*6,25 |
| 600 | 2*7,5 |
| 800 | 2*10 |
| 1000 | 2*12,5 |
* The recommended volumes are schools where the pupils attend the school in average 5 hours per day, 5 days a week and 9 month per year
2.6 Faeces Collection and Treatment
The faeces are collected together with cover material in the faeces vault under the toilet. The cover material is applied after defaecation and ashes, sawdust, dried soil or a mixture of these can be used. There are two different systems of UDDTs: single and double vault UDDTs. In double vault systems there are 2 vaults below each restroom. The faeces are collected in one vault until it is filled. Then this vault is resting and closed for hygienisation of the content and vault No 2 is filled. After the second vault is filled, vault No 1 is emptied and used again. In single-vault-systems the faeces are collected in a removable container below the toilet. When it is filled, it has to be removed and a new container inserted into the single-vault. The content of the full container has to be stored or composted elsewhere for 2 years. 2 containers are obligatory for single-vault-systems to avoid the contact with fresh faecal matter while emptying.
Example Indoor School UDD Toilet
Facility for 350 school children plus teachers in Hayanist, Armenia
Former school pit latrine for 350 pupils in Hayanist, Armenia
View on the new toilet facility
Floor plan of the toilet block, design: Qualque-chase architects, Armenia, with support by Hamburg University of Technology
Elevation F1, Scale 1:50
Detailed plan E1, Scale 1:50
Detailed information about this case study please check on http://www.susana.org/images/documents/06-case-studies/en-susana-cs-armenia-hayanist-school.pdf
View into a restroom with the installation of the Chinese squatting slab
Boys’ waterless urinals at different heights
A teacher showing the hand wash basins (photo by AWHHE)
The boy is happy about the new toilet
The caretaker in the basement where four urine tanks (each 2 m³) are installed (photo by AWHHE)
Sustainable and Safe School Sanitation
UDD toilet facilities by WECF and partner organisations in the EU and the EECCA region
Ukraine
Our partner organisations:
MAMA 86, BLACK SEA WOMEN’S CLUB
6 school toilet facilities
Romania
Our partner organisations:
EURO TELEORMAN, MEDIUM ET SANITAS, FCV
3 school toilet facilities
Moldova
Our partner organisation:
ECOTOX
1 Kindergarten toilet facility
Azerbaijan
Our partner organisation:
EKOT
Georgia
Our partner organisation:
RCDA
1 school toilet facility
Women in Europe for a Common Future
WECF receives financial support from:
- Netherlands Ministry of Foreign Affairs
- Netherlands Ministry of Environment
- European Commission
- German Ministry of the Environment
- German Federal Agency for the Environment
- Fondation Ensemble, France
- French Ministry of the Environment
- Federal Agency for the Environment
Water and Sanitation projects by WECF and partner organisations:
- Construction of composting dry toilets for households, public places and schools
- Production of percolation rainwater harvesting tanks
- Construction of solar heated showers
- Demonstrating the effects of urine as a fertilizer
- Building of constructed wetlands and lagoons for treatment of wastewater
- Monitoring of drinking water quality
- Drilling and construction of drinking water wells
- Developing Water Safety Plans with involvement of schools
- Establishment of demonstration centres for sustainable development
WECF the Netherlands, France, Germany, May 2010
Example Outdoor School UDD Toilet
Facility for 200 school children plus teachers in Garla Mare, Romania
The school children are happy with their new toilet facility
Former pit latrine of the school in Garla Mare
View on the new toilet facility
View on the new toilet facility from the back with open doors to the double vault faeces chamber
View into the double vault faeces chamber
Construction of the toilet building with local material
Training for teachers before the implementation
Installation of the double chamber urine tank (made of glass-fiber laminate) into the ground
View into a restroom with the installation of the Chinese squatting slab
Sand, ashes
Faeces
Urine
Detailed information about this case study please check on http://www2.gtz.de/ecosan/download/ecosan-pds-011-Romania-Garla-Mare.pdf
For emptying of the chambers doors with a minimum size of 60cm * 60cm have to be installed. In regions with cold winters the doors should be insulated and sealed well. Instead of doors, easily removable bricks are also used in double-vault UDDTs, although inspection of the vault content is made difficult. For both systems the height of the chamber should be minimum 80cm, better 1m.
The size of the faeces compartment is defined primarily by the size of the restroom. A typical size of one compartment in double-vault toilets is 1m height, 65 cm width and 1m length. This results in a volume of 650 liter. Compared to single-vault UDDTs, double-vault systems need to provide enough space for the collection and an afterwards storage period of 2 years. Our experience shows, that it takes even longer for the chambers to fill up. The volume of the containers for single-vault UDDTs has to be chosen in such way, that they do not fill up too quickly and thus have to be changed too often. On the other hand the containers need to be transportable, e.g. with wheels. A good volume for containers with wheels is between 300 and 500 liter. Also smaller containers can be used, if the recommended storage time of 2 years is adhered to. For single-vault UDDTs always two containers should be used in order to avoid handling with fresh faeces. After a storage time of 2 years the faeces can be applied in agric or horticulture. While they are safe from a hygienic point of view, one might want a further processing, e.g. by post-composting. In the rare cases where faeces smell was reported, the reason was faulty operation due to water or urine entering the faeces collection chamber.
Before the chamber or reservoir is taken in use, it is advisable to put a 5cm layer with dry soil, ashes or compost on the bottom of the vault for adsorbing abundant liquid.
Another cause of bad smells are insufficiently covered faeces, e.g. when the heap of faeces under the faeces hole has not been flattened regularly and thereby forms a pyramid shape so that faeces roll down to the sides and are not covered. If flies appear in the toilet room, the faeces chamber has to be controlled on uncovered faeces and eventual be covered with extra amounts of cover material.
### 2.7 Ventilation System
For the ventilation of UDDTs active as well as passive ventilation is possible. Generally the ventilation needs more attention when the toilet is attached to or inside the building. Nonetheless also outside-toilets need a functioning ventilation system. In rural villages with none or interrupted electricity supply, the use of active ventilation via an electric fan is only recommended if a back-up system with batteries is in place. Alternatively also one or more wind driven ventilators can be used.
The diameter of ventilation-pipes depends on the volume of the vaults and rooms that have to be ventilated. For passive ventilation of an outdoor-toilet each room needs to be evacuated via the faeces-chamber with a minimum 110mm, better 150mm-pipe. The pipes should be as vertical as possible with as few bends and curves as possible. When more than 1 room is ventilated via 1 pipe, active ventilation and bigger diameter pipes (e.g. 200mm or 250mm) are necessary.
2.8 Reuse of the Toilet Products
Urine is a liquid fertiliser rich in nitrogen and can be applied in agriculture after a storage time of at least 6 months. The faeces in the chamber are dried, stored in the vaults and must be post-composted in a separate compost place to produce a high valuable soil conditioner also according to the WHO guidelines. Already when planning a UDDT for a public place like a school the reuse of the considerable projected amounts of urine and faeces generated should be organized. A farmer should be found and informed about the correct and safe reuse of the products. The logistics of the transport have to be organized in time. The toilet products can then be taken by the farmer who applies them on the fields, preferably in spring time into the brown land.
Another recommended opportunity to demonstrate the reuse is a demonstration garden in the school yard or close by. The fertilizing effect can be directly shown and studied by pupils, and interested visitors. Also the application and process of fertilization can be demonstrated. For the pupils a demonstration garden offers the possibility to learn by practice. Such a garden also improves the school yard from the aesthetical point of view. In some cases, the hygienic inspection is reluctant to implement a demonstration garden although the criteria of the WHO guidelines are met. Planting flowers and a fence around the garden or pots with flowers can then be solutions.
2.9 Equipment of Restrooms
The restrooms should provide enough space to move around freely. The inside dimensions should be 1.20 m length and for single-vault systems a minimum width of 1 m, for double-vault rooms a minimum widths of 1.20m should be provided. The floor and at least the lower part of the walls have to be covered with tiles for easy cleaning. It is important to adapt the toilet facility to the users’ needs for children this means to adapt the urinals and wash basins to their size. Every room needs a bucket with cover material and a shovel for the application of it. As cover-material lime, ashes, sawdust, woodchips, dry soil or a mixture of these materials can be used. Of course toilet paper must also be available. And a waste bin is especially important for girls and female teachers to dispose their sanitary material in the bin and not in the faeces chamber. Further some water and a brush should be available in the girls’ restroom.
2.10 Hand wash facilities
Hand washing with soap is of major importance to prevent the spread of infectious diseases. Every school toilet should have a hand wash facility equipped with soap and towels because of hygienic reasons. The pupils should adapt the habit of hand washing after toilet use as normal and the most natural action. Therefore the sinks should be inside the toilets or close to, so the children have to pass the sinks after visiting the toilet. When there is no piped water-supply, one or more mobile sinks can be used. The disadvantage of these devices is the limited volume and the maintenance- and labour-intensive filling of the sinks.
In countries with very cold winters and the UDDT built as a non-heated block in the schoolyard, it is sometimes not possible to have the mobile sink in the block because of freezing. During these times the mobile units should be located at the next heated place (school-building) for hand washing.
2.11 Greywater Treatment
Greywater is the term to define wastewater coming from hand wash facilities, kitchen-sinks and showers/baths. Greywater is not very dangerous for public health as it does not contain high levels of pathogenic contaminants, unlike toilet wastewater, which contains great amounts of pathogenic bacteria. Nevertheless, it is necessary to collect and to treat greywater according to its characteristics. The treated greywater can then be reused as irrigation water, infiltrated or discharged into surface water. In schools with central water-supply the wastewater is usually connected to the centralized sewer-system or treated on-site in a septic tank with a following infiltration. This septic tank can be used to treat the greywater. If there is no treatment system yet, a natural alternative is to construct a planted soil filter. In schools without centralized water supply, the wastewater quantity is much lower and the greywater can be treated in simple sand- or mulch-filters and be reused or infiltrated afterwards.
Example of handwash basin without central water supply from Moldova
Greywater treatment in simplified filter
Inauguration of a UDD school toilet for a kindergarten in Moldova
3 Education and Trainings
Gender aspects of UDD school toilets
Research has shown that it is of utmost importance for adolescent girls to have hygienic toilets at school otherwise they are likely to drop out school, in particular in the days when they have their period.
It is necessary that a brush, some water and a waste bin for sanitary napkins should be available in the girls’ toilets. WECF interviews in schools show that some girls avoid going to the toilet because they feel ashamed if they cannot clean the UD-pans from their menstrual blood. The menstrual blood has no negative effect for the quality of the urine as fertilizer if the recommended storage periods are kept.
In some regions the perception exists that girls or women are not able to use the UDD toilet properly, however all WECF programmes have shown that there is no apparent difference in separation by men or women.
Box 3
3.1 Trainings
For the correct implementation and functioning of UDD school toilets, educational trainings at different levels are needed.
The first training is for engineers or architects who will design the facility. After this the executing construction company has to be trained. These two trainings can be combined. This is followed by a training for teachers, a training for pupils and a training for cleaning staff.
Training for architects, engineers and construction workers
It is essential that the company carrying out the construction work understands the principles of the new system. Since the technology is new in many countries, it is often difficult for the local engineers and workers to understand what has to be considered. One example is the slope of the urine pipes. So a good training of the company and a control of the works is especially important with the first pilot buildings.
Training for teachers and caretakers
The training for teachers should target not only the understanding of the new toilets but also the acceptance by them. They need to be committed themselves otherwise they can hardly convince the pupils. Therefore it is recommendable that they are provided with a comfortable teachers’ restroom and use the UDD system themselves.
Their task in many projects is also to monitor the children if they use the toilets properly.
Some UDDT projects failed, not due to a lack of the system, but due to misunderstanding the system and a lack of maintenance. Therefore the education of the users and caretakers is as or even more important than the training of the architects and engineers.
Training for pupils
It is best if the training for the pupils is carried out by teachers. Teachers should explain the pupils the principles of the UDDT and how to use the toilets. Explanatory posters should be on the wall and on eye level of the pupils. The posters should not be too complicated and easy to understand i.e. not too many pictures should be shown in order to not confuse the users.
The materials should be adapted to local conditions, so the young pupils can identify with it. But it is also possible that one or two pupils (class-representatives) receive training by the teachers and afterwards educate the other pupils. These trainings have to be carried out before the implementation of the toilets and every new semester with the new pupils.
Training for cleaning-staff and caretaker
The caretaker and cleaning-personnel are essential to secure hygienic and clean conditions of the toilets and thus the acceptance of the facility by the users. If the toilets are dirty or smelly the whole project fails. The crucial role of caretaker and cleaning is a fact of any school sanitation independent from the sanitation technology. Bad examples are manifold. Best results are reported when at least one full-time caretaker is allocated to the facility. Good examples are also experienced with a team of caretakers cleaning in shifts.
For bigger schools, anyhow a minimum of two trained caretakers should be available, e.g. in case of illness or holiday.
Schools often have a caretaker for maintenance of the building, heating etc. WECF only builds toilets in schools where the director or the administration can guarantee the cleaning and maintenance of the facility after the project-period is finished.
As cleansing agents for the toilets, it is recommended that soda- and acid-based detergents are used. Chlorine based disinfectants are not needed to secure hygienic toilet conditions, also they affect the quality of the toilet products.
A cleaning and maintenance plan is needed for the cleaning staff and caretaker. In the annex, there is a list of recommended tasks. In general, the caretaker should monitor the faeces chamber and the urine reservoirs and take action if problems occur or if a container or reservoir gets filled.
It might be an option that pupils clean the toilets (partly) themselves as it is planned in one project. This is in general a good tool for children to take responsibility. In this case, special care, training and monitoring are needed to secure the success.
In respect of pupils cleaning the toilets WECF has not gathered any experiences yet.
### 3.2 Legal Aspects of UDD School Toilets
Since this kind of toilets is new in most countries and no legislation or guidelines for UDDT exists the administration sometimes has problems to give the permission for the facility. In that case it is crucial that all stakeholders are aware of the benefits, maybe after a visit of an existing ecosan toilet, and enable the project implementation successfully.
Generally, for the authorisation of a new toilet facility for schools permissions of following institutions are necessary:
- School authority (Ministry of Education)
- Architectural administration (at regional (Rayon-) level)
- Local government (communal level)
- Health administration (sanitary and epidemiological administration)
- Environmental administration
- Emergency/utilities services (fire, electricity)
### Conditions for successfully planning and building UDD school toilets
- The school ensures the training of all pupils before and after the toilets are constructed.
- All teachers and staff members participate in the trainings. Information on operation and maintenance of the toilet facility is available for school staff and caretakers.
- The school ensures paid cleaning staff who cleans the toilet several times a day, best after each break.
- The toilet products must be re-used by the school or a farmer. The user is responsible for the transport of the products to the field.
- The school is ready and able to provide toilet paper and cover-material.
- The school or community takes the responsibility for maintenance and repair of the facility.
- The school is ready and able to provide the hand wash facilities, clean water soap and towels.
- All legal aspects must be considered in advance.
**Box 4**
---
**Training for pupils**
*(photo by Mama-86)*
**A motivated caretaker is essential for a good functioning of the toilets**
4 More information
WECF Contacts:
Support for Planning and Construction of UDD school toilets
For support in planning, design and training for UDD school toilet facilities, the WECF sanitation coordination team and technical engineers can be contacted. For a number of countries in the region of Central Asia and Caucasus WECF has access to financial support to cover most of the cost related to these services, and in some cases has funds to cover part of the material and building costs. A contribution by the local or national authorities is however always required. For all other countries, WECF can provide support in case a funding scheme exists. It should be taken into account that UDD school sanitation facilities for colder climates will range from 2000 to 5000 Euro per toilet chamber, depending on the location (indoor / outdoor), equipment and the cost of local available materials and skills.
Dr. Claudia Wendland
WECF sanitation coordinator
email@example.com
Stefan Deegener
WECF sanitation expert
firstname.lastname@example.org
Anna Samwel
Regional consultant Eastern Europe and Caucasus
email@example.com
Fedde Jorritsma
Regional consultant Central Asia
firstname.lastname@example.org
Further Reading – Case studies
WECF publications
Sanitation: A continuous challenge for the European Region Chapter of the European Document for the European Regional Process of the 5th World Water Forum 2009
http://www.wecf.eu/download/2009/2009WWFSanitationregionaldocument.pdf
Introducing Sustainable Sanitation in Kyrgyzstan
Case Study: An analysis of success factors and barriers 2009
In English and Russian
http://www.wecf.eu/english/publications/2009/sanitation-kyrgyzstan.php
Making Sustainable Sanitation work for women and men integrating a gender perspective into sanitation initiatives
http://www.wecf.eu/english/publications/2009/genderandsanitation.php
Europe’s Sanitation Problem
WECF report on seminar during Stockholm World Water Week
http://www.wecf.eu/images/publications/StockholmReportseminarssanitation.pdf
Safe sanitation: a challenge we can meet together
Policy paper on sustainable sanitation
In German and English
http://www.wecf.eu/english/publications/2008/pp-safe-sanitation-fue.php
Report – European Sanitation Policies and Practises in the International Year of Sanitation 2008
Finding solutions for more than 20 million citizens who lack safe and affordable sanitation, Brussels, 29 January 2008
http://www.wecf.eu/download/2008/2008-07-18report-brussel.pdf
Summary of WHO “Guidelines for the Safe use of Wastewater, Excreta and Greywater, Volume 4”
In Romanian and Russian
http://www.wecf.eu/english/publications/2008/who-guide.php
Safe and profitable toilets – a solution for health and wealth
WECF manual in Russian and English
http://www.wecf.eu/english/publications/2008/ecosanguide.php
Sustainable wastewater management in the European Union
Identifying existing regulations and guidelines – by student of the Hague University of Applied Sciences in cooperation with WECF
http://www.wecf.eu/english/publications/2008/sustainable-wastewater.php
New Study prepared for WECF: Biogas production in climates with long cold winters
http://www.wecf.eu/download/2008/Biogascoldclimates_WEB-WECF0608.pdf
Further Reading – Case studies
Ecological Sanitation and Associated Hygienic Risks: An overview of existing policy making guidelines and research 2007
In English and other languages (still missing on the website)
http://www.wecf.eu/cms/download/2007/WP_63b_web.pdf
Sustainable Rural Development in Ukraine
Demonstrating solutions for water supply, sanitation and agriculture 2007
http://www.wecf.eu/cms/download/2007/ukraine_case_study_301007.pdf
Urine Diverting Toilets in Climates with Cold Winters
Technical considerations and the reuse of nutrients with a focus on legal and hygienic aspects
http://www.wecf.eu/cms/download/2007/WP-26_web-07.pdf
Case study “Sustainable Development for All”
WECF published the case study ‘Sustainable Development for All: Reducing effects of polluted drinking water and inadequate sanitation on children’s health in rural Romania
http://www.wecf.eu/cms/download/2006/SD_all.pdf
Ecological sanitation: From pit latrine to ecological toilet
Find out about acceptance of and experiences with eco-sanitation toilets 2006
http://www.wecf.eu/cms/download/survey_sanitary.pdf
Dry Urine Diverting Toilets - Principles, Operation and Construction
Find out about the construction and operation of eco-sanitation toilets
In English, Romanian, Bulgarian and Russian
http://www.wecf.eu/english/publications/2006/ecosan_reps.php
Ecological sanitation and hygienic considerations for women
http://www.wecf.eu/cms/download/2004-2005/Menstruation_fs.pdf
Ecosan a New Approach
In English, Bulgarian and Russian
http://www.wecf.eu/english/publications/2005/ecosan_flyer_all.php
Romania Gender Socio Economic Analysis Report
A report on a short survey of the socio-economic and gender situation in Garla Mare, Romania
http://www.wecf.eu/english/publications/2004/Romania_Report.php
Footnotes
1. See criteria by the Sustainable Sanitation Alliance SuSanA, network of organisations working in the promotion of sustainable sanitation systems, www.susana.org
2. PHAST (Participatory Hygiene And Sanitation Transformation) is a worldwide used methodology for hygiene behavioural change that was originally developed by WHO (http://www.who.int/water_sanitation_health/hygiene/envsan/phastep/en/) and was further developed by WECF (http://wecf.eu/english/articles/2009/04/PHAEST.php)
3. Draft: WASH Standards in Schools in Low-cost Settings, Guidelines for water, sanitation and hygiene in schools in low-cost settings, by John Adams et al. 2008
4. PVC has the problem of containing chlorine which will emit hazardous substances when burnt, therefore we recommend to avoid PVC whenever possible
5. WHO. (2006). Guidelines for the Safe Use of Wastewater, Excreta and Greywater. Volume IV – Excreta and Greywater Use in Agriculture. http://www.who.int/water_sanitation_health/wastewater/gsuweq4/en/index.html WECF (2008), Translation of the WHO. (2006), Summary of the Guidelines for the Safe Use of Wastewater, Excreta and Greywater. Volume IV – Excreta and Greywater Use in Agriculture. In Romanian and Russian language.http://www.wecf.eu/english/publications/2008/who-guide.php
6. Austin, A. (2003). “An unsuccessful sanitation scheme at a rural school: Lessons learned from the project failure.” In: 2nd International Symposium on Ecological Sanitation, April 7-11 2003, Lübeck, Germany
Annex 1. Tasks for the cleaning staff of urine diverting dry public or school toilets
A poster with instruction how to use the toilet should be on the walls of the restrooms!!
EVERY DAY
• Check if there is enough dry material (soil or sawdust and ashes)
• Check if all the faeces is covered with dry material
• Check for clogged urine pipes
• Clean the urinals, seats/slabs, and floor
WEEKLY
• Level the faeces heap
• Clean walls, pipes, and under side of the urinals
• Check level of urine / faeces in container or chamber
WHEN FULL
• Change the urine reservoir
• Change the slab/seat to the 2nd faeces chamber
| Issue | Clarification |
|------------------------|-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|
| Soil or sawdust and ashes | A bucket with sawdust or better a mixture of dry soil or sawdust and ashes and a cup or small shovel must be placed in the toilet rooms. There must be always enough of this material because the fresh excreta must be kept covered. |
| Levelling | It is important to level the heap, which is formed by the falling excreta. The faeces must be levelled weekly with a stick or shovel. Maybe you must add some more soil or ashes to cover the excreta. |
| Cleaning | The urinals must be cleaned daily - on the end of the day - using a sponge or brush and one or two cups of water and two spoons of vinegar (or citric acid). Make sure that there are no clogged holes or pipes. The slabs or seat risers can be cleaned daily using brush or sponge and little water. It is important that no water enter the faeces chamber of container. The toilet floor must be cleaned daily with water and eventual some caustic soda or detergent. The tiles of walls, pipes and under surface of the urinals must weekly be well cleaned, using a brush, sponge, water and eventual some caustic soda or detergent. |
| Women toilets | In women’s toilets a bottle with water and a brush must always be available to remove traces if necessary. Wrapping material and a bin must be available for disposing of sanitary napkins and/or tampons |
| Urine reservoir | If the urine reservoir in use is almost full / filled, the urine pipe must be connected with the other compartment of the reservoir. After an additional 6 month storage time the urine can be pumped out the in-rest reservoir and used as a fertilizer. |
| Emptying | If both chambers are full you must empty the one, which has been out of use. The product can be used as soil conditioner. It looks like dry soil and doesn’t stink. It is good to leave some material on the bottom of the chamber before using it again. Important for climates with cold winters: before the faeces can be used as a safe soil conditioner the material must be stored in the chamber at least 2 years or well composted on site. |
Annex 2. What to do with a smelly UDD toilet?
Principle 1:
A clean, well-maintained and well-constructed urine diverting dry toilet has no bad smell.
Principle 2:
If a bad smell appears the problem can be solved: check and act!
Old urine stinks: the restroom has an urine-ammonia smell
1. Control if all the urine pipes have enough slope for a guaranteed quick flow off of the urine. No spot where urine is standing is allowed!
2. Control if there are no pipes or connections leaching
3. Control if the outlet of the urine pipe is close to the bottom of the urine reservoir. The pipe should end approx. 5 cm above the bottom of the urine reservoir. If the pipe is not ending in the urine, bad odour can enter the pipe and the restrooms
4. Give the urine pipes an extra treatment. Make a hot caustic soda solution: approx. 1 part soda 3 parts hot water. At the end of the day or before the weekend pour a half liter of the solution through each urinal and each urine bowl of the seat or slab. Do not use the toilet for at least 12 hours. Before use another half liter warm water can be poured.
5. Make sure that no urine is collected somewhere under the floor cover or tiles or slab
6. Make sure that the floor, walls, urinals and other toilet equipment are clean
Humid faeces stinks: the restroom has a mouldy faeces smell
1. Make sure that no liquid is collected on the bottom of the faeces collector or that the heap has no too high humidity. The faeces should be as much as possible be dry!
2. Make sure that all the faeces are well covered.
3. Add eventually ashes or lime to the heap. Ash is a good smell and liquid absorber. If no ashes is available add other dry well adsorbent organic material or lime
4. Make sure that the ventilation is working well and that the pipes are well connected with the faeces chamber. The air from the faeces chamber should be aspirated easily by the ventilation pipe. This can be tested by a burning cigarette.
5. Make sure that the doors of the faeces chambers close tight and are insulated. No air from outside should enter the faeces chamber.
6. Make sure that no air can enter through holes being in the wall around the ventilation pipe.
7. In climates with low temperatures insulate the ventilation pipe at least outside.
Annex 3. Design details from toilet facility in Vrata, Romania
section A-A: Toiletroom-Ground
level +1,00 m
Outside-View
| PROJECT | UD-Toilets Vrata School |
|---------|-------------------------|
| DESIGN | S. Deegener |
| DRAWN | S. Deegener |
| TUHH/WECEF | |
| TITLE | Toiletroom Ground |
|--------|-------------------------|
| FILE | vrata_toiletground.dwg |
| SCALE | / |
| DATE | 10.06.2008 |
| PWD | / |
| TITLE | Outside View |
|--------|-------------------------|
| FILE | vrata_outsideview.dwg |
| SCALE | / |
| DATE | 15.06.2008 |
| PWD | / |
**Section B-B: Chamber-Ground level +0,10 m**
- **Existing storage room**
- **Existing corridor level +0,10m**
- **Schoolyard level 0,00**
| Project | UBS-Toilets Vrata School |
|---------|--------------------------|
| Design | S. Deegener |
| Draw | S. Deegener |
| TUHH/WECF | |
| Sheet | A4 | rx | vrata_chamberground.dwg |
|-------|----|----|--------------------------|
**Side-View**
- **Wind-driven Rotor**
- **Maintenance door**
- **Single chamber door**
| Project | UBS-Toilets Vrata School |
|---------|--------------------------|
| Design | S. Deegener |
| Draw | S. Deegener |
| TUHH/WECF | |
| Sheet | A4 | rx | vrata_sideview.dwg |
|-------|----|----|---------------------|
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COMMON CORE Lessons & Activities
EXPLORERS
Reading for Information
Higher-Order Thinking
Writing Prompts
Primary Source Analysis
Vocabulary
Graphic Organizers
Map Activities
& More!
REPRODUCIBLE
One teacher is allowed to make copies for use in her/his classroom!
About this Book
This Common Core Lessons and Activities Book allows you to immediately meet new Common Core State Standards for English Language Arts, as well as Literacy and Writing in History/Social Studies. It is designed to supplement your Social Studies resources, adding new Common Core rigor, analysis, writing, inference, text-dependent questions, and more into your daily instruction.
How to Use this Book:
- Work through the lessons and activities as a class to teach your students higher-order thinking, analysis, and 21st century skills necessary to meet new Common Core expectations.
- Allow students to work through the lessons independently to build and practice these new skills.
- Include technology, collaboration, presentation, and discussion in the activities as you desire—you can decide how in-depth to go.
- Watch your class develop new abilities to meet the rigor of Common Core State Standards, right before your eyes!
Tips:
- Use some of the pages—or use them all—based on your grade, your students, your curriculum, and your needs.
- Use the pages at their current size, or if you prefer them to be 8-1/2” x 11”, enlarge them 125% on your copy machine.
- Download graphic organizers labeled “GO” in the Table of Contents by going to: www.gallopade.com/client/go
- Use the correlations grid to easily see which Common Core standards are covered in each lesson.
# Common Core Lessons & Activities: Explorers
By Carole Marsh
Published by Gallopade International, Inc.
©Carole Marsh/Gallopade
Printed in the U.S.A. (Peachtree City, Georgia)
## TABLE OF CONTENTS
| Topic | Page |
|----------------------------------------------------------------------|------|
| Age of Exploration: Reading Informational Text | 2 |
| Reasons for Exploration: Reading Informational Text GO⁴ | 3 |
| Means of Discovery: Reading Informational Text | 4 |
| Obstacles and Rewards: Classifying Information GO⁵ | 5 |
| Prince Henry the Navigator: Reading Informational Text | 6 |
| Portuguese Explorers: Reading Informational Text GO¹¹ | 7 |
| Columbus’ Discovery: Reading Informational Text | 8 |
| An Early Map: Primary Source Analysis | 9 |
| The New World: Primary Source Analysis | 10 |
| Tainos: Reading Informational Text | 11 |
| The Age of Exploration: Graphic Organizer G | 12 |
| More Spanish Explorers: Reading Informational Text G | 14 |
| Conquistadors: Reading Informational Text GO¹ | 16 |
| English Explorers: Reading Informational Text | 17 |
| French Explorers: Reading Informational Text | 18 |
| Explorer Quotations: Point of View G | 20 |
| Exploring the Americas: Chronological Events GO¹² | 21 |
| Regions of Exploration: Map Activity | 22 |
| Explorer’s Vocabulary: Vocabulary G | 23 |
| Common Core Correlations | 24 |
G: Includes Graphic Organizer
GO: Graphic Organizer is also available 8½” x 11” online download at www.gallopade.com/client/go
(numbers above correspond to the graphic organizer numbers online)
The Age of Exploration describes the time period between the early 1400s and the mid-1600s when European explorers searched for new trade routes to Asia.
Europeans were fascinated with spices, cloths, and dyes from Asia. Spices were of particular value for their ability to improve the taste of food and to preserve food. Bright colored silk cloths were desirable to wealthy Europeans. For centuries, the only trade route between Europe and Asia was a long, dangerous journey over land.
Anyone who could find a faster way to Asia would gain an advantage, and much wealth as a result. This appealed to the rulers of European countries, particularly in Spain, France, England, and Portugal. Kings and queens who ruled these countries gave explorers funds to search for a faster route for trade.
Explorers searched for a water route to Asia. Some explorers sailed south down the coast of Africa. Some explorers sailed east across the vast expanse of unknown sea. Improvements in ships, tools, and maps helped their expeditions go further than ever before.
During this period, explorers discovered new lands, new people, and new knowledge about the world, and eventually, new routes to Asia. As a result of all these important new finds, the Age of Exploration is also called the Age of Discovery.
1. A. What is the Age of Exploration?
B. Approximately how long did it last?
2. For each effect below, list two causes:
A. Trade between Europe and Asia was slow and dangerous.
B. Europeans wanted spices.
C. Explorers sailed further than ever before.
D. European kings and queens funded the search for a route to Asia.
E. Explorers discovered new lands during the Age of Exploration.
3. List at least three differences between the trade route that existed before the Age of Exploration and the trade route that was desired.
4. Why is the Age of Exploration also called the Age of Discovery?
CLASSIFYING INFORMATION
Obstacles and Rewards
Complete the graphic organizer by identifying obstacles and rewards of exploration. Then complete the writing prompt.
Writing Prompt
Exploring the far corners of the world came with high risks. However, sailors were promised riches and fame. Was the risk worth the reward? Pick one side of the argument (yes or no) and write a short opinion essay. Use logical reasoning to support your side. Proofread and edit your work.
Christopher Columbus was Italian, but he sailed for Spain after other European monarchs declined to fund his expedition. King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella of Spain paid him to sail west, across the Atlantic Ocean, in search of a new sea route to Asia.
From 1492-1506, Columbus made four voyages across the Atlantic Ocean. On the morning of October 12, 1492, on his first voyage across the Atlantic, Columbus’ three ships landed in what he thought was the East Indies. Because of that, he called the native people “Indians.” Columbus was actually not in the East Indies at all. He had landed at what is now known as the Bahamas.
The natives were friendly to Columbus. However, Columbus kidnapped many of the natives and took them back to Spain. Additionally, Columbus’ expeditions unintentionally spread European diseases to the natives, causing much sickness and death.
Columbus’ voyages were important because they led to a period of ongoing exploration, settlement, and colonization of the Americas, first by Spain, then Portugal, and then other European countries. This is why Columbus is credited with having “discovered” the New World.
PART A: Use the text to infer whether each statement is true or false.
1. _______ Christopher Columbus intended to discover the New World.
2. _______ Columbus’ voyages benefited the native people he met.
3. _______ Columbus found a western route to Asia.
PART B: Use the text to determine whether each statement is a cause or an effect of Columbus’ voyages.
4. _______ Many “Indians” die from European diseases.
5. _______ The King and Queen of Spain want a new trade route to Asia.
6. _______ Europeans become interested in the New World.
PART C: Write a ship’s log entry from the perspective of a sailor on one of Columbus’ ships on October 12, 1492. What has Columbus found?
The Age of Exploration
Complete the graphic organizer with information about the motivations, explorers, and effects of the Age of Exploration. Choose 8 explorers to feature in the center chart.
Motivations:
Economic
Religious
Political
Cultural
Explorers:
Name
CHRONOLOGICAL EVENTS
Exploring the Americas
Put the events in chronological order on the graphic organizer. Use reference sources as needed.
Champlain founds Quebec
De Soto’s last exploration ends
The Age of Exploration begins
Cartier begins his first voyage to Canada
Cabral discovers Brazil
Columbus reaches the New World
Balboa reaches the Pacific Ocean
The Portuguese build the caravel
Da Gama reaches India by sea
Hudson begins his final expedition
Age of Exploration Events:
Social Studies Titles:
- Declaration of Independence
- U.S. Constitution
- Bill of Rights
- Road to the Civil War
- The Civil War: Key Battles & Events
- Jamestown
- Key Events of World War II
- Civil Rights Movement
- Branches of Government
- Basic Economic Concepts
- Women’s Suffrage and the 19th Amendment
- The American Revolution
- Explorers
- The Olympics
- Underground Railroad
- Forms of Government: Democracy, Monarchy, & Oligarchy & More
- Ancient Greece
- Ancient Egypt
- Native Americans
- Indian Removal & the Trail of Tears
- Inventors & Inventions
- Map Skills
- Westward Expansion
- Communities
Science Titles:
- Habitats
- States of Matter
- Cell Structure
- Weather
- Water Cycle
- Energy
- Solar System
- Sound
- Mammals
- Light
- Rocks and Minerals
- Oceans
- Heredity & Genetics
- Magnetism
- Natural Resources
- Ecosystems
- Force & Motion
- History of the Earth
- Life Cycles
- Wave Properties
- Landforms
- Classification of Organisms
- Electricity
- The Scientific Method
Are you expected to change how you teach because of new CCSS for English Language Arts & new CCSS for Literacy and Writing in History/Social Studies and Science?
Are you expected to continue to meet existing science and social studies standards, AND integrate new, more rigorous expectations for reading, writing, analysis, inference, and more into your daily instruction?
This series of 48+ little books is a HUGE help!
Supplement the resources you already have by choosing the books in this series that match the science and social studies topics you teach. Each book will provide you with ready-to-use reproducible pages that are the exact kinds of Common Core lessons and activities you need to meet the new added requirements of Common Core!
You don’t have to start from scratch. This brand new series meets Common Core State Standards for ELA + Common Core State Standards for Literacy and Writing in History/Social Studies and Science!
“You’ll want these for every topic you teach!”
-Amy Johnson, Common Core Specialist
GALLOPADE
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Gather and Settle
(A “Jenniferism”)
What does it take for you to be available for relationships and learning?
Specifically, what sensory supports do you need?
If it’s true for you, it’s even more true for the children!
All Behavior has Meaning
It’s our job to figure it out!
Our Job is Not to Simplify.....
Our Job is to Embrace Complexity!
The Theory of Sensory Integration
✓ It all began with A. Jean Ayres
✓ Hypothesized to be a normal function of the nervous system
✓ Theory addresses two related issues:
✓ It has always been a controversial theory!
Definition:
Sensory Integration is the neurological process that organizes sensation from one’s own body and the environment and makes it possible to use the body effectively within the environment.
There are (actually) 8 sensory systems
The Basic 5: Vision, Hearing, Taste, Smell, and Touch
The “Lesser Known” or “Hidden” Senses:
Vestibular and Proprioception
Interoception Sense: includes input regarding: heart rate, thirst, hunger, digestion, state of arousal, mood, temperature, respiration, bowel and bladder.
The Four Levels of Sensory Integration
LEVEL FOUR: ACADEMIC READINESS by 6 years
LEVEL THREE: PERCEPTUAL-MOTOR SKILLS by 3 years
LEVEL TWO: PERCEPTUAL-MOTOR FOUNDATIONS by 1 year
LEVEL ONE: PRIMARY SENSORY SYSTEMS by 2 mos.
Sensory Processing
The way the nervous system receives sensory messages and turns them into responses.
Everyone is a sensory processor!
The Most Salient of the Sensory Systems: The Tactile System
*First sensory system to develop in utero and is the most mature sensory system at birth
*Largest receptor organ in the body
*Serves two functions:
- Protection
- Discrimination
The Vestibular System
- The Vestibular system is made up of three small bones in the inner ear. The semicircular canal, the saccule, and the utricle. The semicircular canals register speed, force, and direction of head rotation. The other two are sensitive to the force of gravity and linear movement.
Vestibular Contributions to Development and Learning
- Balance
- Muscle Tone
- Coordination
- Controlling Eye Movements
- Arousal States
- Attention Levels
- Emotional States
Proprioceptive Contributions to Development and Learning
- Orientation Of Body In Space
- Timing Movement
- Plan, Organize And Remember Movements
- Modify Force Exerted By Muscles
- Develop A Body Scheme
Interrelated Components of Sensory Processing
1. Sensory registration
2. Orientation
3. Interpretation
4. Organization of a response
5. Execution of a response
Sensory/Neurological Thresholds
When the nervous system responds really quickly to a sensory stimulus, we say there is a **low threshold**.
And when the nervous system responds more slowly than expected, we say there is a **high threshold** for responding.
Neurological Thresholds Continuum
(Winnie Dunn, 1997)
| Neurological Threshold Continuum | Self Regulation Behavioral Response Continuum |
|---------------------------------|---------------------------------------------|
| High (Habituation) | Passive Strategies |
| Low (Sensitization) | Active Strategies |
- Low Registration
- Sensory Sensitivity
- Sensation Seeking
- Sensation Avoiding
Common Behaviors According to Sensory/Neurological Thresholds
High/Passive:
“By-standers” don’t know what they are missing. They are easy going and can focus even with distractions.
High/Active:
“Seekers” always want more. They create excitement & change all around them.
Low/Passive:
“sensors” keep track of everything. They notice what is going on & have precise ideas about how to handle situations.
Low/Active:
“Avoiders” want more of the same thing and nothing more. They create routines to keep life peaceful & manageable.
Sensory Modulation Disorder
Difficulty regulating responses to sensory input – responses are not adjusted to the situation
Difficulty achieving and maintaining an optimal level of arousal and adapting to the challenges in everyday life
TO BE LABELED A “DISORDER” THE SENSORY DIFFICULTIES MUST BE SEVERE ENOUGH TO DISRUPT THE ABILITY TO ADAPT TO DAILY LIFE CHALLENGES
SENSORY OVER-RESPONSIVITY
Responds too much, too frequently, or for too long
Aggressive or impulsively when overwhelmed
Irritable, fussy, moody
Unsocialable, avoids group activities and has trouble forming relationships
Excessively cautious and afraid to try new things
Upset by transitions and unexpected changes
Anxious or withdrawn
Sensory Under Responsive
Poor inner drive, uninterested in exploring the world around
Passive, quite, withdrawn
Difficult to engage in conversation or other social interaction
Easily lost in own fantasy world
Apathetic and easily exhausted
Excessively slow to respond to directions or complete assignments
Sensory Craving
('note not "seeking"')
Wants much more sensory stimuli than most people
BUT becomes MORE DISORGANIZED when receives it….
✓ Constantly wants control over every situation
✓ In your face and in your space
✓ Does not wait turn, interrupts constantly
✓ Angry or even explosive when required to sit still or stop whatever he is doing – intense, hard to calm, demanding, disruptive
✓ Creates situations that others would consider bad or dangerous
✓ Excessively physically affectionate
✓ Discharged from schools due to behavior
Neuroscience Foundations
Emotions are a function of the nervous system. Emotions are so powerful they can override rational thinking and innate brain stem patterns!
Research on the biology of stress responding shows that chronic, severe, and/or uncontrollable stressful experiences disrupt developing brain architecture and can lead to stress management systems that respond at lower thresholds.
Goal: Self Regulation in the service of Enjoying Life!
- Sensory input can be calming or alerting
- Children can learn to use sensorimotor strategies to organize
- Strategies are modified according to individual response
Using a Sensory Processing Approach to Teaching – General Guidelines
- DON’T JUST DO SOMETHING STAND THERE!
- Begin by Observing!
- Identify, Recognize and Read the Child’s Cues
- Monitor Arousal and Attention Levels
- Use Sensory Strategies to Help Calm or to Help Arouse
- Modify Relationships between the Child, Environment & Others
- Provide the Just Right Challenge
- Look for Adaptive Responses to Indicate You’re on the Right Track
- Gradually Increase Complexity
| SENSORY SYSTEM | TO CALM | TO ALERT |
|---------------|------------------------------------------------------------------------|--------------------------------------------------------------------------|
| Tactile | • Deep pressure touch | • Light touch (especially face, palm, and stomach) |
| | • Swaddling | • Touch that involves movement |
| | • Rhythmic patting/stroking (cradling) | • Taking a shower |
| | • Hugs (holding firmly) | |
| | • Taking a bath | |
| Vestibular | • Rhythmic movement | • Non-rhythmic movement |
| | • Slow rocking | • Jiggle, bounce, or jump |
| | • Maintaining head or body position | • Rapid spinning or shake |
| | • Sustained movement | • Upright positioning |
| Proprioceptive| • Resistive activities | • Resistive activities |
| | • Rhythmic motor activities | • Changeable motor activities |
| Visual | • Muted, soft, or natural colors | • Bright colors and lighting |
| | • Room dividers | • Moving objects in front of face |
| | • Steady, consistent input | • Focus on lighting on objects |
| | | • Moving objects at irregular speeds |
| Auditory | • White noise | • Vary intensity, pitch, or beat |
| | • Low-key humming | • Loud music |
| | • Monotone speaking or singing | |
| | • Unpredictable rhythms | |
| Gustatory/Olf | • Sucking | • Citrus, salty, or sour flavors |
| | • Use of mild flavors | • Cold liquids |
| | • Consistency, temperature, and texture of food and liquids | • Familiar flavors |
| | • Sustained blowing activities | • Vary temperature and texture of food |
| | | • Chew before or during focused tasks |
Sensory Strategies
Prevalence Of SPD
- Two studies show that at least 1 in 20 children’s daily lives is affected by SPD. (Ahn, Miller, Milberger, Molteno, 2004; Carter, 2011)
- A research study by the Sensory Processing Disorder Scientific Work Group suggests that 1 in every 6 children experiences sensory symptoms that may be significant enough to affect aspects of everyday life functions. (Ben-Sasson, Carter, Tingey-Cowen, 2009)
- In a review of literature looking at SPD in premies, now at ages birth–3yrs.; 46% showed evidence of SPD. (Mitchell, A.W., 2015)
It’s All About Relationships!!
(Another Jenniferism)
- Relationship to our physical body
- Relationship to our environment
- Relationship to others
Life is a Sensory Experience!
If you do what you’ve always done,
you’ll get what you’ve always gotten.
So, if you’d like to get something
that you’ve never gotten before,
perhaps you’ll have to do something
that you’ve never done before.
Adapted from Mark Twain | 62dfd05b-cef6-4bea-9cea-de78694de4fc | CC-MAIN-2021-49 | https://blogs.illinois.edu/files/8546/38417743/186594.pdf | 2021-11-28T05:38:32+00:00 | crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2021-49/segments/1637964358469.34/warc/CC-MAIN-20211128043743-20211128073743-00234.warc.gz | 215,369,364 | 2,124 | eng_Latn | eng_Latn | 0.98245 | eng_Latn | 0.991017 | [
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Tartu – City of good Thoughts!
Tartu is one of the oldest towns in the Baltic countries. Its jewels are its town hall, the classicist main building of the university and St John’s Church, probably one of the most beautiful medieval architectural monuments in Northern Europe. A medieval-style guild of craftsmen has been revived in St Anthony’s Courtyard in the Old Town. The guild comprises more than 20 handicraft workshops.
Although the written sources mention Tartu for the first time in 1030, the actual settlement dates from much earlier times. The green heart of Tartu is Toome Hill, the Cathedral Hill. This is where the ancient Estonian stronghold was once built; later replaced by the mighty stone castle of the bishop. Above the old trees still rise the ruins of Toome Cathedral, while viewing platforms offer a splendid sight of the town nestled in the ancient valley of River Emajõgi.
Nearby, the famous biologist K. E. von Baer sits in deep thought on a granite slab.
Tartu is a town of museums: more than 20 have found their home here. The Estonian National Museum and the Toy Museum both deserve a family visit. The beer museum of the local brewery A. Le Coq will also be of interest to the wider public. Visitors can explore the industrial brewing process and later also sample the brewery’s beers.
Nor should one miss Tartu in autumn, when the student hordes reconquer the town with great noise and uproar. This is the call of old alma mater.
In December Tartu assumes the role of Christmas town.
Theatre performances, concerts, festivals, scientific conferences are more than frequent occurrences here. If saturated by cultural experiences, cosy cafeterias will be the best places to rest one’s legs. Tartu is a town of youth and spring. The Student Spring Days combine youthful exuberance with academic traditions. The high quality promenade concerts of Emajõgi Summer, Hanseatic Days and music events are summertime attractions in Tartu.
About the Festival
The festival brings together amateur and professional choirs that represent the countries of the region. The total number of the participants is impressive, coming up to 4 000-5 000 people.
The idea of Nordic-Baltic Choir Festivals was born and put into practice by Imants Kokars and Olav Storgård.
Previous festivals:
I Nordic-Baltic Choral Festival in Riga (Latvia) 1995
II Nordic-Baltic Choral Festival in Visby (Gotland Island, Sweden) 1997
III Nordic-Baltic Choral Festival in Skien (Norway) 2000
IV Nordic-Baltic Choral Festival in Klaipeda (Lithuania) 2002
V Nordic-Baltic Choral Festival in Tartu (Estonia) 2008 means:
• thousands of participants coming from their unique regions,
• choir concerts at open-air venues, churches and concert halls,
• concerts of professional choirs,
• workshops and seminars,
• choir competition,
• piano concert at Tartu Song Festival Arena,
• Regatta Day – singing events in different places in Tartu region,
• festival party for all participants. | e6694f0f-9c86-4536-896d-aaa8e6feaa41 | CC-MAIN-2021-04 | https://www.lnkc.lt/get_file.php?file=dzJDWHJwdVV5Sk9Zbk11bFpaU2JuNWVrbTh6TW1NZGhrdGlTcW1xcWxaS1luWmlkYnNTYng4ZGZucDVwbFppZ2xwZG94NW1lazU2VnhtU21sV0pvMnNpWGFxQnN6Y1hKbDZPWFlKWE1uSnhxcEdiR3gycWJhWldVYW1Gam8yekhrcGVYY3AlMkJqeWRPYW41YWNsZEtYbUpTc1o0R1hwY2hTbHBPV1lXT2ptTWVYbDJkeW01ekk= | 2021-01-18T05:03:29+00:00 | crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2021-04/segments/1610703514121.8/warc/CC-MAIN-20210118030549-20210118060549-00176.warc.gz | 881,690,134 | 664 | eng_Latn | eng_Latn | 0.989967 | eng_Latn | 0.989967 | [
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BIG IDEA CHEERFUL GIVERS
BIG WORD Lord, you are our Father. We are the clay.
You are the potter. Your hands made all of us.
Isaiah 64:8 (NIRV)
Unscramble the letters to discover the verse!
OGD VESOL A REECUFHL EVIRG
2 CORINTHIANS 9:7
GENEROSITY CROSSWORD
Look up the verses and use the clues to find the words!
ACROSS
2. Proverbs 22:9 (NIV)
(allowing others to use what you have)
4. Deuteronomy 15:11 (NIV)
(not closed handed)
6. 1 Timothy 6:18 (NKJV)
(wanting to)
8. Luke 6:38 (NIRV)
(opposite of take)
DOWN
1. Acts 20:35 (NIRV)
(better for you)
3. 2 Corinthians 9:7-10 (NIV)
(happy)
5. Isaiah 32:8 (NKJV)
(opposite of sit)
7. Proverbs 11:24-31 (The Message)
(bigger)
BIG POINT
TODAY I LEARNT THAT...
PARENTS!
Use these questions to kick start discussion with your children!
1. What does it mean to be generous?
2. When has someone been generous to you?
3. How can you be generous to others? | 5203a32c-67a7-4760-a958-53384d7fa95d | CC-MAIN-2022-21 | https://cdn.hillsong.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/49/2022/01/15150908/ACTIVITY-SHEET-HHH3_3-OLDER-PTEEN.pdf | 2022-05-24T14:27:41+00:00 | crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-21/segments/1652662573053.67/warc/CC-MAIN-20220524142617-20220524172617-00655.warc.gz | 213,602,620 | 319 | eng_Latn | eng_Latn | 0.967693 | eng_Latn | 0.967693 | [
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CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION
1.1 Background
Speaking is one of the four skills in English that have to be mastered by the students. Speaking is also the key to communication. Mostly, people share and get information from other people through speaking. Speaking is a verbal communication of language that is used to communicate with others. Mostly in daily activity, people or students express their ideas through speaking.
Students mostly use speaking to tell what they know or do not know in daily activity. It shows how important speaking is. Besides, speaking is the way to express ideas and opinions, to send expression or desire to do something, to solve some particular problem, to increase proficiency in speaking, and to maintain the relationship or friendship. Thus, speaking is an important skill of language which should be improved for the students. From the definition above, it can be concluded that speaking is one of the skills that must be mastered by students to send or receive information or message, to communicate, and so on.
According to the report of the statistic of the score of the students in 2019, there are still many students difficult to speak in English, especially for the second-year students of SMP Muhammadiyah Parepare. Most of them could not speak English well because of several reasons. Firstly, they do not have the motivation and too shy to speak English. Secondly, they are lack of vocabularies. Thirdly, they don't
know what they want to say in English. Finally, the students can not speak or start to speak any words in English. There are also many ways to improve speaking skills or deduct the problem in learning speaking. Especially in this condition because of Covid19, School is postponed by the government. According to WHO on their website said that on 17 July 2020, there have been 13.575.158 confirmed cases of COVID-19, including 584.940 deaths, reported to WHO.
Based on those problems and the class condition above, the researcher intends to help the English teacher by introducing Folktales Based Instruction Strategy to enhance students’ speaking skill using Whatsapp media. Several reports of the use of folktales in English language teaching which have significant impacts on the improvement of the students' learning achievement were conducted by.\(^1\) Supported by A.J. Hoge that said something about Folktales or storytelling for speaking on his book, The great thing is, you only need to listen to these stories a few times every day. You don't need to analyze the grammar change and you certainly don't need to identify the linguistic grammar rules. There is no need to identify which version is the "simple past," or which is the "past perfect." These terms may be useful to linguists, but they are distracting to those who wish to speak quickly, easily, and automatically.\(^2\)
Based on those statements, the researcher chooses Folktales Based Instruction Strategy to enhance students' speaking skills.
---
\(^1\) Dardjowidjojo, S. Journal of Southeast Asian Education, 309-322, (2001).
\(^2\) Hoge, A.J. 2004. Effortless English: Learn to Speak English Like a Native. Library of Congress Cataloging. Sparks, Nevada.
In SMP Muhammadiyah Parepare, there are 2 classes for the second year students. The researcher has done the preliminary observation on the second year students at those two classes and found that some students of those classes were unmotivated and difficult to learn. Their mindsets say English is difficult to learn because most of them don't know how to express what they want to say and some of their teachers don’t use variation strategy and just focus on the textbook. In teaching and learning English, it needs to apply a strategy that makes students easier to understand and can motivate the students to enthusiastic to learn English to enhance the learners' skills. Thus, the researcher chooses Folktales Based Instruction Strategy because the students will be easier to learn english by strategy that students love and enjoy.
Based on the explanation above, the researcher is interested to research “Enhancing the students’ speaking skill through folktales based instruction strategy using whatsapp at the second year students of SMP Muhammadiyah Parepare”.
1.2 Research Question
Based on the background of the study stated above, The research question is:
1.2.1 Is Folktales Based Instruction Strategy able to enhance the students’ speaking skill at the second year students of SMP Muhammadiyah Parepare?
1.3 Objectives Of The Research
Based on the problem statement of the research above, the objective of this research is to find out the enhancement of students' speaking skill by Folktales Based Instruction Strategy and also to find the students’ response to Folktales Based Instruction Strategy.
1.4 Significance of the research
The researcher hopes that the results of this study can be used by the researcher, teacher, students, educational institution, and the next researcher for the following purposes:
1.4.1 For the researcher, to add more knowledge about discourse study, especially about this research.
1.4.2 For students, it helped students to increase their speaking ability and their interest to be more active in the teaching-learning process.
1.4.3 For the teacher, the result of the study can be used as an alternative teaching technique to enhance students’ speaking ability.
1.4.4 For the next researcher, the result of this research can be used as previous research in his/her research.
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POINT HUDSON
A Treasure of the Salish Sea
Preservation Plan
Port Townsend, Washington
A December 2018 windstorm swept over jetties and into the Point Hudson Marina. Photo by Ron Moller
Rowers pull together in front of the Cupola House during a recent Wooden Boat Festival. Photo by Jan Davis
“We’re all pulling together to preserve Point Hudson.”
Michelle Sandoval,
Mayor,
City of Port Townsend
A Legacy at Risk
The area we know as Point Hudson was once a tidal lagoon. When Capt. George Vancouver’s longboats slid onto the beach in May of 1792, it was home to the S’Klallam people. Between 1860 and 1890 the lagoon was filled and white settlers used the area as a Catholic mission, a shipyard, a sawmill and an icehouse. In the 1930s, the U.S. government built an immigration and quarantine center which later became a Coast Guard station. Those buildings still line the harbor. Even as the S’Klallam and the first white pioneers found respite at Point Hudson, it still welcomes boaters and visitors from near and far. But today, Point Hudson’s historic legacy is at risk. The 80-year-old overlapping jetties that protect the marina from waves and winds are failing. The piles have worn away, the basalt rocks have disintegrated, and the cable-ties have rusted. There is little to stop storm winds and waves from sweeping through the boat basin. After almost a century, the wooden buildings need help too.
Crossroads of Opportunity
A Salish Sea without a vibrant Point Hudson Marina would be much diminished. This publicly owned marina and its boater services lie at the crossroads of the busy boating lanes between Seattle, the San Juans and Victoria, B.C. It offers refuge where Admiralty Inlet and the Strait of Juan de Fuca intersect. It offers over 50 transient slips for boats up to 70 feet. More than 5,000 vessels use Point Hudson each year. They find power, showers, laundry and all the delights of Port Townsend’s bustling historic commercial district. Point Hudson is an economic engine, with 155 direct jobs that pay an average of $50,000 per year, and another 127 indirect jobs. The tenant businesses at Point Hudson, most of them marine-focused, generate over $22 million in annual revenues. Among those tenants are U.S. Customs and the Washington State Department of Fish and Wildlife. The marina hosts the annual Wooden Boat Festival, put on by the adjacent Northwest Maritime Center. Just over a mile southwest is the Port of Port Townsend Boat Haven Marina and work yard, with three haul outs, a fuel dock and 400 highly skilled marine trades workers.
Saving a Special Place
The Port of Port Townsend cherishes Point Hudson as a treasure entrusted to current and future generations, and has made rebuilding the jetties at the marina entrance a top priority. Looking ahead, the Port seeks to also rehabilitate the historic buildings at the Point, energizing the district so it can serve the boaters and visitors of tomorrow. The rebirth of Point Hudson will also support economic growth through tenant marine trades and a myriad of other businesses.
“We are determined to save and renew Point Hudson so it continues its central role in both the life of this community and in the maritime world for generations to come.”
Port Commission President Pete Hanke
Plan for Rehabilitation
Our plan has three basic phases:
1. Rebuild Point Hudson’s jetties, starting with the South Jetty (it takes the brunt of weather) and then the North Jetty. $14.7 million.
2. Restore the historic buildings. $TBD
3. Renovate utilities and infrastructure. $TBD
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Around the world, natural disasters, wars and violence claim numerous victims every day. Millions of youngsters experience situations which often leave them severely traumatized and alone. Their lives are changed forever and they frequently need help to cope with these experiences. Unprocessed trauma can lead to the development of severe symptoms, of actual post-traumatic stress disorder and may disturb their natural development. Age-appropriate pedagogical and therapeutic support of traumatised youngsters is central for the healing of psychological wounds. Therefore, not only psychologists but also youthworkers/leaders/educators have a role in changing crisis into chance.
**ABOUT EMERGENCY PEDAGOGY**
Emergency Pedagogy is a non-confrontational pedagogical approach that helps children and young people process their traumatic experiences. Elements of painting and drawing therapy, circus education and plastic-therapeutic design are few of the pedagogical measures used to provide relief or avoid possible traumatic disorders. The concept of Emergency Pedagogy was developed by the Organization Friends of Waldorf Education and it is based on Waldorf educational methods and related forms of therapy.
First of all, you need to know what trauma is, what the symptoms are, and what the difference is between trauma and trauma disorder. Don't forget everyone processes trauma differently.
**Pedagogical approach to handle traumatic reactions (symptoms of over-excitement, reoccurrence, avoidance, stress-induced body reactions):**
- cultivate rhythms, establish daily routines and create rituals
- provide relaxation moments for slowing down the breath
- allow expression of experiences, feelings and thoughts
- look for creative forms of expression (free drawing, painting in watercolours, drawing shapes, singing, make music, dance, modelling, kneading, plasticising)
- include the senses (sense of touch, of vitality, of movement, of balance)
- explore the body (body geography, physical contact, massages)
- stimulate movement, walks, sports
- cultivate language, which provides release and heals, tell stories
- stimulate memory and concentration faculties (drawing shapes)
- make therapeutic handwork with handycrafts
- encourage play (free play, movement games, circle games, round and folk games, group games)
- inspire experiences (with rope skipping, circus education…)
- strengthen confidence in oneself and others: encourage and facilitate experiences of success and self-effectiveness
- forge plans: design future activities, plans (by practicing crafty practical activities, implementing and carrying out projects)
- establish and strengthen social competences
- help to establish a balanced diet
- cultivate spiritual - religious feelings
- joy heals
With your help it is possible to transform the crisis into chance, contributing to youngsters' post-traumatic growth. This means that youngsters may have an increased appreciation of their own lives, it may lead to new life perspectives, deepen their capacity to relate to others, deepen their spiritual-religious beliefs and personality growth.
**Special advice:**
- acquire knowledge about physical, social and psychological symptoms of trauma
- don't push youngsters to open up
- keep care of your own health first (enough sleep, rest, support from others), you need to be stable
- put as many elements of normal life into your work as you can
- create a safe working space, a friendly, peaceful, beautiful, clean and tidy physical surrounding is crucial
- cooperate with local organizations
- don't forget: pedagogy is love
- never give up!
*FROM CRISIS TO CHANCE*
This brochure is a final product of the project “From crisis to chance - training course on emergency pedagogy”, an Erasmus+ KA1 Capacity-Building Training Course, organized by Spin Association in Lisbon-Portugal from 13-18 May 2019, with 30 participants from Romania, Spain, Greece, Italy, Slovenia, Germany, Portugal and Norway.
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Divine Mercy Sunday
Today the Church celebrates the feast of Divine Mercy. On this day we thank God for His forgiveness and love. It is the mercy of God that lets all of us come back to Him after we have sinned.
We know how much Jesus loves us because He suffered and died for us. When we have sinned, He wants us to be sorry and come back to Him. No matter how big of a sin you do, if you are sorry for it then God will forgive you. He wants to forgive you because He loves you!
Today we should thank God for His mercy and forgiveness and ask Him to look on us and our friends and the whole world with love and forgiveness! Here is a prayer we can say:
Eternal Father,
I offer You
the Body and Blood,
Soul and Divinity
of Your
dearly beloved Son,
Our Lord Jesus Christ,
in atonement for our sins
and those of the
whole world.
Jesus, I trust in You!
The Kids' Bulletin
Second Sunday of Easter
Divine Mercy Sunday
April 12, 2015
"Put your finger here,
and see my hands;
and put out your hand,
and place it in my side;
do not be faithless,
but believing."
"M___
___ ___ ___
___ ___
___ ___
___ ___ ___!"
AMBYC
LDOER
FDGAH
NIDJ
MKYLG
MONDO
What did St. Thomas reply to Jesus? Use every second letter to fill in the blanks!
Saint Benedict Joseph Labre
April 16
Benedict, I think you'd be a great priest!
But Benedict wanted to become a monk instead, and live in silent prayer.
Lord, You aren't calling me to the priesthood, are You?
He tried to enter monasteries, but he was sent away.
I'm sorry, Benedict. It just doesn't seem to be your vocation!
At age 25 he became a pilgrim, walking to many shrines in Europe.
All he had were an old coat, a Bible and a holy book, a rosary and a bowl.
Benedict slept outside and ate only what was given to him. He died at age 35.
The saint has died! The holy beggar.
Few people had really known him, but as soon as he died the streets of Rome were filled with the shout, "The saint has died!"
Saint Benedict seemed like a very strange man - he was ragged and dirty and smelled bad, but all he wanted to do was to be with God. Have you ever seen a person who looked like St. Benedict? God loves that person very much. You can pray that they become a saint too!
An Easter Cross-Word
How well do you know the story of doubting Thomas? Today's Gospel reading will help you find the answers!
ACROSS:
2. Which apostle wasn't there the first time Jesus came to them after the Resurrection?
5. Thomas wanted to see the marks on Jesus' hands from the __________.
7. "My _______ and my God!"
9. "As the __________ sent Me..."
10. Jesus showed him the wound in His ______.
11. "As the Father sent Me, so I _______ you."
DOWN:
1. Thomas, who was called the ______...
3. "I will send the _____ Spirit..."
4. "I will send the Holy __________..."
6. The door was locked because the disciples were __________.
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Be ready for winter weather
When temperatures drop significantly below normal, staying warm and safe can be a challenge. With the help of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, learn how to protect yourself during all stages of a winter storm.
Steps for storm safety: Before a storm
The best way to keep your family and yourself safe is to plan ahead for a winter storm before it hits. There are steps you can take in advance for greater wintertime safety in your home.
1. Listen to weather forecasts regularly, and check your emergency supplies whenever a period of extreme cold is predicted. Although periods of extreme cold may not be predicted far in advance, weather forecasts can sometimes provide you with several days notice.
2. If you plan to use a fireplace or wood stove for emergency heating, have your chimney or flue inspected annually. Ask local fire officials to recommend an inspector, or find one online.
3. If you’ll be using a fireplace, wood stove, or kerosene heater, install a smoke detector and a battery-operated carbon monoxide detector near the area to be heated. Test them monthly, and replace batteries twice a year. All fuel-burning equipment should be vented to the outside. Each winter season, have your furnace system and vent checked by a qualified technician to ensure they are functioning properly.
4. If you are over 65 years old, place an easy-to-read thermometer in an indoor location where you will see it frequently. Your ability to feel a change in temperature decreases with age. Older adults are more susceptible to health problems caused by cold. Check the temperature of your home often during the winter months.
5. Insulate any water lines that run along exterior walls so your water supply will be less likely to freeze. To the extent possible, weatherproof your home by adding weather-stripping, insulation, insulated doors, and storm windows or thermal-pane windows.
6. If you have pets, bring them indoors. If you cannot bring them inside, provide adequate shelter to keep them warm, and ensure they have access to unfrozen water.
Other checklist items to consider include:
- Insulate walls and attic.
- Caulk and weather-strip doors and windows.
- Install storm windows, or cover windows with plastic from the inside.
- Insulate any water lines that run along outer walls. This will make water less likely to freeze.
- Service snow-removal equipment.
- Have chimney and flue inspected.
- Install easy-to-read outdoor thermometer.
- Repair roof leaks, and cut away tree branches that could fall on your home or other structure during a storm.
There are also steps you can take in advance for greater wintertime safety while traveling. Primarily, avoid dangerous winter travel, but if you have to travel, check out these tips for how to get your vehicle ready. (Continued on p. 2)
Be ready for winter weather
(Continued from p. 1)
1. Have maintenance service on your vehicle as often as the manufacturer recommends. In addition, each fall season, do the following: (1) Have the radiator system serviced, or check the antifreeze level yourself with an antifreeze tester. Add antifreeze as needed. (2) Replace windshield-wiper fluid with a wintertime mixture. (3) Replace any worn tires, make sure the tires have adequate tread and check the air pressure in the tires.
2. During winter, keep the gas tank near full to avoid ice in the tank and fuel lines. Also be sure to check the following so your vehicle is in good running order:
- Heater
- Defroster
- Brakes
- Brake fluid
- Ignition
- Emergency flashers
- Exhaust
- Oil
- Battery
Before a storm, be sure to stock up on emergency supplies for communication, heating, food, safety and lighting in case a storm hits. In regard to communication, make sure you have at least one of the following in case there is a power failure:
- Cell phone, portable charger and extra batteries.
- Battery-powered radio, with extra batteries, for listening to local emergency instructions.
- National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) weather radio receiver for listening to National Weather Service broadcasts.
Additionally, know how your community warns the public about severe weather:
- Siren
- Radio
- Television
- Local public health and emergency management websites
Other communication tips include:
- Listen to emergency broadcasts.
- Make a “Family Communication Plan.” Your family may not be together during an extreme winter event, so it is important to know how you will contact one another, how you will get back together and what you will do during an emergency.
- Be sure to check on older neighbors and family members; assist as necessary.
Be aware that turning on the stove for heat is not safe; have at least one of the following heat sources in case the power goes out:
- Extra blankets, sleeping bags and warm winter coats
- Fireplace that is up to code with plenty of dry firewood or a gas log fireplace
- Portable space heaters or kerosene heaters (check with local fire department to make sure kerosene heaters are legal in your area)
Also, be sure to use electric space heaters with automatic shut-off switches and non-glowing elements. Never place a space heater on top of furniture or near water. Never leave children unattended near a space heater. Keep heat sources at least 3 feet away from furniture and drapes. Have the following safety equipment as a precaution:
- Chemical fire extinguisher
- Smoke alarm in working order (check prior to winter storm season and change batteries, if needed)
- Carbon monoxide detector (check prior to winter storm season and change batteries, if needed)
Generators should be located at least 20 feet from any window, door, or vent and in a space where rain or snow will not reach them. Never use an electric generator indoors, inside the garage, or near the air intake of your home because of the risk of carbon monoxide poisoning. Do not use the generator or appliances if they are wet.
Do not store gasoline indoors where the fumes could ignite. Use individual heavy-duty, outdoor-rated cords to plug in other appliances.
To prepare for cooking and lighting in case a winter storm were to hit, keep the following in mind:
- Use battery-powered flashlights or lanterns. Have extra batteries on hand.
- Never use charcoal grills or portable gas camp stoves indoors. The fumes are deadly.
- Avoid using candles as these can lead to house fires. If you do use candles, never leave lit candles alone.
- Have a week’s worth of food and safety supplies. If you live far from other people, have more supplies on hand. Make sure you have the following supplies:
- Drinking water
- Canned/no-cook food (bread, crackers, dried fruits)
- Non-electric can opener
- Baby food and formula (if baby in the household)
- Prescription drugs and other medicine
- First-aid kit
- Product that melts ice on walkways
- Supply of cat litter or bag of sand to add traction on walkways
- Don’t forget about water!
- Leave all water taps slightly open so they drip continuously.
- Keep the indoor temperature warm.
- Allow more heated air near pipes.
- Open kitchen cabinet doors under the kitchen sink. (Continued on p. 3)
Be ready for winter weather (Continued from p. 2)
- If your pipes do freeze, do not thaw them with a torch. Thaw the pipes slowly with warm air from an electric hair dryer.
- If you cannot thaw your pipes, or if the pipes have broken open, use bottled water or get water from a neighbor’s home.
- Fill the bathtub or have bottled water on hand.
- In an emergency, if no other water is available, snow can be melted for water. Bringing water to a rolling boil for one minute will kill most germs but won’t get rid of chemicals sometimes found in snow.
Steps for storm safety: During a storm
Extremely cold temperatures often accompany winter storms. These can produce a number of hazards, such as power outages and icy roads, which can affect you inside and outside your home. Although staying indoors as much as possible can help reduce the risk of car crashes and falls on the ice, you may also face indoor hazards. Power outages or poor heating systems can make your home too cold, while space heaters and fireplaces can increase your risk of fires or carbon monoxide poisoning. Be careful when using wood stoves, fireplaces or space heaters to heat your home. Avoid using candles during a power outage; use flashlights or lanterns instead. Never use an electric generator or a gas or charcoal grill indoors; the fumes are deadly. Leave water taps slightly open to prevent pipes from freezing. Be sure to eat well-balanced meals to stay warm, keep a water supply, and avoid alcohol and caffeine. Conserve heat in your home, and monitor body temperature for infants and older adults.
Infants less than one year old should never sleep in a cold room, because they lose body heat more easily than adults. Follow these tips to keep your baby safe and warm during the extreme cold:
- Remove any pillows or other soft bedding. These can present a risk of smothering and Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS).
- Dress infants in warmer clothing such as footed pajamas, one-piece wearable blankets or sleep sacks.
- Try to maintain a warm indoor temperature. If not, make temporary arrangements to stay elsewhere.
- In an emergency, you can keep an infant warm using your own body heat. If you must sleep, take precautions to prevent rolling on the baby.
Older adults often make less body heat because of a slower metabolism and less physical activity. If you are over 65 years of age:
- Check the temperature in your home often during extremely cold weather.
- Check on elderly friends and neighbors frequently to ensure their homes are adequately heated.
Winter storms can make being outdoors dangerous. Extremely cold temperatures can cause hypothermia and frostbite, while icy roads can increase your risk of falls or getting into a car accident. While it’s best to stay indoors during a winter storm, if you must go outside, make sure to make trips as short as possible and learn how to protect yourself.
- Dress warmly and stay dry. Wear a hat, scarf and mittens. Layer up!
- Inner Layer: Wear fabrics that will hold more body heat and don’t absorb moisture. Wool, silk or polypropylene will hold more body heat than cotton.
- Insulation Layer: An insulation layer will help you retain heat by trapping air close to your body. Natural fibers, such as wool or goose down, or a classic fleece work best.
- Outer Layer: The outermost layer helps protect you from wind, rain and snow. It should be tightly woven, and preferably water and wind resistant, to reduce body heat loss.
- If you have to do heavy outdoor chores, work slowly. Cold weather puts an extra strain on the heart. If you have heart disease or high blood pressure, follow your health care provider’s advice about shoveling snow or performing other hard work in the cold. Otherwise, if you have to do heavy outdoor chores, dress warmly and work slowly. Remember, your body is already working hard just to stay warm, so don’t overdo it.
(Continued on p. 4)
Be ready for winter weather
(Continued from p. 3)
• Avoid walking on ice or getting wet. Many cold-weather injuries result from falls on ice-covered sidewalks, steps, driveways and porches. Keep your steps and walkways as free of ice as possible by using rock salt or another chemical de-icing compound. Sand may also be used on walkways to reduce the risk of slipping.
• Notify friends and family where you will be before you go hiking, camping or skiing.
• Do not leave areas of the skin exposed to the cold. Hypothermia is caused by prolonged exposures to very cold temperatures. When exposed to cold temperatures, your body begins to lose heat faster than it’s produced. Lengthy exposures will eventually use up your body’s stored energy, which leads to lower body temperature. Body temperature that is too low affects the brain, making the victim unable to think clearly or move well. This makes hypothermia especially dangerous, because a person may not know it’s happening and won’t be able to do anything about it.
Frostbite is a bodily injury caused by freezing that causes a loss of feeling and color in affected areas. It most often affects the nose, ears, cheeks, chin, fingers or toes. Frostbite can permanently damage the body, and severe cases can lead to amputation.
• Avoid traveling on ice-covered roads, overpasses and bridges if at all possible. If you must travel by car, check and restock the winter emergency supplies in your car before you leave. Use tire chains, and take a mobile phone with you. Don’t rely on a car to provide sufficient heat; the car may break down. Listen for radio or television reports of travel advisories issued by the National Weather Service. Do not travel in low-visibility conditions. Always carry additional warm clothing appropriate for the winter conditions. Never pour water on your windshield to remove ice or snow; shattering may occur.
• If you are stranded, it is safest to stay in your car. Tie a brightly colored cloth to the antenna as a signal to rescuers, and raise the hood of the car (if it is not snowing). Move anything you need from the trunk into the passenger area. Wrap your entire body, including your head, in extra clothing, blankets or newspapers. Stay awake. You will be less vulnerable to cold-related health problems. Run the motor (and heater) for about 10 minutes per hour, opening one window slightly to let in air. Make sure that snow is not blocking the exhaust pipe—this will reduce the risk of carbon monoxide poisoning. As you sit, keep moving your arms and legs to improve your circulation and stay warmer. Do not eat unmelted snow because it will lower your body temperature. If possible, huddle with other people for warmth.
Steps for storm safety: After a storm
When returning home after a winter storm, you can take steps to stay safe from any hazards you might face.
• Prevent carbon monoxide poisoning by placing generators, pressure washers, charcoal grills, camp stoves, or other fuel-burning devices outside and away from open doors, windows and air vents.
• Clean your home as recommended to stop mold. Never mix bleach and ammonia, because the fumes could kill you.
• Eat and drink only food and water you know are safe.
• Drive safely, wear your seatbelt, and don’t drink and drive.
• Do not enter a building if you smell gas. Call 9-1-1. Do not light a match or turn on lights.
• Wear waterproof boots and gloves to avoid floodwater touching your skin.
• Wash your hands often with soap and clean water, or use a hand-cleaning gel with alcohol in it.
• Avoid tetanus and other infections by getting medical attention for a dirty cut or deep puncture wound.
Information for this article was provided by the CDC.
In the Spotlight
Rural rotation
Norton County Hospital and Norton Medical Clinic were pleased to have Matt Miller from Norton with us this fall. He worked with Dr. Maurer completing a rural rotation as part of his 4th year resident curriculum with KU! He started the rotation in October and finished Nov. 15.
Norton County Hospital welcomes Dr. Hatton on temporary assignment
Dr. Isaac Hatton joined Norton County Hospital and Norton Medical Clinic on temporary assignment beginning Oct. 1. Dr. Hatton is a family medicine provider who grew up in Papua New Guinea. He attended medical school in Israel and completed his residency in South Bend, Indiana.
Last year, Dr. Hatton completed the Via Christi International Family Medicine Fellowship, and as part of this fellowship he worked at a mission hospital in Rwanda for five months. His long-term plan is to work in health care among refugees.
Dr. Hatton has been married to his wife Camille for seven years, and the couple has a 1-year-old son.
Norton County Hospital gladly welcomed Dr. Hatton and his family to the Norton area. The hospital will keep the public informed of physicians temporarily working at its facility while recruitment continues for permanent physicians.
Other Celebrations
Happy Halloween!
Norton County Hospital and Norton Medical Clinic staff were in the Halloween spirit again this year! Photos are included below.
“Being Our Best”
Norton County Hospital recently started an Employee of the Month recognition program. Employees may be nominated by their peers, and then the Employee Committee selects the awardee from the nominations. The Employee of the Month for November 2018 is Katie Allen, Foundation Executive Director and NCH Communications Director. Katie’s nomination read: “She’s always doing something for someone and never complains. She will drop what she is doing, no questions asked and help with whatever you need. I feel like she is a great role model for ‘Being Our Best.’” Katie’s photo is included at left.
Recognition Weeks
Norton County Hospital recognized many employees (some are pictured below) for their hard work and dedication during their respective national celebration weeks, some of which included:
- National Healthcare Environmental Services & Housekeeping Week
- National Rehabilitation Awareness Week & Physical Therapy Month
- National Surgical Technologists Week
- National Healthcare Food Service Week
- National Healthcare Supply Chain Week
- Emergency Nurses Week
- National Healthcare Facilities & Engineering Week
- Medical Ultrasound Awareness Month & National Radiologic Technology Week
- National Respiratory Care Week
- National Healthcare Quality Week
- Perioperative Nurses Week
- National Nurse Practitioner Week
Congrats to Bill Campbell, who retired as the Laboratory manager! Lab staff put together quite the going-away party.
Other Celebrations
Electrical updates
Norton County Hospital experienced electrical updates this fall; these updates will help improve power reliability and help us plan for the future! Thanks to all those involved in this important process. Photos from the updates are included below.
Fall celebrations
Norton County Hospital’s Employee Committee hosted a fall gathering for staff on Sept. 22, and the event included good food and kickball. Photos are at right.
Wear Pink! October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month. (Photos below)
Spreading Joy
One of our Norton County Hospital staff members, Alan Brown, found a kindness rock outside of our facility. What a great project! We will spread joy and kindness! Alan’s photo is included below.
Staff attend safety training in Russell
Seven hospital and clinic staff members from several different departments attended a Hospital Emergency Response Training (HERT) basic course at Russell Regional Hospital in September. Here is the purpose of the course from the textbook: “During a disaster—whether accidentally, naturally or intentionally caused—hospital staff must be prepared to respond, particularly for the influx of mass casualties. Disasters may involve Chemical, Biological, Radiological, Nuclear or Explosive (CBRNE) hazards that will require decontamination of patients, advance personal protective measures for hospital staff and nontraditional treatment measures.” This training course addressed the health care response at the operations level for the facility and its staff.
According to NCH safety director Julia Thompson, RN, “The course taught us how to respond to different CBRNE incidents, how to select the appropriate personal protective equipment for a decontamination event, how to triage and receive patients during a mass casualty incident involving contamination, and how to describe decontamination methods and procedures. Many thanks to Russell Regional Hospital for hosting/offering the course.” Photos from the training are included below.
Helping one another
Staff in a hospital and clinic setting are used to caring for people. This same caring attitude comes into play when we want to support one of our own. One of our Dietary department staff, Elaine Albright, is fighting cancer. Many other staff came together to help raise funds to support her in her fight. From baked goods to crafts to baskets, more than 50 donations from staff poured in for a silent auction that raised $943 to support Elaine. We couldn’t be more proud of our work family and feel fortunate to be able to help her beat cancer. Photos from this event are included below.
In the News
From the desk of Katie Allen, communications and foundation
Scholarships awarded
The Norton Regional Health Foundation, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization with a mission to support the enhancement of quality health care for the residents of Norton County and surrounding counties, awarded scholarships to students pursuing advanced degrees in the nursing field. The Foundation presented the scholarship awards to the following recipients to help financially support their education for the Fall 2018 semester:
- Amber Graber, Norton, awarded a $1,000 scholarship from the George Jones Nursing Scholarship Fund; Amber is taking college courses at Colby Community College to become a LPN.
- Amanda McDermott, Hill City, awarded a $1,000 scholarship from the Warren and Jean White Nursing Scholarship Fund; Amanda is taking college courses at Colby Community College to become a LPN.
- Jordan Villarreal, Prairie View, awarded a $1,000 scholarship from the Warren and Jean White Nursing Scholarship Fund; Jordan is taking college courses at Colby Community College to become a LPN.
- Melody DeWitt, Phillipsburg, awarded a $1,000 scholarship from the Helen Stevenson Memorial Scholarship Fund; Melody is continuing her nursing education, and she currently works as a LPN at Norton County Hospital and oversees the Utilization Review/Discharge Planning departments. She is moving to the supervisory role for Risk Management/Quality Improvement.
The Norton Regional Health Foundation at Norton County Hospital awards academic scholarships each spring, summer and fall semester to students who are enrolled in college courses, are seeking degrees in the medical field and express interest in working at Norton County Hospital in the future. It is through donor support that these scholarships can be awarded, and the Foundation is grateful to donors for their generous contributions.
The next scholarship deadline is Dec. 1, 2018, for scholarships to be awarded for the Spring 2019 semester. Learn more and access the application on the Foundation tabs of The Beat or the NCH website.
Recruitment, a team effort
Patients in the Norton area can be assured that medical providers will continue to be available to see them at Norton Medical Clinic and Norton County Hospital in the future. After Nov. 16, 2018, remaining staffed medical providers at Norton Medical Clinic include Glenda Maurer, MD; Jonna Inman, APRN; and Kristin Vogel, PA-C. Work has been done to secure “locum tenens” providers who will help with seeing patients in the clinic. These providers are working temporarily while the clinic is short-staffed, and they are familiar with rural health care in Kansas. Some of these providers will be available several days or weeks at a time for patient appointments. This will help more patients be seen when needed and lessen the risk of burnout among the medical staff.
Since August, physicians and their families have been living in Norton for periods of time to cover the Emergency department and help with patient care within the hospital. Many of these providers have goals to do mission work at hospitals around the world, but they have chosen to practice in Norton to not only experience and gain more skills in a rural environment but also to have a place to work while in the United States. Also, many are residents who have yet to select their first place of employment, which allows for a potential recruitment opportunity beyond their short-term coverage at the hospital or clinic.
According to Gina Frack, Norton County Hospital CEO, it’s important that patients help in the recruitment of more permanent medical providers for both Norton County Hospital and Norton Medical Clinic. Even if the visiting providers don’t return themselves in a more permanent role, they will potentially share their positive experience living and working in Norton with their peers and in a sense, they then can help recruit. The hospitality community members give these visiting providers and their families, particularly if they are staying for longer periods of time, can be the difference between making them feel like they are just here for a temporary job or that they are being brought into an appreciative community that makes Norton feel like home.
Recruitment efforts continue for permanent medical staff at Norton County Hospital and Norton Medical Clinic. The Board of Trustees, administration and staff thanks patients for their understanding during this transition period. Norton County Hospital will keep the public informed of physicians temporarily working for extended periods of time so they may be properly welcomed into the community and surrounding area.
Keeping up in surgery
Norton County Hospital works to keep up to date with the latest technologies and equipment for patient care. According to Dr. Greg Sarin, orthopedic specialist, Norton County Hospital has new, state-of-the-art arthroscopy equipment. Dr. Sarin visits Norton twice per month for clinic and to perform some surgeries.
In addition to Dr. Sarin, some surgeries by other visiting specialists are also available. Those specialists include Dr. Todd Pankratz, OBGYN specialist, and Dr. Robert Hinze, podiatrist.
Meet the Team!
Norton County Hospital is excited to announce our new employees. Please say hello, and welcome them to our team!
| Name | Position | Joined NCH Team |
|---------------|---------------------------------|-----------------|
| Karen Helm | Patient Access Representative | November 6, 2018 |
| Staci Manning | Patient Access Representative | November 5, 2018 |
| Kayla Broeckelman, RRT | Respiratory Therapist | October 18, 2018 |
Karen grew up in Indianola, Nebraska. She attended college at McCook Community College and Nebraska College of Technical Agriculture. She is also a CNA. She is the oldest of 3 siblings in her family. She has a brother Keith and sister Nicole. Her dad is Todd and mom is Lana. She enjoys softball, crafting, going on walks, movies, helping out on the farm and stock car races.
When asked why she chose to seek employment at NCH, she said: “I want to further my health care knowledge and career.”
Staci grew up near Phillipsburg, Kansas. She attended Fort Hays State University and received her Bachelor of Science degree in Health Promotion and Wellness. Staci and her husband Ryan live in Norton and have three daughters. Reilly is a freshman, and Robyn and Ryann are in 7th grade. She enjoys running, reading, traveling and following the girls’ activities.
When asked why she chose to seek employment at NCH, she said: “I enjoy working in the hospital/medical setting. We moved to Norton 14½ years ago. My husband is originally from Norton. So, we wanted to be close to family.”
Kayla grew up on her parents’ farm outside of New Almelo, Kansas. She went to kindergarten through sixth grade in Lenora and then attended school in Norton seventh through twelfth grade. Kayla graduated from the Respiratory Therapy program at Northwest Tech in Goodland, Kansas, in 2011. Kayla married her husband William in 2013 and welcomed their daughter Brooke to the family in October 2016. They also have three Australian Shepherd dogs: Cooper, Tripp and Major. Kayla loves spending time with her family and friends and riding her horses. She also enjoys traveling to new places.
When asked why she chose to seek employment at NCH, she said: “We moved back to Norton so we could be closer to both our families, and Norton has always been our ‘home.’ We are very happy to be back.”
Todd Boller, R.T (R)(CT)(ARRT)
Radiology Technologist
Joined the NCH Team October 2, 2018
Todd was born in Hays and graduated from Norton Community High School in 1988. He graduated from Fort Hays with his degree in Radiologic Technology. He is certified both as a Technologist and in Computed Tomography. Todd and his wife Mary live in Norton. Mary works at the Northwest Kansas Library System. He enjoys spending time with his family, cooking outside, fishing and metal detecting.
When asked why he chose to seek employment at NCH, he said: “My wife and I live here. I worked at Rawlins County Health Center in Atwood for the past year. I saw on Nex-Tech Classifieds that Norton County Hospital was looking for a Radiologic Technologist and put in my application. I am happy I was offered a position here. I am looking forward to the 5-minute drive to work versus an hour drive to Atwood.”
Rachael Rushton, RN
Nursing—Night Shift
Joined NCH Team August 31, 2018
Recent Milestones
Congratulations to these employees!
**September**
- Angie Annon 12
- Sara Smith 11
- Alan Brown 4
- Aaron Kuehn 4
- Ashley Glennemeier 3
- Dr. Hoa Nguyen 3
- Desiree Schrader 2
**October**
- Jeanice Gosselin 44
- Kristin Vogel 11
- Travis Nykamp 4
- Gina Prack 3
- Carolyn Long 3
- Abby Bainter 1
- Stefanie Dodd 1
- Sarah Mohr 1
**November**
- Eva Harrington 20
- Shawnee Branek 17
- Cami Cornelius 14
- Tracey Hartzog 6
- Rita Conrad 4
- Pam Bigge 3
- Sam George 1
- Natasha Schmidt 1
Dates to know! From Shannan Hempler, Human Resources
1. Open enrollment meetings for insurance are scheduled for Dec. 5 and 6. More information and the times HUB is available are posted on The Beat.
2. Blood Drives at Norton County Hospital are scheduled this spring: January 23, 2019 and April 11, 2019
*From the American Red Cross: Introducing the Blood Drive Partner Journey!*
Thank you, Norton County Hospital, for partnering with the American Red Cross! We are very excited to introduce to you Blood Journey, a new communication that will showcase your organization’s lifesaving impact. The blood collected from your most recent blood drive is now on its way to the below hospitals. While there may have been other hospitals that benefitted from your efforts, the following hospitals received the majority of blood products collected from your drive.
VIA CHRISTI HOSPITAL ST. FRANCIS
RUSSELL REGIONAL HOSPITAL
NEWMAN REGIONAL HEALTH
MORTON COUNTY HEALTH SYSTEM
CIMARRON MEMORIAL HOSPITAL
Every day, hospitals provide lifesaving blood to patients in need. Your willingness to open your doors and recruit blood donors remains vital to the lives of the patients that we serve, not only locally, but across the country.
Norton County Hospital Rehabilitation offers taping course for school coaches
A course for junior high and high school coaches was provided at Norton County Hospital in November in hopes to help educate them on the correct principles of taping both with athletic tape and with Kinesiotape. Jodi Roe, an athletic trainer, provided instruction in addition to Kellen Jacobs, Rehabilitation department supervisor and physical therapist, who said the main goal was to provide knowledge to coaches who don’t necessarily get this education as part of their educator training. Roe and Jacobs are not always available to assist with all athletes’ needs, especially at away games or weekend tournaments.
In addition to the coaches, other hospital staff members took the educational course to gain continuing education credit hours. Jacobs has been twice certified as a Certified Kinesiotaping Practitioner with two different educational companies. This course is a way to have much better continuity among providers in the department, as well as to allow an opportunity for coaches to get to know the hospital staff members who take care of their athletes.
Dr. Greg Sarin, orthopedic specialist, also spoke to his experience with sports medicine and surgery in general. He spoke to his availability in the region and how effectively it works when an athlete can come to Jacobs or Roe right away with his or her needs. This local availability is beneficial to the athlete and his or her parents, because it reduces missed school time and drive time to appointments. The athletes typically can be seen within the week and could have surgery, if needed, within two weeks. If athletes are treated more conservatively, staff at the hospital can also get all of the diagnostic tests done prior to Dr. Sarin even seeing the patient in many situations, further reducing wait times. This allows for effective and efficient treatment for these athletes and anyone else who needs it. It is rare that all who attended this course would have the opportunity and time to discuss management and care of athletes with a highly skilled surgeon like Dr. Sarin without themselves making an appointment with him. This educational environment provided for that rare experience.
Other specific objectives of the course included:
1. Participants will be able to correctly cut and apply Kinesiotape.
2. Participants will be able to correctly demonstrate basic ankle and thumb taping with athletic tape.
3. Participants will demonstrate correct removal of tape.
4. Participants will apply the principles to tape for edema anywhere on the body.
5. Participants will be able to correctly position athletes for proper taping.
6. Participants will be able to verbalize all precautions for taping.
Jacobs said the environment was laid back, but all who were in attendance were very engaged. It was a lab-type setting with lots of hands-on practice available. Attendees all practiced taping on each other during the two-hour course.
The Rehabilitation department would like to thank Norton County Hospital CEO Gina Frack for stopping by and for purchasing the Kinesiotape that was used. Also special thanks to the Dietary department and the Rehabilitation department for the snacks. Most importantly, special thank you to all of the coaches who attended. This night was a great collaboration for Norton athletics. All athletes will likely benefit from this educational experience.
Annual car seat check lane hosted at NCH
The Car Seat Check Lane hosted by Norton County Hospital and Norton Medical Clinic in September was a huge success despite cool temperatures! Our certified child passenger safety technicians checked 19 seats total. The kids who came absolutely loved seeing the emergency vehicles, so we are thankful to have had Norton County EMS, as well as local fire and law enforcement officials on site!
Congrats to our prize winners as well, and thanks to the prize sponsors!
- Classic pedicure by Janet Jilka at Eleven - Winner, April Stanley
- T-shirt or bag from Designs by Haley (Haley Schoenberger) - Winner, Julia Thompson
- Back in Balance 30-minute massage by Charla Sprigg - Winner, Addis Reyes
- Juvenilebugs 20-oz. customized tumbler by Megan Juenemann - Winner, Mandy Hogan
- Grand prize of a two-month membership to Define Gym - Winner, Mitch Pugh
Remember that you can always schedule a free car seat check! Just call the hospital at 785-877-3351 or clinic at 785-877-3305 to make an appointment with one of the technicians!
Wellness Day
Some of our staff attended the Norton Community Schools Wellness Fair in October! We helped students learn about core strength and how to stop the bleed in an emergency situation. Thanks to our nursing and physical therapy staff for leading the programs! Photos are included below.
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Educational Material about Influenza Viruses
Seema S. Lakdawala 1,*, Naina Nair 2,3 and Edward Hutchinson 3,*
1 Department of Microbiology and Molecular Genetics, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA, 15219 USA
2 School of Simulation and Visualisation, The Glasgow School of Art, 167 Renfrew Street, Glasgow G3 6RQ, UK; email@example.com
3 MRC-University of Glasgow Centre for Virus Research, 464 Bearsden Road, Glasgow G61 1QH, UK
* Correspondence: firstname.lastname@example.org (S.S.L.); email@example.com (E.H.)
Received: 9 February 2019; Accepted: 5 March 2019; Published: 7 March 2019
Abstract: To supplement a special edition of the journal Viruses, entitled “What’s New with Flu?”, influenza virus researchers have worked together to generate simple educational material to communicate their science to school students. Educational materials suitable for a range of ages are included, from coloring exercises for younger students through to explanations of cutting-edge science in straightforward language for older students. This article contains a handout with influenza facts, a coloring page, a glossary and word find and a connect-the-dots exercise explaining the ideas behind recently published scientific papers. Together, these materials are intended to make research on influenza viruses more accessible to students and teachers.
Keywords: influenza virus; coloring; word find; STEM; educational material
1. Introduction
Influenza viruses affect us all. Most people experience influenza as a mild but unpleasant illness which they suffer from repeatedly throughout their lives. Some people have worse experiences with the virus, and most of us will know someone who has been severely ill with influenza. As well as causing mild disease, influenza can cause serious illness including death, particularly in at-risk groups such as older adults, the immunocompromised, pregnant women and infants. Although severe disease only occurs in a small minority of influenza cases, the large number of people infected with influenza each year means that influenza is a major healthcare challenge in countries throughout the world.
Understanding influenza should therefore be an important part of our education about health and disease. Knowing what we can do to minimize the risk of spreading influenza, understanding the benefits to ourselves and others of getting influenza vaccinations, and learning that the major investments society has made in basic science are now resulting in the development of new drugs to protect us against influenza, should all be public knowledge. The threat of new influenza pandemics is much discussed, and so it is important that we also learn why influenza pandemics of the past were so disruptive, and why scientists now view highly-pathogenic avian viruses such as the H5N1 and H7N9 strains of influenza with such concern.
This article is written by scientists for school students and educators, as a supplement to a collection of articles written by scientists for other scientists. Sharing our latest findings in articles is a crucial part of making progress in science, but detailed explanations of cutting-edge research are not usually very accessible to non-specialist readers. Like most scientists, we want to be able to share our excitement about what we do and make the topics we work on more accessible to the public who fund our work and who will, we hope, benefit from it in the future. There are many routes for doing this. One of them was to add this article to a collection of formal scientific articles, to make their content more accessible to the next generation of students. This article begins with a factsheet about influenza...
(Figure 1) and then moves on to three exercises directly inspired by recent and ongoing research in the authors’ laboratories (Figures 2–4). We hope that it will be of use and of interest.
**INFLUENZA VIRUS FACTSHEET**
**WHAT IS INFLUENZA?**
Influenza, or ‘the flu,’ is a common respiratory (airway) infection.
It’s **more serious than a common cold**, and causes fever, muscle pains and tiredness.
Most cases of flu are **unpleasant but uncomplicated**, and when you have it you are likely to recover within a fortnight. However, a **small proportion of cases are very severe**, particularly for older people and those with weakened immune systems. Because flu is so common, the serious illness it causes in even a small proportion of cases makes it **one of the world’s major healthcare challenges**.
**WHAT CAUSES INFLUENZA?**
Influenza gets its name from an old idea that outside forces, like the alignment of the stars, somehow ‘influenced’ regions and caused outbreaks of disease. We’ve kept that name, but we now know that influenza is **caused by a virus**.
A **virus** is a bag of genetic instructions which can take over a cell, turning it into a factory for making more viruses. This tends to kill the cell, but most of the normal symptoms of flu are actually the **side effects of your own immune system fighting back**.
Like all viruses, influenza is **extremely small** – about one hundred thousandth of a centimeter across. Your hairs are about a tenth of a millimeter across. Most cells in your body are about a tenth the size of that, the bacteria on (and in) your body are ten times smaller than that – and an influenza virus is ten times smaller even than that.
**CAN WE STOP INFLUENZA?**
It will be very hard to completely eradicate influenza. New strains of flu can jump from animals into humans (causing **pandemics**) and the strains that cause **epidemics** of flu in humans each winter are constantly changing.
But we can fight back. **Good hygiene**, including handwashing, prevents the virus spreading. **Antiviral drugs** can treat the most severe cases (these target the virus, unlike antibiotics which target bacteria). Most importantly, we have **vaccines**. At the moment these aren’t perfect – they need updating each year, and their ability to stop you getting infected in the first place varies and is never 100%. But they also reduce your risks of severe disease and of passing the virus on to other people, making them a vital part of our fight against the flu.
**EVEN MORE INFLUENZA**
- Read more about the flu at [https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tim.2018.05.013](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tim.2018.05.013)
- Read more about how flu spreads at [https://theconversation.com/flu-lasts-for-more-than-an-hour-in-air-and-on-surfaces-why-cleaning-can-really-help-97823](https://theconversation.com/flu-lasts-for-more-than-an-hour-in-air-and-on-surfaces-why-cleaning-can-really-help-97823)
- These images are adapted from the virus coloring book, *Art Goes Viral*. Free downloads of this, and of other virus materials including the augmented reality app *Visible Viruses*, are at [https://www.gla.ac.uk/researchinstitutes/iii/cvr/events/public%20engagement/resources/](https://www.gla.ac.uk/researchinstitutes/iii/cvr/events/public%20engagement/resources/)
Figure 1. Influenza virus factsheet. A collection of basic facts about influenza viruses with links to further resources (a mini-review at [https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tim.2018.05.013](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tim.2018.05.013), a short article at [https://theconversation.com/flu-lasts-for-more-than-an-hour-in-air-and-on-surfaces-why-cleaning-can-really-help-97823](https://theconversation.com/flu-lasts-for-more-than-an-hour-in-air-and-on-surfaces-why-cleaning-can-really-help-97823) and free educational resources at [https://www.gla.ac.uk/researchinstitutes/iii/cvr/events/public%20engagement/resources/](https://www.gla.ac.uk/researchinstitutes/iii/cvr/events/public%20engagement/resources/)).
2. Influenza Virus Coloring Page
2.1. What Does an Influenza Virus Look Like?
One of the defining features of viruses (or, strictly speaking, of ‘virions’ or ‘virus particles’—the structures that wrap up a virus’ genes and carry them out of an infected cell and on to infect another cell) is that they are extremely small (Figure 1). Virions are smaller, in most cases, than the wavelength of visible light, which creates a challenge: how can we determine a virion’s structure? In other words, how do we work out how the basic building blocks of a virion physically fit together in enough detail to understand what makes it infectious? Two different approaches can be used for this.
One approach can be used for virions which form according to a very fixed pattern. Viruses of this sort, such as polioviruses, Zika viruses or adenoviruses, produce beautiful, geometrically regular virions. These are so similar to each other that an extremely detailed picture of an ‘average’ virion can be built up by combining low quality data from large numbers of individual virions. Virions can either be combined physically into a crystal which is then used to scatter X-rays, or many hundreds of them can be imaged individually using an electron microscope, creating data which are then combined using a computer.
Unfortunately, this approach does not work for viruses such as the influenza virus, the virions of which are variable in structure. While geometrically regular virions behave like carefully assembled boxes, with everything locked into its proper place, the flexible shells of influenza virions mean that they behave more like hastily packed bags, scooping up material from the infected cell. No two influenza virions are identical, and so we cannot build up a clear view of them by taking an average image.
Instead, we can try and build up a composite picture by combining studies of different features of the virion. Figure 2 shows images of the influenza virion created by combining low-resolution images of the virion’s overall shape, a detailed ‘parts list’ of its components, and high-resolution images of those individual components. These include the bag-like membrane that surrounds the virion, reinforced beneath with a shell made of matrix protein 1 (M1) and studded with a matrix protein 2 (M2), which is a pore that lets the virion sense when it is inside a new cell. The membrane is decorated with spikes of hemagglutinin (HA) and neuraminidase (NA), the proteins that get the virion into and out of cells, respectively, and which are the main targets for the immune system (and, therefore, a way of categorizing types of influenza—H5N1, H3N2, etc.). Inside the virion, segments of the viral RNA genome (vRNA) are wrapped around proteins into rod-like complexes (the polymerase proteins PB2, PB1, PA and the scaffold-like nucleoprotein NP; shown bottom right and described further in Section 4 below), eight of which bundle together to allow packaging of a complete genome (shown in cross-section at top right and side-on in the main image). In order to be infectious, the virion needs to package all eight segments of the viral genome, but there is also room for it to take up other viral proteins such as the nuclear export protein (NEP) and non-structural protein 1 (NS1), as well as material from the host cell—when you sneeze, there are bits of you in every particle of flu. Finally, although most laboratory strains of influenza produce virions shaped like spheres or beans, virions in natural infections show extreme variations in form, including very long filamentous virions (left).
2.2. How Did We Produce This Image?
Figure 2 summarizes a large amount of work, some of which has been published and some is ongoing. The ‘parts list’ was obtained by methods including mass spectrometry, which provides the ratio of components but not their structures. The structures were obtained through studies using X-ray crystallography, electron microscopy and nuclear magnetic resonance. They were downloaded from the Protein Databank (PDB, www.rcsb.org; this site also includes many excellent educational resources) using the following PDB numbers: PB2, PB1 and PA (PDB 4WSB [1]), HA (PDB 1RU7 [2]), NP (PDB 2IQH [3]), NA (head PDB 3BEQ and stem PDB 1GCL [4,5], as [6]), M1 (PDB 1EA3 [7]), M2 (PDB 2L0J [8]), NS1 (PDB 4OPH [9]) and the RNP helix (PDB 4BBL [10]). The structures of NEP and
parts of M1 and M2 have not been determined experimentally and so were predicted from their protein sequence using an algorithm called QUARK [11,12]. The membrane structure was simulated using an approach called molecular dynamics [13]. The overall shapes of the virions were determined at low resolution by electron microscopy [14,15]. Composite images were assembled using a range of software: PyMOL (Schrödinger, LLC), UCSF Chimera [16], QuteMol [17], Autodesk 3ds Max 2017 (Autodesk) with the Molecular Maya 2016 plugin, GIMP (http://gimp.org) and Inkscape (https://inkscape.org).
**Figure 2.** Influenza virus coloring page. A detailed composite image of an influenza virion (virus particle) and its component parts (below and right) with low-resolution images of the packaging of the viral genome (top right) and the filamentous virions seen in natural infections (left). PB1, PB2: basic polymerase subunits 1 and 2; PA: acidic polymerase subunit; HA: hemagglutinin; NP: nucleoprotein; NA: neuraminidase; M1, M2: matrix proteins 1 and 2; NS1: non-structural protein 1; NEP: nuclear export protein; vRNA: viral ribonucleic acid (genome). See text for further details.
3. Viral Epigenetics Word Find Definitions
In this special edition of *Viruses* is an article which discusses the literature on the evolution of influenza viruses in the human population. The following words will help you understand some of the concepts discussed in this article, “Mutation and Epistasis in Influenza Virus Evolution” [18]. Once you know what they mean, try finding them in the word find (Figure 3).
**ADAPTATIONS**—are changes that increase a virus’ fitness in a particular environment. In this case, fitness refers to a virus’ ability to survive, reproduce, and spread. Therefore, an adaptation is something that improves a virus’ ability to reproduce within a host and transmit between them.
**ANTIGENIC**—antigens are molecules that are recognized by our immune system. In the case of influenza, the surface proteins (HA and NA—see Figure 2) are “antigenic,” as they are the proteins most commonly recognized by the immune system, and therefore the main components which are targeted by vaccines.
**DELETERIOUS**—in this case is something that is harmful to the virus. A deleterious mutation generally disrupts a fundamental function of the virus. Deleterious mutations are typically removed by natural selection. For a non-viral example, a mutation that resulted in a three-legged deer would be deleterious. It would be culled from the deer population as three legged deer would not be able to outrun predators and would not pass on the mutation to their offspring.
**EPISTASIS**—refers to how two different mutations interact to give a certain trait. A classic example of epistasis is fur color in animals, which is determined by several genes and combinations of mutations.
**EVOLUTION**—refers to the change in the characteristics of a species or population over time.
**INFLUENZA**—is a respiratory illness caused by a group of viruses, called influenza viruses. Common symptoms of influenza include fever, body aches, runny nose, cough and trouble breathing. It is commonly referred to as “the flu.”
**MUTATIONS**—are changes in the genes of a virus or organism. Since genes are the ‘instructions’ for a virus, mutations can often change the characteristics of a virus.
**VIRUS**—is a microscopic microbe that can only reproduce within another organism.
Figure 3. Viral epigenetics word find. See text for definitions.
4. Influenza Virus Genome
The influenza virus genome is made of eight single-stranded RNA segments (Figure 2). The viral nucleoprotein (NP; depicted as gray beads below) is a virally encoded RNA-binding protein, which acts as a helical ‘scaffold’ for neatly storing the viral genome. The viral polymerase (made up of viral proteins PB2, PB1, and PA), is an enzyme complex which makes new copies of viral RNA (vRNA; genome) and messenger RNA (mRNA). The viral polymerase and NP are required for viral genome replication as well as the packaging of all eight genome segments into a single virion (Figure 2). Recent data [19,20], including a paper in this special edition of *Viruses*, have reshaped our knowledge of how NP binds to vRNA and have changed our model of the influenza virus genome’s structure. Classically, NP was thought to bind vRNA all the way along its length: imagine tightly strung beads on a string. However, ‘deep sequencing’ technologies (new and powerful methods of genome sequencing) have now been used to identify the regions of vRNA which are bound by NP. This revealed that, in fact, NP binds RNA in a non-uniform manner, leaving regions of vRNA exposed.
To visualize this, connect the dots in Figure 4, starting with dot 1, to reveal vRNA in the classic model and then in the revised model. Notice the exposed regions of vRNA in the ‘new model’ of the viral genome. Because they are exposed, these regions of vRNA might bind to other genome segments to co-ordinate the packaging of all eight segments into a virion, or they might interact with RNA-binding proteins produced by the host cell. Now that we have a clearer model of the structure of the viral genome, we can plan further research to try and find out what this exposed vRNA is doing during influenza virus replication.
**Figure 4.** Two models for the binding of vRNA to proteins when assembling the influenza virus genome. See text for details.
5. Conclusion
Effective science communication comes from many sources, including professional science communicators, journalists and educators. Ideally, it should also come from scientists themselves. While the resources in this article provide only a brief glimpse of the field of influenza research, we hope that they make biomedical research of the sort published in this special edition of *Viruses* more accessible, that they make the scientists who carry it out more approachable, and that they communicate at least some of the excitement we feel about being able to conduct scientific research on influenza viruses.
**Author Contributions:** S.S.L and E.H wrote the text; E.H. produced Figures 1 and 2; N.N. created the model virion shown in Figure 2; S.S.L. produced Figures 3 and 4.
**Funding:** S.S.L. is funded by NIH (R01 AI139063-01A1), American Lung Association Biomedical Research Award, and Charles E. Kaufman Foundation, a supporting organization of The Pittsburgh Foundation. E.H. is funded by a Medical Research Council Career Development Award [MR/N008618/1].
**Acknowledgments:** We would like to thank Adam Lauring for providing definitions to the word find presented in Figure 3.
**Conflicts of Interest:** The authors declare no conflict of interest.
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American Civil War: First Bull Run
DATE: July 21, 1861
LOCATION: Manassas, Virginia
OPPOSING FORCES
Union Army: 35,000 soldiers in the Army of Northeastern Virginia, commanded by Brig. Gen. Irvin McDowell. His division commanders were Brig. Gen. Daniel Tyler (1st Div.), Brig. Gen. David Hunter (2nd Div.), Col. Samuel Heintzelman (3rd Div.), Theodore Runyon (4th Div.), and Col. Dixon Miles (5th Div.).
Confederate Army: 32,000 soldiers in the combined Armies of the Potomac, commanded by Brig. Gen. Pierre G.T. Beauregard, and the Shenandoah, commanded by Gen. Joseph E. Johnston. Johnston brought around 8,500 men from the Shenandoah Valley and was in overall command as their senior officer. His five brigades—Brig. Gen. Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson (1st Bde.), Col. Francis Bartow (2nd Bde.), Brig. Gen. Barnard Bee Jr. (3rd Bde.), Brig. Gen. E. Kirby Smith (4th Bde.), and Col. J.E.B. Stuart (Cavalry)—played significant roles in the battle.
HISTORICAL SIGNIFICANCE
In April of 1861, after Confederate guns forced the surrender of Fort Sumter, the American Civil War began. Both sides rushed to build armies and prepare for what most thought would be a short war. But the first pitched battle, along a creek in northern Virginia known as Bull Run, would shatter those expectations when inexperienced generals – with untrained staff – led their mostly amateur soldiers to war. As the battle began, a clever Union flanking maneuver initially had the surprised Confederates on their heels. But the Union offensive stalled against determined resistance and reinforcements. And by late afternoon, the humiliated Union army was streaming back to Washington in defeat. The wake-up call had sounded: This war would not be quick or easy. It would require the serious business of building professional armies for the years ahead.
STRATEGY & MANEUVER
Actions by the Union – The storm clouds of Southern secession had been building for years before bursting under the April 1861 bombardment of Fort Sumter. Newly elected President Abraham Lincoln faced the grim reality of war with an unprepared army that was small – around 17,000 men stationed mostly out West in California and Oregon – and was led by an old war hero, Gen. Winfield Scott, who was 74 and unfit for duty. When Fort Sumter surrendered, Lincoln called for 75,000 volunteers to serve 90 days. He also ordered a naval blockade of Southern ports. During this chaotic time, state regiments converged on Washington amid the battle cry, “On to Richmond!”
By early July, Lincoln’s fledgling army was taking shape. Gen. George McClellan led 20,000 troops in western Virginia, while Maj. Gen. Robert Patterson led 18,000 troops in the upper Shenandoah Valley. Meanwhile, Brig. Gen. Irvin McDowell commanded the amalgamation of roughly 35,000 men around Washington. (Map 1)
Amid growing public pressure and the reality of soon-expiring enlistments, Lincoln needed to act. He looked to McDowell to begin a campaign toward Richmond, with an initial objective to seize the critical railroad junction at Manassas – where the north/south Orange & Alexandria and the east/west Manassas Gap Railroad converged. In this new era of railroads, it was the essence of key terrain.
McDowell planned to pin down the Confederates along Bull Run’s main crossing sites while turning the Confederate right flank to defeat them or force their retreat to Richmond. The entire operation rested on the assumption that Patterson could keep Gen. Joseph E. Johnston’s Confederate Army of 12,000 occupied in the Shenandoah Valley to prevent him from reinforcing Brig. Gen. Pierre G.T. Beauregard at Manassas. Scott telegraphed Patterson to ensure this would be accomplished, then reassured McDowell it would be done. On 16 June, McDowell’s army broke camp and moved toward Centerville.
Leading the column was Brig. Gen. Daniel Tyler’s division, which arrived in Centerville on the 18th. The same day, he took elements of his lead brigade south to reconnoiter Blackburn’s Ford, where he planned his feint. When he saw Confederates across the creek, he opened fire to gauge their strength. After the Confederates returned fire, the back and forth lasted nearly four hours before Tyler called a halt. It seemed he had found the main Rebel position. Meanwhile, McDowell and his engineers were doing their own reconnaissance when they realized that the terrain in the east would make the original plan impossible. Later that day, McDowell flipped his plan: Instead of enveloping the Confederate right flank, he would envelop the left. He spent the next day determining the best routes for movement.
With experienced troops, it would have been a good plan. The enemy was concentrated at the lower fords, and without Johnston’s army, they would be significantly outnumbered. But McDowell’s army was moving slowly. His brigades sat in Centerville waiting for squadrons of fresh supplies to be delivered. That night, the Confederates attacked. | 0c3a257e-890a-4730-9564-1aedaf0c1a8b | CC-MAIN-2025-08 | https://battledigest.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/BD-Issue35-BullRun-Teaser.pdf | 2025-02-11T05:08:05+00:00 | crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2025-08/segments/1738831951679.59/warc/CC-MAIN-20250211040852-20250211070852-00364.warc.gz | 111,822,976 | 1,115 | eng_Latn | eng_Latn | 0.997606 | eng_Latn | 0.997606 | [
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Intellectual Development
Goal: to increase students' reading / writing engagement and focus.
Rationale:
Student reading identity and interest survey, FSAs, BC Student Learning Survey, school based report card data revealed the importance of growth in the area of student literacy engagement and focus that will improve students' literacy skills.
Planned Actions:
Survey students at the beginning and end of school year to determine level of engagement. EMM community members will improve identity of readers & writers through purposeful, engaging and re-energized literary learning opportunities. Staff will build resources and collaboratively support our goal. Students will improve personal reading profiles through literacy conference, engagement techniques, inclusive classroom libraries, etc.
Indicators of Success:
Pre and post (school designed) survey of students reading habits, attitudes, strategies and beliefs. DART school wide reading assessments (2 X year) with class profiles, report card data, FSAs results, and student satisfaction survey which asks if they feel they are improving in reading. Staff will focus on 'street data' conversations and observations of students learning and engagement.
Target: Students survey data will show an increase of students choosing to read more in their interest areas and self-identify as a reader.
School Community Engagement Process:
Parents: Engage parents in reading culture by getting to know family beliefs about reading; info sessions about reading to give parents knowledge and skill about ways to support reading engagement; home reading programs Librarian.
District Indigenous team: story telling through artifacts, authentic resources
Community: Public Library visits, guest speakers (Authors / writing workshops)
District Literacy team: supporting staff and students literacy goals
DIRECTIONS 2025: ACTION PLAN FOR LEARNING
STRATEGIC GOAL #1
School: Eagle Mountain Middle
Increasing Success in Life for All
Human and Social Development
Area of focus:
Social and Emotional Learning: students will develop skills and increased capacity in the area of self management and self-awareness especially as it relates to personal well-being.
Planned Actions:
Student: BC Core competencies (CC) connect with aspects of SEL. Student self assessment of CC will help target specific aspects for growth and development.
Classes: Through class review process, targeted areas will be identified. Classes may use: RP (circles/charters), Mind-up, Open Parachute, We Well-Being etc.
School: team and school assemblies, student voice opportunities, equity scans as well as staff meeting and collaboration time. Increased cross team sharing and connections (both staff experience/expertise and student activity)
Community: parent info nights, school/home, regular updates from school on target skills
Indicators of Success:
We will look at a number of street data points to determine our success and next steps. Data points include: MDI results (grade 8 data this year), BC Learning Survey, Class review process (2 x per year), Mind-up data feedback, student 'building block' sessions (each team meets with admin regularly for discussion about school issues), PAC meeting discussions, Street Data equity listening sessions, office referrals and issues, SBT topics, Team Leader targeted feedback on SEL goal.
School Community Engagement Process:
Students: Team Building blocks, EMM Ambassadors (student voice sharing with school admin and staff)
Staff: Team Leader role (one staff member with SEL / Well-Being goal area), staff meeting topic (each month), Pro-D focus, regular Team meeting focus
Community: Newsletters, PAC meetings, surveys, targeted parent sessions
DIRECTIONS 2025: ACTION PLAN FOR LEARNING
STRATEGIC GOAL #2
School: Eagle Mountain Middle
Increasing Success in Life for All
Indigenous Learners and Indigenous Ways of Learning
Area of focus:
Staff and students will develop a broader understanding of Indigenous Peoples; their history and way of being along with a increasing knowledge of First Peoples Principles of Learning.
Planned Actions:
Students and staff will learn, share and have hands on experiences of First Peoples Principles of learning and being. Each term will have a planned and purposeful action. Term 1) Knowledge: unpacking the 'why', gathering of resources, Staff Pro-d Days Term 2) Educating: Connections between classes & Teams, outdoor classrooms, student indigenous workshops days/conferences. Term 3) Application - taking our learning and experiencing indigenous ways of being through hands on activities. We will also develop a School based survey & FPWL competencies.
Indicators of Success:
Students will understand and apply First Peoples Principles of Learning. Student portfolio, results from the School Based survey, Student self assessment FPWL competencies. Grade 7 learning survey, student engagement, classroom assessment and report cards.
School Community Engagement Process:
Staff: newsletter – shared weekly – new resources/pro-d information.
Team Leader Lead for indigenous education
Staff meeting
Staff collaboration time
Weekly updates to parent community
PAC meetings
Teaming with District Aboriginal Teachers, youth worker and community experts.
Reflection
This school year, we developed a student survey that asked students how they viewed themselves as readers. It also surveyed the types of reading they like to engage in, how much they identified themselves as readers as well as, how they viewed themselves as readers. The questions were designed to also gain information regarding the Social Emotional Learning and Indigenous Principles of Learning aspects of our school goal and how students perceive themselves as readers as well as their level of exposure and engagement with Indigenous literature and Principles of Learning.
Through the year we have purchased a selection of resources to compliment the three strands of our APL that will continue to be used as both student and teacher resources.
In addition, we spent three weeks in the month of June with the support of SD43 Learning Services, developing and refining plans, sharing resources, and working with targeted groups on our literacy goals.
We believe strongly that our three goals: improving literacy engagement and focus, deepening our understanding and use of First People's Principals of Learning and integrating Social and Emotional Learning throughout our school can be seen as connected and serving a common universal goal. We look forward to finding ways to continue building the connections between our goals, celebrating success and further supporting students where required.
We also think it is important to note that just because something is not stated as a goal, does not mean it does not hold importance or value at Eagle Mountain. STEAM and Math/Numeracy for instance, continue to be something we will learn about as educators and we will continue to offer rich, valuable learning experiences in these, and all areas.
In the 2023-2024 school year, we are looking forward to conducting our engagement surveys gaining valuable street data and continuing to refine ways to engage students in reading thereby developing a pleasure for reading that in turn increases the literacy skills of students.
Signatures
| Title | Name | Signature | Date |
|----------------|------------|-----------|------------|
| Principal | Andrew Graham | | June 30, 2023 |
| Assistant Superintendent | Nadine Tambellini | | June 30, 2023 |
DIRECTIONS 2025: ACTION PLAN FOR LEARNING
School: Eagle Mountain Middle
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A 5,000-pound / 2,300-kilogram bull elephant seal, distinguished by his trunk-like snout, approaches a female seal to mate at Año Nuevo State Park in San Mateo County. She tries to scramble away, not yet ready because she’s been nursing a new pup, still in his black birth coat, who is worried about being crushed.
For most elephant seals, life is far from easy. Theirs is a good-to-be-king kind of world; *force majeure* is the supreme law of the kingdom.
Elephant seals have all the usual pinniped handicaps of no hands, arms, legs or feet, which makes life on land a pain. But that’s coupled with a rigid social structure enforced by and for the biggest, fattest bulls who are – by far – the minority demographic in a breeding colony. On my day at Año Nuevo State Park in February, there were only 191 sexually mature bulls among the 2,300-plus creatures, but only 1% of those bulls can expect to mate in a lifetime that will end by their early teens. It is their plight to impregnate all the 1,300 cows on that beach.
Anger and resentment seemed to permeate the bellowing challenges that echoed across the dunes.
The first two pictures on these pages is the story of the interaction among a bull, cow and pup at Año Nuevo. The words on this page are context for the lives of each. The first pup known to have been born at Año Nuevo was in 1961. Since then, the colony has grown to produce about 2,000 pups each winter and the number of elephant seals in the North Pacific has increased from near extinction a century ago to about 150,000, believed to be full recovery. Mexico was the first country to legally protect the seals.
The seals here are northern elephant seals, whose breeding colonies lie only on isolated beaches from Vancouver Island, Canada, to Mexico. They are related and very similar to the quarter-million southern elephant seals who inhabit Antarctic waters and breed on islands in the South Atlantic and Indian oceans.
Elephant seal bulls are about the size of a fur-coated Subaru Outback but 40% heavier. Eighty percent of their lives will be spent swimming in the North Pacific for months at a time, and the vast majority of that time will be beneath the surface looking for food like skates, octopuses, eels, sharks and other large fish.
They haul up on land twice a year: once in early December to fight with other bulls for mating rights and again in July or August to molt their skin and fur for new duds.
The cows, about a third the size of alpha bulls, arrive at Point Año Nuevo a bit later in December, pregnant and ready to give birth to a 75-pound / 34-kilogram single pup. They deliver within a week of flopping up on the beach, nurse the pup over four weeks to between 250 and 350 pounds / 110-160 kilograms while fasting themselves, and then mate for another 11-month pregnancy. Their fishing tactics are the most extreme of the species, diving for up to 1½ hours on a single breath and as deep as a mile / 1.6 kilometers to find prey.
The weanlings are the last to leave Año Nuevo. After 10 weeks, they molt their black birth coats, which are adapted only to life on land, for insulation better adapted to the ocean and then teach themselves to swim and fish.
This photo was taken before the cover shot. My hiking group had been watching this pup search for a female seal to nurse. The park ranger leading our group said it’s possible the female is not the pup’s mother. All visitors to the elephant seal colony at Año Nuevo State Park must be accompanied by rangers because of the danger of wandering among the huge – often angry – animals alone.
A group of mostly female elephant seals sunbathe on the beach at Point Año Nuevo during their winter break on land. The buildings on Año Nuevo Island are part of a former lighthouse complex that has since been automated and abandoned.
A California State Parks ranger broadcasts a live science lesson about elephant seals to school classes through a mobile phone.
This young seal is probably a weanling, judging from the gray coat that indicates it has molted at least once since birth. The elephant snout that bulls develop isn’t present in a seal this young, so this seal’s sex is unknown. | fdec11c8-4057-4912-83d8-02ea9780a104 | CC-MAIN-2022-27 | https://www.jodymeacham.com/_files/ugd/7854ef_d21f411bf11f49cd9eff9ff44756be2f.pdf | 2022-07-05T01:08:56+00:00 | crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-27/segments/1656104506762.79/warc/CC-MAIN-20220704232527-20220705022527-00458.warc.gz | 901,961,554 | 928 | eng_Latn | eng_Latn | 0.998552 | eng_Latn | 0.999025 | [
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1. A man and a child are catching fish in a pond with a net.
2. The man and child are walking back to their home carrying the bucket of fish.
3. The man is cleaning the fish while the child watches.
4. The man and child are standing by the pond, looking at the fish they caught.
5. The man is pouring water from a bucket into the pond, while the child watches.
6. The man is bending down to pick up a fish from the pond, while the child looks on. | 59b4daf0-f483-4643-82e7-e649f938b864 | CC-MAIN-2021-49 | https://media.giuntiscuola.it/_tdz/@media_manager/3760185.02-storia_del_pesce.pdf?mediaId=4746441&cmg_defaultViewer=cmg_MediaServer& | 2021-12-01T13:42:24+00:00 | crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2021-49/segments/1637964360803.0/warc/CC-MAIN-20211201113241-20211201143241-00290.warc.gz | 426,254,152 | 108 | eng_Latn | eng_Latn | 0.996448 | eng_Latn | 0.996448 | [
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**Must See**
22. **Hungarian State Opera House (Andrássy avenue)** Its neo-Classical and neo-Renaissance design is the work of the greatest Hungarian architect, Miklós Ybl. The grand staircase, the sumptuous foyer, the horseshoe-shaped auditorium are important tourist sights in themselves. Opened for the first time on 31st March at 3 pm and 4 pm.
23. **Heroes’ Square** Beyond the entrance to Andrássy avenue from after the 38-m-high column in the centre of the Millennium Memorial, topped by a statue of the Archangel Gabriel facing east, there is a large square with a double cross. Between the pillars of the colonnade are figurines from the 19th century, while the corners have ornate sculptural ensembles (work, welfare, knowledge, honour and peace). The Tomb of the Unknown Soldier stands in front of the monument.
24. **Museum of Fine Arts** (grandiose neo-Classical building on the left side of the square) The museum collection numbers around 100,000 art works spanning the period from Antiquity to the present day. The collection includes more than seven B. Giorgi works, and among 19-20th century masterpieces, there are also many Hungarian representatives. Regular important temporary exhibitions are also arranged.
25. **Széchenyi Baths** (Margit híd, Kossuth square, 9–11) While so many spas are not only one of the largest bathing complexes in Europe but it enjoys a reputation as the spa with the greatest atmosphere in the capital. Chess players meet here every day, and the swimming pool is another feature of the Széchenyi as the open pools embraced by the wings of this vast complex are the most popular swimming areas in the numerous saunas.
26. **Statue of St. Gellért** Bishop Gellért died a martyr in the 11th century. According to legend this is the spot where, according to the missionary bishop, sealed in a barrel down into the Danube.
27. **Liberty Statue** The 14-m-high bronze figure standing tall, the symbol of freedom, was erected by Zsigmond Kisfaludy (Strobl), was raised in 1947 in memory of the country’s liberation and was not removed even after the change of regime. The statue is surrounded by a fountain. There are two other sculptures: one is an allegory of progress, the other the fight against poverty.
28. **Central Market Hall (Váci/márkét boulevard 1–3)** The largest and most attractive market in the city was built in 1896 designed by Samu Pecz. Following its complete restoration in 1996, it has become one of the most popular and visited shopping sites among locals and tourists.
29. **St. Stephen’s Basilica** The largest Roman Catholic church in Hungary, built between 1851 and 1905 after the entire city. Planned by József Hild, building started in 1861 and finally concluded in 1905. The neo-Classical façade is decorated with statues of the apostles, the mummified arm, the Holy Right of King St. Stephen, after whom the basilica is named. An elevator takes visitors up to an observation platform in the left.
30. **Parliament (Kossuth square 1–3)** The largest building in the entire city, the Parliament was built between 1884 and 1904 on the Danube embankment. The neo-Gothic building is the work of architect Imre Steindl, and was constructed between 1884 and 1904. The building is 100 m long and its tower rises 96 m into the air. Parliament’s most important work of art is the painting “Coronation of Saint Stephen” by Miklós Barabás. The coronation regalia are guarded here: St. Stephen’s Crown, the sceptre, orb and the sword. Guided tours are available, buy tickets in advance.
31. **Hungarian Academy of Sciences** Its perfect neo-Gothic structure is the work of the studio of Swiss architect, Stüler. It was built between 1862–64. The Ceremonial Hall, decorated with works by Károly Lotz is also used for staging concerts. There is also a library and a scientific library.
32. **Chain Bridge** The capital’s first bridge, a historical monument and emblematic sight! Jenő Széchenyi commissioned William Tierney Clark to design the bridge and engineer John McAdam to build it. The bridge was built from 1836–1849. After the Second World War it was rebuilt in 1949, on its 100th anniversary. Without doubt the famous pairs of lions in Széchenyi Square and the golden chain hanging from the bridge at both ends change every hour!
33. **Matthias Church** Budapest’s most attractive and most famous church, which was built in the early 13th century, defies the vicissitudes of history. Today’s Gothic form was given by Frigyes Schulek in 1880. Frescoes and paintings by the famous Schulek brothers were painted by some of the finest artists of the day (Farkas Lóczy, Mihály Zichy, Bertalan Székely).
34. **Royal Palace** The palace has witnessed wars and occupations, but it has always been the residence of the ruling dynasty. In 1896, President Sándor Teleki occupied it; as did the Habsburgs; it was destroyed three times and then rebuilt, each time in the architectural style of the age. Today’s palace was built between 1896 and 1902 after the First World War. The building hosts several institutions: the Hungarian National Gallery, the Hungarian History Museum and the National Széchényi Library.
35. **Dohány Street Synagogue** This building is Budapest’s largest synagogue and the second largest in the world. It was built by Viennese architect Ludwig Förster in 1859 in the Moorish style (facade of white and red brick, it has a wealth of ceramic decorative elements and stained glass windows). The interior of the synagogue includes the Jewish Museum, Heroes’ Temple, Jewish Cemetery and Raoul Wallenberg Memorial Park. The museum displays a huge collection of Jewish-related items from the Roman period to the 20th century.
---
**Panorama walk**
Time – 2.5 hour Distance – 4.3 km Hardness 5/3
This walk is specially designed for the eyes, taking you towards the spectacular bank of the Danube via Margarett Bridge to take some really nice pictures about Budapest day and night.
1. **Museum of Ethnography**
2. **Falk Miksa street of galleries**
3. **Margaret Bridge lookout point and entrance to Margaret Island**
4. **Church of St. Anne**
5. **Szilágyi Dezső square**
---
**Andrassy Avenue walk**
Time – 2.5 hour Distance – 4.3 km Hardness 5/3
The avenue is one of the most beautiful streets in the world. It is also one of the most important tourist attractions in Budapest. The avenue is lined with trees and has a number of important buildings, including the Hungarian Parliament Building, the Hungarian National Gallery, and the Hungarian State Opera House.
1. **Margit híd**
2. **Margit krt.**
3. **Barn tér**
4. **Kossuth L. tér**
5. **József krt.**
6. **Margit krt.**
7. **Margit krt.**
8. **Margit krt.**
9. **Margit krt.**
10. **Margit krt.**
11. **Margit krt.**
12. **Margit krt.**
13. **Margit krt.**
14. **Margit krt.**
15. **Margit krt.**
---
**Citadella on Gellért Hill walk**
Time – 2–3 hour Distance – 5,5 km Hardness 5/5
The Citadella is a fortress today, but it was once a royal palace. It is an unique place with a rich history and a lot of interesting things to see. The Citadella is located on the top of Gellért Hill, overlooking the city of Budapest. It is a great place to visit and explore.
1. **Gellért-hegy**
2. **Gellért-hegy**
3. **Gellért-hegy**
4. **Gellért-hegy**
5. **Gellért-hegy**
6. **Gellért-hegy**
7. **Gellért-hegy**
8. **Gellért-hegy**
9. **Gellért-hegy**
10. **Gellért-hegy**
11. **Gellért-hegy**
12. **Gellért-hegy**
13. **Gellért-hegy**
14. **Gellért-hegy**
15. **Gellért-hegy**
16. **Gellért-hegy**
17. **Gellért-hegy**
18. **Gellért-hegy**
19. **Gellért-hegy**
20. **Gellért-hegy**
21. **Gellért-hegy**
22. **Gellért-hegy**
23. **Gellért-hegy**
24. **Gellért-hegy**
25. **Gellért-hegy**
26. **Gellért-hegy**
27. **Gellért-hegy**
---
**Inner City Walk**
Time – 2.5 hour Distance – 5 km Hardness 5/4
This walk takes you through the diverse world of downtown Budapest, with its historic Royal Heritage, site of the Danube embankment, magnificent bridges, historic markets, atmospheric side streets, the main shopping zone and other fascinating features. Check out the vibrant city centre!
1. **Szent István Square**
2. **Szabadság Square**
3. **Nagy Imre Statue**
4. **Parliament**
5. **Trem No. 2**
6. **Shoes**
7. **Bálna Budapest**
8. **Hungarian National Museum**
9. **Károlyi Garden**
10. **Egyetem Square**
11. **Churc of ST. Michael**
12. **Március 15. Square**
13. **Vaci street**
14. **Gerbaut Café** | <urn:uuid:cbfa6fb2-8397-41fc-846b-6878da7fabe1> | CC-MAIN-2018-30 | https://www.mapaymochila.es/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/barruina.pdf | 2018-07-22T18:40:11Z | crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2018-30/segments/1531676593438.33/warc/CC-MAIN-20180722174538-20180722194538-00149.warc.gz | 920,756,166 | 2,227 | eng_Latn | eng_Latn | 0.990371 | eng_Latn | 0.990371 | [
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Reducing Food Waste: Compost is organic material that can be added to soil to help plants grow. Food scraps & yard waste together currently make up about 30% of what we throw away. Making compost keeps these materials out of landfills where they take up space & release methane, a potent greenhouse gas.
Composting requires 3 basic ingredients:
- **Browns** - This includes materials such as dead leaves, branches, and twigs.
- **Greens** - This includes materials such as grass clippings, vegetable waste, fruit scraps, and coffee grounds.
- **Water** - Having the right amount of water, greens, and browns is important for compost development.
We’re GOING GREEN for April!
Every day during the month of April there will be a new post featuring different ways Go Green in 2019!
Week #1: REDUCE
Week #2: REUSE
Week #3: RECYCLE
Week #4: GREEN INFRASTRUCTURE
Stay tuned and Go Green in 2019! | 4700977b-8af5-49db-a155-b733f5953a5d | CC-MAIN-2020-29 | https://www.ccgov.org/home/showdocument?id=33183 | 2020-07-09T14:41:47+00:00 | crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2020-29/segments/1593655900335.76/warc/CC-MAIN-20200709131554-20200709161554-00571.warc.gz | 802,589,304 | 214 | eng_Latn | eng_Latn | 0.996643 | eng_Latn | 0.996643 | [
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| NAME OF EVERY PERSON WHO DIED | DESCRIPTION | PLACE OF BIRTH, Naming the State, Territory, or Country. | THE MONTH in which the person died. | PROFESSION, OCCUPATION, OR TRADE. | DISEASE OR CAUSE OF DEATH. | NUMBER OF DAYS ILL. |
|-----------------------------|-------------|-------------------------------------------------|----------------------------------|-------------------------------|------------------------|-------------------|
| 1 | Edward Clay | 16 y | | | | | |
| 2 | Mary Brown | 4 y | | | | | |
| 3 | Rebecca | 3 y 13 d | | | | | |
| 4 | Emma Clay | 6 y | | | | | |
| 5 | Clara | 12 y 6 m | | | | | |
| 6 | Jacob | 10 y 11 m 8 d | | | | | |
| 7 | Josiah Clay | 5 y 6 m | | | | | |
| 8 | Dennis Butler | 19 m | | | | | |
| 9 | Sarah | 7 y | | | | | |
| 10 | John | 12 y 11 m 3 d | | | | | |
| 11 | Infant without name | 2 d | | | | | |
| 12 | Susan Kelly | 5 y 3 m | | | | | |
| 13 | Nancy Harris | 4 y 11 m | | | | | |
| 14 | Mary E. Eaton | 3 y 6 m | | | | | |
| 15 | Peter | 9 d | | | | | |
| 16 | Helen R. Smith | 11 y | | | | | |
| 17 | John Gentry | 12 m | | | | | |
| 18 | Martha Harris | 2 y 11 m | | | | | |
| 19 | Infant without name | 2 d | | | | | |
| 20 | | | | | | | |
| 21 | Benjamin | 12 m 15 d | | | | | |
| 22 | Sarah | 4 y | | | | | |
| 23 | William Smith | 3 y 4 m | | | | | |
| 24 | Susan Ballard | 20 y | | | | | |
| 25 | John O. McHenry | 16 m | | | | | |
| 26 | Cynthia Parks | 11 y | | | | | |
| 27 | Samuel E. Cox | 14 y | | | | | |
| 28 | Jane | 1 y | | | | | |
| 29 | Edgar | 3 y | | | | | |
| 30 | Laura | 3 y | | | | | |
| 31 | Daniel Hall | 19 m | | | | | |
| 32 | James L. Clay | 1 y 11 m | | | | | |
| 33 | Amanda Rice | 2 y | | | | | |
| 34 | Levi Clay | 15 m | | | | | |
| 35 | Nancy Stephens | 10 y | | | | | |
Total number of deaths: 35
Remarks:
- No. of white males: 16
- No. of black males: 19
- No. of mulatto males: 0
- Total male slaves: 35
- No. of married: 0
- No. of white females: 18
- No. of black females: 7
- No. of mulatto females: 0
- Total female slaves: 25
- No. of widowed: 0
| NAME OF EVERY PERSON WHO DIED | DESCRIPTION | PLACE OF BIRTH | THE MONTH in which the person died | PROFESSION, OCCUPATION, OR TRADE | DISEASE OR CAUSE OF DEATH | NUMBER OF DAYS ILL |
|-----------------------------|-------------|---------------|----------------------------------|-------------------------------|--------------------------|------------------|
| 1 Elizabeth Moten | 4 f | | | | Diarrhea | 1 day |
| 2 Mary Johnson | 4 f | | | | Typhoid fever | 9 days |
| 3 James Harris | 79 m | | | | Red Palsy | 30 days |
| 4 John E Thomas | 8 m | | | | Bronch | 4 days |
| 5 Infant without name | 1 m | | | | Not known | 1 day |
| 6 Charles Hardy | 55 f | | | | Demastis | 1 day |
| 7 Price | 57 m | | | | Dysentery | 2 years |
| 8 Samuel White | 9 m | | | | Typhus | 2 months |
| 9 Jack W Taylor | 2 m | | | | Yellow fever | 10 days |
| 10 Cathary Tabbells | 75 f | | | | Unknown | 10 days |
| 11 Richard Smith | 55 m | | | | Septicemia | 8 days |
| 12 John Jones | 12 m | | | | Typhus | 1 day |
| 13 E G Bell | 38 f | | | | Cholera | 12 days |
| 14 Edy A Odom | 36 f | | | | Typhus | 5 days |
| 15 Young Mr Boyer | 14 m | | | | Black Tongue | 5 days |
| 16 Robert Fulton | 55 m | | | | Meningitis | 5 days |
| 17 Mary Ann Lawrence | 1 f | | | | Typhus | 1 day |
Total number of deaths: 17
No. of white males: 10
No. of black males: 7
No. of males in total: 17
Total male slaves: 17
No. of married: 10
No. of white females: 7
No. of black females: 10
No. of females in total: 17
Total female slaves: 17
No. of widowed: 10
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Whether you are a parent, teacher or administrator – or an interested citizen concerned about the future of our public schools and our state – you probably are aware that there have been many changes in our schools over the last couple of years. There is much to know about teaching and learning in North Carolina, the progress we have made and the challenges that lie before us. It can even be difficult for educators who are in our schools every day to keep up with all of the new programs.
The North Carolina Department of Public Instruction (NCDPI) is pleased to present “NC Schools + You” in partnership with UNC-TV. This is a statewide TV broadcast featuring State Superintendent June Atkinson and colleagues from the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction (NCDPI). A studio audience comprising parents and business and community supporters have the opportunity to discuss new standards, assessments, accountability, parental involvement and more with Dr. Atkinson and her colleagues during this hour-long program.
This Viewer’s Guide contains supplemental information to assist you while you view this program. As with the program, the guide covers:
- **Teaching and Learning**: What Students Are Learning and How
- **Measuring Performance**: New Assessments and Accountability Model; and
- **Parent Engagement**: How Parents Can Support Learning
We hope that you will find this Viewer’s’ Guide helpful to you as you view NC Schools + You. It is important for parents, educators and involved supporters to have as much information as possible about statewide efforts toward preparing our students to graduate ready for college, career and life.
*NC Schools + You will be available for viewing after the initial broadcasts. Visit www.ncpublicschools.org to get access.*
1. The Common Core is a set of standards for what students should learn and be able to do in mathematics and English language arts from kindergarten through 12th grade.
2. The Common Core State Standards are North Carolina’s Standard Course of Study in mathematics and English language arts. The State Board of Education approved the new standards for our state in 2010. Following two years of professional development for curriculum specialists, teachers and principals, the new standards were implemented in all North Carolina classrooms in 2012-13.
3. Teachers participated in the development and selection of the Common Core State Standards, and the public provided feedback before these new standards were selected.
4. The Common Core State Standards grew out of conversation beginning more than five years ago between state superintendents from across the country and governors from many states. Many of these state leaders felt that it made sense to work together on standards for student learning in these two important subjects that are taught everywhere. As a result, the National Governors Association and Chief State School Officers worked with top experts in these subjects and in education to create the new standards. The US Department of Education endorsed the standards after the states developed them.
5. Having common standards in these two fundamental subjects means that publishers of textbooks and other learning resources will not need to create different textbooks to match each state’s course of study. The goal is for textbooks and other materials to be better and richer as a result.
6. The Common Core will help students be competitive nationally when they graduate from high school and attend college or universities, and it allows students who may have to move during their K-12 education to quickly fit into the academic program wherever they go. For military families, this is especially helpful. The schools operated by the Department of Defense are participating in the Common Core.
7. The Common Core State Standards are more rigorous than North Carolina’s earlier standards. As a result, new student assessments in mathematics and English language arts have been developed by North Carolina educators and were given for the first time during the 2012-13 school year. These more rigorous standards mean that student test scores overall likely will drop in the first year they are given. This is a normal pattern any time a state increases expectations for students and has happened before in North Carolina when standards were raised.
This type of scenario is often seen in sports. For example, highly competitive marathon runners in the early 1900s posted times of about 2 hours 45 minutes for the men’s marathon races. But, by the mid-1950s, that time would not have been highly competitive. The best runners were posting times of approximately 2 hours 15 minutes. Today, that time for the very best runners is only a few minutes over 2 hours. The standard for elite performance has gone up.
8. The new academic standards in mathematics provide a clear focus of content that must be mastered at each grade level, K-8. High School Standards specify the mathematics all students should study to be college and career ready. They are organized by the following conceptual categories or themes: Number and Quantity, Algebra, Functions, Modeling, Geometry, and Statistics and Data. Equally important are the Standards for Mathematical Practice, describing the behaviors or ‘habits of mind’ of mathematically-proficient students.
The new academic standards in English language arts are organized by four skill categories:
- **Reading (Informational and Literary)**
- Includes Reading Foundational Skills for K-5 students
- **Writing**
- **Speaking and Listening**
- **Language**
Students build their skills from kindergarten through high school to prepare them to be good readers, writers, speakers/presenters and listeners who use language appropriately for the task at hand. The new standards provide more opportunities for students to practice language arts skills in other subject areas and to focus more attention on reading material that is technical or non-fiction. Of course, literary text continues to be important in student learning. This aligns with the kind of reading and comprehension that students will be expected to have mastered in the workplace.
Having organized standards for student learning in North Carolina is not a new idea. Our state has had a Standard Course of Study for more than 50 years. In subjects other than mathematics and English language arts, North Carolina teachers, university professors and business leaders have worked together to develop Essential Standards. Together each subject’s set of Essential Standards and the Common Core State Standards make up North Carolina’s Standard Course of Study, which is available free of charge online at http://www.ncpublicschools.org/curriculum/.
Implementing the new Standard Course of Study is no more expensive than implementing other past revisions to the state’s Standard Course of Study. What is different this time is that the State Board of Education chose to implement new standards in every subject at every grade in the same year. In the past, a few subjects were revised or replaced each year, and over time, the entire Standard Course of Study was updated a few subjects at a time. Costs for implementation include new textbooks and other resources, professional development for teachers and new assessments for students. Federal Race to the Top grant funds are available to offset some of these costs in North Carolina.
The Common Core English language arts standards leave the decisions about the selection of literary and non-fiction texts for students up to school districts and local educators. The standards contain no required reading list for teachers, just suggestions of works that encompass a diverse catalogue of informational and literary text.
The Common Core State Standards provide a rigorous level of standards for student learning in math and English language arts, and local school districts still can accelerate learning opportunities for students who are academically gifted. North Carolina’s Standard Course of Study has always allowed for this flexibility to meet students’ needs.
North Carolina established a *Standard Course of Study* more than a century ago to determine competencies for each grade level and each high school course. The goal of the Standard Course of Study is to provide consistent academic standards for all students, no matter where they live or go to school. From time to time the Standard Course of Study is updated or overhauled to be consistent with current research, exemplary practices and national standards. North Carolina educators seek to provide the most appropriate education possible for all students in North Carolina.
To that end, the state Board of Education adopted the new Common Core State Standards and the North Carolina Essential Standards in 2010. These went into effect as the new Standard Course of Study for North Carolina public schools in fall 2012.
The Common Core State Standards provide a consistent, clear understanding of what students are expected to learn, so teachers and parents know what they need to do to help them. The standards are designed to be robust and relevant to the real world, reflecting the knowledge and skills that our young people need for success in college and careers.
The Common Core State Standards address what students learn in mathematics and English language arts. The North Carolina Essential standards address science, social studies, music, art and other subject areas.
*It is very important to note the clear distinction between content standards and curriculum.* Standards are the skills and competencies that a student must know and master from one grade level to the next. Curriculum is the set of instructional tools that educators use in order to ensure that students meet those standards. While the NCDPI and the state Board of Education provide the Standard Course of Study content standards, local teachers and team leadership have flexibility to craft the curriculum to help students meet standards.
For example, a standard for Grade 3 mathematics is that a student must have developed an understanding of fractions as numbers. There are a number of options for a third-grade teacher to ensure that this standard is met. Teachers have flexibility in relaying this information to students through a combination of textbook material and classroom activities.
For more information on the new Common Core State Standards, please visit [http://www.ncpublicschools.org/core-explained/](http://www.ncpublicschools.org/core-explained/). For more information on the *Standard Course of Study*, please visit [http://www.ncpublicschools.org/curriculum/](http://www.ncpublicschools.org/curriculum/).
MEASURING PERFORMANCE
New Assessments and Accountability Model
ASSESSMENTS
Taking tests is a part of learning and a key way to be sure that students are on track with what they need to accomplish. Assessments also give teachers and principals information about how well they are covering the *Standard Course of Study*.
Good testing data helps ensure that students master content and that teachers can focus on specific areas where their students might need extra attention. Good, responsible assessments are crucial to good learning and student success. North Carolina’s assessments are aligned to our Standard Course of Study and developed by North Carolina educators.
Students in North Carolina public schools take the following assessments:
**Elementary and Middle Grades**
- 3 Reading and Math End-of-Grade Tests
- 4 Reading and Math End-of-Grade Tests
- 5 Reading and Math End-of-Grade Tests Science End-of-Grade Test
- 6 Reading and Math End-of-Grade Tests
- 7 Reading and Math End-of-Grade Tests
- 8 Reading and Math End-of-Grade Tests Science End-of-Grade Test
*High school students* take End-of-Course (EOC) Tests in English II (10th grade), Biology and Algebra I. (Middle school students who take high school courses will take EOC tests in middle school.)
Other assessments given in high school include:
- ACT Explore
- ACT Plan
- ACT
- WorkKeys
Common exams are given in other courses to provide a common final exam for students and to provide an important measure of teacher effectiveness. Why is that important? Because teacher evaluation should include a measure of how much students have grown academically.
In most years, test results are provided to parents before the end of the school year. Because all assessments were new for the 2012-13 school year, results are delayed to allow time for standard-setting.
More technical information on the how’s and why’s of assessments can be found at http://www.ncpublicschools.org/accountability/.
1. The key to the transition to new assessments is the complete assessment system which comprises not only end of the year tests, but also classroom assessments and benchmark/interim assessments. The classroom/benchmark/interim assessments provide information on what a student is learning and identify areas where a student may need additional instruction throughout the year. The combination of these assessments ensure students are prepared to be successful at the next grade level, and ultimately prepared for college and career after high school.
2. The foundation of all of these assessments is the State Board of Education’s adoption of new content standards. These standards, the Common Core State Standards in English language arts and mathematics and the Essential Standards in science, are more rigorous than previous content standards and are aligned to college and career readiness expectations. Thus, the new assessments, aligned to these standards, measure a student’s performance on grade level content standards that are more demanding.
3. The new end of year assessments, administered at grades 3-8 and at the conclusion of the Math I (previously Algebra I/Integrated Mathematics I), English II, and biology courses, were implemented for the first time in 2012-13.
4. The new assessments include three new item types: (1) gridded response items on grades 5-8 mathematics end-of-grade tests and Math I end-of-course tests, (2) constructed response items on English II, and (3) technology-enhanced items on the science online assessments. These item types are more engaging for students and they provide an opportunity for a student to respond to the questions in a way that shows (or demonstrates) more of what they know and are able to do.
5. Likewise, there is an online administration option for the science assessments and for the end-of-course tests. Feedback from students who have participated in the online assessments is very positive and confirms that students prefer the online environment to the paper/pencil world of bubble sheets. The goal is to continue expanding the online assessment option, and to eventually have all assessments delivered online.
6. Student scores for 2012-13 are delayed until late fall 2013 while the required statistical analysis and scoring processes are completed. Parents and students can expect to receive score reports in early November. The scores are expected to be lower, as they will reflect the increased rigor of the content standards.
7. The 2012-13 READY Accountability Report will be presented to the State Board of Education at its November meeting for approval. With this report, parents will have access to two important pieces of information about their child’s school: (1) the percent of students at each school who met proficiency on the state tests, and for high schools only, other college/career expectations, and (2) each schools’ Education Valued Added Assessment System (EVAAS) report which provides a growth measure of student performance.
The Comprehensive Assessment System chart provides parents with a snapshot look at which assessments your child will take in a specific grade or grade level. Simply find your child’s grade on the far left column and read across to discover which assessments are given.
This chart shows the trends in multiple test scores for reading and mathematics over the last two decades in North Carolina public schools. Typically, when new assessments are introduced, and/or standards for learning are increased, a drop in scores are expected (as was experienced with new math and reading standards in 2005-06 and 2007-08, respectively). With new assessments having been given during the 2012-13 school year, it is fully expected that a drop in scores will occur when results are released in fall 2013.
How do we evaluate teachers?
We know that teachers make a big difference in students’ lives. Research shows that an effective teacher has a major impact on how much a student learns each year. On the other hand, an ineffective teacher can hinder student learning, even with residual effects in subsequent years.
North Carolina wants teachers to be strongly prepared to do the best job possible. Teachers in North Carolina must be licensed and have appropriate college degrees to teach specific subjects and grades.
Ongoing professional development helps educators stay up to speed on the latest in instructional practices. This is provided at both the state and local levels. To this end, the NCDPI Educator Effectiveness initiatives provide leadership, technical assistance, professional development resources and additional services to school districts and charter schools.
Teachers and principals are evaluated annually with the goal of continually improving their knowledge, skills and craft. In the past few years, the evaluation tool was changed to include a measure of how much teachers’ students grow academically. The tests students take at the end of the year or at the end of the course are used for this purpose. Some of these tests also are used as final exams for students and as measures of accountability for the schools as a whole.
For more information on the Educator Evaluation System, visit http://www.ncpublicschools.org/effectiveness-model/.
“*They Just Want to Fire Me!*”
NC’s Educator Effectiveness Myths Debunked
Anytime we face changes in the way that we are being evaluated on the job, it makes us nervous and raises concerns and questions. For teachers and other educators in North Carolina who are in a new evaluation system, it’s no surprise that questions and concerns are being discussed.
The standards that define excellence in teaching are higher today because the stakes are high for students and our state. Teachers face increasing challenges as they seek to deliver quality classroom instruction, and North Carolina has created several key supports for their work.
It is important not only for educators themselves to know, but also for parents and community supporters of education, that NC’s Educator Evaluation System sets higher standards and also provides educators with a refined, more accurate definition of a job well done. It also offers better information to help teachers and principals focus together on how to elevate teaching and on how to improve teaching practice.
It’s not easy, but the end result has become a stronger evaluation system that clearly measures good teaching, provides better feedback for teachers and incorporates the key outcome of education – student learning – into the system.
It is the goal of the NC Department of Public Instruction to help good teachers get better. But as with any employee evaluation system, there are concerns and myths to address. With those concerns in mind, let’s address some common myths:
**MYTH:** The goal of the NC Educator Evaluation System is to identify the worst teachers.
**FACT:** The NC Educator Evaluation System is about identifying our state’s most effective teachers so that everyone can learn from them. The new model also aims to identify teachers who need additional support. Once that identification is made, administrators will strive to provide solid and meaningful support to help teachers improve. Teachers need specific feedback on their strengths and areas for growth so that professional development can be more tailored to needs and less “one size fits all.”
**MYTH:** I will be identified as a bad teacher if I teach Exceptional Children, low-achieving students or in a low-achieving school.
**FACT:** Data from the Educator Value-Added Assessment System (EVAAS) show that some of the most effective teachers in the state are those who teach EC students or students who are struggling with academics. Teachers in low-achieving schools receiving support from NCDPI also tend to fare well on EVAAS scores. It is critical to remember that EVAAS and the NC Educator Evaluation System focus on growth, not proficiency.
**MYTH:** Common sense will tell us who the good teachers are.
**FACT:** Anyone who teaches knows that it is a profession that involves a complex set of skills, talents and frequent decisions about serving each student’s needs. There are numerous methodologies, strategies and activities that comprise great teaching.
“Good teaching” manifests itself in a variety of ways. One of the primary ways is in higher outcomes for students. We must assess good teaching by taking a closer look at the five standards that have been employed, with the addition of the sixth standard that measures student growth. This provides a richer, more comprehensive context for evaluation.
MYTH: If some of my students do not show growth during the school year, I am going to be fired.
FACT: NC’s Educator Evaluation System requires the use of three years of student growth data – potentially hundreds of students, for a high school teacher – before there are required interventions for teachers who do not make expected growth with students. Those interventions include monitored or directed growth plans and time to improve, but they do NOT include automatic dismissal.
MYTH: Everyone knows that teachers don’t improve noticeably after their fourth or fifth year in the classroom. This means that longer-term teachers might be at higher risk with the new evaluation system.
FACT: Some research suggests that there can be a “plateau” effect among teachers who have been in the profession for several years. The NCDPI acknowledges, however, that this does not have to be the case, and that we all are responsible for avoiding this phenomenon.
Teachers, just like our students, should be constantly growing and honing their craft. A closer look at the types of professional development that the NCDPI and local districts can offer teachers must be a part of an overall strategy to retain good teachers and ensure that they grow in their profession, just as we expect students to continually grow in their learning.
MYTH: The new evaluation system will mean that we will be testing students more, in order to assess teachers.
FACT: The only tests that are being added are the common exams, which will provide a method for assessing student growth for subject areas that have not traditionally been tested, such as social studies. These will be important in – but only one part of – assessing teachers’ performance. There will be no tests added in courses/subjects that have traditionally required end-of-course or end-of-grade tests. In order for the NC Educator Evaluation System to be fair of all teachers, everyone must have a measure of how their teaching impacts the learning of their students.
Teams of NC teachers are developing the common exams, and they should replace final exams that were previously created by individual teachers.
Parent involvement in a student’s education is important. Simply put, the greater the parents’ involvement with their child’s learning, the greater the chances of the child’s success in school and beyond.
Educators know that parental engagement and support in learning can make all the difference, and they welcome a deeper level of involvement. And with technology, time and distance are not the barriers they once were.
Below are some resources that can help parents as they seek to increase support of their children’s learning experience.
**HOME BASE**
Home Base is a statewide, instructional improvement (IIS) and student information system (SIS) for teachers, students, parents and administrators. Teachers now use Home Base to access student data and teaching and learning resources. Students access their schoolwork, grades, and learning activities. Parents view their child’s attendance and progress, and administrators can monitor data on students, teachers and schools.
http://www.ncpublicschools.org/homebase/
For Educators
Day-to-Day Tools
Administrative Features
- Attendance & Schedules
- Grade Books
Student Data
- ID, Demographics & Contacts
- Health Records
Learner Profiles
- Personal Education Plans
- Student Work Samples
Educational Tools
- Lesson Planning & Instruction
- Assessments & Reporting
- Collaborations & Connections
Professional Development Tools
- Courses & CEUs
- NC Educator Resources
- Educator Evaluation
For Parents
Staying Engaged
- Grades & Assignments
- Attendance & Transcripts
- Resources
- Communication with Educators
- Parent Tools
For Students
Collaborate & Connect
- Schedules & Agendas
- Assignments & Assessments
- Resource Sharing
- Grades & Test Scores
- Chats & Message Boards
One Place. One Login.
Find It All At Home Base™
If you have any questions, please contact the communications director at the NC Department of Public Instruction | 919-807-3450
ELEVATING TEACHING AND LEARNING
The READY plan empowers educators and parents to give our children an education that properly prepares them for their next big steps after graduation – college, career and adulthood. The plan is part of North Carolina’s commitment to providing the tools we need to most effectively achieve that goal.
READY’s Home Base™ technology platform is an all-encompassing resource to elevate the craft of teaching and help our children succeed. Think of Home Base as the starting point for success.
SUPPORTING EDUCATORS
Educators play the most important role in our students’ learning. To help them reach their full potential, educators need a tool to help them, instructionally and professionally.
Home Base was designed with input from educators to ensure they have access to actionable student insight, teaching best practices and collaborating with their fellow educators across the state. It will set them apart from the rest of the nation as a model of how an intuitive, robust technology tool enables them to make more meaningful teaching decisions, which will greatly impact the success of their students.
We know each educator has his or her own methods and needs. That’s why we built Home Base with the teacher in mind. Teacher input and involvement are vital to its success. The more a teacher puts in, the more he or she will get out. As Home Base continues to grow and evolve, individualization and ease of use are always the top priorities.
Home Base is quite literally their home base, where they can easily find instructional and professional tools in one place – under one login. It’s where they take attendance, post grades, create lesson plans, and communicate with students, parents and other educators. There is access to assessment data, as well as the ability to create and deliver assessments. They can earn Continuing Education Units through Home Base, as well as have access to professional development resources and educator evaluation data. All of this and more will be available in a suite of technology tools housed in one place.
This is merely skimming the surface of what Home Base is and will become. As it rolls out in phases, we will always be mindful of elevating educators’ craft with the focus always on student achievement.
HELPING PARENTS AND STUDENTS THRIVE
As a parent, you are critical to your child’s success. Your involvement in his or her education not only supports your child but also teachers. In turn, Home Base supports you and your child with a technology tool that better prepares him or her for the next level, whether that’s the next grade or the next big steps after graduation.
At its most basic, Home Base lets you view your child’s grades, assignments and attendance. But it’s much more robust than that. If your child is having problems with a particular subject or homework assignment, Home Base enables you to search for specific resources that can help him or her succeed. You can also reach out to other parents for help and insight, as well as communicate privately with teachers.
For students, Home Base can make the difference between doing well at school and excelling. In the broadest sense, you will gain valuable skills that set you apart by interacting with such an advanced technology tool. Not only will you have access to your schedules, class agendas, assignments, grades and test scores, but Home Base also is the hub where you store your work and turn in assignments. You will be empowered to collaborate and share helpful insight with other classmates, and you will have access to textbooks and other digital resources.
Our state is committed to helping better prepare our children for the world they will live in. As we all recognize, the skills they need today and tomorrow are much different than the ones needed yesterday. Together we must embrace this change to elevate our students, and Home Base is a major step in making sure they will succeed.
NCPTA RESOURCES
The North Carolina PTA (NCPTA) provides tools to help local PTAs, families, educators and youth who are committed to helping children learn in a healthy environment. NCPTA collaborates with statewide and local organizations and business to provide families in NC with current public education information and important parent engagement resources. https://ncpta.org/index.php/resources/
COME ON, GET INVOLVED!
Everyone knows that reading to and with your child will help to enhance learning. A child who knows how to read and read well has the foundation needed to master all other subject areas.
There are, however, many other tips for parents to help their children in school that might seem simple but not always readily apparent. Here are a few links to resources to help:
- 44 Proven Ideas Parents Can Use to Help Their Children Do Better in School (from Reading Is Fundamental) – Simple ideas for how to help improve study habits and reinforce learning at home to increasing motivation and building responsibility. http://www.rif.org/us/literacy-resources/articles/44-proven-ideas-parents-can-use-to-help-their-children-do-better-in-school.htm
- Parent Partnership Resources (from the National Education Association). How to navigate a parent-teacher conference; working to improve school conditions; and downloadable brochures on helping your child succeed academically. http://www.nea.org/parents/
WEB RESOURCES
READY – http://www.ncpublicschools.org/ready
Basics about the NCDPI’s READY initiative, the time line for our work and how all the pieces fit together.
Home Base – http://www.ncpublicschools.org/homebase
An overview of the state’s new suite of technology tools for teachers, parents and students.
Race to the Top – http://www.ncpublicschools.org/rttt/
North Carolina’s Race to the Top plan and all the technical details, including RttT contacts.
Educator Effectiveness – http://www.ncpublicschools.org/educatoreffectiveness/
Professional Development resources for educators in public and charter schools.
Common Core Explained – http://www.ncpublicschools.org/core-explained/
A portal for presentations, podcasts, videos and other helpful resources related to the Common Core State Standards.
Assessments and Accountability – http://www.ncpublicschools.org/accountability/
Discover information around new assessments and the new accountability model.
District and School Transformation – http://www.ncpublicschools.org/schooltransformation
See how and where the NCDPI’s DST division is intervening to help in schools of greatest academic need.
NC PTA Brochures – http://www.ncpta.org/parent/CommonCoreStandards.html
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On This Date
1894 – The Montreal Hockey Club beat the Ottawa Generals to become the first team to win the Stanley Cup. The original Cup, the oldest professional sports trophy in North America, is on display at the Hockey Hall of Fame in Toronto.
1935 – Shah of Iran Reza Shah Pahlavi formally asked the international community to call Persia by its native name: Iran.
1954 – The first shopping mall, Northland Center, opened in Southfield, Michigan.
1963 – The Beatles’ first album, *Please Please Me*, was released in Britain. Its 14 songs include “Twist and Shout,” “Love Me Do,” “I Saw Her Standing There,” and, of course, “Please Please Me.”
Daily Trivia
Haiku is a traditional form of Japanese poetry. Haiku poems consist of 17 syllables in three lines. The lines rarely rhyme.
Quote of the Day
“Realizing you’re not anything special to the kids is always a great sort of reminder that you’re just a regular person. A regular, embarrassing, old mom.”
~ Reese Witherspoon
Happy Birthday!
Reese Witherspoon, born in 1976, is an American movie star and producer. She started acting as a teen and soon found fame with 1999’s *Cruel Intentions* and *Election*, followed by *Legally Blonde* (2001) and *Legally Blonde 2* (2003). She is now one of Hollywood’s highest-paid actresses. Her other projects include *Water for Elephants*, *Wild*, and the HBO series *Big Little Lies*. She won an Academy Award for Best Actress for her role as June Carter Cash in 2005’s *Walk the Line*.
Today is the World Day of Metta. *Metta* is from Pali, the language of Theravada Buddhism, and means “loving kindness.” Today is a day to wish love and kindness toward all living things, to spread peace and goodwill.
**Think-tionary**
*gasconade*
A. The official announcement of a key strategic victory by a military leader
or
B. Extravagant boasting
**ANSWER:** B. The sports reporter had heard athletes’ gasconading about their speed and strength for her entire career.
**When Was It?**
It was during this year that the Hewlett-Packard company was founded in Palo Alto, California, starting Silicon Valley. Timely Comics (which would become Marvel) was founded in New York City. Scientists first split the atom. *Glamour* magazine published its first issue, and Batman made his first appearance in Detective Comics. When was it?
**ANSWER:** 1939
**Root of the Matter**
*Black sheep*
If someone is called the *black sheep* of the family, then they are being identified as a disreputable family member, one who has strayed from honor and respectability. Ironically, prior to the 19th century, British shepherds believed that black sheep born into their predominantly white flocks were good omens. This likely stemmed from a Bible passage referring to the removal of black sheep from a flock as a mark of integrity. Over time, though, the Bible passage was misinterpreted, and black sheep became a bad omen.
**Buy a Vowel**
N _ X _ _ _ S
Harmful, toxic, or poisonous
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21st-century skills is the term used to describe the combination of specific skills, content knowledge, expertise, and literacies that are essential for today’s graduates.
Aboriginal is a term defined in the Constitution Act of 1982 that refers to all indigenous people in Canada, including “Indians” (status and non-status), Métis, and Inuit people. More than one million people in Canada identified themselves as Aboriginal on the 2006 Census, and are the fastest growing population in Canada.
Adaptations are teaching and assessment strategies specially designed to accommodate students’ needs so they can meet the learning standards in an area of learning and demonstrate proficiency in its concepts.
Areas of learning are discipline-based fields of knowledge. Science, Arts Education, and Social Studies, for example, are all areas of learning that comprise learning from multiple disciplines. Areas of learning contain the learning standards that make up BC’s provincial curriculum. Each area of learning contributes particular understandings and competencies to the development of educated citizens.
Big Ideas are statements that are central to one’s understanding in an area of learning. A Big Idea is broad and abstract. It contains key concepts that generally are timeless and transferable to other situations. Big Ideas are the key concepts, principles, and theories that are used to organize knowledge within an area of learning. A Big Idea is a statement of an idea that is central to an area of learning or across disciplines and that links numerous understandings into a coherent whole.
Big Ideas:
- include concepts, principles, and theories that are key to understanding disciplinary knowledge
- help students build a conceptual framework or schema for understanding increasingly sophisticated ideas and information
- may be transferrable to other topics across disciplines or areas of learning
- are not specific pieces of factual information, such as a name, date, or formula
- are not isolated bits of information disconnected from larger concepts or principles
- should lead to further understanding and be open to questioning or inquiry
For example, understanding that all matter is composed of particles is key to understanding more sophisticated ideas, such as the kinetic theory of matter, the nature of different states of matter, and the understanding that temperature is a measure of the kinetic energy of the particles in a substance.
Communication competency
The Communication competency encompasses the set of abilities that students use to impart and exchange information, experiences, and ideas; explore the world around them; and understand and effectively engage in the use of digital media. The Communication competency provides a bridge between students’ learning, their personal and social identity and relationships, and the world in which they interact.
competency
Competency represents the combined skills, processes, behaviours, and habits of mind that learners use to make sense of the world.
concept
A concept is a mental construct or idea that organizes a pattern or commonality across a category of objects, events, or properties. Concepts are often divided into concrete concepts (concepts identifiable by surface features, like car or bird) and abstract concepts (concepts with more intangible characteristics, like emotion or family).
concept-based curriculum
A concept-based curriculum uses concepts to define standards of knowledge and skills associated with a given area of learning. It is focused on the key concepts, principles, and generalizations that are used to organize knowledge and solve problems within and across disciplines.
A concept-based curriculum:
- is built around higher-order learning standards and big ideas, allowing a more in-depth exploration of topics in order to build deeper understanding
- replaces the study of factual information with the development of conceptual understanding and disciplinary skills
- offers opportunities for transfer of learning
- is not a list of topics to cover in isolation from one another
A concept-based curriculum allows for connections between big ideas, such as exploring the concept of reoccurring patterns, and comparing and contrasting how patterns appear in works of literature or in geographical features.
constructivism
Constructivism views learners as actively constructing their own knowledge and understanding of the world through experience and reflection, rather than passively receiving information. New information is linked to prior knowledge through experiential, inquiry-based, project-based, and other forms of active learning.
continuous progress
Continuous progress refers to students’ learning progression according to their own individual rate of development. A continuous progress approach views each learner’s progress in terms of sequences of learning rather than fixed grade-level requirements.
continuous view
Continuous view refers to presentation of Curricular Competency learning standards, and in some cases Content learning standards, as a continuum by grade or grade band.
Core Competencies
Core Competencies are a set of intellectual, personal, and social competencies that students develop to engage in deeper learning and to support lifelong learning through the course of their schooling. The Core Competencies are embedded in each area of learning, and are activated through the learning experiences and activities. In BC, the Core Competencies are the Communication competency, Thinking competency, and Social and Personal competency.
Curricular Competencies
Curricular Competencies are the skills, strategies, and processes that students develop over time. They reflect the “Do” in the Know-Do-Understand model of curriculum. The Curricular Competencies are built on the Thinking, Communicating, and Personal and Social competencies relevant to disciplines that make up an area of learning.
For example, the Curricular Competencies in Mathematics are organized using a problem-solving scheme, based on work from the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics. Other examples are Social Studies, where Curricular Competencies are organized using inquiry and historical thinking processes, and English Language Arts, where Curricular Competencies are organized around how we use language to comprehend and connect with others and how we create and communicate through language.
Deeper learning
Deeper learning refers to learning that emphasizes the use of key disciplinary concepts, principles, and generalizations to think critically, solve problems, and communicate ideas.
Deeper learning:
- develops students’ understanding and promotes thinking about and applying their learning in meaningful ways
- helps students build an increasingly sophisticated conceptual understanding of how knowledge has been constructed within a particular topic or discipline
- helps students build generalizations and mental models of the world that allow them to make sense of new information and connect it to prior knowledge
- goes beyond rote learning or surface learning, where a student may memorize a procedure or formula, but does not actually understand the underlying principle
- goes beyond passively receiving content and involves students in actively developing and explaining their knowledge
- is not assessed by the ability to recall specific content or explanations
For example, in Mathematics, deeper learning means students are able to see the underlying principles of a problem and not be confused by surface changes, like switching from an equation to a word problem. In Social Studies, deeper learning means students are able to recognize and explain similarities and differences between what they have learned about revolutions in history and current events in the Middle East.
Differentiated instruction
Differentiated instruction is an approach to learning in which instruction and assessment are based on the specific needs, interests, developmental level, and other learning preferences of the individual student.
digital literacy
Digital literacy builds on traditional definitions of literacy. It involves the interest, attitude, and ability of individuals to appropriately use digital technology and communication tools to access, manage, integrate, analyze, and evaluate information; construct new knowledge; create; and communicate with others.
discipline
A discipline is a field of study with a unique body of specialist knowledge, theories, and concepts and with specific terminology and methods. For example, biology, chemistry, and physics are disciplines within Science. Arts Education comprises the disciplines of dance, drama, music, and visual arts.
diversity
Diversity is a concept that refers both to our uniqueness as individuals and to our sense of belonging or identification within a group or groups. Diversity refers to the ways in which we differ from each other. Some of these differences may be visible (e.g., race, ethnicity, gender, age, ability), while others are less visible (e.g., culture, ancestry, language, religious beliefs, sexual orientation, gender identity, socio-economic background).
Goals or purposes for diversity include:
- taking into account the different beliefs, customs, practices, languages, behaviours, and physical differences of individuals and cultural groups
- encouraging understanding, acceptance, mutual respect, and inclusion in order to make school communities and society as a whole more equitable for all people
facts
Facts are specific pieces of information about people, places, situations, and things. Facts are organized into topics, which support concepts and generalizations.
First Nations
A First Nation is the self-determined political and organizational unit of the Aboriginal community that has the power to negotiate, on a government-to-government basis, with BC and Canada. Currently, there are 615 First Nation communities in Canada, which represent more than 50 nations or cultural groups and about 60 Aboriginal languages. This term does not have a legal definition but should be used instead of the term “Indian,” which is inaccurate, and offensive to many.
First Peoples
First Peoples refers to First Nations, Métis, and Inuit peoples in Canada, as well as indigenous peoples around the world.
goal
A goal is a statement of intention about what students should learn and understand in an area of learning. Goals may be used as criteria for selecting content, instructional approaches, and assessment strategies and techniques.
habits of mind
Habits of mind are characteristics of intelligence or sets of behaviours that people engage in when they are confronted with problems. Different disciplines may have different habits of mind, captured in the Curricular Competency learning standards. For example, in Science, habits of mind include sustained curiosity; a valuing of questions; an openness to new ideas and consideration of alternatives; an appreciation of evidence; an awareness of assumptions and a questioning of given information; a healthy, informed skepticism; a seeking of patterns, connections, and understanding; and a consideration of social, ethical, and environmental implications.
“Horizontal connections” is a term coined by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development in the document *The Nature of Learning: Using Research to Inspire Practice*. The term is used in reference to the importance of teachers giving consideration to both discipline and interdisciplinary learning to link what students learn to the wider environment and society as a means of fostering deeper learning.
*Inclusion* is the principle that all students are entitled to equitable access to learning, achievement, and the pursuit of excellence in all aspects of their education. The practice of inclusion is not necessarily synonymous with integration and goes beyond placement to include meaningful participation and the promotion of interaction with others.
*Indigenous* has become more used recently provincially, federally, and internationally to replace “Aboriginal,” but the terms are frequently used interchangeably. The term “Indigenous” more closely focuses on being from/belonging to a particular place, territory or land (i.e., originating in and naturally living, growing, or occurring in a region or country).
*Individual Education Plan (IEP)* is a documented plan developed for a student with special needs that describes individualized goals, adaptations, modifications, and the services to be provided, and includes measures for tracking achievement.
*Inquiry* is the mindset that students use to build their own knowledge and understanding through an active, open-minded exploration of a meaningful question, problem, or issue. Inquiry is considered to be a process where students:
- ask questions, conduct research, and produce some type of product to demonstrate their understanding (the product does not have to mark an end point and can be the starting point for further inquiry)
- actively engage in building knowledge and deeper understanding of key concepts
- employ disciplinary thinking to develop important skills, such as formulating good questions, planning inquiries, gathering and analyzing information, and communicating their findings
- explore challenging questions, problems, or issues that can be approached and answered in many different ways
Inquiry does not follow a set process or program. Different authors and organizations have proposed many different models of inquiry. Further, inquiry does not mean that there are “no wrong answers” or that “anything goes.” Rather, it requires students to provide justification for their thinking, changing the discussion from “right or wrong” to “more or less justified.”
Inquiry can be more or less guided and structured depending on what teachers need students to learn or to demonstrate. Inquiry should be scaffolded to match the background knowledge and abilities of the students.
Inquiry-based approaches include:
- **Project-based learning**: In project-based learning (PBL), students go through an extended process of inquiry in response to a complex question, problem, or challenge. While allowing for some degree of student “voice and choice,” rigorous projects are carefully planned, managed, and assessed to help students learn key academic content; practise skills such as collaboration, communication, and critical thinking; and create high-quality, authentic products and presentations.
- **Case method**: A case-based approach engages students in discussion of specific scenarios that resemble or typically are real-world examples. This method is learner-centred, with intense interaction between participants as they build their knowledge and work together as a group to examine a case. Real-world or authentic contexts expose students to multiple viewpoints and help them see why people may want different outcomes. Students can also see how a given decision will impact different participants, both positively and negatively.
- **Problem-based learning**: Problem-based learning is based on the messy, complex problems encountered in the real world as a stimulus for learning and for integrating and organizing learned information in ways that will ensure recall and application to future problems. Problems are raised at the start of the topic, before students have been taught some of the relevant knowledge. By actively engaging with the problem, students develop skills in finding information and in identifying what information they still need and possible sources of that information. Students are able to connect what they are learning in class to their own lives and important issues in their world.
- **Scientific inquiry**: In scientific inquiry, students identify questions based on their observations of the natural world, plan and conduct scientific inquiries to answer their questions, process and analyze the data and information they collect to draw conclusions, evaluate their experimental procedures, communicate their findings, and explore ways to apply their results to innovative projects.
- **Design-based learning**: Design-based learning engages students when they make a product. In the process, students empathize with potential users to understand needs and identify design opportunities. Then they define their design opportunity by identifying features and possible constraints, generating creative ideas and evaluating them, prototyping, testing, making changes and testing again, making their final product, and then sharing it in some way (e.g., showing to others, allowing use by others, giving away, or marketing and selling).
**Integration** is one of the major strategies used to achieve inclusion. With integration, students with special needs are included in educational settings with their peers who do not have special needs, and are provided with the necessary accommodations, determined on an individual basis, to enable them to be successful there. The principle of “placement in the most enabling learning environment” applies when decisions are made about the extent to which an individual student is placed in regular classrooms or assigned to an alternate placement.
Interdisciplinary learning is an integrated, deliberate, and mindful approach that connects the disciplinary knowledge and competencies from more than one area of learning to examine a theme, experience, or topic and/or investigate an issue or problem.
Interdisciplinary learning enables students to develop deeper understanding through:
- expanding their capacity to understand multiple viewpoints on a given topic — students can acquire an appreciation of the differences between disciplines in how to approach and solve a problem
- extending structural disciplinary knowledge, both factual (declarative knowledge) and process-based (procedural knowledge), to solve complex problems
- integrating conflicting insights from alternative disciplines — different disciplines attempt to understand the same or related problems, but each discipline adopts different ways to analyze and evaluate the viability of their insights
Interdisciplinary learning can include the implementation of integrated curriculum. This occurs when learning experiences combine the Curricular Competencies and Content from more than one area of learning, resulting in deeper learning in each area. Learning experiences that, for example, result in students’ increased capacity in Arts Education and Social Studies would feature Curricular Competencies and Content from each area that serve one another for the benefit of student learning.
Inuit are Aboriginal peoples whose origins are different from people known as “North American Indians.” The Inuit generally live in northern Canada and Alaska. In recent years, the term “Inuit” has replaced the term “Eskimo.”
A learning environment is the combined social, physical, psychological, relational, and pedagogical contexts within which learning takes place.
A learning standard is an explicit statement of what students are expected know, understand, and be able to do in a given grade and area of learning. In BC, learning standards are of two types:
- Curricular Competency learning standards are explicit statements of what students are expected to be able to do in a given grade and area of learning.
- Content learning standards define what students should know in a given area of learning at a particular grade level. They define the core knowledge (facts and concepts) essential to the development of Big Ideas for that area of learning in that grade.
In previous curricula, these expectations were presented as learning outcomes.
Literacy is the ability to make meaning from text and express oneself in a variety of modes. This includes comprehending, making connections, critically analyzing, and creating and communicating for a variety of purposes.
Métis
*Métis* is a person of French and Aboriginal ancestry belonging to or descended from the people who established themselves in the Red, Assiniboine, and Saskatchewan River valleys during the 19th century, forming a cultural group distinct from both European and Aboriginal peoples. The Métis were originally based around fur trade culture, when French and Scottish traders married First Nations women in the communities they traded with. The Métis created their own communities and cultural ways distinct from those of the First Nations. This term has also come to mean anyone of First Nations mixed ancestry who self-identifies as Métis.
modifications
*Modifications* are instructional and assessment-related decisions made to accommodate a student’s educational needs, consisting of individualized learning goals and outcomes that are different from the learning outcomes of a course or area of learning. Modifications should be considered for those students whose special needs are such that they are unable to access the curriculum (i.e., students with limited awareness of their surroundings, students with fragile mental/physical health, students medically and cognitively/multiply challenged). Using modifications for students not identified as having special needs should be a rare practice.
numeracy
*Numeracy* is the willingness and ability to interpret and apply mathematical understanding to solve problems in complex situations, and the perseverance to analyze and communicate these solutions in ways that are relevant to the given context.
Personal and Social competency
The *Personal and Social competency* is the set of abilities that relate to students’ identity in the world, both as individuals and as members of their community and society. The Personal and Social competency encompasses the abilities that students need to thrive as individuals, to understand and care about themselves and others, and to find and achieve their purposes in the world.
personalized learning
*Personalized learning* is student-centred education tailored to individual needs. It is responsive to the passions and interests of teachers and students. In personalized learning, the methods, approaches, and learning environments address the interests, learning needs, and aspirations of learners.
place
*Place* is any environment, locality, or context with which people interact to learn, create memory, reflect on history, connect with culture, and establish identity. The connection between people and place is foundational to First Peoples perspectives of the world.
rationale
The *rationale* in provincial curriculum defines the area of learning, identifies the disciplines on which it is based, and explains the significance of the area of learning to students and to society.
school-based team
A *school-based team* is an ongoing team of school-based personnel that has a formal role to play as a problem-solving unit in assisting classroom teachers in developing and implementing instructional and/or management strategies and coordinating support resources for students with special needs within the school.
| Term | Definition |
|-----------------------|-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|
| self-directed learning| Self-directed learning is an approach to learning in which students select, manage, and assess their own learning activities. Students may have the autonomy to select learning activities according to their personal preferences. |
| Special Education | Special Education refers to a range of student support services provided by school districts to respond to the educational needs of its students, particularly those who are gifted or have a disability. |
| students with special needs | Students with special needs are students who have a disability of an intellectual, physical, sensory, emotional, or behavioural nature; have a learning disability; or have exceptional gifts or talents, as defined in the Manual of Policies, Procedures, and Guidelines, Section E. |
| text | A text is any piece or combination of oral, written, visual, or digital communication. |
| Thinking competency | The Thinking competency encompasses the knowledge, skills, and processes we associate with intellectual development. It is through their competency as thinkers that students take subject-specific concepts and content and transform them into a new understanding. Thinking competence includes specific thinking skills as well as habits of mind and metacognitive awareness. |
| topic | A topic brings together a set of facts. Topics themselves are not transferable to other contexts, but they contain concepts, which are transferable. For example, natural disasters is a topic that includes factual knowledge about earthquakes, tornados, and tsunamis, but it leads to the concept of interactions between humans and the environment, which is transferable to other areas of learning. |
| visual texts | Visual texts may include oral, written, or visual elements, such as dramatic presentations, graphic novels, films, atlases, Internet sites, advertisements, websites, or videos. A visual text makes meaning with images, or with meaningful patterns and sequences. For example, a diagram uses images, while a flow chart arranges information in meaningful sequences. |
| ways of knowing | Ways of knowing refers to the various beliefs about the nature of knowledge that people have; they can include, but are not limited to, Aboriginal, gender-related, subject/discipline specific, cultural, embodied, and intuitive beliefs about knowledge. |
| worldview | A worldview is the perspective or lens through which one interprets the world. |
Note: Assessment terminology will be added in the near future. | 2d9c305b-052f-45d2-8dd2-99b80d1c67da | CC-MAIN-2021-43 | https://www.curriculum.gov.bc.ca/sites/curriculum.gov.bc.ca/files/pdf/supports/glossary.pdf | 2021-10-19T21:45:37+00:00 | crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2021-43/segments/1634323585281.35/warc/CC-MAIN-20211019202148-20211019232148-00692.warc.gz | 885,114,063 | 4,587 | eng_Latn | eng_Latn | 0.995795 | eng_Latn | 0.99598 | [
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ROLAND TOPCHISHVILI
GEORGIAN-OSSETIAN LINGUAL-ETHNIC RELATIONS AND LINGUAL SITUATION AMONG THE OSSETIANS OF GEORGIA
After the migration and settling of Ossetians in Georgia the three periods can be distinguished in their lingual development. The first period was the one, when Ossetians were lived in conditions of Georgian statehood. The Ossetians were considered themselves as the citizens of Georgian State and among the representatives of the other ethnic groups were honoured the state language of Georgia. The majority of Ossetians knew Georgian language. In the contact zones many Georgians were also speaking Ossetian fluently. This situation was caused by the existed economic and kinship relation between Georgians and Ossetians.
Till 19 century, after turning Georgia into the Russian colony the lingual situation among Ossetians was changed by the active influence of the Russian government. Russia was spreading the Russian language by force in its colonies. In Georgia
Russian government was trying to substitute Georgian language by Russian as the second language for Ossetians. The 19th century and especially its later half became were for many Ossetians the period of adoption of the Russian language. In this period public figures citizens of Georgia made all efforts to assist Ossetians in preserving their own language and ethnic features. In 19th century many Ossetians spoke Georgian for the practical necessity.
The third period is the Soviet one, when the Bolshevik government achieved to alienate Georgians and Ossetians from each other. In the conditions of total influence of Russian language extensively taught at schools the main part of Ossetian ethnos neglecting to speak Georgian language. Some representatives of Ossetian educated people still speaking and reading Georgian consciously avoid speaking it. | d6a8a00b-97d3-4538-9f12-b0fd1f8d3cb9 | CC-MAIN-2022-49 | https://ejournals.atsu.ge/Kartvelology/issues/VIII/TopchishviliRoland.pdf | 2022-11-28T05:07:57+00:00 | crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-49/segments/1669446710473.38/warc/CC-MAIN-20221128034307-20221128064307-00290.warc.gz | 268,124,087 | 368 | eng_Latn | eng_Latn | 0.994834 | eng_Latn | 0.994654 | [
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What’s your favorite Christmas tradition?
Describe the best gift you’ve ever received.
Describe your best Christmas memory.
What’s your favorite holiday treat?
Would you rather spend the day with Rudolph or Santa?
If you could spend Christmas anywhere, where would it be?
If you were Santa, what treat would you like for kids to leave?
Name the best Christmas movie and why it’s your favorite.
What’s the greatest gift anyone could ever receive?
Do you think Santa has the best/worst job? Why? | b68126c9-c69e-4cb4-b4a0-fee1843a8e88 | CC-MAIN-2021-04 | https://writtenreality.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/christmas-dinner-games.pdf | 2021-01-22T00:45:49+00:00 | crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2021-04/segments/1610703528672.38/warc/CC-MAIN-20210121225305-20210122015305-00012.warc.gz | 648,577,664 | 103 | eng_Latn | eng_Latn | 0.999057 | eng_Latn | 0.999057 | [
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The Scientific Revolution and the Enlightenment, 1543–1789
The Scientific Revolution and the Enlightenment came about as direct, although not immediate, results of the Renaissance and Reformation. During the Renaissance, many ancient Greek and Latin texts came to light and were seriously studied for the first time in centuries. Scholars learned of ancient discoveries in mathematics, astronomy, and philosophy that had been suppressed or dismissed by the Church. The Renaissance also encouraged individual scholars to question the Church’s teachings. The perfection of the printing press made the widespread dissemination of old and new knowledge possible. Finally, the Reformation loosened the stranglehold on thought that Christianity had maintained for centuries.
During the Scientific Revolution, direct observations of nature gave people a new way of understanding the world. The Church saw the Scientific Revolution as a threat for two reasons: it changed *what* people thought and, more important, *how* they thought. The increase in human knowledge of the workings of the universe that occurred during the Scientific Revolution was the product of experimentation—of scientists making observations, taking notes, studying their data, and developing theories and conclusions based on what they perceived with their five senses. The Church was naturally hostile to a process that threatened its own supremacy over what people thought. Church officials did not want to change the centuries-old system in which their own scholars and teachers interpreted the world in accordance with their faith, and insisted that the people accept this interpretation rather than thinking about the matter for themselves.
The great thinkers—called *philosophes*—of the Enlightenment applied this same scientific process of critical thinking to social and political problems. They believed in the perfectibility of humanity and society; their goal was a peaceful, prosperous world in which ignorance, greed, and tyranny had no place. For nearly a century, the *philosophes* wrote, argued, debated, and taught that all people were born free and equal, and that individuals should be able to make their way in the world as reasonable beings with a right to decide how and where they wished to live. In the end, they brought about, at least in part, the new world they had imagined; their teachings led directly to major revolutions in British North America and in France.
**CHAPTER 8 OBJECTIVES**
- Explain the causes of the Scientific Revolution.
- Identify the major achievements and discoveries of the Scientific Revolution.
- Define the Enlightenment and its major causes and effects.
- Identify the major figures of the Scientific Revolution and the Enlightenment and match each person to his or her accomplishments in science, mathematics, literature, and philosophy.
**Chapter 8 Time Line**
- **1543** Copernicus argues in *De Revolutionibus* that planets move around the sun
- **1577** Tycho Brahe proves that comets are astral bodies
- **1609** Johannes Kepler discovers that planets move in elliptical orbits
| Year | Event |
|------|-------|
| 1610 | Galileo observes moons of Jupiter |
| 1633 | Roman Inquisition forces Galileo to recant |
| 1637 | Descartes publishes work on analytic geometry |
| 1654 | Christiaan Huygens invents the pendulum clock |
| 1687 | Newton publishes *Principia Mathematica* |
| 1748 | Montesquieu publishes *L'Esprit des lois* |
| 1759 | Voltaire publishes *Candide* |
| 1762 | Rousseau publishes *Contract social* |
| 1776 | American Revolution begins |
| 1789 | French Revolution |
**The Scientific Revolution**
The ancients, first in the Middle East and then in Classical Greece and Rome, had made great strides in mathematics and the sciences. However, during the Christian era, any scientific teachings that conflicted with the Bible were rigorously suppressed and denounced as heresy.
During the Middle Ages, scientists theorized without having the means of testing their ideas by experimentation. By the seventeenth century this was no longer the case. The invention of the telescope, for example, made it possible to see the heavens up close and observe how the planets moved through space. By the same token, printing had spread throughout Europe beginning in the 1400s, so it was much easier to publicize and share new knowledge than it had been in medieval times. It made possible a true scientific community of scholars who knew one another, corresponded, and shared and discussed their ideas.
The era is known as the Scientific Revolution for two reasons. The first is the major discoveries in astronomy, physics, and mathematics that took place at this time. The second is a shift in thinking that was both the cause and the result of the Scientific Revolution. In the past, people had believed that what happened in the universe was the result of divine whims that were beyond human understanding; now they saw the universe as a machine that worked according to fixed laws that human beings could discover and understand. However, the Scientific Revolution did not do away with human faith in God;
rather, it suggested that God had created the universe and set it in motion according to the laws the scientists had observed. God was considered similar to a watchmaker, who designed and built a watch, wound it up, and left it to run on its own.
As new discoveries followed one another, science became the hobby of many people of leisure. These rich people, including monarchs such as Catherine the Great of Russia, helped the Scientific Revolution in two ways. First, their interest in science and mechanics lent an air of respectability to experimentation and discovery. Second, they were reliable sources of patronage and sponsorship, providing financial support, influence with the powerful, and welcome interest and enthusiasm to many scholars.
**Major Figures of the Scientific Revolution**
The Scientific Revolution was an international phenomenon; scholars from all over Europe took part in it. This chapter describes the most important figures of the era.
**Copernicus**
Nicolaus Copernicus was born in 1473 in Torun, Poland. He learned astronomy from the books he read as a student in Italy. Books of the time agreed that the Earth was at the center of the universe and that the other heavenly bodies, including the sun, traveled around it. In ancient times, both Ptolemy and Aristotle had arrived at this view by observing the heavens. Despite Aristotle’s status as a pagan from the Classical era, the Church fathers had always accepted his view of astronomy because it allowed them to teach that humankind, God’s supreme creation, had its proper place in the center of the universe.
Copernicus, however, came to believe that Aristotle and Ptolemy were wrong. He suggested that the sun, not the Earth, was at the center of the universe, with the planets orbiting it. It seemed to Copernicus that since the Earth and its moon were spherical, the orbits of the planets should be circular; however, he realized that from the point of view of the Earth, the orbits could not be perfect circles. In 1543, Copernicus published his thoughts and discoveries in a book called *De Revolutionibus*, known in English as *On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres*. He died the same year.
Brahe
The next great European astronomer was Tycho Brahe. Born in 1546 to a noble family in what was then Danish territory, Brahe was fortunate in having as his patron a king who provided him with a fully fitted observatory. This enabled him to conduct direct experiments in astronomy—the first in Europe for many centuries. While Copernicus’ theories had been more or less guesses, Brahe’s observations told him that while the sun and moon traveled around the Earth, the other planets orbited the sun. Like Copernicus, he could not understand why the planets’ apparently circular orbits were not regular.
Kepler
Brahe’s assistant, the brilliant Johannes Kepler, took discoveries of the heavens one step further. Born in 1571 in the free city of Weil der Stadt, Kepler used mathematics and direct observation to show that the orbits of the planets were ellipses, not circles. As soon as he replaced the idea of circles with that of ellipses, the orbital paths became regular. Kepler also proved that the planets orbited the sun at different speeds. His greatest work was *On the Motion of Mars*, published in 1609; it soon appeared on the Holy Office’s *Index of Forbidden Books*.
Astronomy took a giant leap forward with the discovery of the telescope, first patented in the Netherlands in 1608–1609. Scientists had realized during the 1300s that a glass lens could magnify an object seen through it; they had been using this knowledge ever since to manufacture eyeglasses and magnifying glasses. However, these were only intended to improve people’s vision for everyday purposes such as reading. No one had thought to apply the same idea to achieving a close-up view of such faraway objects as the stars.
Galileo
Mathematics and engineering professor Galileo Galilei of Pisa was the first to make extensive use of the telescope to study the planets. With this new invention—at that time no more than a plain narrow tube a little over a yard long, with concave and convex lenses inside—he was able to see things in the heavens that had simply not been visible to his predecessors.
Looking through his telescope in 1610, Galileo realized immediately that Jupiter had its own moons in orbit around it, just as the Earth had a moon. This
discovery alone proved that Earth was not the center of the universe around which all other objects orbited. When Galileo published his new knowledge of the heavens, Kepler and most of Europe’s intellectuals, including the Jesuit astronomers, eagerly accepted them.
Through his telescope, Galileo saw the rings around Saturn, although he did not understand what they were. He observed that, contrary to Aristotle’s assertion that all heavenly bodies were perfect, smooth spheres, the surface of the Earth’s moon was craggy and irregular. Since the Church had accepted Aristotle’s theory of the universe, this meant that Galileo was well on his way to making an enemy of one of Europe’s most powerful institutions.
In 1632, Galileo published *Dialogue on the Two Great Systems of the World*. Written in the form of an imaginary dialogue between Copernicus and Ptolemy, this work discussed theories about planetary orbits and tides. A lifelong and devout Catholic, Galileo dedicated the *Dialogue* to Pope Urban VIII. It was clear that he anticipated no trouble from the Church because of his writing; he had carefully refrained from discussing certain forbidden topics, such as the work of Kepler.
To Galileo’s surprise, Urban VIII summoned him to Rome to appear before the Inquisition on the charge of defying the Holy Office’s policy against writing about Copernican theory. Galileo produced documentary proof of his assertion that he was permitted to write speculatively about Copernican astronomy. Despite this evidence, the Inquisition refused to face the public mockery that would have resulted from making a mistake over a figure so internationally famous as Galileo. The Holy Office therefore sentenced Galileo to deny the validity of his own discoveries, then placed him under custody of the liberal archbishop of Siena, who encouraged him to continue working and writing. In effect, Galileo remained under house arrest until his death in 1642. He was free to study, experiment, and write, although it proved difficult (though not impossible) to find publishers in the face of a Holy Office ban on anything he might produce.
Within the next few years Galileo’s works spread throughout Europe in various translations and editions. His last book, *The Two New Sciences*, discussed the structure of matter, the strength of materials, and the laws governing natural motion. He discovered the laws of falling bodies and the mathematical formula we use to describe acceleration.
Defending his own writings in his later personal correspondence, Galileo argued that God had given human beings the ability to observe and reason. What people could see and understand with their five senses must be the
truth; for instance, that planets moved around the sun. He argued that if this appeared to conflict with the scriptures, then human understanding of the scriptures must be at fault.
**Newton**
The year of Galileo’s death saw the birth of Isaac Newton in rural Lincolnshire, England. Newton attended Cambridge University and studied the works of Galileo and Kepler. Newton revolutionized scientific thinking in Europe with his discovery of the principle of gravity—the single, constant force in the universe that attracted objects to one another. Newton realized that it was gravity that attracted the planets to the sun and the moons to the planets; gravity was what kept each body in a regular orbit at a constant distance from the larger mass around which it revolved. Newton’s work explained how gravity could be calculated mathematically; he was the first scientist to apply calculus to astronomy.
The importance of Newton’s discovery of the principle of gravity cannot be underestimated. It revolutionized European thinking, proving once and for all that the people could understand the way their own world worked. Before Newton, Europeans had understood the universe as operating by divine whims that they could not hope to understand; after Newton, they understood it as operating by fixed, comprehensible laws. For the first time, an understanding of the world could be based on human reason and experience, not on faith.
Like Galileo and those who had gone before him, Newton believed that his scientific theories were perfectly compatible with Church teaching. In his view, the law of gravity was a divine creation, and he was doing honor to God by revealing his divine plan. Unfortunately, the Church could not accept this view; as it had always done, it reacted to independent intellectual endeavor with suspicion and hostility. In a sense, the Church was right to recognize the threat posed by scientific discovery. Since science proved that the Church had been teaching an inaccurate and false theory of the structure of the universe, *all* Church teaching was called into question. The Scientific Revolution permanently weakened the place the Church held in popular regard.
**The Enlightenment (The Age of Reason)**
In the wake of the Scientific Revolution came the Enlightenment, a period of intellectual achievement that lasted for approximately a century, from the English Revolution in 1689 to the French Revolution in 1789. The Enlightenment is also called the Age of Reason. This movement was a natural consequence of the Scientific Revolution, which had introduced a new thought process to the West. During the Age of Reason, intellectuals applied that new way of thinking to social and political questions. They argued against political and religious tyranny, against a fixed hierarchy of social ranks, against censorship, and against chattel slavery. They argued for freedom—freedom of individual thought, freedom of the press and the arts, freedom to have a say in one's own government, and freedom to rise in the world according to merit rather than the accident of birth and rank.
The Enlightenment was centered in France—specifically in Paris—for a variety of reasons. First, France was the dominant power in Europe because of its victory in the Thirty Years' War (see Chapter 5). Second, French was the common language of educated Europeans in the eighteenth century, just as Latin had been during the Renaissance. Third, the establishment of the French academies of arts, sciences, and letters had given a degree of official approval and sponsorship to intellectuals, although this was also true in other nations, and censorship still operated in France. Enlightenment thinkers viewed Britain as the ideal society; although it had many problems yet to overcome, Britain was a constitutional monarchy with a relatively representative government and relative religious tolerance, and therefore a haven from tyranny. Last and not least, France had a central geographical location on the European continent; the less restrictive conditions in Britain might make it appear a natural center for an intellectual movement, but it was an island on the other side of the English Channel.
The thinkers of the Enlightenment were men (and some women) of all European nations: Britain, Germany, France, Poland, and Italy. They achieved fame in various fields: there were poets, playwrights, political thinkers, non-fiction writers, scientists, novelists, philosophers, and economists. They were collectively known as *philosophes*—a French word that can perhaps best be translated as "critical thinkers." What united the *philosophes* as one group was this critical way of thinking—the habit of applying the same reasoning process to the problems and questions of their age. They came to a variety of conclusions—there were in fact some fierce disagreements among them—but all used the same method to arrive at them.
The Enlightenment marked a break with the past in two major ways. First, the Middle Ages and the period that followed had generally been a time of
pessimism, or at best resignation. Many medieval Church officials and even scholars had believed the world would end in 1500; people made the best of life on earth only in the hope of achieving something better after death. By contrast, the Enlightenment was an era of optimism, in which the great intellectuals believed in the perfectibility of humankind. The *philosophes* believed that reasoning and knowledge could solve the problems of society, if properly applied. They believed that a world of peace, prosperity, and earthly happiness could truly be achieved. Their ideas about political theory were based on notions of individual liberty, which they and their followers expressed in the French Declaration of the Rights of Man (see Chapter 9) and the American Declaration of Independence and Bill of Rights.
Second, human society had always accepted that human beings were God's creation; people had always dedicated their endeavors to the glory of God and had prayed for God's assistance when going into battle or danger. This attitude even persisted during the Scientific Revolution. During the Enlightenment, the *philosophes* began openly questioning the relevance, if not the existence, of God. They focused on human achievement as the product of a particular individual's merit, and honored that person rather than God.
**Major Thinkers of the Enlightenment**
The *philosophes* of the Enlightenment were such a large and varied group that this book can only cover a few of the most prominent.
**Montesquieu**
Charles-Louis Secondat, Baron de Montesquieu, was born in 1689 in the Gironde region of southwestern France. His two most famous works are the *Persian Letters* (1721) and *L'Esprit des lois*, or *The Spirit of Laws* (1748).
Many scholars consider the *Persian Letters* as the book that began the Enlightenment. It is in the form of a collection of letters written by two fictional Persian travelers in Europe. The travelers observe and comment on French society, government, and customs, and also discuss conditions at the Persian court they have left behind. Montesquieu used this format to make some pointed, although veiled, criticisms of the despotism that prevailed at this time in France. He scoffed at the vanity and pride that the hereditary nobles took in their social position, noting that it came not from intelligence or virtue but from the accident of birth. Montesquieu published the *Persian Letters*
anonymously in the Netherlands, a common course for authors to pursue at that time if they thought their ideas would stir up trouble with the authorities. The book was a great success, going through several editions in a single year.
*The Spirit of Laws* is a work of serious political theory; unlike *Persian Letters*, it does not make its points under the guise of fiction. This was the first book to advocate a balanced government made of different branches—executive, legislative, and judicial—each of which had some power over the others. Montesquieu believed this was the best way to avoid the autocracy that he felt was corrupt and harmful to society. The work also examined the roles of major social institutions such as the Church, which lost no time placing it on the *Index of Forbidden Books*. However, it was widely read and highly influential; fifty years after the book’s appearance, the government of the United States was organized along the lines suggested by Montesquieu.
**Voltaire**
Born in Paris in 1694, François-Marie Arouet was educated by the Jesuits and determined early on to pursue a career in writing. Around 1718, he coined the pen name “Voltaire,” by which he was known for the rest of his long and productive life.
One of Voltaire’s most important concerns was freedom of religion. During a three-year stay in England in the 1720s, he observed what he considered an ideal society, one that supported its artists and men of letters while allowing its citizens to worship as they saw fit. By praising England enthusiastically in his *Letters on England* (1733), Voltaire implied severe criticism of the very different conditions in France; as a consequence, the book was banned in his own country. Voltaire was twice imprisoned in the Bastille for his writings; after the second prison term, he moved to the Swiss border area, where it would be easy to flee if the state pursued him in the future.
Voltaire published throughout his lifetime, both fiction and nonfiction, and kept up a voluminous correspondence with all the great thinkers of his age. His best-known work is the short novel *Candide* (1759), which lampoons many of the worst aspects of European society: government, military life, and religion. The novel concludes that “one must cultivate one’s garden”—in other words, what is most important is to use one’s intellectual and philosophical skills to solve real, practical problems in a realistic and practical way.
Voltaire lived to the great age of eighty-four, not quite long enough to witness the French Revolution (see Chapter 9) but long enough to see himself crowned as the elder statesman of the Enlightenment.
Rousseau
Jean-Jacques Rousseau, born in 1712 in Geneva, Switzerland, was in many ways the odd man out among the *philosophes*. As his thinking developed over time, he quarreled violently with almost all of them. Concentrating on man’s emotional side rather than his reasoning powers, Rousseau believed passionately in the importance of each person as a unique individual. His works insist that the emotional makeup of a person is just as important as the intellectual; therefore, he has often been considered the father of the Romantic movement in the arts (see Chapter 11).
In *The Social Contract* (1762), Rousseau described his ideal society. He believed that social structure was inherently evil because, as he could see for himself, it created false ideas of inequality. He saw people born into one social rank, and thus condemned to stay in it regardless of natural merits or faults. Rousseau believed that without an imposed social structure, human beings would follow their nature and would relate to one another in benevolence rather than self-interest. This notion of the “noble savage” seemed ludicrous to many of the other *philosophes*, who believed that education was the key to a better society.
Diderot
Denis Diderot was born in 1713 in the town of Langres in northeastern France. Like Voltaire, he received a good education under the Jesuits. He was able to turn his hand to any number of intellectual tasks, including editing, translating, and writing both fiction and nonfiction.
Diderot’s most important contribution to the legacy of the Enlightenment is the *Encyclopédie*. The project came about when he accepted a commission to translate *Chambers’ Cyclopaedia* into French. Diderot decided to publish his own encyclopedia, which grew over time to seventeen volumes of text (published 1751–1765) and eleven volumes of engraved illustrations, completed in 1773. Until 1758, mathematician Jean Baptiste d’Alembert worked with Diderot as coeditor; when D’Alembert withdrew, succumbing to pressure from powerful vested interests who did not want to see the work published, Diderot carried on alone.
As its name suggests, the *Encyclopédie* was an attempt to sum up all human knowledge in one place. It included articles by all the greatest thinkers and writers of the age (including Voltaire, Rousseau, and Diderot himself) on a
variety of topics: science, technology, crafts, mathematics, art, religion, music, and history. The purpose of the *Encyclopédie* was to enlighten the ignorant—to provide ordinary people with information that everyone, as a sentient being in the world, should know. The *philosophes* believed strongly in the value of education; they saw ignorance as their enemy. They believed that educating the common people was one of the most basic and important ways to improve society.
**QUIZ**
1. The Scientific Revolution and the Enlightenment share which of the following?
A. the approval and support of the Church
B. the design of new systems of government
C. the process of critical thinking and experimentation
D. the invention of new solutions to major social problems
2. ____________ is an important historical figure because he realized that the planets moved in regular elliptical orbits around the sun.
A. Tycho Brahe
B. Nicolaus Copernicus
C. Galileo Galilei
D. Johannes Kepler
3. One important reason France was the center of the Enlightenment was that
A. it was the largest centrally located nation in Europe.
B. it had a more despotic government than any other European nation.
C. its people spoke the language common to all educated people of the time.
D. it did not allow censorship of the press.
4. What argument did Galileo make in support of his discoveries about the planets when the Church refused to accept them?
A. that what could be observed by the human eye must be the truth
B. that Church fathers had no right to make pronouncements about astronomy
C. that other intellectuals and scientists agreed with his findings
D. that he had used the finest scientific instruments of the day
5. Church officials were hostile to the discoveries of the Scientific Revolution because
A. the discoveries were not the result of proper experimentation and study.
B. the scientists who made the discoveries were all Protestants.
C. they objected to the scientists’ expressed disbelief in God.
D. these discoveries contradicted and disproved what the Church had always taught.
6. The term *philosophe* is best translated as
A. scholar.
B. critical thinker.
C. student.
D. intellectual.
7. Which statement is true of all the *philosophes* of the Enlightenment?
A. They were all French.
B. They all supported and agreed with one another.
C. They all shared a common way of thinking.
D. They were all knowledgeable about mathematics and science.
8. Rousseau has been called the father of the Romantic movement because
A. he imagined a government operating under a system of checks and balances.
B. he believed in the supreme importance of each human being’s individual personality and emotions.
C. he wrote clever satires on the society of his day.
D. he conceived the idea of a multivolume French encyclopedia of knowledge.
9. Which best describes the *Encyclopédie*?
A. a satire of French government and society
B. a compendium of historical and scientific facts, dates, and important events
C. a compilation of information on scientific, mechanical, artistic, and historical topics
D. an illustrated guide to the lives of France’s most famous citizens
10. Which best describes what the *philosophes* hoped and believed the future might hold for humankind?
A. They believed that society might become peaceful, prosperous, and happy.
B. They believed that the world would end in a great war among all nations.
C. They believed that there was no possibility that society would ever improve.
D. They believed that society would succumb to despotism. | c79cdbb9-d2d2-405b-b5ef-ec05713bee95 | CC-MAIN-2023-40 | https://fiatlux-day.org/euro/test_prep/demystified/8-scientific_revolution_and_enlightenment.pdf | 2023-10-01T09:39:38+00:00 | crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2023-40/segments/1695233510810.46/warc/CC-MAIN-20231001073649-20231001103649-00535.warc.gz | 282,892,764 | 5,781 | eng_Latn | eng_Latn | 0.997962 | eng_Latn | 0.99837 | [
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BULLYING CAN TAKE MANY FORMS.
- It can include name-calling, teasing or saying untrue things about the person.
- It can also be physical, for example pushing, hitting or kicking, and can include serious physical violence.
- Some bullies use their mobile phones to hurt others, by sending unkind texts, or by filming or taking photos of the person they are bullying.
- Cyber-bullying is bullying on the internet, using email, instant messaging or social networking sites to intimidate, expose or spread rumours about others.
WHO GETS BULLIED?
Any child or young person can end up being bullied – it depends on who they happen to meet or go to school with, and what is happening in their lives. But some children and young people are more likely to become victims, as it may be harder for them to ‘fit in’ with the crowd:
- Those with physical disabilities or differences
- Those with learning difficulties, speech and language difficulties or behavioural issues
- Those who are very shy or have low self-esteem
- Those with mental health difficulties
- Those who have difficult or unusual home situations such as a parent in prison
- Those who are from a different area, ethnic group or social group from the majority, or who speak a different language
IS BULLYING NORMAL?
All children and young people fall out with their friends and classmates at times, and some teasing and name-calling may also be part of normal friendships. But if the teasing is persistent and upsetting the person it is aimed at, or if it tips over into harassment or physical violence, it can be very damaging and needs to be stopped.
Many children get involved in bullying at some time during their school days – they may be bullied themselves, they may bully someone else, or they may see a friend being bullied.
WHAT HARM DOES BULLYING DO?
It can sometimes be difficult for adults to understand the distress and misery bullying causes, especially if the bullying is ‘only’ teasing or name-calling. But bullying can be very upsetting and can affect children and young people for a long time.
A child or young person who is being bullied may come to believe they deserve it. They can feel isolated, anxious and angry. Bullying can lead to depression, self-harm and eating problems. If the bullying is happening at school they may make excuses so they don’t have to go to school, or get so anxious they cannot go in. This can affect their school work, friendships, and even their future prospects.
Being bullied regularly can be associated with problems later on in life as well. Some adults who were bullied when they were young can suffer from depression, anger problems and low self-esteem.
MY CHILD IS BEING BULLIED - WHAT CAN WE DO?
For a parent, finding out your child is being bullied can be difficult and stressful. Supporting them can be challenging, as you go through your own feelings of fear, anger, sympathy and protection.
If your child has told you or someone else that they are being bullied, then they have taken an enormous step and need support and encouragement to get through the situation. It is important to listen supportively, without offering opinions or judgement, and only try to stop it when they are ready to go through the process.
AT SCHOOL
If your child is being bullied at school, their teacher needs to be informed. Every school has to have a policy on bullying behaviour and you can ask for a copy of this. The teacher should take steps to address the bullies’ behaviour and protect your child. If you think the issue is not being taken seriously you can ask to discuss it with the head teacher. It may be useful to put things in writing so there is a record of what has happened.
OUTSIDE SCHOOL
If the bullying is taking place out of school it may be harder to sort out, as you may not know the bullies, or have any way of dealing with them. You can think with your child about ways in which they can protect themselves and keep themselves safe, for example by always going out with a friend, by changing their social activities or thinking of things to say to the bullies if they do meet.
CYBER BULLYING
If your child is being bullied by mobile phone or online, there are a number of very useful websites with advice on how to deal with cyber-bullying, see the organisations below. It is important to make sure your child understands the importance of keeping their details private, to keep themselves safe online.
AFTERWARDS
When bullying stops some children feel better immediately. Others go through feelings of anger, anxiety and upset and it can take a while before they feel better and are able to move on. It is important to give them time to get over it and not to push them to talk about it, but also to be there if they want to discuss it.
Some children and young people are so badly affected by bullying that they need counselling or psychotherapy to help them get over it. If you think your child needs this kind of help, your GP should be able to make a referral, or phone YoungMinds Parents Helpline for advice.
MY CHILD IS A BULLY – HOW TO STOP THEM!
If you find out that your child is a bully, it can be very shocking and can cause difficult feelings. However, it can often be the opportunity to help your child and change whatever is causing their behaviour.
It will need to talk to your child and to the school, if that is where it is happening. Try and work together with the school and receive support in a positive way. It is important that the behaviour is taken seriously and that your child knows what will happen if it continues.
Your child may need some counselling or psychotherapy, as they could have been feeling sad or depressed for a while. It is important that your child knows what will happen if it continues.
HELP FOR CHILDREN
| Help Line | 0800 4111 |
|-----------|-----------|
| Textphone | 0800 400 222 |
| Mon-Fri 9.30am-6.30pm & 11am-8pm Weekends, |
| Living Apart from home: | 0800 88 44 44 |
| Monday-Friday 3-5pm-9.30pm & 11am-8pm Weekends |
Childline is the UK’s free helpline for children and young people. It provides a confidential telephone counselling service for any crisis with any problem.
Childline Website: www.childline.org.uk offers - email and online services and a range of information for children and young people.
Get Connected
Tel: 0808 800 5994
7 days a week 1-11pm, Web chat 7pm-10pm
Helping a child who is being bullied can be a difficult experience. It is especially important that schools encourage pupils to accept that it is not wrong to tell. Children also need to be sure that something will be done to stop the bullying, otherwise they might not tell. A whole school policy on bullying is the best way to do this.
Schools can also help young people learn skills of mediation, conflict resolution and support. Referring and Buddying schemes can also play a useful part.
WHAT SHOULD SCHOOLS BE DOING TO PREVENT BULLYING?
Schools can do a lot to stop bullying happening and should have a clear, well publicised policy on bullying. When everyone has a clear, well publicised policy on bullying, pupils and teachers involved in the school – teachers, pupils, parents and non-teaching staff – takes an open and strong stand against bullying.
It must be made clear that every person should be respected – and that includes a pupil who is being bullied. It is especially important pupils know that it is not wrong to tell. Children also need to be sure that something will be done to stop the bullying, otherwise they might not tell. A whole school policy on bullying is the best way to do this.
Schools can also help young people learn skills of mediation, conflict resolution and support. Referring and Buddying schemes can also play a useful part.
TRY AND WORK TOGETHER WITH THE SCHOOL AND RESOLVE THE ISSUES.
HELP FOR PARENTS AND TEACHERS
| Help Line | 0800 4111 |
|-----------|-----------|
| Textphone | 0800 400 222 |
| Mon-Fri 9.30am-6.30pm & 11am-8pm Weekends, |
| Living Apart from home: | 0800 88 44 44 |
| Monday-Friday 3-5pm-9.30pm & 11am-8pm Weekends |
Website: www.bullyingonline.org.uk
Provides information packs to schools, website contains advice and information relating to bullying for young people, parents and teachers.
Description
2 Grosvenor Gardens London SW1A 0DH
Tel: 020 7730 3300
Bullying Hotline for parents: 08451 205 204
Website: www.bullyingonline.org.uk
Ridicule provides training, books, videos, teaching packs and leaflets on how to deal with bullying. Send a large SAE with £6 first class stamps for a bullying pack.
Bullying: A Guide to the Law
This guide provides information for parents and carers on bullying and what schools are required to do to prevent, and deal with, it effectively. This guide also provides practical advice when parents can do it that child is being bullied, and want to do it the school fails to support their child.
Children’s Legal Centre www.childrenslegalcentre.com
| Support Line | 0845 30 30 000 |
|--------------|----------------|
| Textphone: | 1800 094 30 30 9000 |
| Website: | www.welcometoparrot.com |
| Confidential Service offering practical help and emotional support to anyone affected by crime in the UK. |
| Website: | www.youngminds.org.uk |
|--------------|-----------------------|
| Support Line | 0808 802 5544 |
| Free & Confidential Service |
| Lines open 9.30am – 4.00pm |
| Mon – Fri |
| Website: | www.youngminds.org.uk |
|--------------|-----------------------|
| Parents Helpline |
| 0808 802 5544 |
| FREE & CONFIDENTIAL SERVICE |
| Lines open 9.30am – 4.00pm |
| Mon – Fri |
| Website: | www.youngminds.org.uk |
|--------------|-----------------------|
| YoungMinds |
| The voice for young people's mental health and wellbeing |
| Registered Charity No: 1010198 |
| Company No: 2708013 |
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Things that may be helpful
Juvenile Dermatomyositis can be well managed, but it may be helpful to:
- Learn as much as you can about your illness.
- See your doctors regularly to monitor treatments & help you live a healthier life.
- Always take the drugs prescribed by your doctor.
- Put on sunscreen to protect the skin from sun damage. Always wear a hat.
- Use lotions to help soothe skin rashes.
- Do physical & occupational therapy exercises to help muscles work better & get stronger.
- Exercise is good for you as it strengthens muscles & keeps joints flexible. If you are feeling unwell you should reduce your exercise until you feel better.
- Tiredness is common so resting is good. Learn to timetable rest times after active times.
- Pay attention to your body & slow down especially when you are not feeling well.
- Consider speech therapy to help with swallowing problems.
- Seek advice from a dietician to learn about foods that can help you & different ways to prepare foods.
Include a variety of foods in your diet.
Don’t eat too many foods that contain high levels of sugars, salt & fats.
Drink adequate fluids, in particular water.
WHERE CAN I GET HELP?
Autoimmune Resource & Research Centre
Telephone: 02 49214095
email: firstname.lastname@example.org
web: www.autoimmune.org.au
Proudly supported by
Original artwork and design
Morgan Williams, Griphon Graphics © 2019
What is juvenile dermatomyositis?
It is a condition in children that causes skin rash (dermato-) muscle inflammation & weakness (-myositis). Blood vessels in the skin may also be affected.
What causes juvenile dermatomyositis?
We don’t know what causes juvenile dermatomyositis but we do know that it involves the immune system. Our body uses the immune system to protect itself from harmful things such as bacteria & viruses (bugs). We are not sure why some children have an immune system that does not work properly but we do know that when some people get sick it is caused by the system being over active & causing harm to itself. This is called autoimmune illness. Juvenile dermatomyositis is one of these.
There is nothing you could have done to stop yourself getting the condition. We also know that you cannot catch the condition from other people or give it to them.
What are the signs and symptoms?
Symptoms often appear slowly with the most common signs & symptoms being:
- Skin rash which is violet coloured or dusky red. The rash is most likely on the face, eyelids, around nails, elbows, knuckles, knees, chest & back. The rash can be patchy & have bluish-purple patches.
- Muscle weakness in the hips, thighs, shoulders, neck & upper arms. This often causes falls & makes it hard to get dressed or brush your hair for example.
- Muscle pain or soreness.
- Fever (a raised body temperature).
- Tiredness & fatigue.
- Loss of weight & poor appetite.
- Problems swallowing.
- Hardened lumps under the skin.
- Problems with the gut & lungs due to weakened muscle.
How is it diagnosed?
For most children, the condition can be diagnosed after episodes of repeated fever with tiredness, muscle weakness & rash. However not everyone has the rash at the start. A physical examination & patient history will help but other tests will be needed to make the diagnosis. The doctor will order tests that may include:
- Blood tests to look for inflammation & antibodies in the blood.
- An MRI (a type of x-ray) to look closely at muscles, organs & other tissues within the body.
- A muscle biopsy, which is a procedure where a small bit of muscle is removed & examined under a microscope.
- An electromyograph (EMG) which is a test for measuring electrical signals in your muscles. These signals are the messages between your brain & muscle that tell the muscle to move. This test can tell if muscles & tissues are damaged.
How is it treated?
There are many treatments used. None of these can cure the condition but can help you to feel better. Everybody has different symptoms so your treatment will be based on your symptoms & problems. Your doctor can explain which ones will best help you.
Treatments often include taking medications (drugs). The most commonly used drugs are:
- Prednisolone treats muscle inflammation
- Methotrexate suppresses the immune system.
These will be given to you in higher doses when you are sick & slowly reduced over time. You may also need to take higher doses if you have a time when your symptoms get worse. There are also many other drugs that are useful in treating specific symptoms. Your doctor will talk to you about these if they are needed.
For some children the condition does not last for very long while others have it for many years. Juvenile Dermatomyositis can be mild in some children & quite severe in others. Treatments can change over time & will only stop when doctors are sure you are free of symptoms of the condition. | 1635f424-be65-466f-8ba6-3de65aaac412 | CC-MAIN-2023-50 | https://www.arthritisnsw.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/juvenile_deratomyositis.pdf | 2023-12-07T00:21:01+00:00 | crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2023-50/segments/1700679100626.1/warc/CC-MAIN-20231206230347-20231207020347-00790.warc.gz | 725,404,412 | 1,038 | eng_Latn | eng_Latn | 0.998094 | eng_Latn | 0.999085 | [
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Murray Sunset National Park is in one of the few remaining semi-arid regions in the world where the environment is relatively untouched. Stretching from the Murray River at Lindsay Island in the north to Pink Lakes near Underbool in the south, with breathtaking sunsets and starry nights, its vast, wide open, and isolated landscapes will take more than a day to explore.
Parks Victoria acknowledges the First Peoples of the Millewa-Mallee as the Traditional Owners of Murray Sunset National Park and pays our respects to their Elders – past, present and emerging.
**Getting there**
Murray-Sunset National Park is in northwest Victoria, between Ouyen and Mildura and the South Australian border. It is approximately 530km from Melbourne and 340km from Adelaide. Access to the park from Melbourne is via the Calder Highway, and from South Australia via the Sturt and Mallee Highways.
**Things to see and do**
Murray-Sunset National Park is the largest national park in Victoria. This remote outback park offers extensive 4WD, photography, birdwatching and remote camping opportunities for prepared travellers. The park is ideal for relaxation and solitude.
The northern section the park is dominated by Mallee woodland. Large tracts of pine, Savannah Mallee, and grasslands support a wide range of plants, birds and wildlife, with diverse wetlands and islands found along the Murray River.
The southern area offers a true sense of wilderness among the big horizons of the Mallee – from sand dunes and Pink Lakes to semi arid woodlands and open plains with abundant wildlife. Mt Jess and Mt Crozier offer superb vistas over the Mallee landscape.
In spring and summer the semi-arid landscape comes alive with a spectacular display of wildflowers.
**Car touring and four-wheel driving**
Unsealed roads from the Mallee or Sturt Highways are suitable for two-wheel drive vehicles (2WD). However, four-wheel drive vehicles (4WD) with good ground clearance are recommended for most tracks, particularly tracks in the park’s remote interior. Many tracks have areas of deep sand with wide wheel ruts, and some become impassable in wet weather.
**Pink Lakes** – Access by 2WD vehicles via the gravel road from Linga. For those with limited time, a tour around Pioneer Drive is a must.
**Lindsay, Mulcra and Wallpolla Islands** – all tracks are dry weather only. See the separate visitor guide and maps for the islands. Please check current road conditions on the park’s web page at parks.vic.gov.au or by calling 13 1963 before visiting.
**Pink Lakes**
The picturesque Pink Lakes are so named because of their colour after winter and spring rains. The Pink Lakes change in colour throughout the year from a deep pink to a glistening white. A red pigment, carotene, is secreted from the algae – best seen early or late in the day or when it is cloudy. The lakes evaporate over hot summer months leaving concentrated salt crusts over black mud.
**Walking around the Pink Lakes**
There are several short walking tracks in the Pink Lakes area suitable for people with no bushwalking experience. There are some sandy areas and gentle hills, so the tracks are not suitable for wheelchairs.
**Kline Loop Nature Walk – 4.8km, 2 hours circuit – Grade 3**
Take in the vast beauty of the Pink Lakes along the Kline Nature Walk. Learn about the long-standing salt mining industry in the area, the harsh conditions workers had to endure and life in a remote corner of the state at the outdoor Salt Museum.
Visiting the shores of Lake Crosbie and Lake Kenyon, the trail starts at the northern end of the main campground, beside Lake Crosbie, and is marked with orange arrows on posts. Look out for the many types of birds that live here, and for the footprints of kangaroos and emus as you pass through several different habitats along the walk.
**Lake Becking – 1.4km, 40 minutes circuit – Grade 3**
This pleasant short walk starts and ends at the top of Lake Becking and follows the old railway line, which used to carry salt into Linga. Follow the orange markers and look out for interpretive boards along the way telling the stories of the area.
**Lake Hardy – 1.7km, 45 minutes circuit – Grade 3**
This short circuit walk around the ‘pinkest’ of the pink lakes gives a nice overview of the terrain and vegetation of the area. Its proximity to the entrance road makes it a popular destination with photographers, especially at sunrise and sunset when soft light tends to accentuate the pink colouring of the lake.
A well-formed walking track marked with blue triangles starts at the information board and leads left along the edge of the lake.
**Shearers’ Quarters**
This historic building was once the home of the lessee of Sunset Pastoral Co. The four-bedroomed cottage offers hostel-style accommodation for up to 12 people.
To book the Shearers’ Quarters go to parks.vic.gov.au/stay or call Parks Victoria on 13 1963.
Murray-Sunset National Park
Overview
www.parks.vic.gov.au
Disclaimer: Parks Victoria does not guarantee that this data is without flaw of any kind and therefore disclaims all liability which may arise from you relying on this information. Data source acknowledgements: State Digital Mapbase. The State of Victoria and the Department of Environment and Primary Industries. Cartography by Parks Victoria May 2019.
For mobile App search for Avenza PDF Maps
Legend:
- Parking
- Information
- Toilets
- Picnic table
- Lookout
- Fireplace
- Boat ramp
- 4WD crossing
- Hut
- Guided walk
- Historical site
- Walking track
- Freeway/Highway
- Main road
- Sealed road
- Unsealed road
- 4WD
- Murray-Sunset National Park
- Other park/reserve
- Reference Area – Entry prohibited
- State Forest
Scale: 0 20 40 Kilometres
See Lindsay Island map
See Mulcra Island map
See Wallpolla Island map
See Pink Lakes map
Murray-Sunset National Park
Pink Lakes
www.parks.vic.gov.au
Disclaimer: Parks Victoria does not guarantee that this data is without flaw of any kind and therefore disclaims all liability which may arise from reliance on this information. Cartography by Parks Victoria November 2017
For mobile App search for Avenza PDF Maps
Sunset Nature Walk – 3.5km, 1.5 hours return – Grade 3
Take this gentle walk from the Shearers’ Quarters to explore the unique natural and historic features of the area. The signs along the way tell the stories about the area’s farming and logging history, as well as introducing many of the other inhabitants of the park today.
Hiking
Sunset Remote Walking Track – 66km, 3 day loop – Grade 4
This 3-day hike offers experienced and well-prepared walkers the opportunity to fully immerse themselves in this remote and arid region. The track is best walked in the cooler months. Hikers should be completely self-sufficient and always check conditions with local rangers before starting out. Carrying a topographic map, compass and/or GPS, and a personal locator beacon is recommended.
Camping
There are eleven campgrounds in the park, with a range of basic facilities (see the table below). Camping is free, and no bookings are required, however campers must be well-prepared and self-sufficient. No drinking water or bins are provided.
| Campgrounds | Picnic tables | Toilets | Fire pits |
|------------------------------|---------------|---------|-----------|
| Border (4WD) | ● | | ● |
| Henschke Track (4WD) | ● | | |
| Lake Becking (2WD) | ● | ● | ● |
| Lake Crosbie / Main Campground (2WD) | ● | ● | ● |
| Mopoke Hut (4WD) | ● | ● | ● |
| Mt Crozier (4WD) | ● | ● | ● |
| Mt Crozier Remote (4WD) | ● | | |
| Pheenys Track (4WD) | ● | ● | ● |
| Rocket Lake (4WD) | ● | ● | ● |
| Shearers’ Quarters (4WD) | ● | ● | ● |
| Sunset Tank (4WD) | ● | | |
There are no designated campgrounds or facilities along the Murray River or its islands, however bush camping is permitted along the river. Please practise minimal impact camping and observe relevant fire regulations. Campsites should be at least 20m from the river.
Fishing and boating
Fishing is a popular activity along the Murray River. Fishing in the Murray requires a NSW fishing licence, and fishing in the other creeks and lakes in the park requires a Victorian fishing licence. Licences can be purchased from many local outlets and online from service.nsw.gov.au and service.vic.gov.au.
Please help us protect the riverbanks, which provide important habitat for many animals, and prevent erosion by using a boat ramp to launch your boat. Refer to the visitor guide for Lindsay, Mulcra and Walpolla Islands for more information and maps of the Murray River section of the park, available from parks.vic.gov.au.
Plants and animals
There are approximately 600 known species of plants native to the park, including Victoria’s largest flower, the Murray Lily, the restricted Silvery Emu-bush and the rare Blue-leafed Mallee. Mallee vegetation dominates the sandy loam soils with pockets of Native Cypress-pine and Belah woodlands scattered throughout.
In addition to the more conspicuous mammals, such as Western Grey and Red Kangaroos, the park is home to a number of rare and threatened species. These include the Paucident Planigale (a small carnivorous mouse-sized marsupial), the Milleva Skink and the Regent Parrot. Keep an eye out for the park’s many species of reptiles, included Bearded and Mallee Dragons.
Over 220 species of birds have been observed in the park. Notable birdlife includes the Malleefowl, Mallee Emu-wren, Major Mitchell’s Cockatoo and the Black-eared Miner. Download the Birds of the Mallee Parks factsheet from parks.vic.gov.au.
Caring for the park
Help us look after your park by following these guidelines:
- Please take rubbish away with you for recycling or disposal.
- All plants, animals, historical and archaeological sites and geographic features are protected by law.
- Dogs and other pets are not permitted in the park.
- Firearms are prohibited.
- Light fires only in fire pits, if provided. Collect only dead wood from the ground at least one kilometre from the designated campground or bring your own firewood or gas or electric stove or barbecue. Extinguish fires with water before leaving.
- No fires are permitted on a day of Total Fire Ban. Built in and portable gas or electric barbecues may be used provided:
- a three-metre area is cleared of anything flammable
- at least 10 litres of water is available for immediate use
- an adult is in attendance at all times.
- Chemical toilets are preferred. Pit toilets must be at least 100m from the water’s edge. Bury toilet paper and waste appropriately.
- Vehicles, including motor bikes, may only be used on formed open roads. Drivers must be licensed and vehicles registered and roadworthy.
Be prepared and stay safe
- There is no mobile phone reception in most of the park. Radios are recommended when travelling in the remote interior.
- Visitors should carry plenty of water and avoid walking during the hottest part of the day in summer. Conditions can be extreme.
- Feral bees may be present and persistent around any source of moisture during dry, hot weather.
- Snakes are also more active in spring, summer and autumn. If you see a snake, stand still and don’t panic. Snakes nearly always move away when they feel footstep vibrations. Snakes are protected, so please don’t try to kill them.
- Avoid camping under or close to large trees like River Red Gums, as branches may fall at any time and swing away from the tree at any time.
For emergency assistance call Triple Zero (000).
Murray-Sunset National Park is in the Mallee fire district. Bushfire safety is a personal responsibility. Anyone entering parks during the bushfire season needs to stay aware of forecast weather conditions. Check the Fire Danger Rating and for days of Total Fire Ban at emergency.vic.gov.au, on the VicEmergency smartphone app, or call the VicEmergency Hotline on 1800 226 226. No fires may be lit on Total Fire Ban days.
On Catastrophic Fire Danger Rating days this park will be closed for public safety. Do not enter the Park. If you are already in the Park, leave the night before or as early as possible in the morning. Warning signs may be erected, but do not expect a personal warning. Check the latest conditions at parks.vic.gov.au or by calling 13 1963. | aadb1dab-b840-4abe-a168-d2e7824f0343 | CC-MAIN-2023-50 | https://www.parks.vic.gov.au/-/media/project/pv/main/parks/documents/visitor-guides-and-publications/murray-sunset/murray-sunset-national-park-visitor-guide.pdf?rev=ce4e41e9b5de4f7881816452934aa0fe | 2023-12-01T16:06:33+00:00 | crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2023-50/segments/1700679100290.24/warc/CC-MAIN-20231201151933-20231201181933-00096.warc.gz | 1,023,176,421 | 2,801 | eng_Latn | eng_Latn | 0.978811 | eng_Latn | 0.997851 | [
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The Reformation is the name given to the era in which discontent with the practices and policies of the Catholic Church boiled over, causing widespread attempts at reform (hence the name "Reformation"). Because the Church resisted change, thousands of Christians abandoned the Catholic Church and joined new Christian denominations. These new churches came to be known as Protestant denominations, so-called because they were born in protest against the original Church.
The word *catholic* means "universal." Before 1517, the Catholic Church was the universal Christian church in Western Europe and had controlled many aspects of people's lives for close to a thousand years. In 1517, however, the birth of the Lutheran Church put an end to the unquestioned spiritual authority of the Catholic Church. By 1600, thousands of Europeans were worshiping in Protestant churches: Lutheran, Calvinist, and Anglican.
In response, the Catholic Church made serious efforts to reform itself from within, in what is generally called the Counter-Reformation. Positive efforts included founding seminaries all over Europe where young men could be educated and trained for the priesthood. Negative efforts included forcible attempts to stamp out Protestantism (or heresy, as the Church called it) through the Inquisitions in Spain, Portugal, and Italy. The Church's reforms succeeded to a large extent; however, the Protestant churches continued to thrive. The era in
which one Christian church ruled all of Western Europe had definitely come to an end.
CHAPTER 2 OBJECTIVES
• Define the term *Reformation* and explain its importance in European history.
• Explain what caused the widespread protests against the Catholic Church.
• Identify the major Protestant denominations and explain how and why each one came into being.
• Identify the major figures of the era.
• Describe the Catholic response to the Reformation.
Chapter 2 Time Line
- 1455 Johannes Gutenberg publishes the Vulgate Bible, the first book in Europe printed with movable type
- 1517 Luther publishes Ninety-Five Theses
- 1521 Diet of Worms
- 1534 Act of Supremacy declares Henry VIII Supreme Head of the Church of England
- 1540 Society of Jesuits is founded
- 1541 Calvin establishes theocracy in Geneva
- 1545–1563 Council of Trent; Catholic Reformation (Counter-Reformation)
- 1555 Peace of Augsburg
- 1598 Henry of Navarre becomes King of France; issues Edict of Nantes
Causes of the Reformation
The rise of Protestantism had multiple causes. They included a growing realization that the Church was not as powerful as it had claimed, a rise in secular
political power, and the perfection of the printing process stimulating a rise in literacy (see Chapter 1). The spark that finally pushed people into widespread, open rebellion against the Church was the trade of indulgences for financial contributions to the Church.
The Catholic Church functioned on a system of the forgiveness of sins. A person sinned, repented, confessed to a priest, and received absolution in exchange for some form of penance. This might involve repeating a certain number of prayers or doing good work in the community. A sinner who was granted an indulgence did not have to go through such a penance; an indulgence was an official promise that the Church forgave earthly punishment for sins already committed. The first indulgences were granted to soldiers who had fought in the Crusades, as forgiveness for sins committed in the course of war. Of course, God might still choose to punish sins after death; the Church could only forgive earthly punishment.
The practice of granting indulgences quickly became corrupt. Both the Church and its agents, most notably Johann Tetzel in Germany, grew greedy for money and began offering indulgences in exchange for financial donations. People were assured that if they donated money, their sins would be forgiven, not only on earth but also after death. They were also told that they could purchase heavenly forgiveness for family members who were already dead. The idea that one could buy forgiveness for sins with money, or that the Church could preempt God’s power to forgive sin after death, deeply offended many devout Catholics. The most notable of these was Martin Luther.
**Martin Luther**
Martin Luther was born in 1483 in the German state of Saxony. He became a theological scholar and a professor of scripture at Wittenberg University. A devout Catholic, Luther was outraged by the notion that salvation could be bought and sold. His Ninety-Five Theses, which appeared in 1517, were propositions for debate that questioned and criticized many aspects of the Catholic Church, including a prominent and harsh reference to the sale of indulgences. The Ninety-Five Theses were printed and widely circulated, and many people were convinced by Luther’s arguments. The pope ordered Luther to recant his criticisms of the Church on pain of excommunication; Luther refused.
At this time in history, the German city-states of north-central Europe were bound in a loose alliance known as the Holy Roman Empire. Each state had its
own prince, with one emperor ruling over all. The rulers of the provinces were called electors because the emperor was chosen by election. Over time, the election had become purely ceremonial; since 1440, the title had been passed down in the ruling Hapsburg (spelled "Habsburg" in some sources) family in the same manner as any hereditary monarchy in Europe. In 1519, Charles I of Spain was crowned Holy Roman emperor, succeeding his grandfather Maximilian I. He would rule as Emperor Charles V.
In 1521, Charles called all his princes together for a diet—an official assembly—at the town of Worms. Summoned to appear before the diet, Luther refused to recant his statements. Ordered to leave the empire, he instead accepted an offer of protection from the elector of Saxony. Luther continued to write and publish and, to his own astonishment, soon realized that instead of bringing about reform in the Catholic Church, he had founded a new denomination.
The most important idea behind Lutheranism is the notion that salvation depends on faith. Each believer must read, study, and understand scripture for himself or herself—in effect, each soul would serve as his or her own priest, instead of relying exclusively on an ordained priest to interpret the word of God. Part of what made this possible was, of course, the technology of printing, which before long brought a Bible into every household. Luther's German translation of the Bible appeared in 1534. For the first time, Germans could read the Bible in their own language rather than having to learn Hebrew, Latin, or Greek.
Luther advocated a simple worship service, arguing that the communion between the individual and God took place in the individual's heart and mind. The elaborate ceremony of the Catholic mass, to Luther, was merely an outward show that had no spiritual significance. Luther also argued that worship services should be conducted in the language of the people, so that they could understand exactly what was being said and think about it for themselves. These ideas and reforms appealed to thousands of Germans.
Several of the German princes became enthusiastic Lutherans as well. When Lutheranism became the state religion, the Church's vast wealth and property passed from the pope's control into the hands of the prince. This was a powerful practical reason for adopting Lutheranism, above and beyond questions of spirituality. However, many princes remained devoutly Catholic.
At first, Charles V tolerated Lutheranism, but as it spread, various groups began using it as a basis for social and political revolt. In 1529, the emperor
decreed a ban on Lutheranism. It was during this period that the term Protestant first came into use, describing the Lutheran princes and people who protested against the emperor's decree. War eventually broke out between the German states over this issue. In 1555, the Peace of Augsburg settled the matter by declaring that each German prince could determine the religion of his own state.
Lutheranism took firm hold in Germany and also spread north to the Scandinavian countries. Meanwhile, a rather different form of Protestant Christianity developed in Switzerland.
John Calvin
John Calvin was born in France in 1509. He studied philosophy, law, and humanism and learned both Latin and Greek. Like Luther, Calvin came to believe that the Catholic Church needed reform. When he spoke out on this issue, he found himself so unpopular in France that he fled to Switzerland. Here he eventually acquired so much power and influence that many historians describe the city of Geneva as a theocracy—a state ruled by religious laws.
The central idea of Calvinism is predestination—the belief that God predetermines everything that will happen on earth. According to this belief, human beings are already marked for salvation or damnation at birth, and no amount of faith or good deeds can earn salvation. Calvin argued that those who were saved would naturally perform good works and lead exemplary lives; therefore, all believers must live this way, because it was one sure sign that they were among the saved. Calvinism strictly regulated every aspect of a person's life: it made church attendance mandatory, encouraged simplicity in dress, and forbade many forms of enjoyment such as dancing, singing, and playing cards.
Despite its harsh rules and its intolerance of other forms of worship, Calvinism gained many converts. Calvin's followers spread his ideas and practices throughout Switzerland, the Netherlands, and France. John Knox transported many of Calvin's ideas home to Scotland, where the religion was called Presbyterianism after the presbyters, or elders, who ruled the church. In 1560–1561, Parliament made Presbyterianism the state religion of Scotland.
In France, Calvin's followers were called French Protestants or Huguenots. Despite tens of thousands of individual converts to Protestantism, France as a whole was not sympathetic to the Reformation. The French monarchs sided with the Catholics throughout a series of civil wars fought from 1562 to 1598,
helping to ensure that Protestantism could not establish itself securely. Thousands of Huguenots were massacred, and many more fled France to settle in Holland, Belgium, and England.
The 1580s saw a struggle for the French throne known as the War of the Three Henries. These were King Henry III and two of his kinsmen, Henry of Guise and Henry of Navarre. With the support of Philip II of Spain, Henry of Guise made a bold move to take the throne, but he was taken by surprise by supporters of Henry III and assassinated. When a fanatic assassinated the king the following year, Henry of Navarre inherited the throne. He would rule as King Henry IV of France.
Henry IV was a Calvinist, but his religious convictions were not nearly as strong as his political ambition. His main goal was to strengthen the monarchy, and he believed that siding with the religious majority was a crucial step to achieving security on his throne. Therefore, Henry converted to Catholicism. In 1598, he issued the Edict of Nantes, which established Catholicism as the state religion of France and its territories, but allowed Protestants to worship as they saw fit, without molestation. This ended the French civil wars of religion. Henry was enlightened enough to understand that tolerance in the matter of private worship would lead to domestic accord in the population and would therefore benefit the kingdom.
**Henry VIII and the Church of England**
The Anglican Church, also called the Church of England, is unique in history for two reasons. First, it was created solely for political reasons, not religious ones. Second, it was the most sweeping assertion of secular authority in the history of Europe.
By the 1520s, King Henry VIII of England and the Spanish princess Catherine of Aragon had been married for several years. Although Catherine had given birth to several children, only one, a daughter, had survived past infancy.
Lacking a male heir, Henry dreaded possible rival claims to the throne and a return to the civil wars that had battered England throughout the 1400s. He was also personally tired of Catherine. Therefore, Henry petitioned Pope Clement VII for an annulment of his marriage. The king had fallen in love with lady-in-waiting Anne Boleyn, who was several years younger than Catherine and seemed likely to provide him with healthy children. (Ironically, only one
daughter of their marriage would survive; Henry would have to marry yet again in order to produce a son.)
Henry VIII never tolerated opposition at any time in his life. When the pope refused to grant him his annulment, the king determined to find another way to get what he wanted. In 1533, he named Thomas Cranmer, a loyal official of the court, the new archbishop of Canterbury. Archbishop Cranmer granted Henry his annulment and then married him to Anne Boleyn. The new pope, Paul III, excommunicated both the king and the archbishop for violating the sacrament of marriage.
In 1534, the British Parliament retaliated against the pope by passing the Act of Supremacy. This act acknowledged the king as the Supreme Head of the Church in England, thus creating a new Christian denomination and eliminating any papal involvement in British affairs. In effect, the British monarch now had the same authority over England that the pope had over the rest of Europe. No secular government had ever asserted such power in a thousand years of Church authority.
It is important to note the role of Parliament in the creation of the Church of England. The king did not create the Anglican Church with a wave of a royal scepter; instead, the duly elected representative government passed the Act of Supremacy according to the laws of the land. Thus, Henry VIII could claim with some reason that the English people and the government fully supported his desire to break away from the Catholic Church.
In a clear sign that Henry’s action had been politically and not spiritually motivated, the Anglican Church continued to hear confessions and celebrate mass in just the same manner as the Catholic Church. Under Henry’s son and successor, Edward VI, the clergy introduced various reforms, such as permission for priests to marry. In 1549, Archbishop Cranmer published *The Book of Common Prayer*, which contained the prayers and proper forms of all Anglican services—in English, not Latin. During the next century, the status of the Church of England fluctuated according to the personal faith of the monarch. (See Chapter 4.)
**The Counter-Reformation**
Meanwhile, the Catholic Church was well aware of the need to reform itself from within. However, reform depended largely on the personality of the pope in power at any given time. This made for inconsistency; reform proceeded
slowly, by fits and starts. Some popes felt a genuine need to reform corrupt practices, others hoped to reclaim Protestants who had left the Church, and still others stubbornly refused to support any changes.
Pope Paul III called for a council of high Church officials to meet in the city of Trent to devise a plan for reform. Due to strong opposition from within the Church, the Council of Trent did not meet until 1545 and took more than fifteen years to reach any conclusions. In the end, it supported all doctrines that Protestants had criticized, banned the sale of indulgences, and required the founding of hundreds of new seminaries for the education and training of priests.
Paul III appointed many pro-reform cardinals in the hope that they would continue to elect popes who would fight corruption in the Church and try to restore it to its former glory. This attempt was largely successful; the popes who followed Paul III continued to support reform.
In 1542, Paul III created the Congregation of the Holy Office of the Inquisition. Its purpose was to supervise the Roman Inquisition, whose job was to try people accused of heresy. The Roman Inquisition generally assessed penalties such as fines or public whippings. The most serious sentence it could hand down was one of life imprisonment. However, if the Inquisition handed a prisoner over to secular authorities, it almost certainly meant the person would be executed. It began as a sincere attempt on the part of reformers to root out heresy within the Church. Under some of Paul III’s successors, it became a byword for torture and terror. Portugal and Spain had their own Inquisitions; these, however, reported directly to the monarchs rather than being supervised by the Church. (See Chapter 4.)
Paul IV, who served as pope from 1555 to 1559, was a particularly strict reformer, focusing his energy on a variety of targets. He came down especially hard on the practice of simony, or the sale of Church offices; although this was a dependable source of income for the Church, it was clearly corrupt. Paul IV also made the Church bureaucracy more efficient by eliminating many unnecessary positions. In 1559, the Church published the *Index of Forbidden Books*; this document listed all books that, according to the Holy Office, contained heretical ideas and thus were off limits to Catholics because of their corrupting influence. Not content with banning the books, the Church also burned thousands of copies. Owning a copy of a forbidden book made the possessor liable to punishment under the Inquisition.
The founding of the Society of Jesus, also known as the order of the Jesuits, was a more positive Catholic reform. Its founder, Ignatius Loyola, was born in the Basque region of Spain in 1491. An active military career led to severe injuries and wounds; while he lay still recovering, Loyola passed the time with books, studying the life and teachings of Jesus. Greatly impressed by Jesus' simplicity and humility, Loyola vowed to emulate him. He took vows of poverty, wore the simplest of clothing, and spent his days serving and helping the poor. He published a work called *Spiritual Exercises*, which advocated a period of intense contemplation and study for any man wanting to devote his life to serving the Church.
In 1540, the pope approved Loyola's petition to found the order of the Jesuits. The society grew quickly as many men joined, attracted by Loyola's high ideals. Like their leader, the Jesuits lived simply and chastely, indifferent to physical comforts or luxuries. Jesuit schools offered the best education then available to children in Europe; pupils from all income levels and all ranks of society were welcomed and treated equally. The Jesuits were characterized by reforming zeal, preferring to persuade non-Catholics to convert, rather than resorting to the bullying techniques of the Inquisition. Their missionary ambitions eventually led them to the most remote areas of the world, far beyond Europe's borders.
The Jesuits were not the only order founded during the Counter-Reformation. The Ursuline order of nuns and the Capucine order of priests, among others, provided both men and women with the opportunity to teach, preach, and serve. Because these orders, like the Jesuits, turned their backs on the pomp, ceremony, and display that Luther and Calvin had found so objectionable, the common people were impressed. Seeing that these Catholic orders practiced the simplicity and purity that they preached, thousands of people were inspired to follow them. The activities of these orders, especially the Jesuits, helped to counteract the effects of the Protestant Reformation and to strengthen and improve the Catholic Church as an institution.
1. The Edict of Nantes decreed
A. that Catholics were forbidden from reading anything listed in the *Index of Forbidden Books*.
B. that the people of France had the right to worship in the church of their choice.
C. that each elector in the Holy Roman Empire could choose the religion for his own electorate.
D. that the monarch was the supreme head of the Church of England.
2. ________________ presided over a virtual theocracy in Geneva during the Reformation.
A. John Calvin
B. John Knox
C. Henry IV
D. Paul III
3. The term *Protestant Reformation* refers to
A. the campaign of reform carried out in the Catholic Church in an attempt to recover lost ground.
B. the attempt to reform Protestant churches that grew gradually corrupt during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.
C. the creation of several Christian denominations in a protest against the practices of Catholicism.
D. the pilgrimages made by both Catholic and Protestant missionaries to distant lands to win converts.
4. What was the most important effect of Henry IV’s declaration of religious toleration in France?
A. It ended the religiously based civil wars.
B. It earned him the lasting hostility of England and Spain.
C. It led directly to the Peace of Augsburg.
D. It forced thousands of Huguenots to flee the country.
5. The publication of ________________ was the spark that created the Reformation.
A. the Edict of Nantes
B. *The Book of Common Prayer*
C. the Bible in German
D. the Ninety-Five Theses
6. ________________ is an important historical figure because he founded the Society of Jesus in 1540.
A. Thomas Cranmer
B. Henry of Guise
C. Ignatius Loyola
D. John Calvin
7. The main purpose of the Council of Trent was
A. to establish Church supervision of the Roman Inquisition.
B. to reunite the Catholic and Protestant denominations.
C. to devise a plan for the reformation of the Catholic Church.
D. to persuade Martin Luther to recant the Ninety-Five Theses.
8. Which Protestant denomination preached the doctrine of predestination?
A. Anglicanism
B. Calvinism
C. the Church of England
D. Lutheranism
9. The overall main point of the Ninety-Five Theses was that
A. believers would win salvation by a combination of faith and good works.
B. God predetermined everything that happened on earth.
C. people should abandon the Catholic Church and found a new denomination.
D. the Catholic Church had become corrupt and needed reform.
10. Anglicanism differed from other Protestant denominations in that
A. it was the result of discontent among the people.
B. it was embraced and made official by the head of state.
C. it was founded for political, not spiritual, reasons.
D. it was not a Christian religion.
7. What explains Elizabeth I’s belief in the importance of her subjects’ personal affection?
A. The people were more likely to vote for a popular monarch.
B. The people were less likely to rise up against a popular monarch.
C. The people would not pressure a popular monarch to marry.
D. The people would not support the policies of a popular monarch.
8. Charles of Ghent ruled over Spain and all the central European Hapsburg lands by right of
A. inheritance
B. military conquest
C. popular election
D. royal appointment
9. Charles V abdicated as Holy Roman Emperor in the wake of
A. the conquest of Granada.
B. the Peace of Augsburg.
C. the marriage of his son Philip.
D. the defeat of the Armada.
10. Why did Ferdinand I consider it important to establish a centrally controlled bureaucracy?
A. to enable his armies to defeat the Turks
B. to run a diverse empire effectively and efficiently
C. to maintain the loyalty of the major landowners
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National Animal Poison Prevention Week
March 19-25 2023
DOS AND DON'TS FOR PET SNACKING
Think Safe!
What can be poisoning my pet?
There are a number of foods pets should not consume. These are some of the most common DON'TS:
• Grapes
• Chocolate
• Gum
• Onions
• Mushrooms
• Garlic
• Raw Meat
How to spot the signs:
• Vomiting
• Diarrhea
• Seizures
• Lethargic
What to do if your pet has ingested something it shouldn't have:
• Call animal poison control: (888)426-4435
• Consult with your Veterinarian
• Emergency Animal Hospital
Safe Pet Snacks
• Apples
• Watermelon
• Pumpkin
• Green Beans
• Carrots
• Peas
• Blueberries
• Bananas | 9508fa54-9943-4059-bdb0-8edec59aee6b | CC-MAIN-2024-22 | https://honeoyefallsvet.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/National-Animal-Poison.pdf | 2024-05-23T08:12:57+00:00 | crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2024-22/segments/1715971058614.40/warc/CC-MAIN-20240523080929-20240523110929-00089.warc.gz | 248,139,984 | 189 | eng_Latn | eng_Latn | 0.940103 | eng_Latn | 0.940103 | [
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Dear RCS Community,
We hope your summer is going well and everyone is staying healthy. As you are reading through this lengthy letter, please know how much we appreciate the time, care and concern you have not only for your child(ren) but also the entire RCS community at large. We all have one goal in mind, to open school in the safest way possible. By now, you have received the home survey via email; we strongly hope that you will complete this, as this will have an impact on our school year. We continue to work closely with local and state health officials along with national guidance on prevention and school management during this pandemic. We are sharing this information so you are aware and can help reduce the spread of infection. The following practices are extremely important for all students and adults:
- Do not bring your student to school if they do not feel well or have cold or flu-like symptoms (elevated temperature, fever, cough, shortness of breath). **Keep your student home and call their primary care provider to discuss symptoms for further care.**
- Do not come to work at the school if you do not feel well or have cold or flu-like symptoms (elevated temperature, fever, cough, shortness of breath). **Stay home and call your primary care provider to discuss symptoms for further care.**
- Wash hands often with soap and water. If you do not have soap and water, use alcohol-based hand sanitizer.
- Sneeze and cough into a tissue, elbow or sleeve instead of your hands. Throw used tissues in a garbage container immediately after use. If you use your hands to cover a sneeze or cough, wash your hands immediately with soap and water or alcohol-based hand sanitizer.
- Avoid rubbing your eyes and touching your nose.
- Avoid close contact with anyone with cold or flu-like symptoms.
If your child develops a fever (for school purposes fever is 100.4 F) or you think your child might have a fever, please keep him or her home until the fever has been gone for 24 hours with no medications. That means, if your child has a fever in the morning, s/he should remain home at least until the following morning. Sometimes it is difficult to decide in the morning whether a child is well enough to attend school. Please don’t hesitate to reach out to me when in doubt. You can also ask yourself, “Can my child go through the day with minimal disruption to himself and others?” This may help you make a decision on one of those mornings when it is difficult to decide. We know that it is stressful for you as a parent and your child as a student to miss school, and we know that fever can last a long time, but it is imperative that this 24-hour period be observed to assure that your child is healthy and ready to return to school.
Keeping a virus out of our environment is important to the health of our entire school and extended community. The Centers for Disease Control and the Massachusetts Department of
Health also recommend the flu shot as the best way to prevent flu. It is recommended that everyone get the flu shot by late October. We had one of the deadliest flu seasons in over 40 years in 2018, with 80% of the pediatric deaths occurring in kids who had not been vaccinated. Children, who have endured fewer flu seasons than adults, have less natural immunity to the virus and get more benefit from the vaccine. The more adults who are vaccinated, the more children who are protected, as they are less likely to be exposed at home or school. In addition, if you are notified that your child has a fever and needs to be picked up, please try and come within the hour to take your child home. This is for the comfort of your child as well as to limit the time of exposure to other children and staff.
On July 1st, the Baker-Polito Administration announced new COVID-19 public health guidelines on travel. As you know, the situation is rapidly changing. Due to this reason, we wanted to keep you updated on this guidance as you are contemplating travel close to the first day of school. Please note: All travelers arriving to Massachusetts – including Massachusetts residents returning home – are instructed to self-quarantine for 14 days, except that, travelers from Rhode Island, Connecticut, Vermont, New Hampshire, Maine, New York, and New Jersey arriving in Massachusetts are exempt from this directive and need not self-quarantine for 14 days. In addition, workers designated by the federal government as essential critical infrastructure workers are exempt from the directive to self-quarantine for 14 days if traveling to Massachusetts for work purposes. All persons are instructed not to travel to Massachusetts if they are displaying symptoms of COVID-19. Also, if a close contact of an individual who is infected will be instructed by their public health nurse to be tested for COVID-19 asap and to quarantine for a total of 14 days. Testing is now important for all close contacts.
Also, here are a few reminders as you begin to think about preparing for the start of school; students entering Pre-K, Kindergarten, 4th grade, and 7th grade are required to submit a recent (within the past 12 months) physical exam and updated immunization record to the school health office. Please note, there is a new updated Meningococcal Conjugate vaccine for the school year for the 7th grade class. Those students with Immunization Exemptions must submit a letter or form annually to be in compliance with Massachusetts Public Health requirements. Students with chronic health issues, please update the school health office with current Emergency Action Plans, as well as medication orders for the 2020-2021 school year, should your student require any prescription medications to be administered at school.
Attached are many important resources you may find helpful in the event the situation is applicable to your family. They include information on how to self-quarantine and self-isolate, the importance of the Flu Vaccine, MenACWY informational sheet and a comparison of symptoms of COVID-19, the flu, a cold and allergies. As always, please don’t hesitate to contact us with any questions or concerns.
Sincerely,
Jill Pompi, Principal
Cristina Lenfest, BSN, RN
Richmond Consolidated School does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, sex, gender identity, religion, national origin, sexual orientation, disability or homelessness
Stay Home – Stay Safe
Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19)
How to Self-quarantine and Self-isolate
If you are not sick but are:
• a close contact to someone diagnosed with COVID-19, or
• recently returned from any travel outside Massachusetts,
please take these steps to help stop the spread of COVID-19.
Self-quarantine: Separate yourself from others in case you get sick
1. Stay at home and use a separate bedroom and bathroom if possible.
2. Do your best to stay at least 6 feet away from other people in the house.
3. Do not leave your house to go to school, work or run errands.
4. Do not have any visitors to your house during this time.
5. Wash your hands frequently with soap and water for at least 20 seconds.
6. Do not share eating or drinking utensils with anybody.
7. Monitor your health every day.
8. If you need to seek routine medical care call ahead to your doctor and tell them you are under COVID-19 quarantine.
9. Do not take public transportation, taxis, or ride-shares to get to your appointment.
Monitor your health every day:
• Do health checks every morning and every night or anytime you feel like you might have a fever
• Take your temperature
• Be alert for any symptoms of COVID-19, including fever, cough or shortness of breath.
If you have a medical emergency, call 911. Tell them your symptoms and that you are being monitored for COVID-19.
How to determine your last day of exposure:
Your last day of exposure is:
• The last time you were within 6 ft of someone confirmed to have COVID-19, or
• The day you arrived home after travel
If you do not show signs of COVID-19 for 14 days after the last time you were exposed, your self-quarantine period is finished.
If you:
- get sick during self-quarantine, or
- are sick and a healthcare provider tests you for COVID-19, or
- are told by a healthcare provider that you have COVID-19,
take these steps to help stop the spread of COVID-19.
**Self-isolation:** Separate yourself from others to keep your germs from spreading
1. If you get sick with fever, cough, shortness of breath, or other signs of respiratory illness, call your healthcare provider and tell them if you have been exposed to COVID-19.
2. If you need to see your healthcare provider, do **not** take public transportation, taxis, or ride-shares to get to your appointment.
3. Stay at home and use a separate bedroom and bathroom if possible.
4. Stay at least 6 feet away from other people in the house.
5. Do **not** leave your house to go to school, work or run errands.
6. Do **not** have any visitors to your house during this time.
7. Wash your hands frequently with soap and water for at least 20 seconds.
8. Do not share eating or drinking utensils with anybody.
9. Cover your mouth and nose with a tissue or your sleeve (not your hands) when coughing or sneezing.
10. Clean surfaces that you touch every day with a household disinfectant.
11. Make a list of everyone you have been close to (within 6 feet of for at least 15 minutes), since you first got sick. Those people have been exposed to COVID-19 and should be asked to self-quarantine.
If you have a medical emergency, call 911. Tell them your symptoms and that you have, or may have, COVID-19.
**How long do you need to isolate?**
For most people who have relatively mild illness, you will need to stay in self-isolation for at least 7 days. You can resume public activities once you have:
- gone for three days without a fever (and without taking fever-reducing medications like Tylenol), and
- experienced improvement in your other symptoms (for example, your cough has gotten much better).
More information about how to self-isolate is available on the [CDC website](#).
If you have questions about isolation or quarantine, you can call your Local Board of Health or the Department of Public Health’s On-call Epidemiologists at 617-983-6800.
Flu Information
What is the flu?
Influenza (the flu) is an infection of the nose, throat and lungs caused by influenza viruses that are constantly changing. Flu causes illness, hospital stays and deaths in the United States each year. Flu can be very dangerous for children. Each year about 20,000 children younger than 5 years old are hospitalized from flu complications, like pneumonia.
How serious is the flu?
Flu illness can vary from mild to severe. Flu can be especially dangerous for young children and children of any age who have certain long term health conditions, including asthma (even mild or controlled), neurological conditions, chronic lung disease, heart disease, blood disorders, endocrine disorders (such as diabetes), and weakened immune systems due to disease or medication. Children with these conditions, and those receiving long-term aspirin therapy, can have more severe illness from the flu.
How does the flu spread?
Most experts believe that flu viruses spread mainly by droplets made when people with the flu cough, sneeze or talk. These droplets can land in the mouths or noses of people who are nearby. Less often, a person might get the flu by touching something that has flu virus on it and then touching their own mouth, eyes or nose.
What are the symptoms of flu?
Symptoms of flu can include fever, cough, sore throat, runny or stuffy nose, body aches, headache, chills, fatigue and sometimes vomiting and diarrhea. Some people with flu will not have a fever.
How long can a sick person spread the flu?
People with the flu may infect others from 1 day before getting sick to 5–7 days after. Children and people with weakened immune systems can shed virus for longer, and might still be contagious past 7 days, especially if they still have symptoms.
Protect Your Child
How can I protect my child against flu?
The first and most important thing to do is to get flu vaccine for your child, yourself, and everyone else in your household every year. Get the vaccine as soon as it is available.
- Vaccination is recommended for everyone 6 months and older.
- It’s especially important that young children and children with certain health conditions (see at left) get vaccinated.
- It’s very important for parents, grandparents, teachers and caregivers to get vaccinated.
- Everyone caring for infants under 6 months (who are too young to be vaccinated) should be vaccinated if possible. Vaccinating pregnant women can offer some protection to the baby during pregnancy and after birth.
IMPORTANT:
Can my child go to school, daycare or camp if he or she is sick?
No. Your child should stay home to rest and to avoid giving the flu to other children or to caregivers.
When can my child go back to school after having the flu?
Keep your child home until at least 24 hours after their fever is gone, without using fever-reducing medications, like acetaminophen (Tylenol) or ibuprofen (Motrin or Advil). A fever is defined as 100.4°F (38°C) or higher.
About Flu Vaccine
What are the benefits of the flu vaccine?
- Flu vaccine helps protect the person vaccinated from the flu.
- Flu vaccine can make your illness milder if you do get sick and reduces the risk of hospitalizations and deaths.
- Flu vaccine keeps you from spreading the flu to your family and friends. This is particularly important to protect those who are most vulnerable, such as:
» Those at greatest risk of getting seriously ill from flu, like older adults, people with chronic health conditions and young children.
» Infants younger than 6 months old who are too young to get vaccinated.
Is influenza vaccine effective?
Yes. While no vaccine is 100% effective, influenza vaccine is the best protection against getting the flu.
Influenza vaccine tends to be most effective in people who are younger and healthy. It takes about two weeks after vaccination to protect against flu, so vaccination does not protect immediately. Also, flu viruses are always changing, so the vaccine needs to be updated every year, before flu season starts. When the vaccine isn’t a good match with flu viruses that are circulating, it offers less protection.
Are there any risks from flu vaccine?
Vaccine reactions, if they occur, are usually mild and can include soreness, redness and swelling where the shot is given. Some people have experienced fever, body aches, headache and fatigue. These reactions usually begin soon after the vaccine is given, and last 1–2 days.
A vaccine, like any medicine, could possibly cause more serious problems, such as severe allergic reactions. The risk of a vaccine causing serious harm is extremely small.
Life threatening allergic reactions from vaccines are very rare. If they do occur, it is usually within a few minutes to a few hours after the vaccination.
More detailed information about flu vaccine is available at www.immunize.org/vis. At this site you will find Vaccine Information Statements about influenza vaccines designed to educate and inform in many languages.
Other Steps to Take
What else can I do to protect my child?
- Cover coughs and sneezes with a tissue. Throw the tissue in the trash after use.
- Stay away from people who are sick.
- Wash hands often with soap and water.
- Use an alcohol-based hand rub if soap and water are not available.
- Contact your healthcare provider if your child gets sick, especially if the child is very young (under 5) or has long-term health conditions.
- Seek emergency care if your child has trouble breathing, fast breathing, turns bluish or gray, has severe or persistent vomiting, has trouble waking up, or doesn’t interact normally.
Much more information is available at:
www.mass.gov/flu
www.cdc.gov/flu
www.immunize.org
Or call (617) 983-6800 or your local board of health.
The flu is a contagious respiratory illness caused by influenza viruses. It can cause mild to severe illness. It can also cause death in severe cases. The flu can affect your lungs when you have asthma. It can cause inflammation (swelling) and narrowing of your airways. These changes could trigger asthma symptoms, an asthma episode or an asthma attack. If you have asthma, defending yourself against the flu is very important.
Most healthy people recover from the flu without problems. Having asthma puts you at risk of serious health problems from the flu.
The Asthma and Allergy Foundation of America (AAFA) has advice for fighting the flu if you have asthma.
Get the flu shot every fall. Flu season begins in the fall and continues through the spring. Get the actual shot, not the nasal spray vaccine. The nasal spray vaccine can trigger asthma symptoms. The flu shot is safe. If you have asthma, the risks are far greater not getting the vaccine. It takes about two weeks after getting the vaccine for your body to create protective antibodies to the flu virus.
Make it a family affair. Have family members without asthma get the flu vaccine to protect those that do have asthma.
Prevent exposure. The flu can be very contagious. Properly wash your hands often and don’t share food or utensils. If possible, avoid people who are sick.
Talk to your health care provider. Update your Asthma Action Plan with your health care provider so that you know what to do if you get sick.
If you get sick with flu symptoms, call your doctor immediately. People with asthma can quickly become sicker with the flu. Your doctor may recommend treatment with an antiviral medicine or a change to your regular asthma treatment.
COMMON FLU SYMPTOMS
The flu usually starts suddenly and may include these symptoms:
- Fever (often very high, 101 or above)
- Headache
- Extreme tiredness, chills
- Constant cough
- Sore throat
- Runny or stuffy nose
- Body aches in bones and/or muscles
Diarrhea and vomiting can occur, but are more common in children. These symptoms are referred to as “flu-like symptoms.” Many different illnesses like the common cold, allergy symptoms and asthma symptoms can sometimes be similar and confusing. Visit or talk with your doctor to get a proper diagnosis.
EMERGENCY SYMPTOMS OF THE FLU
Seek emergency medical help right away if you show these signs:
In children:
- Rapid breathing or difficulty breathing
- Blue skin color
- Not drinking enough fluids
- Not waking up or not being conscious
- Being irritable and difficult to comfort
- Flu-like symptoms seem to improve but return with worse fever and cough
- Fever with a rash
In adults:
- Rapid breathing or difficulty breathing
- Pain in the chest or abdomen
- Sudden dizziness
- Confusion
- Severe or persistent vomiting
You can spread the flu before you even know you’re sick.
Unlike asthma, the flu is contagious. The flu spreads from coughing and sneezing. It usually spreads from person to person. You can also get the flu by touching something with the flu virus on it, then touching your mouth or nose. This is why preventing the flu by getting a flu vaccine is important.
The flu vaccine is safe for those with an egg allergy.
Studies show that an egg allergy is no longer a reason to avoid the flu vaccine. These studies looked at people with different types of reactions to egg and found a low chance of severe allergic reaction. It is safe for ALL people with an egg allergy to receive a flu vaccine. This is true no matter how severe your egg allergy was in the past. This includes anaphylaxis (a severe allergic reaction) to egg.
New Meningococcal Conjugate Vaccine (MenACWY) Requirement for School Entry
Starting in the 2020-21 school year, all students entering Grades 7 and 11 will need meningococcal conjugate vaccine, MenACWY (brand names Mencevo or Menatra) for school entry.
**Grade 7 entry:** 1 dose of MenACWY for all students.
**Grade 11 entry:** 1 booster dose of MenACWY received on or after 16 years of age. (1 or more doses of MenACWY are acceptable as long as 1 dose was received on or after 16 years of age.)
### Frequently Asked Questions
**Why require meningococcal conjugate vaccine?**
MA school requirements generally follow the recommendations of the national Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP). ACIP recommends that children receive a dose of MenACWY at 11-12 years and a booster dose at 16 years.
**What if a student is not 16 at the start of Grade 11?**
Students who are not 16 when they enter Grade 11 will need a booster dose once they turn 16.
**What if my school has ungraded classrooms?**
In ungraded classrooms, Grade 7 requirements apply to all students ≥12 years and Grade 11 requirements apply to all students ≥16 years.
**Does the meningococcal vaccination waiver apply to the new requirement?**
No. The waiver is for residential students only; however, students are allowed medical or religious exemptions.
**What about Meningococcal B Vaccine?**
Men B vaccine (brand names Bexsero or Trumenba) does not satisfy the MenACWY requirement.
### School Immunization Surveys
**Will my school have to report on meningococcal vaccine in my Grade 7 immunization survey?**
Yes. The Grade 7 survey will be updated for Fall 2020 to include a question about meningococcal vaccine for all students.
**I’m at a residential school. Will I still need to complete a separate residential survey in addition to my Grade 7 survey?**
No. The residential school immunization survey will be incorporated into the Grade 7 survey.
**Will there be a Grade 11 immunization survey?**
Yes. Similar to the Kindergarten and Grade 7 surveys, a Grade 11 survey will be accessible in the Massachusetts Immunization Information System (MIIS) beginning in the 2020-21 school year. We anticipate the Grade 11 survey will open in January 2021 with a deadline for completion in March 2021.
Contact the Immunization Division at (617) 983-6800
Visit the MDPH website at [https://www.mass.gov/info-details/school-immunizations](https://www.mass.gov/info-details/school-immunizations)
## IS IT COVID-19, THE FLU, A COLD OR ALLERGIES?
| Symptoms | Coronavirus* (COVID-19) | Cold | Flu | Seasonal Allergies |
|---------------------------|-------------------------|------|-----|--------------------|
| **Length of symptoms** | | | | |
| Cough | Common (usually dry) | Common (mild) | Common (usually dry) | Rare (usually dry unless it triggers asthma) |
| Shortness of breath | Sometimes | No** | No | No** |
| Sneezing | No | Common | No | Common |
| Runny or stuffy nose | Rare | Common | Sometimes | Common |
| Sore throat | Sometimes | Sometimes | Common | Sometimes (usually mild) |
| Fever | Common | Sometimes | Common | No |
| Feeling tired and weak | Sometimes | Sometimes | Common | Sometimes |
| Headaches | Sometimes | Rare | Common | Sometimes (related to sinus pain) |
| Body aches and pains | Sometimes | Common | Common | No |
| Diarrhea | Sometimes | No | Sometimes for children | No |
| Chills/repeated shaking | Sometimes | No | Sometimes | No |
| Loss of taste or smell | Sometimes | Rare | Rare | Rare |
Your symptoms may vary. *Information is still evolving. **Allergies, colds and flu can all trigger asthma, which can lead to shortness of breath. COVID-19 is the only one associated with shortness of breath on its own.
Sources: Asthma and Allergy Foundation of America, World Health Organization, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
What you should know about COVID-19 to protect yourself and others
Know about COVID-19
• Coronavirus (COVID-19) is an illness caused by a virus that can spread from person to person.
• The virus that causes COVID-19 is a new coronavirus that has spread throughout the world.
• COVID-19 symptoms can range from mild (or no symptoms) to severe illness.
Know how COVID-19 is spread
• You can become infected by coming into close contact (about 6 feet or two arm lengths) with a person who has COVID-19. COVID-19 is primarily spread from person to person.
• You can become infected from respiratory droplets when an infected person coughs, sneezes, or talks.
• You may also be able to get it by touching a surface or object that has the virus on it, and then by touching your mouth, nose, or eyes.
Protect yourself and others from COVID-19
• There is currently no vaccine to protect against COVID-19. The best way to protect yourself is to avoid being exposed to the virus that causes COVID-19.
• Stay home as much as possible and avoid close contact with others.
• Wear a cloth face covering that covers your nose and mouth in public settings.
• Clean and disinfect frequently touched surfaces.
• Wash your hands often with soap and water for at least 20 seconds, or use an alcohol-based hand sanitizer that contains at least 60% alcohol.
Practice social distancing
• Buy groceries and medicine, go to the doctor, and complete banking activities online when possible.
• If you must go in person, stay at least 6 feet away from others and disinfect items you must touch.
• Get deliveries and takeout, and limit in-person contact as much as possible.
Prevent the spread of COVID-19 if you are sick
• Stay home if you are sick, except to get medical care.
• Avoid public transportation, ride-sharing, or taxis.
• Separate yourself from other people and pets in your home.
• There is no specific treatment for COVID-19, but you can seek medical care to help relieve your symptoms.
• If you need medical attention, call ahead.
Know your risk for severe illness
• Everyone is at risk of getting COVID-19.
• Older adults and people of any age who have serious underlying medical conditions may be at higher risk for more severe illness.
cdc.gov/coronavirus
Share facts about COVID-19
Know the facts about coronavirus (COVID-19) and help stop the spread of rumors.
FACT 1
Diseases can make anyone sick regardless of their race or ethnicity.
Fear and anxiety about COVID-19 can cause people to avoid or reject others even though they are not at risk for spreading the virus.
FACT 2
For most people, the immediate risk of becoming seriously ill from the virus that causes COVID-19 is thought to be low.
Older adults and people of any age who have serious underlying medical conditions may be at higher risk for more serious complications from COVID-19.
FACT 3
Someone who has completed quarantine or has been released from isolation does not pose a risk of infection to other people.
For up-to-date information, visit CDC’s coronavirus disease 2019 web page.
FACT 4
There are simple things you can do to help keep yourself and others healthy.
• Wash your hands often with soap and water for at least 20 seconds, especially after blowing your nose, coughing, or sneezing; going to the bathroom; and before eating or preparing food.
• When in public, wear a cloth face covering that covers your mouth and nose.
• Avoid touching your eyes, nose, and mouth with unwashed hands.
• Stay home when you are sick.
• Cover your cough or sneeze with a tissue, then throw the tissue in the trash.
FACT 5
You can help stop COVID-19 by knowing the signs and symptoms, which can include:
• Fever
• Cough
• Shortness of breath
Seek medical attention immediately if you or someone you love has emergency warning signs, including:
• Trouble breathing
• Persistent pain or pressure in the chest
• New confusion or not able to be woken
• Bluish lips or face
This list is not all inclusive. Please consult your medical provider for any other symptoms that are severe or concerning.
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Fun tip: Use fold instructions to make more creatures out of any square sheet of paper; paper used in this kit is 6” square (15.24cm).
#6129000 • Age 7+
CORNER CREATURE BOOKMARKS
Make 10 fun folded creatures to mark the pages of your books and notebooks.
CREATIVITY counts™
Creativity Can™ develop the skills needed to achieve lifelong success.
Creativity develops children’s problem solving and critical thinking skills – it’s the catalyst for invention, innovation and ideas that influence the future.
www.creativitycan.com
www.CreativityforKids.com
#6129000 Corner Creature Bookmarks
© Faber-Castell USA, Inc.
Cleveland, Ohio 44125
www.fabercastell.com
Designed in USA • Made in China
Conforms to ASTM D-4236
Non-toxic Safe for children
Before You Begin
For best results, start with clean dry hands. Cover your work area.
Note: You will use the same origami fold for each creature. Follow the pictures carefully as you match, fold, and crease your paper.
Fold
If you are having trouble with any of the origami steps, ask an adult or older friend to craft with you.
1. Fold to meet in center.
2. Result will look like this. Unfold wings.
3. Fold single front layer down. Leave bottom layer flat.
4. Fold wings to meet in center then unfold them.
5. Fold arms up to create diamond shape.
6. Tuck flaps neatly into pocket.
7. YOU DID IT! Press firmly on creases.
Decorate
Follow the pictures to make a matching set, or mix them up to create your own wild animals!
Lay your bookmarks with the pocket side facing up.
Decorate fox (orange) and raccoon (dark gray) this way
All other animals assemble this way
Select an animal and carefully punch out its accessories – the shapes are labeled to help guide you. Use the glue stick to attach the shapes. Work carefully so you do not glue your bookmark closed.
Glue red squares inside of lion, frog & shark
Arms, ears & teeth glue under pocket
Use the stickers to add the finishing touches.
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Time with nature is always time well spent.
Welcome to week 3 of our #NaturePact. We hope you enjoyed last week’s theme, Taking Your Nature Dose. This week’s theme is a beautiful way to take your Nature Dose, it’s Forest Bathing (Shinrin-Yoku) and Rock Basking.
This week we encourage you to find a forest or group of trees if you can. If you don’t have a forest in easy reach, find a tree in your area that really catches your attention. Now to forest bathe! How?!
Here’s a simple guide from our friends at the International Nature and Forest Therapy Alliance:
**Step 1:** Find a quiet place in nature
**Step 2:** Walk slowly, stopping frequently
**Step 3:** Absorb all that is surrounding you
**Step 4:** Choose a comfortable spot to sit down
**Step 5:** Focus on what you are feeling grateful for in that current moment
Next, find the largest rock in your area. If you can, especially if the sun’s out, lay on it and try basking like a lizard! As you touch this rock, notice how it feels. Think about where it’s come from, how deep in the earth it was formed, how old it might be? Contemplate how many generations of people, plants and animals this rock has seen come and go. When we touch rocks we are touching history.
Did you feel a greater connection with the tree or the rock? Did it change over time?
Share a photo of whichever moved you the most – the tree or the rock – before September 21 on Instagram, Facebook or LinkedIn, using the hashtag #NaturePact and tag @peopleparks for your chance to win one of our nature-based prizes.
Our #NaturePact campaign for 2021 is well underway, but there’s still time to sign up! You can make your #NaturePact at any time during the month of September and schedule precious time outside connecting with nature.
WIN!
Here are some of the fantastic nature-themed prizes you can win:
Download #NaturePact Guides
Already signed up for your #NaturePact? Download your #NaturePact Instagram tiles and stories and let others know you’re participating on your social channels. Make sure you tag @peopleparks and use the #NaturePact hashtag!
INSTAGRAM STORY
Download Emerald Story
Love nature? Check out our partner project – the BACK TO NATURE documentary series, screening nationally 8pm Tuesday evenings on the ABC this August and September (catch up on iView). This is a visually stunning 8-part series executive produced by Aaron Pederson and co-hosted by Aaron and Holly Ringland. Holly and Aaron invite us to slow down and follow them on their journey through Australian nature, exploring the interconnectedness between humans and the landscape, exploring unfamiliar stories involving mystery, geology, history, traditional Indigenous knowledge and natural science.
We’ve been inspired by the series for this year’s weekly #NaturePact themes. This week’s theme of Forest Bathing and Rock Basking links to the ‘connect and share’ for Back to Nature’s sixth Episode – Rainforest and Rock. Watch this beautiful episode and let it inspire you to engage in therapeutic Forest Bathing and Rock Basking.
Stay up to date and receive regular prompts as well as interesting facts and articles about the many benefits of connecting with nature by following us on social media.
Remember, each one of us is a part of nature, and we all belong, as much as the trees and the rocks, as part of nature.
Kind regards
Alison Hill
Managing Director
The People and Parks Foundation
“Nature – where we come to life!”
Have you made your #NaturePact?
We respectfully acknowledge the Traditional Owners of the country throughout Australia and acknowledge the ongoing living culture of Aboriginal people.
Copyright © 2021 People and Parks Foundation, All rights reserved.
Want to change how you receive these emails?
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Grammar
1 Complete the sentences. Put in the right verb form.
Ergänze die Sätze. Setze die richtige Verbform ein.
1. Jay ____________ (love / loves) 'Superstars'.
2. Holly loves animals. She ____________ (help / helps) at an animal rescue shelter.
3. Olivia and Luke like ____________ (like / likes) sports.
4. Olivia ____________ (play / plays) netball.
5. Luke plays football. He ____________ (have / has) football practice on Thursdays.
6. Holly and Olivia have ____________ (have / has) sisters.
7. Dave ____________ (go / goes) to the cinema at the weekend.
8. Olivia and Holly go ____________ (go / goes) to the park on Sundays.
2 Complete the sentences. Put in the right verb form. There's one example.
Ergänze die Sätze. Setze die richtige Verbform ein. Es gibt ein Beispiel.
Sally’s day at the flea market
It's Saturday and Sally ____________ (go) to the flea market at Thomas Tallis School.
Her friend Ron ____________ (have) a stall there. Ron ____________ (sell) second-hand books and computer games. Sally ____________ (help) Ron.
They ____________ (write) prices on the things and talk to the people.
Sally ____________ (play) with Sam, Ron's dog, too. She likes Sam and ____________ (buy) food for him.
After the flea market Sally and Ron ____________ (go) to the cinema and watch a great science fiction film. | <urn:uuid:488dd25e-cf7b-4dbe-a07d-4802b2e04199> | CC-MAIN-2020-24 | https://www.liebfrauenhaus.de/webyep-system/programm/download.php?FILENAME=64-54-at-Lernmaterial5a.pdf&ORG_FILENAME=5a_Lo%CC%88sung_Englisch_AB_Grammar_%281%29.pdf | 2020-06-07T01:37:59+00:00 | crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2020-24/segments/1590348523476.97/warc/CC-MAIN-20200607013327-20200607043327-00343.warc.gz | 776,444,378 | 349 | eng_Latn | eng_Latn | 0.993067 | eng_Latn | 0.993067 | [
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PART - I
Note: (i) Answer all the questions.
(ii) Choose the most appropriate answer from the given four alternatives and write the option code and the corresponding answer.
Choose the appropriate synonyms for the italicised words.
1. We have to be active and need to anticipate what could be there ahead.
(a) foresee (b) unexpected (c) careless (d) sudden
2. They can control a computer screen with Eye Gaze.
(a) control (b) shape (c) colour (d) stare
3. The lady seems hysterical.
(a) calm (b) serious (c) emotional (d) missing
Choose the appropriate antonyms for the italicised words.
4. The Sun was now ascending the sky.
(a) climbing (b) rising (c) mounting (d) descending
5. The spoilt child of affluent parents!
(a) poor (b) healthy (c) wealthy (d) happy
6. The whole school seemed so strange.
(a) odd (b) usual (c) weird (d) new
7. Choose the correct plural form of ‘eskimo’ from the following.
(a) eskimoss (b) eskimos (c) eskimose (d) eskimo
[ Turn over ]
8. Form a derivative by adding the right suffix to the word ‘Child’.
(a) hood (b) ment (c) ure (d) ion
9. Choose the correct expansion of the abbreviation ‘AAC’.
(a) Augmentative and Alternative Communication
(b) Accumulative and Alternative Communication
(c) Augmentative and Assessive Communication
(d) Augmentative and Artificial Computer
10. Complete the following sentence with the most appropriate phrasal verb given below.
I never ________ in the gym.
(a) work after (b) work out (c) work on (d) work in
11. Choose the suitable option to pair it with the word ‘Watch’ to form a compound word.
(a) hall (b) house (c) man (d) clock
12. Fill in the blank with the most appropriate preposition given below.
The young seagull was alone ________ his ledge.
(a) of (b) on (c) into (d) with
13. Complete the following sentence using the most appropriate tense form of the verb given below.
Siva ________ (attend) music classes regularly.
(a) attends (b) attended (c) will attend (d) will be attending
14. Choose the most appropriate linker from the given four alternatives.
Call me ________ you need money.
(a) incase (b) though (c) but (d) and
PART - II
SECTION - 1
Answer any three of the following questions in a sentence or two.
15. What woke up the mother?
16. Which devices are controlled using ACTIV controller?
17. Why did Holmes want Smith to treat him?
18. What was Frank sorry for?
SECTION - 2
Read the following sets of poetic lines and answer any three of the following.
19. There’s a family nobody likes to meet;
They live, it is said, on Complaining Street
(a) Where does the family live?
(b) Why do you think the street is named as Complaining Street?
20. At last by starvation and famine made bold,
All dripping with wet, and all trembling with cold,
(a) What made the cricket bold?
(b) Why did the cricket drip and tremble?
21. So let the way wind up the hill or down,
O’er rough or smooth, the journey will be joy:
(a) How is the way of life?
(b) How should be the journey of life?
22. And now, if you will set us to our task,
We will serve you four and twenty hours a day!
(a) Who does the pronoun ‘you’ refer to here?
(b) Whose task is referred to as ‘our task’ here?
SECTION - 3
Answer any three of the following.
23. Rewrite the sentence in Reported speech.
He said, “I have bought five apples from the shop.”
24. Rewrite the following sentence in other voice.
Have you invited Raman to the party?
25. Punctuate the following sentence.
do you know the symptoms asked smith
26. Change the following sentence into a simple sentence.
He followed what I suggested.
27. Rearrange the words in the correct order to make meaningful sentences.
(a) had/made/He/flight/his/first.
(b) heard/from/tent/her/this/Mulan/inside.
28. Answer the following question.
A stranger asked you to direct him to the school. Guide him to reach his destination.
RAJA DEPARTMENTAL STORE
GANDHI MAIN ROAD
SCHOOL
BUS STOP
GOVT. HOSPITAL
You are here
PART - III
SECTION - 1
Answer any two of the following in a paragraph.
29. Narrate the extensive search operation made by the policeman in the house.
30. ‘Technology is a boon to the disabled’ – Justify.
31. Give a brief character sketch of Sasanka Sanyal.
32. Highlight the factors responsible for the all-women Indian Navy Crew to carry out their expedition.
SECTION - 2
Answer any two of the following.
33. What optimistic attitude should the readers possess according to the poem ‘The Grumble family’?
34. Compare and contrast the attitude of the ant and the cricket.
35. Read the following stanza and answer the questions given below.
Beside the house sits a tree.
It never grows leaves,
Not in the winter, spring, summer or fall.
It just sits there, never getting small or ever growing tall,
(a) Pick out the rhyming words from the given stanza.
(b) Give the rhyme scheme for the given stanza.
(c) Identify the figure of speech employed in the first line of the given stanza.
(d) Pick out the alliterating words in the third line.
36. Paraphrase the following stanza.
Remember, no men are strange, no countries foreign
Beneath all uniforms, a single body breathes
Like ours: the land our brothers walk upon
Is earth like this, in which we all shall lie.
SECTION - 3
Answer any one of the following.
1x5=5
37. Rearrange the following sentences in coherent order.
(i) Mulan went into her room and cut her long hair.
(ii) In the army, Mulan proved to be a brave soldier.
(iii) Mulan, a teenage girl who lived in a faraway village of China heard the news.
(iv) The Emperor said that one man from each Chinese family must join the army.
(v) She climbed on a horse and joined the army.
38. Read the following passage and answer the questions that follow.
One afternoon in the early fall, when Peter was eight years old, his mother called him from his play. "Come, Peter," she said. "I want you to go across the dike and take these cakes to your friend, the blind man. If you go quickly, and do not stop to play, you will be home again before dark." The little boy was glad to go on such an errand, and started off with a light heart. He stayed with the poor blind man a little while to tell him about his walk along the dike and about the sun and the flowers and the ships far out at sea. Then he remembered his mother's wish that he should return before dark and, bidding his friend goodbye, he set out for home.
Questions:
(a) What did Peter's mother want him to do?
(b) What was her advice?
(c) Why was the little boy glad?
(d) What did the little boy tell his friend?
(e) What did the little boy remember?
SECTION - 4
Answer any four of the following.
4x5=20
39. Prepare an attractive advertisement using the hints given below.
Tasty and hygienic - home made taste - 200 varieties to select - Purely vegetarian - special combo offers - available - Icecream and Fruit juices - Mani Vilas - M.G. Road, Madurai.
40. You are Gomathi, a resident of a colony adjacent to the Cauvery River. Daily you see many people throwing waste into it, spoiling the pure water. Write a letter to a newspaper showing your concern about it and also voicing your worry.
41. You are Nikil/Nikitha, school pupil leader of GHSS, Trichy. Prepare a notice on behalf of your school inviting the grandparents of the students to celebrate WORLD ELDERS DAY in your school auditorium on the 20th of next month.
42. Look at the following picture and express your views on it in a paragraph of five sentences.
43. Make notes or write a summary of the following passage.
Many of us use internet on a regular basis and even have access to it from our homes! The ‘net’ in internet really stands for network. A network is two or more computers connected together so that information can be shared, or sent from one computer to another. The internet is a vast resource for all types of information. You may enjoy using it to do research for a school project, downloading your favorite songs or communicating with friends and family. Information is accessed through web pages that companies, organizations and individuals create and post. It’s kind of like a giant bulletin board that the whole world uses! But since anyone can put anything on the internet, you also have to be careful and use your best judgement and a little commonsense.
Just because you read something on a piece of paper someone sticks on a bulletin board doesn’t mean that it’s a good information, or even correct, for that matter. So you have to be sure that whoever posted the information knows what they are talking about, especially if you are doing research! But what if you’re just emailing people? You still have to be very careful. If you’ve never met the person that you’re communicating with online, you could be on dangerous ground! You should never give out any personal information to someone you don’t know, not even your name. And just like if you can’t believe the information on every website out there, you can’t rely on what strangers you ‘meet’ on the internet tell you either. Just like you could make up things about yourself to tell someone, someone else could do the same to you.
44. Identify the errors in the following sentences and rewrite them correctly.
(a) A earth goes round the sun.
(b) It poured outside now.
(c) I can be fifteen next April.
(d) Her cousins as well as she is hard working.
(e) As we were late, so we apologised.
SECTION - 5
45. Quote from memory.
Not mourning for ..........................................................
.......................................................... with cheer.
PART - IV
46. Write a paragraph of about 150 words by developing the following hints.
(a) The Emperor of Shining - orders - old people - to be - deserted - farmer - very sad - carries old mother - to Obatsuyama - leaves mother - arranges bed to sleep - mother warns - son - of danger - asks to follow - twigs - son moved - carries mother back home - hides - at home - Emperor orders - rope of ashes - farmer worried - old mother helps - emperor surprised - farmer revealed the truth - Emperor - calls back the order - abolished his cruel law.
OR
(b) Prospero and Miranda - island cave - help of Ariel - raises storm - the shipwreck - the command of Prospero - Ferdinand separated - brought to cave - Miranda meets Ferdinand - both surprised - Prospero tries Ferdinand with hard tasks - Ariel brings Alonso and Antonio to Prospero - both repent - dukedom restored to Prospero - marriage of Miranda and Ferdinand.
47. Read the following paragraph and answer the questions given below.
(a) Books are the greatest treasure of mankind. The habit of reading them is a source of pleasure. He, who is in the habit of reading books should buy books for himself. He should start collecting books from his youth. The books collected and arranged properly in a room not only decorates the room but also makes the presence of their authors felt. Books contain eternal truths and are better friends than those of flesh and blood as they not only entertain but also guide us.
Questions:
(i) What are the treasure and what gives pleasure?
(ii) When should one start collecting books?
(iii) What do books contain in them?
(iv) Mention any two uses of reading books.
OR
(b) Read the following poem and answer the questions given below.
It is not growing like a tree
In bulk, doth make man better be;
or standing long an oak, three hundred year,
To fall a log at last, dry, bald, and sere;
A lily of a day
Is fairer far in May,
Although it fall and die that night -
It was the plant and flower of Light.
In small proportions we just beauties see;
And in short measures life may perfect be.
Questions:
(i) Which shows beauty - the lily or the oak?
(ii) What happens to the oak at last?
(iii) Compare the life of the oak and the lily.
(iv) What do you learn from the last two lines? | <urn:uuid:cc9c27f2-ec5c-4c32-bb0b-48b3dce679a7> | CC-MAIN-2024-30 | http://greengardenschool.co.in/10TH%20PUBLIC%20EXAM%20QUESTION%20PAPERS/ENGLISH/2024%20MARCH.pdf | 2024-07-25T05:41:47+00:00 | crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2024-30/segments/1720763518579.47/warc/CC-MAIN-20240725053529-20240725083529-00329.warc.gz | 15,441,472 | 2,839 | eng_Latn | eng_Latn | 0.993158 | eng_Latn | 0.998771 | [
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Color and Complexity Word Scramble
Learn printmaking term by unscrambling the words below.
1. itrtsA
2. kIn
3. Silcnet
4. olroC
5. rtniP
6. Bclko
7. pmtSa
8. Dgsnie
9. xteTreu
10. anPtret
Word Bank
| Print | Artist | Stencil | Design | Pattern |
|-------|--------|---------|--------|---------|
| Texture | Color | Block | Stamp | Ink |
Color and Complexity Word Search
Find the hidden printmaking terms.
| D | L | K | A | P | I | C | O | E | T | O | C | T | U |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| M | A | P | M | A | T | S | A | N | I | B | D | E | T |
| C | M | L | S | T | E | N | C | I | L | A | E | E | U |
| I | L | G | L | T | G | T | F | L | T | I | S | L | C |
| U | C | N | T | E | R | N | R | E | N | M | I | S | D |
| A | T | I | G | R | O | E | I | T | I | R | G | I | O |
| R | K | O | E | N | H | L | A | H | O | L | N | A | O |
| T | C | I | P | S | R | G | M | L | C | W | E | T | W |
| I | O | A | A | I | L | A | O | I | I | T | R | R | T |
| S | L | E | P | I | A | C | S | S | P | S | E | D | F |
| T | B | M | O | N | O | P | R | I | N | T | T | T | A | T |
| S | O | N | C | S | S | S | H | A | P | E | L | T | I | S |
| L | A | N | D | S | S | C | A | P | E | P | E | E | A | C |
| I | S | A | S | T | L | M | W | E | E | N | O | N | I |
Word Bank
| Color | Stencil | AAM | Etching | Realistic | Intaglio |
| Line | Artist | Monoprint | Block | Shape | Utopia |
| Stamp | Relief | Landscape | Pattern | Woodcut | Design | | <urn:uuid:72325641-563d-4cac-bbb3-a440168eb615> | CC-MAIN-2020-24 | https://www.allentownartmuseum.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/Color-and-Complexity-Games-English.pdf | 2020-06-07T02:43:51+00:00 | crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2020-24/segments/1590348523476.97/warc/CC-MAIN-20200607013327-20200607043327-00334.warc.gz | 615,592,326 | 627 | eng_Latn | eng_Latn | 0.886688 | eng_Latn | 0.80335 | [
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MONEY CODE
Add up the change in each square, then solve the code below by using the letters next to each amount.
| A | T | E |
|---|---|---|
| N | Y | D |
| O | D | T |
| O | A |
17 70 20 25 26 45
27 50 41 16 31 ! | <urn:uuid:ed306048-b098-4d43-b4ed-8d767976f0dd> | CC-MAIN-2024-30 | https://letsgochipper.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/Making-Change-for-the-Better_Activity-Page_Money-Code.pdf | 2024-07-25T07:49:08+00:00 | crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2024-30/segments/1720763518579.47/warc/CC-MAIN-20240725053529-20240725083529-00329.warc.gz | 299,588,072 | 81 | eng_Latn | eng_Latn | 0.990777 | eng_Latn | 0.990777 | [
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a Complete the sentences by putting the verbs into the correct passive tense.
1 Three men were arrested this evening and **will be questioned** by police tomorrow morning. (question)
2 Oh no. My car isn’t here! It must _________________. (steal)
3 At the moment the hostages ________________ to remain in the plane. (force)
4 The accident happened because the car ________________ at 180 kph. (drive)
5 The drugs ________________ when the lorry ________________ at the border. (discover, stop)
6 Strong measures must ________________ to reduce the number of knife crimes. (take)
7 People who ________________ shoplifting often turn out to have some kind of psychological problem. (catch)
8 The graffiti is particularly annoying as it is the third time the building ________________ so far this year. (vandalize)
9 As soon as we got home we could see that the front door ________________ open and that there were two men in the living room. (leave)
10 ________________ is a deeply unpleasant experience. (burgle)
11 Sarah used ________________ to her room without food when she really naughty. (send)
b Complete the police officer’s statement with the verbs in brackets in the passive. Add any other necessary words.
Ladies and gentlemen, I can now confirm that two dangerous criminals, Roberto Floriano and Walter Hacker, have escaped from Florida State Prison. Security arrangements at the prison are being investigated to find out exactly how they escaped, but they **1 are thought to** (think) have escaped through the air-conditioning system. Floriano **2 ___________** (understand) be one of the engineers who installed the air-conditioning system five years ago. This afternoon a semi-automatic rifle was stolen from a pet shop near the main highway, so I must warn members of the public not to approach these men, as it **3 ___________** (believe) they are armed. According to witnesses the two men **4 ___________** (reported) be still wearing prison clothes. It **5 ___________** (think) they are heading in the direction of the Everglades swamp to make it harder for tracker dogs to find them. The public should not panic – it **6 ___________** (expect) these two dangerous men will be recaptured within the next 24 hours.
Thank you, ladies and gentlemen. | <urn:uuid:5a63d601-18ca-44b9-8215-76acbede7153> | CC-MAIN-2017-26 | http://ingleseoi.es/c1/new/g3a.pdf | 2017-06-23T10:27:24Z | crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-26/segments/1498128320049.84/warc/CC-MAIN-20170623100455-20170623120455-00466.warc.gz | 192,985,674 | 499 | eng_Latn | eng_Latn | 0.999472 | eng_Latn | 0.999472 | [
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1. IMSE professor Dr. Maria Savant grows plants for a hobby. One evening she goes to eBay and buys some oncidium orchids at $15 each, monkey puzzle tree seeds at $1 each (http://www.victorialodging.com/monkey_puzzle_tree.htm), and iris bulbs at $0.25 each. Dr. Savant buys exactly 100 items (with at least one orchid, one seed, and one bulb) and spends exactly $100. How many bulbs did she buy?
2. Two EE students named Jose and Carlos meet in the lobby of Nedderman Hall to discuss a lab experiment. To determine who writes the report Jose suggests the following game, where the loser does the report. He places 40 pennies on a table. Then each player in turn removes 1, 3, or 5 pennies. The winner is the player who removes the last penny. Carlos agrees to the game, so Jose lets him go first. Select the correct statement from the choices below. Submit only the letter corresponding to your answer.
(a) Jose can always win the game regardless of Carlos’ strategy.
(b) Carlos can always win the game regardless of Jose’s strategy.
(c) Neither player has a strategy that guarantees a win.
(d) There is insufficient information to answer (a), (b), or (c).
3. The nation of Griddonesia consists of eighty-one equally-spaced islands represented by intersections of the lines in the grid below. These lines represent horizontal and vertical bridges exactly one-mile long that connect the islands.
A Griddonesian environmental engineer named ΜΣΧΩΩ has designed a small flying robot for the continuous monitoring of air-pollution levels on the islands. The Robird® is programmed as follows. After taking a pollution reading on an island, it is equally likely to fly to any other island for the next reading. The process then repeats automatically. If the Robird® starts on the center island, what is the probability that after three flights, it returns to the center island? Express your answer as a reduced fraction.
4. An ME named Jacob pays his UTA tuition by painting houses. The rear of his apartment building A is separated from another apartment building B by an alley of width $W$. Jacob stores his two longest ladders in the alley by laying them against opposite walls as shown below. Jacob’s ladders intersect 10 feet above the alley. Find the width $W$ of the alley in feet to the nearest three decimal places.
5. Six IE classmates decide to spread a rumor during Engineering Week about one of their professors and humorously (or perhaps not) dub themselves the “Rumor Tumors.” On the first day of Engineering Week each of the six IE’s tells it to six other friends with no duplications. Each of these six new Rumor Tumors is instructed to tell the rumor on each remaining day of Engineering Week, beginning the day after he/she hears it, to six more people who have not previously heard it. The original six IE classmates do likewise. Each new person who hears the rumor is given the same instructions. At the end of the seven days of Engineering Week, how many people know the rumor?
6. Beth, an EE, is doing lightbulb research. She installs three incandescent lightbulbs in three corners of a lab on the fifth floor of Nedderman Hall. Next she wires three switches, one per bulb, in the first-floor lobby. The switches are not labeled as to which switch controls a particular bulb, but all are installed in the off position. Beth then grabs a CSE student named Gunther and asks him to determine the switch that operates each lightbulb. No help or equipment is allowed. What is the minimum number of trips from lobby to lab required by Gunther to determine the switch corresponding to each lightbulb?
7. The American Psychiatric Association recently recognized as a valid psychiatric diagnosis the condition known as Nervous Examination Response Disorder (NERD) in which a student “freezes up” on examinations and performs badly. A biomedical engineering graduate student named Ramya has developed an
objective neurological test for NERD as part of her Ph.D. dissertation. Validating her test on UTA engineering students reveals that one in a hundred suffers from NERD and that her test has a 5% error rate for false negatives, 2% for false positives. To the nearest two decimal places, what is the probability that a student testing positively for NERD actually has the disorder?
8. Two CSE students, a female Sumalee and a male Xiao Hu, drive their respective cars $D > 0$ miles west on I-30. While driving, Sumalee averages 60 mph on her first $pD$ miles for some $0 < p < 1$ and 70 mph on her last $(1 - p)D$. In addition, she stops for gas for exactly 15 minutes during her first $pD$ miles. Similarly, Xiao Hu averages 60 mph on his first $qD$ miles for some $0 < q < 1$ and 70 mph on his last $(1 - q)D$, but he stops for gas for exactly 15 minutes during his last $(1 - q)D$ miles. Determine all corresponding values of $p$ and $q$ for which Sumalee and Xiao Hu cover the $D$ miles in exactly the same time.
9. An ME student named Satish buys one Lotto ticket every Saturday and always chooses the cash-value option rather than 25 equal payments (one immediately and then yearly on the anniversary of the first payment). The cash-value option is the amount invested at 5% by the lottery commission that would yield the series of 25 payments and end with a zero balance. During Engineering Week, Satish learns that he has won the jackpot. Assume that the Internal Revenue Service automatically withholds 35% in taxes from each payment. To the nearest tenth, what percent of the jackpot amount will Satish receive (after taxes) as the cash value option?
10. A materials science graduate student named Tanya has designed a knife made from a new material called überium that is harder than diamond. She tests it on a thin $8'' \times 10''$ rectangular sheet of stainless steel with a smaller rectangular hole of unknown dimensions cut out of its interior at an unknown angle, as indicated in the figure below (not drawn to scale). Using only the knife, a pencil, and three standard $8 \frac{1}{2}'' \times 14''$ pieces of legal paper, what is the minimum number of perfectly straight cuts that she can make with the knife through the top surface of the stainless steel sheet such that these cuts divide the sheet into two separate pieces of equal area of stainless steel? Any change in the direction of the knife constitutes an additional cut.
11. Dr. Frank N. Stein of the CSE faculty is teaching a course in quantum computing this spring semester. On the first test, the eminent AI guru gives a problem involving cellular automata. Consider the following cellular automaton, where the 12 squares are 12 quantum objects in superposition having values both 0 and 1
(i.e., qubits). Black represents the value 0 and white the value 1, so each square shows both colors. Furthermore, each object is entangled, or correlated, with exactly one other object. In other words, if an object collapses to value 0, its correlated object must collapse to value 1 and vice versa. Finally, no odd-numbered object is entangled with another odd-numbered object.
Suppose the 12 qubits are measured, and the superposition randomly collapses to the following cellular automaton.
To this cellular automaton, apply the rule: if a square is correlated with an adjacent square, switch colors; otherwise do not. The result is shown below.
What square is correlated with square 2?
12. An EE named Farid is taking a course in information theory, where he’s currently studying codes. For a homework assignment Farid designs a code by letting 10 English letters be denoted by numbers as follows: 0 – I, 1 – E, 2 – U, 3 – A, 4 – V, 5 – N, 6 – R, 7 – F, 8 – P, 9 – S. If the English word “is” is numerically encrypted as $2 \frac{2}{21}$ and “run” as $3 \frac{5}{8}$, then what English word used in mathematics does $\pi + 1$ encrypt?
13. (Remember, it’s a dirty dozen.) During Christmas break an IE student named Elisa goes on a skiing trip to Keystone, Colorado, which has one snowplow for the road from the town to the ski slopes. It plows at a rate inversely proportional to the depth of the snow on the road. On Elisa’s first morning there, snow starts falling on the clear road at a constant rate. At 9:00 a.m. the snowplow starts plowing the road. It travels one mile in the first hour, then one-half mile in the second hour. At what time did the snow begin? Express your answer to the nearest minute in the form 8:12 a.m., for example.
1. 56. Let $x =$ the number of orchids, $y =$ the number of seeds, and $z =$ the number of bulbs. Then $15x + 1y + 0.25z = 100$ and $x + y + z = 100$, where $x$, $y$, and $z$ must be positive integers. Let $x = 1$ and solve to find that $y$ and $z$ are not both positive integers. Next let $x = 2$, and solve with the same result. For $x = 3$, one obtains $y = 41$, and $z = 56$. Letting $x = 4$, 5, or 6, however, again yields that $y$ and $z$ are not both positive integers.
2. (a). Each player takes an odd number of pennies per play. After Carlos plays first, there will be an odd number of pennies left. After Jose plays second there will be an even number of pennies left. The situation repeats. Hence, Carlos can never take the last penny since there will always be an even number.
3. $\frac{79}{6400}$. Compute directly, or let $p_n$ denote the probability that the robird returns to the center island after $n$ flights, where $p_0 = 1$. From the law of total probability
$$p_{n+1} = P(\text{on center after } n + 1 \text{ flights}) =$$
$$P(\text{on center after } n + 1 \mid \text{on center after } n)P(\text{on center after } n) +$$
$$P(\text{on center after } n + 1 \mid \text{not on center after } n)P(\text{not on center after } n) =$$
$$0 + (1/80)(1 - p_n), \quad n = 0, 1, 2, \ldots.$$.
Thus $p_1 = 0$, $p_2 = 1/80$, $p_3 = \frac{79}{6400}$.
4. 26.033. From similar triangles, $W = \frac{10W}{\sqrt{30^2 - W^2}} + \frac{10W}{\sqrt{40^2 - W^2}}$. Solve this equation in various ways (including MatLib, Mathcad, or Mathematica).
5. $7^7 \times 6 = 4,941,258$.
6. 1. Designate the switches as 1, 2, and 3. In the lobby, turn on switch 2 for ten minutes and then turn it off. Immediately turn switch 1 on and go to the lab. The lightbulb turned on is controlled by switch 1. The lightbulb off and warm is controlled by switch 2. The lightbulb off and cold is controlled by switch 3.
7. 0.32. Let TP denote the event “test positive,” $N$ denote “has NERD,” and $\tilde{N}$ be its complement. Compute directly, or use Bayes’ Theorem to write
$$P(N \mid TP) = \frac{P(TP \mid N)P(N)}{P(TP \mid N)P(N) + P(TP \mid \tilde{N})P(\tilde{N})}$$
$$= \frac{(0.95)(0.01)}{(0.95)(0.01) + (0.02)(0.99)}$$
$$\approx 0.324.$$
8. $p = q$ for all $0 < p < 1$. Solve $\frac{pD}{60} + \frac{(1-p)D}{70} + \frac{1}{4} = \frac{qD}{60} + \frac{(1-q)D}{70} + \frac{1}{4}$.
9. 38.5%. Let $V$ be the jackpot value. Then he would receive $V/25$ immediately and then 24 more such annual payments. Now $0.04V$ in $k$ years is worth $\frac{0.04V}{(1.05)^k}$ now.
Thus the present cash value after taxes is
$$ (0.65)(0.04V) \sum_{k=0}^{24} \frac{1}{(1.05)^k} = (0.026)(14.7987)V \approx 0.3848V. $$
Dividing by $V$ and rounding to the nearest tenth of a percent gives the answer.
10. 1 cut. The diagonal of the $8'' \times 10''$ sheet is less than 14''. Place one piece of paper under the stainless steel such that the hole is completely filled with paper. Connect two opposite corners of the $8'' \times 10''$ sheet with a 14'' side of a second piece of paper. Then connect the other two opposite corners with a 14'' side of the third piece. Mark the intersection either on the stainless steel or the underlying paper, as the case may be. This intersection is the center of the $8'' \times 10''$ sheet. Next do the same with the rectangular hole, marking the center of the hole on the underlying sheet. Draw a line on the stainless steel that connects the two centers. Cutting along this line divides both the sheet and hole into two equal pieces and gives the desired result. If the two centers coincide, any line drawn through the point would work.
11. Square 5. The given information produces a unique set of correlations.
12. “Even.” The number $2\frac{2}{21} = 2.095\ldots$, and $3\frac{5}{8} = 3.6250\ldots$. The integer portion represents the number of letters, and the decimal digits (unrounded) give the letters. Since $\pi + 1 = 4.14159\ldots$, it yields “even.”
13. 8:23 a.m. Let $b =$ the depth of snow at 9:00 a.m., and $a =$ its rate of increase. Let $t$ denote hours after 9:00 a.m., so $t = 0$ is 9:00 a.m. Hence, the snow depth at time $t$ is $at + b$ for positive constants $a,b$ with the snowfall starting at $-b/a$. For positive constant $c$, the plow’s rate of progress is $ds/dt = c/(at + b)$, where $s(t)$ is the distance traveled. Thus $s(t) = (c/a) \ln (1 + at/b)$. Note $s(2) = 1.5$ miles $= 1.5s(1)$, so
$$ \frac{c}{a} \ln (1 + 2a/b) = 1.5 \frac{c}{a} \ln (1 + a/b). $$
Or,
$$ \ln (1 + 2a/b) = 1.5 \ln (1 + a/b) = \ln (1 + a/b)^{1.5}. $$
Taking the exponential function of both ends gives
$$ 1 + 2a/b = (1 + a/b)^{3/2}. $$
We seek $-b/a$, so let $x = a/b$, and solve
$$ (1 + 2x)^2 = (1 + x)^3. $$
Then the starting time is 9:00 a.m. $-(1/x$ converted to minutes).
The only relevant solution to the equation yields the exact answer
8:(90 - 30\sqrt{5})$ a.m. $\cong 8:22.92$ a.m. | <urn:uuid:2e7545f9-ba65-4d4c-9d79-52c238e33db4> | CC-MAIN-2019-13 | http://www.uta.edu/cosmos/extras/dirtydozen/2004puzzles.pdf | 2019-03-20T12:23:28Z | crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2019-13/segments/1552912202326.46/warc/CC-MAIN-20190320105319-20190320131319-00130.warc.gz | 373,880,597 | 3,646 | eng_Latn | eng_Latn | 0.99186 | eng_Latn | 0.996829 | [
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What is CACFP?
CACFP is the Child and Adult Care Food Program, a Federal program that provides healthy meals and snacks to children and adults receiving day care.
Each day more than 2.6 million children and almost 60,000 older adults participate in CACFP. Through CACFP, participants’ nutritional needs are supported on a daily basis. The program plays a vital role in improving the quality of day care and making it more affordable for many low-income families.
In addition to day care, CACFP helps make afterschool programs more appealing to at-risk youth. By offering nutritious snacks in programs serving low-income areas, centers can increase participation and know that youth are having a healthy snack.
Homeless children and children from temporarily displaced families can also receive up to three meals each day through shelters that operate the program.
Who is eligible for CACFP meals?
- children age 12 and under,
- migrant children age 15 and younger,
- functionally impaired adult participants or adults age 60 and older enrolled in an adult day care center, and
- youths through age 18 in afterschool programs in needy areas.
What kinds of meals are served?
CACFP facilities follow the meal patterns established by USDA.
- **Breakfast** consists of a serving of milk, fruit or vegetable, and grains or bread.
- **Lunch and dinner** require milk, grains or bread, meat or meat alternate, and two different servings of fruits or vegetables.
- **Snacks** include two different servings of the four components: milk, fruits or vegetables, grains or bread, or meat or meat alternate.
CACFP Facilities
Many different facilities operate CACFP, all sharing the common goal of bringing nutritious meals and snacks to participants.
- **Child Care Centers**
Licensed or approved public or private nonprofit child care centers, Head Start programs, and some for-profit centers serve meals to large numbers of children.
- **Family Day Care Homes**
Small groups of children receive nonresidential day care in licensed or approved private homes.
- **Afterschool Care Programs**
Centers in low-income areas provide free snacks to school-age children and youth.
- **Homeless Shelters**
Emergency shelters provide residential and food services to homeless children.
- **Adult Day Care Centers**
Public, private nonprofit, and some for-profit adult day care facilities provide structured, comprehensive services to functionally impaired nonresident adults.
How does CACFP work?
CACFP reimburses participating centers and day care homes for serving nutritious meals. It is administered at the Federal level by the Food and Nutrition Service (FNS), an agency of the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA).
The State education or health department administers CACFP in most States. State agencies approve sponsoring organizations and independent centers to operate the program on the local level. The State also monitors the program and provides guidance and assistance to ensure requirements are met.
Sponsoring organizations play a critical role in supporting home day care providers and centers through training, technical assistance, and monitoring. All family or group day care homes must come into the program under a sponsoring organization. Several types of organizations are approved by the States to serve as sponsors—community action groups, nonprofit organizations, and churches.
Contacts
If you are interested in participating in CACFP, or have questions about the program, the sponsoring organizations and State agencies can help. Visit our State agency website at http://www.ode.state.or.us/nutrition/cacfp, or call (503) 378-3600 ext, 2610.
CACFP Partners
Family or Group Homes → Sponsoring Organizations → State CACFP Agency → Regional FNS Office → USDA, Food and Nutrition Service Headquarters
Centers → Independent Centers
"The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) and the State of Oregon prohibit discrimination in all USDA programs and activities on the basis of race, color, national origin, sex, religion, age, or disability. To file a complaint of discrimination, write USDA, Director, Office of Civil Rights, Room 326-W, Whitten Building, 14th and Independence Avenue, SW, Washington, D.C. 20250-9410 or call (202) 720-5964 (voice and TDD). USDA and the State of Oregon are equal opportunity providers and employers."
USDA FNS:319 • July 2000
USDA is an equal opportunity provider and employer. | <urn:uuid:3df7da18-9f4c-4edf-ba1e-08d78d49b1cb> | CC-MAIN-2021-43 | https://www.oregon.gov/ode/students-and-family/childnutrition/cacfp/Documents/4future.pdf | 2021-10-23T12:21:22+00:00 | crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2021-43/segments/1634323585671.36/warc/CC-MAIN-20211023095849-20211023125849-00260.warc.gz | 1,097,882,253 | 909 | eng_Latn | eng_Latn | 0.990973 | eng_Latn | 0.995262 | [
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The project is a collaboration between the artist and the community, aiming to create a unique and meaningful piece of art that reflects the experiences and perspectives of the people involved. The process involves a series of workshops and discussions where participants share their stories and ideas, which are then translated into visual elements through various media such as photography, video, and digital art.
The final installation will be a large-scale mural or a series of interactive installations that invite viewers to engage with the artwork in a variety of ways. The project also includes an educational component, where the artist will work with local schools and community groups to teach about the creative process and the importance of storytelling.
The project is funded by a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts and is being implemented in partnership with several local organizations, including the local arts council, a community development agency, and a non-profit organization focused on youth development. The project is expected to run for six months, culminating in a public exhibition and celebration of the completed artwork.
The project aims to foster a sense of community and belonging among the participants, while also raising awareness about the power of art to bring people together and inspire change. Through this collaborative effort, the project seeks to create a lasting legacy that will continue to inspire and engage the community long after the initial exhibition. | a36015a4-8a4a-4a26-9112-201c1e698a3f | CC-MAIN-2020-40 | http://www.2004-2040.com/01172.pdf | 2020-09-27T05:55:11+00:00 | crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2020-40/segments/1600400265461.58/warc/CC-MAIN-20200927054550-20200927084550-00208.warc.gz | 145,813,623 | 260 | eng_Latn | eng_Latn | 0.999174 | eng_Latn | 0.999174 | [
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The problem “if an object at the average distance of the Earth from the Sun could suddenly lose its (tangential) speed with respect to the Sun, how long would it take for it to crash into the Sun?” was originally presented to one of us (Dilsaver) by a colleague to whom a student had posed the question. This natural extension of the familiar uniform acceleration problems from high-school physics has come to be known as the “Solar Swan Dive” and leads to some interesting solutions.
Essentially all falling-object problems in high-school physics assume the distance fallen is insignificant compared with the distance to the center of attraction so that acceleration is constant. High-school students know that $g = 9.8 \text{ m/s}^2$, even if they don’t necessarily fully understand what that means. In the solar swan dive problem, however, acceleration is variable.
The first impulse for the teacher presented with such a question might be to tell the student the solution is beyond the scope of an introductory physics class and that he or she should ask again after a course or two in calculus. After all, the problem involves a second-order, nonlinear, differential equation! A second impulse might be for the teacher to think, “I can’t work that problem and I’d better change the subject as quickly as possible!” But high-school physics is sufficient to solve the problem. In fact, there are a number of possible solutions that may be understood by students with no background in calculus. For completeness, a solution based on calculus is also included here. For simplicity, all solutions compute the time to reach the center of the Sun instead of the surface of the photosphere.
**Method 1: Solution by Kepler’s Third Law**
Kepler’s third law states that for a planet in an elliptical orbit, the square of the period, $P$, is directly proportional to the cube of the semimajor axis, $a$. If the semimajor axis is in astronomical units and the period is in Earth years, we have
$$P^2 = a^3 \quad (1)$$
With this relationship we can solve the solar swan dive problem as follows:
Consider a family of elliptical orbits in which each ellipse has one focus at the Sun and the maximum Earth-to-Sun distance is fixed at one astronomical unit (A.U.). Ellipses in this family are distinguished by eccentricity.
The eccentricity, $e$, of an ellipse is the ratio $c/a$, where $c$ is the distance from the center to either focus. With $c + a$ fixed at 1 A.U., we have
$$e = \frac{1-a}{a} \quad (2)$$
which rearranges to
$$a = \frac{1}{1+e} \quad (3)$$
Substituting Eq. (3) into Eq. (1) and solving for the period gives
$$P = \left( \frac{1}{1+e} \right)^{3/2} \quad (4)$$
As the eccentricity increases toward unity, the ellipse becomes almost a straight line between Earth and Sun. One-half the period of such an orbit becomes a close approximation to the time for a solar swan dive. Of course this is a limit process, but students without prior exposure to calculus seem to grasp the concept easily when presented with examples of the effect of varying eccentricity. Six confocal ellipses with eccentricities ranging from 0.0 to 0.999 are shown in Fig. 1. Table I gives a list of semiperiods (estimated “dive times”) for these ellipses. (Figure 1 was drawn with a Strobe Model 100 digital plotter driven by an Apple II Plus microcomputer. Correspondence from readers with similar equipment is welcomed.)
If we consider the object falling into the Sun to be in a rectilinear “orbit” (i.e., a degenerate ellipse with unit eccentricity), which has semimajor axis equal to 0.5 A.U. and apply Eq. (4) we obtain
$$P = (0.5)^{3/2} \quad (5)$$
Thus $P/2$ gives a solar swan dive of $\frac{\sqrt{2}}{8}$ of an Earth year, or 64.6 days.
**Method 2: Solution by Computer Approximation**
Most high-school physics classes have access to some type of microcomputer. A program can easily be written to approximate the answer to the solar swan dive problem. For example, assume the acceleration due to the Sun’s gravity is constant over a certain short
time, say one-tenth day. Calculate the distance fallen during that time increment, recompute the acceleration, and repeat the process until the Sun is reached.
This method, which is essentially a second-order Taylor series solution of an initial value problem,\(^1\) will reinforce the variation in acceleration and allow students to see more clearly how this problem differs from their familiar falling body problems.
A computer solution in generic BASIC is given in Table II.
**Method 3: Solution by Science Fiction**
Many students (and teachers) enjoy reading science fiction. Occasionally a reference or an idea in a science-fiction story can generate some good discussion in a physics classroom. After solving the solar swan dive problem, we discovered that in Arthur C. Clarke’s short story “Jupiter V” reference is made to “a well-known theorem stating that if a body falls from an orbit to the center of attraction, it will take point one seven seven of a period to make the drop.”\(^2\)
This theorem may be well known to someone well grounded in celestial mechanics, but perhaps is not to the average high-school physics teacher. Clarke’s stories have a reputation for mathematical accuracy and the theorem mentioned gives the correct value of 64.566 days for the dive, since \(\frac{\sqrt{2}}{8} = 0.17677...\).
**Method 4: Outline of a Solution by Calculus**
Let \(x\) denote the distance of the falling object from the Sun at time \(t\) after the beginning of the fall. Then if we let \(M\) and \(G\) represent the mass of the Sun and the universal gravitation constant, respectively, we have the initial value problem
\[
\frac{d^2 x}{dt^2} = -\frac{GM}{x^2}
\]
(6)
with initial conditions
\[
\frac{dx}{dt} = 0, \quad x = a \text{ at } t = 0
\]
(7)
If we multiply Eq. (6) by \(\frac{dx}{dt}\) and integrate, we have
\[
\frac{1}{2} \left( \frac{dx}{dt} \right)^2 = \frac{GM}{x} + C
\]
(8)
which on substitution of (7) and simplification becomes
\[
\frac{dx}{dt} = -\sqrt{\frac{2MG}{a}} \sqrt{\frac{a-x}{x}}
\]
(9)
We note that the reciprocal of \(\frac{dx}{dt}\) is \(\frac{dt}{dx}\), so that
\[
dt = -\sqrt{\frac{a}{2MG}} \frac{\sqrt{x}}{\sqrt{a-x}} \, dx
\]
(10)
Integrating by way of the trigonometric substitution \(x = a \cos^2 \theta\), we find that
\[
t = \sqrt{\frac{a}{2MG}} \left( \sqrt{x(a-x)} + a \arccos \sqrt{\frac{x}{a}} \right)
\]
(11)
For the solar swan dive, \(x = 0\), so
\[
t = \frac{a\pi}{2} \sqrt{\frac{a}{2MG}}
\]
(12)
With \(a = 1\) A.U., \(t = 64.6\) days.
**Conclusion**
Many problems not generally considered in first-year physics classes are solvable by noncalculus physics. Showing students that they have the means to solve problems “not in the book” can increase their confidence and their willingness to attempt a variety of problem-solving methods. The authors believe that presenting a variety of methods of solution (or better, having students search for a variety of methods) may encourage creative thinking and better integration of the topics covered in an introductory physics course.
**References**
1. C.F. Gerald and P.O. Wheatley, *Applied Numerical Analysis*, 3rd ed. (Addison-Wesley, Reading, MA, 1984), pp. 301–303.
2. A.C. Clarke, “Jupiter V,” *The Sentinel* (Berkley Books, New York, 1983), p. 120. | <urn:uuid:33a9b992-056a-41f9-abab-723ae048f01d> | CC-MAIN-2018-09 | https://johndilsaver.com/physics/solar.swan.dive.pdf | 2018-02-19T15:45:19Z | crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2018-09/segments/1518891812756.57/warc/CC-MAIN-20180219151705-20180219171705-00525.warc.gz | 690,221,425 | 1,871 | eng_Latn | eng_Latn | 0.985161 | eng_Latn | 0.993579 | [
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1. Monascus purpureus (1)
2. Western Ghats (1)
3. Rhizobium (1)
4. Yes. The bird population shows different regions of earth shows it. More sps diversity at tropical region than that of temperate region. (2)
5. Mycorrhiza - Fungal association with plants (1)
Cyanobacteria - Autotrophic microbes (1)
6. Conserved biodiversity patches on religious believes.
It plays vital role in biodiversity conservation & water conservation (2)
7. Citric acid - Aspergillus niger
Butyric acid - Clostridium butylicum
Acetic acid - Acetobacter aceti
Lactic acid - Lactobacillus. (2)
8. Silent Valley NP - Periyar WLS. (2)
9. BioControl agents - a) Specificity b) Not polluting c) Accuracy. (2)
Eg: - Bacillus thuringiensis bacteria, NPV (1)
10. In situ - Inside natural habitat (NPs, WLS)
Ex situ - outside natural habitat (Zoo, cryopr.) (3)
11. a) Physical - Filtration and Sedimentation
Biological - Aerobic & Anaerobic bacteria. (2)
b) BOD increase denotes more organic content on water (1)
VERSION B
1. Trichoderma polysporum (1)
2. Cryopreservation (1)
3. Paul Ehrlich. (1)
4. Habitat loss & fragmentation, Over exploitation, Alien sps. inv., co-extinction. (2)
5. N₂ fixing - Rhizobium cyanobacteria (2)
6. Save today for tomorrow - Nature gives for need not for greed (2)
(like slogans)
7. Biological Oxygen Demand. Definition - BOD increases - purity decreases (2)
8. Tropical - More Sunlight - High photosyn. Rate - higher vegetation (2)
9. In situ - NP, Biosphere Reserve
Ex situ - Zoo, Bot. garden (3)
10. Examples of bio pesticides - Bt, NPV etc. (3)
Importance of IPM.
11. Genetic level (Mango/Rice) Sps. level (Amph. Div.) Ecosystem level (Eg:) 3. | <urn:uuid:f6d2bfff-e717-486d-be16-00b6b598a005> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://hsstaplus.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/2-biology-unit-3.pdf | 2022-08-09T20:16:10+00:00 | crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882571086.77/warc/CC-MAIN-20220809185452-20220809215452-00251.warc.gz | 306,238,339 | 499 | eng_Latn | eng_Latn | 0.58061 | eng_Latn | 0.58061 | [
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How to Draw a Flower Crown Step by Step
1. Start with a small circle for the base of the crown.
2. Add more flowers around the circle, making sure they are evenly spaced.
3. Continue adding flowers until the entire circle is covered.
4. Add leaves and stems to the flowers.
5. Draw a branch or twig at the top of the crown to hold it together.
6. Color in the flowers and leaves.
7. Add any additional details or embellishments.
8. Your flower crown is now complete! | <urn:uuid:5ad18a84-2440-4fbb-a244-f544c43c3785> | CC-MAIN-2021-43 | https://drawinghowtos.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/flower-crown-how-to-draw-pdf-print.pdf | 2021-10-23T10:01:56+00:00 | crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2021-43/segments/1634323585671.36/warc/CC-MAIN-20211023095849-20211023125849-00261.warc.gz | 311,545,540 | 108 | eng_Latn | eng_Latn | 0.999115 | eng_Latn | 0.999115 | [
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century. Young people were attracted by the computer controlled, simulated diffraction experiment. Precession diffraction method, Laue method, texture and stress measurements showed examples how the results obtained from x-ray diffraction experiments are important for crystal examinations and for metallurgy.
The old x-ray laboratory, interactive computer program of crystal structures and video-films made the inseparable part of exhibition.
It is a great pity that colleagues from Slovakia did not find the time for active participation in the exhibition.
Following are some comments of visitors written into the visitors’ books:
*Bylo to super, ale mě do toho nic není. M.K.*
(The exhibition was excellent, but I am not interested in it.)
*Bolo veľmi zaujímavé susedia. Čau Pavol Záhumenický*
(It was very interesting, neighbours.)
*A very nice exhibit. All. Too often the science is presented without the history. We can learn also more then science from scientists. David Rickelts UK.*
*I liked all those lovely, gorgeous scientific knick-knack, love. Patsy Store*
*Congratulations to the authors for this interesting and very impressive work. P.Klimanek*
*Congratulation to the nice and very didactical exhibition of the history of crystallography followed by x-ray crystallography. I do like to remember the 40 years spent with „časky“ instruments. A.Kalmán*
*I found the exhibits fascinating and very informative-very well done. Mardi Doherty, Australia*
*Víbec se mi to nelibí. Janáková, Pelřímov*
(I don’t like it at all.)
*Pěkná blbost, velmi nezá vzně, jako celá fyzika. DDD*
(Very stupid, like the whole physics.)
*Kdybych se byl býval lépe učil fyziku snad bych i lépe rozuměl, ale i tak mě uchvátily přístroje a taky počítačové struktury. Tomáš B.Novák*
(If I learned physics better, I would understand it. I was fascinated by devices and crystal structures on computer.)
*Bylo tu to pěkné na to e je mi 9let tak tomu rozumím. Martina Morávkova, Jičín*
(It was nice here, I am 9 years old and everything is clear to me)
**Our thanks to all who participated on the exhibition preparation and instalation!**
To M. Čepera (texture), J. Hybler (Laue method), A. Jegorov (drugs research), I. Kraus (history, stress), D. Krausová (medicine), B. Kratochvíl (drugs research), J. Loub (fig. principle of diffraction), J. Marek (video/films), P. Ondruš and R. Skála (mineralogy, x-ray diffraction experiment, interactive computer program), J. Peterková-Dušková (anti-AIDS drug), M. Rieder (precession camera), E. Těšínská (history).
Exhibition design: J. Řehák
L.Dobiášová
**The children’s paintings made a part of 18th ECM.**
At the beginning it was the idea to put the crystals as a source of inspiration to the children from the Artistic Studio Vyšehrad. Thanks to artistic teacher K. Šilhánová, children from 5 to 15 years became familiar with this subject correspondingly to their age. She did not want the children made only the mechanical copy-paintings. Children were attracted by mystery of crystals which gave them the wide fields for their curious questions. They wanted to know why crystals have different shapes and colour. They were interested in the history of their growing in nature and many others things. The paintings and small sculptures were exhibited at the passage of Faculty of Mechanical Engineering during the 18th ECM. Our collaboration does not finish and we hope that it will be fruitful for children and for us too.
L.Dobiášová. | <urn:uuid:d6492431-0041-444e-b404-4499e4ab4206> | CC-MAIN-2024-51 | http://www.xray.cz/ms/bul98-1/zpravaen.pdf | 2024-12-08T21:43:52+00:00 | crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2024-51/segments/1733066450783.96/warc/CC-MAIN-20241208203139-20241208233139-00009.warc.gz | 57,325,148 | 848 | eng_Latn | eng_Latn | 0.991607 | eng_Latn | 0.991607 | [
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Dear All,
We will follow the below Bell Schedule on Friday December 9th due to an Assembly and "Hours of Code" activities.
4th - 10th graders will be called to the cafeteria right after they have reported to their 7th periods and they will return back to their 7th periods after the assembly. The Assembly will be about programming/coding.
The below teachers will organize the activities with their grade level teachers in their rooms. The below assigned teachers will communicate the details with the grade level teachers.
Pre-K - K Activities will be organized and run Ms. Ertekin.
1st grade Activities will be organized and run Mr. Sanal
2nd grade Activities will be organized and run Mr. Kaya
3rd grade Activities will be organized and run Mr. Stiffler
| Assembly Bell Schedule (4th-10th) |
|-----------------------------------|
| BEFORE SCHOOL | 7:30 | 30 min |
| CERP | No CERP | No CERP |
| 1st Period | 8:00 - 8:55 | 55 |
| 2nd Period | 8:59 - 9:49 | 50 |
| 6th Period | 9:53 - 10:43 | 50 |
| 3rd Period | 10:47 - 11:37 | 50 |
| 4th Period | 11:41 - 12:31 | 50 |
| 5th Period | 12:35 - 13:25 | 50 |
| 7th Period | 13:29 - 13:34 | 5 |
| Assembly | 13:38 - 14:38 | 60 |
Hi all again,
I just wanted to share some useful links.
At the beginning you can watch these short videos to explain why we are learning coding.
1) [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cKtVjuyy7nK](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cKtVjuyy7nK)
2) [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XMZFUa4qQos](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XMZFUa4qQos)
3) [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2DxWbvec6yo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2DxWbvec6yo)
Game video: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rYthtgZAviQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rYthtgZAviQ)
This is the game link: [http://thefoos.com/webgl/](http://thefoos.com/webgl/)
All you need to do is open it on smart board. They are gonna come and do one by one.
All the answers is here for the foos game. If you can not solve the question, you can get some help :). [http://thefoos.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/codSpark-Academy-Solutions.pdf](http://thefoos.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/codSpark-Academy-Solutions.pdf)
Other useful videos that you can watch during hour of code activity but I am not sure that kindergarten students can understand or not :) These videos are alternative in case they get bored to play game.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FC5F9mss-Hw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FC5F9mss-Hw)
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nK0u9yen5nc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nK0u9yen5nc)
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xJcSu1bxHg&list=PLzdnCPI1uJNfbD3i4Sx7U0y2VccrnNZuP](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xJcSu1bxHg&list=PLzdnCPI1uJNfbD3i4Sx7U0y2VccrnNZuP)
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dU1xS07N-FA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dU1xS07N-FA)
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fld9TWJUFm0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fld9TWJUFm0)
I will print this certificate for all kids. [http://thefoos.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/codSpark-Academy-Certificate.pdf](http://thefoos.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/codSpark-Academy-Certificate.pdf)
I appreciate all of your help and cooperation.
Have a great night.
On Thu, Dec 8, 2016 at 3:17 PM, Melike Ertekin <firstname.lastname@example.org> wrote:
Hi Kindergarten and Pre-K Teachers,
During hour of code activity we are going to use following link:
[http://thefoos.com/webgl/](http://thefoos.com/webgl/)
It is really easy game and students know how to play. All you need to do is open it on smart board. They are gonna come and do one by one (This part can be hard :))
I will be with Pre-K students. When you need help, you can find me in Pre-K class.
Today I will come to your class to explain the game.
Thank you for everything and sorry for this late e-mail.
--
*Melike Betul Ertekin,*
Georgia Day of Code is THIS FRIDAY Have you registered?
Georgia Day of Code, part of national Computer Science Week, takes place this Friday! Join TAG, TAG Education Collaborative, and Code.org for an hour of coding on December 9, 2016.
Have you registered your school or classroom to participate? No experience is necessary -- everyone can learn to code!
Click here to see the over 1200 schools and organizations participating all around our state!
Looking for fun ideas? Check out the exciting and interactive tutorials for learners of all ages at Code.org. See below for our Lesson Plan Spotlight. | <urn:uuid:f9b8c7f2-f983-4470-b14d-f8bf17f1708f> | CC-MAIN-2021-43 | http://stem.fultonscienceacademy.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/Hours-of-code.pdf | 2021-10-23T11:41:06+00:00 | crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2021-43/segments/1634323585671.36/warc/CC-MAIN-20211023095849-20211023125849-00262.warc.gz | 74,228,367 | 1,320 | eng_Latn | eng_Latn | 0.943582 | eng_Latn | 0.968886 | [
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1. (a) What are the differences and similarities between macro and subroutine (or function). (15 points)
(b) List features of subroutine (or function). (5 points)
2. (a) Is it possible that a variable may have no identifier associated with it? Explain your assertion. (10 points)
(b) Explain how a recursive procedure call can be done. (10 points)
3. (a) Given a two-hundred digits positive integer, design an algorithm to determine whether the number is prime or not using a 32 bits computer. (15 points)
(b) Estimate how many years your algorithm may take to finish the job in worst case, if there is a PC that can perform 1 million arithmetic operations of 200 digits numbers in 1 second. (5 points)
4. (a) Explain the differences and similarities between I/O buffer and cache. (10 points)
(b) Would it be better to use cache as I/O buffer? Argue your assertion. (5 points)
5. (a) Define the following terms: linked list, queue, stack and binary tree. (10 points)
(b) Describe how to merge 2 unsorted one-way circular linked lists in O(1) time bound. (8 points)
(c) Describe how to delete an element with index k from a unsorted array of size n in O(1) time bound. (7 points) | <urn:uuid:56c61162-67bf-4104-8943-996c729144f6> | CC-MAIN-2021-04 | http://math.ncku.edu.tw/teaching/old-test/master84/computer.pdf | 2021-01-24T09:22:11+00:00 | crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2021-04/segments/1610703547475.44/warc/CC-MAIN-20210124075754-20210124105754-00769.warc.gz | 73,469,341 | 300 | eng_Latn | eng_Latn | 0.989368 | eng_Latn | 0.989368 | [
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1200
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Accident Report
Name and Age of Child Injured: ________________________________
Name of Parent: _________________________________________
Date and Time of Accident: _________________________________
Description of Accident
A. How was the child injured? (What was he/she doing?) ___________________________________________________________________________________________
B. Were there other children or adults involved? Who? ____________________________________________________________
How? ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________
C. How and when was parent notified? _______________________________________________________________________________
D. Was a doctor notified? ______ E. Was Child take to hospital? ______
F. Nature and location of injury. (describe fully what area of body was hurt.) _______________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________
(Person in Charge) (Pastor or Children’s Pastor) | <urn:uuid:f4de5629-0303-43cd-8891-907a7e4e3ec1> | CC-MAIN-2017-51 | http://luke252kids.com/ewExternalFiles/Accident%20report.pdf | 2017-12-13T09:08:22Z | crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-51/segments/1512948522343.41/warc/CC-MAIN-20171213084839-20171213104839-00451.warc.gz | 160,546,678 | 151 | eng_Latn | eng_Latn | 0.540094 | eng_Latn | 0.540094 | [
"eng_Latn"
] | false | rolmOCR | [
1089
] | [
3.140625
] | 1 | 2 |
Questions and Answers about Methicillin-Resistant *Staphylococcus aureus* (MRSA) in Schools
What type of infections does MRSA cause?
- In the community most MRSA infections are skin infections that may appear as pustules or boils which often are red, swollen, painful, or have pus or other drainage. These skin infections commonly occur at sites of visible skin trauma, such as cuts and abrasions, and areas of the body covered by hair (e.g., back of neck, groin, buttock, armpit, beard area of men).
- Almost all MRSA skin infections can be effectively treated by drainage of pus with or without antibiotics. More serious infections, such as pneumonia, bloodstream infections, or bone infections, are very rare in healthy people who get MRSA skin infections.
How is MRSA transmitted?
- MRSA is usually transmitted by direct skin-to-skin contact or contact with shared items or surfaces that have come into contact with someone else's infection (e.g., towels, used bandages).
In what settings do MRSA skin infections occur?
- MRSA skin infections can occur anywhere.
- Some settings have factors that make it easier for MRSA to be transmitted.
- These factors, referred to as the 5 C's, are as follows:
- Crowding,
- frequent skin-to-skin Contact,
- Compromised skin (i.e., cuts or abrasions),
- Contaminated items and surfaces,
- and lack of Cleanliness.
- Locations where the 5 C's are common include schools, dormitories, military barracks, households, correctional facilities, and daycare centers.
How do I protect myself from getting MRSA?
- You can protect yourself by:
- practicing good hygiene (e.g., keeping your hands clean by washing with soap and water or using an alcohol-based hand sanitizer and showering immediately after participating in exercise);
- covering skin trauma such as abrasions or cuts with a clean dry bandage until healed;
- avoiding sharing personal items (e.g., towels, razors) that come into contact with your bare skin; and using a barrier (e.g., clothing or a towel) between your skin and shared equipment such as weight-training benches;
- maintaining a clean environment by establishing cleaning procedures for frequently touched surfaces and surfaces that come into direct contact with people's skin.
Should schools close because of an MRSA infection?
- The decision to close a school for any communicable disease should be made by school officials in consultation with local and/or state public health officials. However, in most cases, it is not necessary to close schools because of an MRSA infection in a student. It is important to note that MRSA transmission can be prevented by simple measures such as hand hygiene and covering infections.
Should the school be closed to be cleaned or disinfected when an MRSA infection occurs?
- Covering infections will greatly reduce the risks of surfaces becoming contaminated with MRSA.
- In general it is not necessary to close schools to "disinfect" them when MRSA infections occur.
- MRSA skin infections are transmitted primarily by skin-to-skin contact and contact with surfaces that have come into contact with someone else's infection.
- When MRSA skin infections occur, cleaning and disinfection should be performed on surfaces that are likely to contact uncovered or poorly covered infections.
- Cleaning surfaces with detergent-based cleaners or Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)-registered disinfectants is effective at removing MRSA from the environment.
- It is important to read the instruction labels on all cleaners to make sure they are used safely and appropriately.
- Environmental cleaners and disinfectants should not be used to treat infections.
- The EPA provides a list of EPA-registered products effective against MRSA: [http://epa.gov/opppd001/chemregindex.htm](http://epa.gov/opppd001/chemregindex.htm)
Should the entire school community be notified of every MRSA infection?
- Usually, it should not be necessary to inform the entire school community about a single MRSA infection. When an MRSA infection occurs within the school population, the school nurse and school physician should determine, based on their medical judgment, whether some or all students, parents and staff should be notified. Consultation with the local public health authorities should be used to guide this decision.
- Remember that staphylococcus (staph) bacteria, including MRSA, have been and remain a common cause of skin infections.
Should the school be notified that my child has an MRSA infection?
- Consult with your school about its policy for notification of skin infections.
Should students with MRSA skin infections be excluded from attending school?
- Unless directed by a physician, students with MRSA infections should not be excluded from attending school.
- Exclusion from school should be reserved for those with wound drainage ("pus") that cannot be covered and contained with a clean, dry bandage and for those who cannot maintain good personal hygiene.
- Students with active infections should be excluded from activities where skin-to-skin contact is likely to occur (e.g., sports) until their infections are healed.
I have an MRSA skin infection. How do I prevent spreading it to others?
- Cover your wound. Keep wounds that are draining or have pus covered with clean, dry bandages until healed. Follow your healthcare provider's instructions on proper care of the wound. Pus from infected wounds can contain staph, including MRSA, so keeping the infection covered will help prevent the spread to others. Bandages and tape can be discarded with the regular trash.
- Clean your hands frequently. You, your family, and others in close contact should wash their hands frequently with soap and water or use an alcohol-based hand sanitizer, especially after changing the bandage or touching the infected wound.
- Do not share personal items. Avoid sharing personal items, such as towels, washcloths, razors, clothing, or uniforms, that may have had contact with the infected wound or bandage. Wash sheets, towels, and clothes that become soiled with water and laundry detergent. Use a dryer to dry clothes completely.
Practical Advice for Teachers
- If you observe children with open draining wounds or infections, refer the child to the school nurse.
- Enforce hand hygiene with soap and water or alcohol-based hand sanitizers (if available) before eating and after using the bathroom.
Advice for School Health Personnel
- Students with skin infections may need to be referred to a licensed health care provider for diagnosis and treatment. School health personnel should notify parents/guardians when possible skin infections are detected.
- Use standard precautions (e.g., hand hygiene before and after contact, wearing gloves) when caring for nonintact skin or potential infections.
- Use barriers such as gowns, masks and eye protection if splashing of body fluids is anticipated.
This fact sheet was adapted with permission from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention: Answers to commonly asked questions about preventing the spread of methicillin-resistant *Staphylococcus aureus* skin infections. [http://www.cdc.gov/Features/MRSAinSchools/](http://www.cdc.gov/Features/MRSAinSchools/) | <urn:uuid:39bb0578-7e9d-4b26-a14f-777351c5ecd3> | CC-MAIN-2024-22 | https://www.visitation.net/uploaded/PDFs/Health_Office/Disease_mrsa.pdf | 2024-05-20T09:36:15+00:00 | crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2024-22/segments/1715971058254.21/warc/CC-MAIN-20240520080523-20240520110523-00560.warc.gz | 938,654,871 | 1,481 | eng_Latn | eng_Latn | 0.996755 | eng_Latn | 0.996827 | [
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## Activities for Children 24–30 Months Old
| Add actions to your child’s favorite nursery rhymes. Easy action rhymes include “Here We Go ‘Round the Mulberry Bush,” “Jack Be Nimble,” “This is the Way We Wash Our Clothes,” “Ring Around the Rosy,” and “London Bridge.” | Play Target Toss with a large bucket or box and bean bags or balls. Help your child count how many she gets in the target. A ball of yarn or rolled-up socks also work well for an indoor target game. | Wrap tape around one end of a piece of yarn to make it stiff like a needle and put a large knot at the other end. Have your child go through the library. The librarian can help you find appropriate books. Make a special time for reading (like bedtime stories). | Children at this age love outings. One special outing can be going to the library. The librarian can help you find appropriate books. Make a special time for reading (like bedtime stories). | Play a jumping game when you take walk by jumping over the cracks in the sidewalk. You may have to hold your child and help him jump over at first. |
| Take time to draw with your child when she wants to get out paper and crayons. Draw large shapes and let your child color them in. Take turns. | During sandbox play, try wetting some of the sand. Show your child how to pack the container with the wet sand and turn it over to make sand structures or cakes. | Add an old catalog or two to your child’s library. It’s a good “picture” book for naming common objects. | Give your child soap, a washcloth, and a dishpan of water. Let your child wash a “dirty” doll, toy dishes, or doll clothes. It’s good practice for hand washing and drying. | Make “sound” containers using plastic Easter eggs or pantyhose eggs. Fill eggs with noisy objects like sand, beans, or rice and tape the eggs shut. Have two eggs for each sound. Help your child match sounds and put them back in an egg carton together. |
| Show your child how to make snakes or balls or how to roll out pancakes with a small rolling pin using playdough. Use large cookie cutters to make new playdough shapes. | Children at this age love to pretend and really enjoy it when you can pretend with them. Pretend you are different animals, like a dog or cat. Make animal sounds and actions. Let your child be the pet owner who pets and feeds you. | Your child will begin to be able to make choices. Help him choose what to wear each day by giving a choice between two pairs of socks, two shirts, and so forth. Give choices at other times, like snack or mealtime (two kinds of drink, cracker, etc.). | Enhance listening skills by playing compact discs or cassettes for boxes. A box big enough for your child to fit in can become a car. An appliance box with holes cut for windows and a door can become your child’s playhouse. Decorating the boxes with crayons, markers, or paints can be a fun activity to do together. | Children can find endless uses for boxes. A box big enough for your child to fit in can become a car. An appliance box with holes cut for windows and a door can become your child’s playhouse. Decorating the boxes with crayons, markers, or paints can be a fun activity to do together. |
| Play “Follow the Leader.” Walk on tiptoes, walk backward, and walk slow or fast with big steps and little steps. | Try a new twist to fingerpainting. Use whipping cream on a washable surface (cookie sheet, Formica table). Help your child spread it around and draw pictures with your fingers. Add food coloring to give it some color. | Action is an important part of a child’s life. Play a game with a ball where you give directions and your child does the actions, such as “Roll the ball.” Kick, throw, push, bounce, and catch are other good actions. Take turns giving the directions. | Make an obstacle course using chairs, pillows, or large cartons. Tell your child to crawl over, under, through, behind, in front of, or between the objects. Be careful arranging so that the pieces won’t tip and hurt your child. | Collect little and big things (balls, blocks, plates). Show and describe (big/little) the objects. Ask your child to give you a big ball; then all of the big balls. Do the same for little. Another big/little game is making yourself big by stretching your arms up high and making yourself little by squatting down. |
---
ASQ-3™ User’s Guide by Squires, Teemby, Bricker, & Potter, © 2009 Paul H. Brookes Publishing Co. All rights reserved. | <urn:uuid:9aaeeb17-d3b2-42aa-b409-6dc43b0e647e> | CC-MAIN-2024-18 | https://www.childrenswellnesscenter.com/_files/ugd/c8f2d4_3542a7a0fa734d388410beabd2592d1f.pdf | 2024-04-16T11:00:16+00:00 | crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2024-18/segments/1712296817081.52/warc/CC-MAIN-20240416093441-20240416123441-00180.warc.gz | 650,258,503 | 1,017 | eng_Latn | eng_Latn | 0.553283 | eng_Latn | 0.553283 | [
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Flu Season Extends through April: Health Tips
Is it a cold or is it flu? Both can leave you sneezing, coughing and feeling achy and feverish. A cold is a milder respiratory illness which can last days, while the flu can make you quite sick for days or weeks and result in complications such as pneumonia.
The Centers for Disease Control & Prevention recommend the following tips for reducing your exposure to illness:
- Flu season goes from October through April; it’s not too late to receive the benefit of a flu shot.
- Cough or sneeze into a tissue or your upper sleeve or elbow rather than your hands.
- Avoid touching our eyes, nose or mouth to spread flu virus droplets from infected people when they cough, sneeze or talk.
- Wash your hands often, particularly after being in crowded public places or taking the bus.
- Stay home and don’t go out to do errands when sick to avoid infecting others.
- Avoid close contact with people who are sick.
- Clean and disinfect frequently touched surfaces.
- Practice good health habits. Get plenty of sleep, be physically active, manage your stress, drink plenty of fluids, and eat nutritious food.
Recent research at Yale School of Medicine found that the cold virus thrives in the slightly cooler environment of the nose (vs. the lungs.)
“Our study didn’t directly test this, but the implication of what we found is that when we inhale cold air into the nasal cavity, the temperature in the nose decreases and that will provide a more permissive temperature for the cold virus to replicate.”
-Akkiko Iwasaki, Professor, Dept. of Immunobiology, Yale School of Medicine (co-author of a study on mice and the cold virus published in 2014.)
http://www.pnas.org/content/112/3/827
On the Job: Dec. & Jan.
⇒ December: There were 0 exposures reported for December 2014.
⇒ One injury incident was reported; it was a minor staff on-the-job accident/injury.
⇒ January: 8 exposures were reported; 1 stick during an injection; 2 were procedure-related; 3 were cuts from improperly stored burs; 2 incidences have unknown causes (information pending).
⇒ 2 injury incidents were reported which were both minor staff on-the-job accident/injuries.
⇒ Dental Maintenance quickly responded to 2 reports of strong gas odors in the D4 practice. The problem was caused by a general facilities issue and has been resolved.
⇒ Do you have a work practice safety tip from your clinic you would like to share? Please send tips to email@example.com
Mark Your Calendars for H&S Events
⇒ **2/18 Violence Prevention & Response Training**: Bi-annual requirement. UW Safe Campus is conducting a general-enrollment session of the training on Wednesday, February 18th, from 11:15 AM-12:15 PM in Health Sciences Room T-747. Please encourage members of your department to attend this required training. There are about 60 spaces left. There is no charge. Individuals can register themselves, and supervisors can register employees at: [Register for Violence Prevention & Response Training](#)
**Reminder:** The UW Police is always happy to assess your work space for safety. To schedule a Workplace Safety Assessment, call the UW Police Department,(206) 43-0507, 8:00–5:00 or go to: [firstname.lastname@example.org](mailto:email@example.com)
⇒ **Global Harmonizing System Training**: Get ready for the **June 1, 2015 deadline** for new labeling of chemical hazards! **Hazard Communication Safety Data Sheets** are being distributed to each clinic which include graphics of the Hazard Communication Standard (HCS) Pictograms. If you have not yet taken the required training on the new Global Harmonizing System (GHS) which is replacing the MSDS system, you can train online at: [http://www.ehs.washington.edu/psotrain/corsdesc.shtm](http://www.ehs.washington.edu/psotrain/corsdesc.shtm)
---
**Celebrating National Children’s Dental Health Month**
**BOOK DRIVE: FEBRUARY 1-28, 2015**
*Sponsored by the Center for Pediatric Dentistry!*
Providers at the Center for Pediatric Dentistry have been participating as literacy advocates through the national non-profit organization “Reach Out and Read,” which partners with doctors and dentists to encourage families to read together. CPD providers talk to parents during a patient visit about the importance of reading and give each patient a free book to take home. The February book drive will collect books for distribution to patients throughout the year.
New or gently used books for children, aged toddler to 18 years on any topic may be donated. Please donate a book or books and ask your friends and family to donate too! Hoping to find a dental-themed book? Check out these 44 titles on dental care or dentists at:
[http://www.barnesandnoble.com/s/?category_id=901725](http://www.barnesandnoble.com/s/?category_id=901725)
WHERE TO DONATE: Bring books to Health Sciences room B-242, Attn: Tonya. Questions? email [firstname.lastname@example.org](mailto:email@example.com) or call (206)543-6703. Learn more about “Reach Out and Read” at: [http://www.reachoutandread.org/](http://www.reachoutandread.org/)
---
**Root Cause Analysis Training Offered**
Emma Alder, Program Operations Specialist at Environmental Health & Safety, is offering accident ‘Root Cause Analysis’ training to supervisors. This training is designed to help identify the cause of accidents and strategies for preventing reoccurrences. Emma will be presenting this training to the members of the SOD Health and Safety Committee at their February 24 meeting. Supervisors who are interested in learning more about this training, please contact Emma at: 221-2852 or Sandy Phillips at 543-3367.
---
**Danger! Over-full Sharps Containers**
**REMINDER!** Sharps containers should be disposed of promptly when contents reach the “fill line.” Overfilled containers with sharps sticking out of the top have been observed recently in a number of clinics. Remember this is an unsafe practice.
---
**Did You Know?**
The oral cavity of newborn babies does not contain bacteria such as streptococci, lactobacilli, staphylococci, corynebacteria, and various anaerobes (e.g. bacteroides). A baby’s mouth however becomes rapidly colonized with certain strains of bacteria. Although we don’t want to discourage people from kissing their babies, parents should be aware that actions such as kissing or blowing into hot food or drinks before feeding the baby can transmit bacteria.
Reminder: A healthy diet & good oral hygiene is important as soon as teeth are in the mouth. | <urn:uuid:f8cfe449-d48b-4ced-8b6e-a25ad9caece5> | CC-MAIN-2024-18 | https://dental.washington.edu/wp-content/media/health-and-safety/HSnews-FebMar2015.pdf | 2024-04-16T10:07:23+00:00 | crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2024-18/segments/1712296817081.52/warc/CC-MAIN-20240416093441-20240416123441-00180.warc.gz | 187,402,805 | 1,464 | eng_Latn | eng_Latn | 0.995306 | eng_Latn | 0.996138 | [
"eng_Latn",
"eng_Latn"
] | false | rolmOCR | [
2498,
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2.046875
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SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION
BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY
BULLETIN 143
HANDBOOK
OF
SOUTH AMERICAN INDIANS
Julian H. Steward, Editor
Volume 3
THE TROPICAL FOREST TRIBES
Prepared in Cooperation With the United States Department of State as a Project of the Interdepartmental Committee on Scientific and Cultural Cooperation
UNITED STATES
GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE
WASHINGTON : 1948
For sale by the Superintendent of Documents, U. S. Government Printing Office,
Washington 25, D. C.
THE AMANAYÉ
By Curt Nimuendajú and Alfred Métraux
LANGUAGE, TERRITORY, AND HISTORY
The names Amanajó, Manajó, and Manaxó were used in Maranhão, in Piauhy, and on the lower Tocantins; Amanagé in Pará. Mananyé is the name given by the Turiwara; Manazewa by the Tembé. The self-denomination, Manayé or Amanayé, has uncertain meaning, but may be Guarani, amândayé, an “association of people,” or amanajé, “alcoviteiro” (Platzmann, 1896). In order to conceal their identity, some groups assumed the name of Ararandewá (Ararandevára, Ararandeuara), “those of the Ararandéua [River],” and Turiwá (Turiwara), the name of a neighbor tribe.
On the Amanayé language there have been published only two small vocabularies, both in 1914: Lange’s and Nimuendajú’s. It is the most distinctive of the Tupí dialects of the He-group. As far as can be ascertained from the vocabularies, there is no difference in the grammar.
The Amanayé (map 1, No. 1; see Volume 1, map 7) always occupied the upper Pindaré, the Gurupí, and the Capim Rivers, the middle Mojú River, and the central part of the right bank of the lower Tocantins below the mouth of the Araguaya, and were found only rarely away from this region (lat. 4° S., long. 48° W.).
They are first mentioned in 1755 when they made an agreement with the Jesuit P. Daniel Fay (Tray? Tay?), of Acamá (Monção), a Guajajara village of the Pindaré River. They had evidently had previous contact with civilized people, for they avoided all Whites except the Jesuits.
According to Ribeiro de Sampaio (1812, p. 9), in 1760, a large band of Amanayé moved peacefully southeast to the Alpercatas River, and settled near the village of Santo Antonio. By 1815 there were only 20 of this group, and they were mixed with Negro blood. The last mention of this village was in 1820 (Francisco de N.S. dos Prazeres, 1891, p. 132). A part of this band evidently continued its migration in 1763 across the Parahyba River into Piauhy (Alencastre, 1857, p. 6), but its subsequent fate is not known.
In 1775, the “Amanajoz” are listed among the tribes of the lower right Tocantins (Ribeiro de Sampaio, 1812, pp. 8, 9), and, in 1798, they were seen to the east of the Surubijú River (Mendes de Almeida, n.d., p. 104). In 1845, the “Amanamiú” were mentioned as inhabitants of part of the Mojú River by Saint-Adolphe. In 1854, they had a village on the Pindaré above the Guajajara village of Sapucaia (Marques,
1864), but by 1872 the village had been moved to the Tucumandiuá, a western tributary of the Gurupí River (Dodt, 1873, p. 132). In 1862, the Amanayé had two villages with 60 people on the Ararandéua River, western tributary of the Capim River, which has subsequently been their center.
In 1872, Fr. Candido de Heremence began to convert the Amanayé, Tembé and Turivvara of the Capim River. With 200 Amanayé, he founded the Anauera Mission (São Fidelis) on the left bank of the Capim River, below the confluence of the Ararandéua and the Surubijú Rivers. The Turivvara and Tembé, being hostile to the Amanayé, were established together farther downstream. The next year, the Amanayé killed Fr. Candido and a Belgian engineer, Blochhausen, because during a trip the latter dealt severely with the Amanayé crew and injured the chief's son. (Souza Franco, 1842, p. 22; Cruz, 1874, p. 47; Moreira Pinto, 1894; Nimuendajú, unpublished notes.) Reprisals against the Amanayé for these murders drove them to take refuge in the region of the Ararandéua River. Today some of them still avoid contact with the civilized people. Others appeared later under the name of "Ararandewára" or "Turivvara" to conceal their identity.
In 1889, the surviving Anambé and Amanajó, almost wiped out by epidemics on the Arapary, lived by the last rapids of the Tocantins River (Ehrenreich, 1892, p. 149).
In 1911, Inspector L. B. Horta Barboza, of the Serviço de Protecção aos Indios, found four Amanayé villages with more than 300 inhabitants on the left bank of the Ararandéua River. In 1913, another, more primitive part of the tribe, calling itself Ararandewára, was visited by Algot Lange on the upper Mojú River, at approximately lat. 4° S. He has published the only description of the Amanayé (Lange, 1914).
During several decades at the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th, the most important person among the Amanayé of the Ararandéua River was a mulatto woman named Damaśia, wife of a member of the tribe. In 1926, Nimuendajú saw a small group of Amanayé, who called themselves Ararandewá(ra), in Mundurucú at lat. 3°55' S. They had a plantation on the Mojú River. In 1942, only 17 persons, mostly Mestizos, survived in the group headed by Damaśia's son (Arquivos da Inspectoría do Serviço de Protecção aos Indios, Para, 1942). These people stated that another group lived away from all contact with the civilized people, on the Igarapé do Garrafão, a left tributary of the Ararandéua River. In 1943, Nimuendajú found a small group of Amanayé, who had been living for several decades, in contact with Neo-Brazilians, on the upper Cairary, a tributary on the left bank of the lower Mojú. They called themselves Turiwa(ra).
CULTURE
Subsistence.—The Amanayé cultivated manioc, cotton, and tobacco in forest clearings. One clearing measured 1,000 by 1,300 yards. These Indians also hunted, especially turtles, which were abundant. Turtles not consumed at once were kept in small corrals.
Dogs and chickens were introduced by the White man.
Manioc was prepared in a special hut; the tubers were crushed in a trough made of the mirití palm trunk, pressed through a coarse-meshed fiber sifter, then kneaded into balls which were allowed to ferment on a platform. Subsequently, the paste was squeezed in the cylindrical tipití, or manioc squeezer, after which the dry pulp was crushed and spread on
a hot clay pan with slightly upturned edges. Brazil nuts might be added to manioc flour to improve its taste.
**Dwellings.**—The *Amanayé* village that Lange visited had 26 houses “of a very low order, some not having a proper roof, built around a small area of bush cleared forest.” The only furniture was small cotton hammocks.
**Clothing.**—*Amanayé* men wore nothing but a short cotton string tied around the praeputium, while women wore only a narrow loincloth.
Men’s ornaments included little wooden sticks in the lower lip and turkey feathers stuck in colored cotton bands around the head. Women wore “garter-like cotton bands below their knees and on their ankles; . . . some of the youngest maidens insert ornaments made of the ivory nut in their ear lobes” (Lange, 1914).
**Boats.**—Dugout canoes, 35 feet (10.6 m.) long, and 5 feet (1.5 m.) wide, were made of trees felled in the forest and dragged to the water on rollers by means of creepers.
**Manufactures.**—Manioc squeezers were plaited of strong miriti palm and tucum fibers. Cotton spindles had a rounded wooden disk. The loom was “a simple square frame made of four sticks about 2 feet [0.6 m.] long, tied together with fiber or ordinary bush-cord to form a square” (Lange, 1914). Cloth, like hammocks, was loosely twined with a double weft. Loincloths were stained red with urucú.
The only pottery mentioned is the clay manioc pan.
**Weapons.**—Bows were large—one being 8 feet (2.4 m.) long and 4 inches (10 cm.) in diameter—and notched at each end for a curauá fiber bowstring. Arrows were tipped either with a bamboo blade or with a sharp rod with a few barbs on each side. Occasionally, a small nut which produced a whistling sound was fastened near the tip. Arrow feathering was either of the eastern Brazilian arched or of the Xingú sewn type.
Stone axes, used until recently, had carefully ground, quadrangular heads of diorite with a notch running along the face near the butt. The head was inserted in the split end of a shaft of pao d’arco and lashed with heavy fibers, then covered with the black gum from the jutahy tree.
**Fire making.**—Fire was made with a fire drill. Two men working together could make a fire in 2 minutes.
**Social and political organization.**—Lange observed an *Amanayé* chief whose weak personality suggested that he must have inherited his position. Lange gives no other information on political or social organization.
Prior to marriage, young men proved their fortitude by plunging an arm into a braided fiber cylinder that was closed at both ends and filled with tocandeira ants.
**Musical instruments.**—The *Amanayé* had a drum that is unusual in this area: A long, hollow emba-uba tree trunk was suspended from a
horizontal branch by a thin, tough bush rope. While one man beat the drum with a stick, "another, probably a shaman, danced around it" (Lange, 1914).
**Tobacco.**—Tobacco was smoked in huge cigarettes, 1 foot (0.3 m.) long and \( \frac{1}{2} \) inch (1.2 cm.) thick, wrapped in tauarí bark. These were passed around, each man taking a few draughts in turn.
**Drinks.**—The *Amanayé* drank a fermented beverage (probably of cassava) called cachiri.
---
**BIBLIOGRAPHY**
*(AMANAYÉ AND TURIWARA)*
Aguiar, 1851; Alencastre, 1857; Arquivos da Inspectoria . . . , 1942; Baena, 1885; Brusque, 1862, 1863; Cruz, 1874; Cunha, 1852; Daniel, 1840; Dödt, 1873; Ehrenreich, 1892; Francisco de Nuestra Señora dos Prazeres, 1891; Gama Malcher, 1878; Lange, 1914; Marques, 1864; Meerwarth, 1904; Mendes de Almeida, n.d.; Moreira Pinto, 1894; Nimuendajú, 1914 c, unpublished notes; Platzmann, 1896; Ribeiro, 1848 (1870); Ribeiro de Sampaio, 1812; Serviço de Protecção aos Indios, 1942; Souza Franco, 1842; Villa Real, 1848. | <urn:uuid:b0be196b-6c02-4227-b9df-15328e163ec0> | CC-MAIN-2020-40 | http://etnolinguistica.wdfiles.com/local--files/hsai%3Avol3p199-202/vol3p199-202_amanaye.pdf | 2020-09-19T17:52:02+00:00 | crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2020-40/segments/1600400192783.34/warc/CC-MAIN-20200919173334-20200919203334-00230.warc.gz | 48,736,126 | 2,903 | eng_Latn | eng_Latn | 0.766119 | eng_Latn | 0.986324 | [
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Read the words in the box.
Pick a word that is the opposite of each word below.
Write it on the line.
before good-bye right won’t
1. after
_________________________
2. will
_________________________
3. hello
_________________________
4. wrong
_________________________
Pick a word from the box to finish each sentence.
Write it on the line. Remember to use capital letters.
oh does
5. _______________ a bear start its long sleep in the spring?
6. _______________ , no. It sleeps when the days start to get cold. | <urn:uuid:6e263d80-adb2-4c07-8b91-8e90569ce74e> | CC-MAIN-2020-40 | https://inglescolegioinglesdotcom1.files.wordpress.com/2020/07/page-66.pdf | 2020-09-19T19:39:51+00:00 | crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2020-40/segments/1600400192783.34/warc/CC-MAIN-20200919173334-20200919203334-00230.warc.gz | 472,350,841 | 124 | eng_Latn | eng_Latn | 0.999509 | eng_Latn | 0.999509 | [
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Plot Curve
Story / Novel: ____________________________
Author: ________________________________
Rising Action:
What events, problems, and conflicts build suspense or increase complications in the story?
Climax:
The turning point in the story – the point of greatest conflict and intensity
Falling Action:
What events help wrap up the story?
Resolution:
How does the story end? How is the conflict resolved?
Exposition:
Setting:
Situation:
Characters:
Conflict
Theme:
The central ideas through the novel; the author’s reason for writing or the meaning of the story | <urn:uuid:f509d4d5-65f1-4a8a-8de7-136ee8b0ae1b> | CC-MAIN-2019-22 | http://tahanto7.weebly.com/uploads/5/5/1/3/55138645/plot_pyramid.pdf | 2019-05-24T00:03:45Z | crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2019-22/segments/1558232257432.60/warc/CC-MAIN-20190523224154-20190524010154-00398.warc.gz | 190,018,672 | 114 | eng_Latn | eng_Latn | 0.996632 | eng_Latn | 0.996632 | [
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In addition to water, sunlight, and carbon dioxide from the air, plants require 13 mineral nutrients that are typically derived from the soil. The macronutrients nitrogen (N), phosphorus (P), potassium (K) are needed by plants in relatively large amounts and often have to be added to the soil. Intermediate amounts of secondary nutrients magnesium (Mg), calcium (Ca), and sulfur (S) are needed by plants. Trace or micronutrients [boron (B), chlorine (Cl), copper (Cu), iron (Fe), manganese (Mn), molybdenum (Mo) and zinc (Zn)] are needed in small amounts and are seldom deficient in Wisconsin soils.
In a healthy plant the essential mineral elements are present in adequate levels and in correct proportion to other elements. Plant productivity or fruit quality is reduced if:
- one or more of the required elements is not present in sufficient quantity (deficiency);
- one or more elements is present in too great a quantity (toxicity);
These nutrients perform a variety of functions in plants ranging from being structural components of cell walls and membranes to activating enzyme systems. About 95% of the dry weight of a typical plant is made up of carbon, oxygen and hydrogen. The soil supplied minerals make up only 5% of a plant's total dry weight.
The nutrition of plants and animals is very different. While animals need proteins, carbohydrates, vitamins and minerals to be healthy, plants need only water, air, sunlight and the 13 essential mineral nutrients. No scientific evidence supports the use of vitamins or other similar supplements for plant growth. Plants don't need to be "fed". They simply need adequate supplies of water, air, sunlight and minerals.
While fertilizers can be added to soils to supplement less than adequate nutrient supply, the best plan is to establish plantings on an appropriate soil. The soil pH should be between 4.5 and 5.5 for optimum production. Soils can either be peat or sand based.
**Plant response and soil fertility**
Soil fertility can be thought of as the ability of the soil to supply nutrients needed for optimum plant growth. A soil test is the most practical way of measuring the nutrient supplying power of the soil and telling if fertilizer and/or pH adjustment are needed before planting.
Fertilizers are applied to supply essential nutrients that may be in short supply or unavailable to plants from the soil. Plants absorb nutrients from the soil and use them to produce new growth or fruit. The application of agricultural fertilizers has greatly increased crop yields over the past 50 years by eliminating nutrients as a major limitation to yield.
When a particular nutrient is in short supply, application of additional nutrient will increase growth and yields (Fig. 1). Initially this may be a linear response where yield increases one unit per unit of fertilizer added. At some point the response levels out and yield increases become less pronounced as additional fertilizer is applied. For cranberry, this is followed by a
decline where yield is reduced with additional applications of nutrients (especially nitrogen) as rank vine growth ensues. Sometimes, plants may continue to absorb nutrients without having a corresponding increase in plant growth. This is known as luxury consumption. At the far end of the figure there is a point where excessive nutrient levels, especially micronutrients, may become toxic to plants and will further reduce yields. The goal in applying fertilizer is to supply enough nutrients to provide optimal plant growth without supplying too much fertilizer.
Figure 1. Plant and profit response
Diagnosing the mineral nutrition status of fruit crops
Fruit growers have three main tools to use in evaluating the mineral nutrition status of their plantings. These are:
- examine visual symptoms exhibited by leaves, stems, and fruit;
- analyzing leaf tissue; and
- testing the soil.
Used together properly these are powerful tools that can be used to prevent nutrient deficiencies or toxicities as well as to assess current fertility management practices.
Because cranberry vines are perennial, not all nutrients to support a crop must come from the soil each year. The amount of nutrient removed with the crop each year is also not a good approach for recommending fertilizer. A crop of 200 bbl/A would remove about 7 lbs N, 2 lbs P, and 18 lbs K, yet fertilizer in excess of these amounts are needed for adequate yields.
Visual Symptoms
Visual symptoms have been used for many years to diagnose deficiencies of certain elements. Color photographs of various deficiency symptoms have been published as diagnostic tools. However, there are at least two disadvantages associated with this approach as the primary method for estimating nutrient need. First, once the visual symptoms have appeared the crop quality and yield have likely already been reduced. Second, some visual deficiency symptoms
look similar while others may be confused with disease, insect or environmental stress symptoms. Further confusion arises when the symptoms from more than one deficient element is confounded by a deficiency or toxicity of another.
**Tissue Analysis**
Tissue analysis is a powerful tool in assessing mineral nutrition of crops. Chemically analyzing the concentration of nutrients in the leaves of growing crops can more precisely define the nutrient status than an examination of deficiency symptoms. This fact is particularly true for perennial fruit crops. This method is based on collecting samples of tissue in the field and measuring the amounts of mineral elements in the tissue. Tissue analysis provides a "snapshot" picture of the nutrient status of a crop at a particular point in time resulting from all factors that affect plant growth. In addition to confirming suspected deficiencies, plant analysis can also detect toxicities or hidden deficiencies before visual symptoms appear. Experimentation has shown the amounts of the various minerals that should be present in plants to provide optimal growth. These amounts are different for each crop species.
**Collecting a sample**
The most important part of tissue analysis is taking a proper sample. The sample must be taken at the right time, the correct plant part must be sampled and the sample must be representative of the planting. If an improper sample is collected it will be impossible to draw correct conclusions from the analysis.
**Sample at the right time.** Plants must be sampled at the proper stage of maturity in order to correctly interpret the results. Nitrogen, for example, is relatively high in new leaves in the spring, levels off in midseason and then declines in the late summer and fall before the leaves dormancy. Interpretations are based on knowing the relationship between nutrient levels in a particular part of a "standard" tissue in a specific time in the growing season. A leaf sample taken in the spring could show excess nitrogen compared to late summer standards and a sample taken in the late fall could show a deficiency even if it were adequate in late summer. Samples taken at a time during the season different than the "standards" used for nutrient interpretation will likely show erroneous results or will at least be “uninterpretable”.
**Sample the correct plant part.** Sampling a different plant part than the "standards" will also lead to incorrect interpretations of the analysis. For example, the nitrogen content of one-year-old leaves is lower than for current season leaves. If one-year-old leaves are included in a sample a nitrogen deficiency may be indicated, while if only current season leaves are sampled an adequate amount or an excess may be shown. Table 1 shows the correct plant part to sample.
**Take a representative sample.** The sample should be representative of the planting because the results of the test can be no better than the sample sent in for analysis. The amount of tissue the lab actually tests is less than a teaspoon, so it is very important that the sample be characteristic of the bed. Take samples throughout each bed to be sampled. Begin at one corner and take samples as you walk to the opposite corner or walk a zig-zag pattern in the bed. Don’t sample just along one edge or only in the corners. This won’t provide a representative sample. Don't sample diseased, damaged, insect infested or abnormal tissue. If you suspect a nutrient related disorder, sample early in the growing season. Submit a sample of abnormal appearing tissue along with a sample not showing the symptoms that is collected on the same day. By doing so a
comparison of the two samples can be made and a better evaluation can be made between the nutritional status of healthy and abnormal plants.
Include a soil sample with your plant analysis sample. Take soil samples at about the same locations as tissue samples. Soil test results for pH, organic matter, and available P and K can be useful when interpreting the plant tissue results. At the UWEX lab, a routine soil analysis is included as part of the plant analysis program at no additional cost.
**Submitting a sample**
Once the tissue sample has been collected, it should be prepared for shipment or delivery to the lab. Any soil or foreign material should be dusted off the sample. DO NOT WASH the leaves as this will remove soluble nutrients. Don’t separate leaves from stems, but do remove any fruit. If the sample is to be mailed, allow the sample to air dry for one day to prevent mold from forming during shipment. Place the dry sample in a paper envelope for shipping. Do not use plastic or cellophane bags since these retain moisture and promote molding. Try to ship samples early in the week (Wednesday at the latest) to avoid samples deteriorating in warm post offices over the weekend. Plant samples that are delivered to the lab do not need to be air dried if they are delivered within a day after sampling. Please submit an information sheet describing the crop type, date sampled, and other information necessary to make the best interpretations of lab results. Plant analysis information sheets are available from the laboratory or your County Extension office.
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**Table 1. Proper cranberry sampling for diagnostic plant analysis.**
| Crop | Stage of Growth | Plant Part | #Plants to sample |
|----------|--------------------------|----------------------------------------------------------------------------|--------------------------------------------------------|
| Cranberry| Late August to early September | Current season uprights. Include fruiting uprights, but remove any fruit. | 6-10 handfuls per sampled bed. About 200 uprights. |
**Soil analysis**
Soil testing is a means of measuring soil pH and estimating the supply of nutrients available for plant growth. There is a poor relationship between soil and plant nutrient levels in perennial fruit crops including cranberry. When plant tissue levels (from tissue analysis) are compared to corresponding soil nutrient contents (from soil analysis), no correlation is found. Therefore, soil testing alone will not provide enough information to make accurate fertilizer decisions for perennial fruit crops.
Reliable commercial soil tests have not been developed for nitrogen, copper or iron. The need for these elements can best be evaluated by plant analysis. Deficiencies of minor elements can better be identified by plant analysis too. Because cranberries grow under acidic soil conditions, some fertility problems are best diagnosed by both soil and tissue tests.
**Soil testing**
Soil samples should be taken from the same areas as the tissue samples. Take individual samples with a trowel, soil probe, or small shovel. A good sample consists of about 8-10 subsamples, taken to 6 inches, per area. Mix the subsamples and place about 1 cup of soil in a soil bag or pint plastic bag. Identify the bag with the same sample number as the corresponding tissue sample. Submit the soil sample along with the tissue sample for analysis to the lab of your choice. Be sure the bags are sealed tightly so the tissue samples cannot be contaminated with soil. No fee is assessed for routine soil analysis corresponding with a tissue sample at the UWEX lab.
A soil analysis should always be a part of preparing the site before planting. Because cranberries are long lived it makes sense to amend the soil prior to planting. Take soil samples from the site after the beds are formed and the sand lift, if any, is installed. Phosphorus and potassium can be applied before planting and lightly incorporated. A soil test will indicate if preplant pH adjustment is needed.
Interpreting the report
About two weeks after samples have been submitted you will receive a report showing the concentrations of various nutrients in the tissue and soil. Beside each number is a letter designation indicating that the concentration is deficient, low, sufficient, high or in excess for that nutrient. This interpretation is provided only if the plant was sampled at the proper stage of maturity. Soil pH, organic matter and an estimate of plant available phosphorus and potassium will also be reported if a soil sample was submitted. If soil was not sampled, interpretations of plant tissue results will be based on an assumption of optimum soil test results.
The indication that the tissue nutrient concentration is deficient, low, adequate, high or excessive will tell you whether changes in your fertilizer program is warranted. They cannot tell you exactly how much fertilizer to add as that is based on the soil, vigor of the vines, crop load, weather, etc.
Tissue testing can also help determine if a fertilizer program is working. For example, a previous tissue test showed a deficiency of a micronutrient and you had applied this micronutrient in your fertilizer program. However, a later test still showed a deficiency in this micronutrient. Comparing these results suggests that a change in your fertilizer formulation, applications method, timing, or rates is warranted.
Because soil concentration and nutrient uptake are independent, there is no relationship between soil P or K and tissue P or K. Elevated soil concentrations will not necessarily lead to elevated tissue levels.
Long experience and experimentation has shown what concentrations of each required element should be found in plant tissues. These concentrations are listed for cranberry in Table 2. Interpretation of the results with these standards is possible only if the correct plant part was sampled at the proper stage of maturity. *No valid interpretation is possible if the wrong part was sampled or the plants are sampled at other times in the season.*
Table 2. Fertility status of cranberries in relation to nutrient content in leaves.
| Nutrient | Normal concentration + |
|----------------|------------------------|
| Nitrogen (N) | 0.9-1.1 % |
| Phosphorus (P) | 0.10-0.20 % |
| Potassium (K) | 0.40-0.75 % |
| Calcium (Ca) | 0.30-0.80 % |
| Magnesium (Mg) | 0.15-0.25 % |
| Sulfur (S) | 0.08-0.25 % |
| Zinc (Zn) | 15-30 |
| Boron (B) | 15-60 |
| Manganese (Mn) *| >10 |
| Copper (Cu) | 4-10 |
| Iron (Fe) * | >20 |
+ Normal levels are based on samples taken between August 15 and September 15.
* Cranberry researchers have not established a normal range for Fe and Mn.
Fertilizer application
Fertilizers are materials that contain nutrients required by plants. In some cases, organic materials such as manures and plant residues can supply some or all the nutrients required by plants. However, plants cannot differentiate between nutrients from organic, inorganic, liquid or granular sources. All nutrients are absorbed by plant roots as ions and all ions of a given element are identical regardless of the source.
Fertilizers can be applied to the soil and taken up by the roots or applied to the plant as a liquid for uptake by the leaves, stems or fruit (foliar application). Each method has advantages. Soil application is usually less expensive and is better suited for large application rates of the major nutrients and for pre-plant application. For the most part, soil applications by broadcasting are the most economical and efficient.
Foliar application is best for correcting micronutrient deficiencies or for increasing the concentration of immobile elements to specific tissues. Liquid fertilizers that are foliar applied are more expensive per unit of nutrient. In many cases the liquid fertilizer runs off, or is washed off leaves onto the soil where it is later taken up by the roots. In this case it would have been much less expensive to apply a granular fertilizer to the soil. The expense of foliar applications of nutrients may be decreased if they can be mixed with pesticides in a spray. However, the nutrients may interact with pesticides, spray adjuvants or surfactants and reduce the pesticide efficacy. Mixing foliar nutrients and pesticides, in general, is not a good practice. Fertilizers commonly used on cranberry are described below.
A soil and/or plant tissue analysis are the most reliable methods to determine nutrient need. Nutrients of most common concern to Wisconsin cranberry growers include nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium, calcium, boron and zinc.
Fertilizers can be blended, complete, or single nutrient. While cranberry growers use all three types, blended is probably the most common.
**Nitrogen**
Nitrogen is the nutrient most commonly applied to cranberry. Cranberry prefers nitrogen in the ammonium form, although cranberry vines will take up nitrate when ammonium is also present. However, the nitrate is not utilized in plant metabolism. Because nitrate will leach and is a potential contaminant, the commercial practice is to use only ammonium nitrogen sources. At pH 5.5 and above nitrification will occur in cranberry soils, but at a much lower rate than in other agricultural soils. Research studies have shown that at pH 5.5 nitrification began about 20 days after application to the soil.
The amount of nitrogen to apply in a given year depends on a number of factors and cannot be completely discussed here. Actual nitrogen application rates vary by soil type (peat vs. sand), age of vines, vigor of the vines, and crop load. An average rate of N application for bearing cranberries in Wisconsin is about 20 pounds of actual N per acre. Too little N application results in weak vine growth, pale foliage and reduced yields. Too much N results in vine overgrowth, substantial runnering, “bud blasting”, poor fruit color and reduced yields.
Nitrogen is applied in split applications throughout the growing season. Recent research suggests that an application of 20 lbs actual N/a split equally between budbreak, peak bloom, fruit set, bud set and preharvest produced the highest yield and best fruit quality. Further, research has shown that N applications have little, if any, influence on yield during the year of application, even for sites that are N deficient regardless of the date of application. Thus, growers cannot increase yield through current season N applications and N application should be a long term practice.
Most growers are using blended fertilizers to obtain their nitrogen. Common formulations are 6-24-24 and 10-20-20. Some will also use ammonium sulfate (21-0-0) or urea (46-0-0). The characteristics of common nitrogen containing fertilizers are shown in Table 3.
| Fertilizer | %N | lbs material per 1 lb actual N | Soil Reaction |
|---------------------|------|-------------------------------|---------------|
| Urea | 46 | 2.22 | acidic |
| Ammonia, Aqua | 20 | 5 | acidic |
| Ammonium nitrate* | 33 | 3 | acidic |
| Ammonium sulfate | 20.5 | 4.88 | acidic |
| Diammonium phosphate| 17 | 5.5 | acidic |
| Monoammonium phosphate | 11 | 9.1 | acidic |
* For reference only. Not recommended for use in cranberry.
Phosphate
Wisconsin soils typically contain enough phosphate to supply plant needs. An average crop of cranberries (fruit + vine growth) would take up only about 20 pounds of phosphate per acre per year. Cranberry growers typically apply more P fertilizer than this per year. This is largely a result of the acidic environment in which cranberries grow. Acid soils “fix” more phosphorus than neutral soils. As phosphate is added to soils it is converted from a soluble form into insoluble forms. The phosphate ion \((\text{H}_2\text{PO}_4^-)\) reacts strongly with iron, aluminum and manganese ions in acid soils to create insoluble phosphate precipitates.
All commonly used phosphate fertilizers presently sold in Wisconsin (except rock phosphate) contain at least 85% water soluble phosphorus. Rock phosphate is insoluble, but research has shown that it can be an effective phosphorus source for cranberries since cranberry soils are acidic.
The common practice is to make multiple light applications of phosphorus per year so that soluble, or at least plant available, phosphate is present throughout the season. However, spring applications are usually not necessary as warming soils release some phosphorus. Fall applications are not a good idea as the soils will soon be flooded. Critical application times are from hook to fruit set when demand is high and availability is low.
High levels of soil test phosphate do not correlate with high levels of tissue phosphate. It is unusual for phosphorus to leave cranberry beds since it binds tightly to the soil. Usually P moves only as soil erodes and moves.
Table 4. Characteristics of common phosphate containing fertilizers.
| Fertilizer | Analysis* |
|-----------------------------|-----------|
| Triple superphosphate | 0-45-0 |
| Diammonium phosphate | 18-46-0 |
| Monoammonium phosphate | 11-48-0 |
| Ordinary superphosphate | 0-20-0 |
| Rock Phosphate | variable |
* refers to the % of \(\text{P}_2\text{O}_5\) contained in the material.
There is no evidence that different soluble phosphorus sources are superior to each other. When applied at identical rates each of the P sources produced similar crop yields. Research shows no yield response to phosphorus fertilizer beyond 45 lbs \(\text{P}_2\text{O}_5\) per acre per year. As phosphorus can be an environmental contaminant, growers are urged to apply no more that 45 lbs \(\text{P}_2\text{O}_5\) per acre per year. Doing so should help keep phosphorus out of both ground and surface waters. | <urn:uuid:8967f6ce-2a36-4b55-ad19-8152c8a380f8> | CC-MAIN-2025-08 | https://fruit.webhosting.cals.wisc.edu:443/wp-content/uploads/sites/36/2011/05/Taking-and-Interpreting-Soil-and-Tissue-Samples.pdf | 2025-02-12T23:59:22+00:00 | crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2025-08/segments/1738831951760.75/warc/CC-MAIN-20250212222727-20250213012727-00156.warc.gz | 238,560,204 | 4,614 | eng_Latn | eng_Latn | 0.997439 | eng_Latn | 0.997797 | [
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ENGLISH SECOND LANGUAGE P1
STANDARD GRADE
MAY/JUNE 2008
MARKS: 80
TIME: 2 hours
This question paper consists of 9 pages.
INSTRUCTIONS AND INFORMATION
1. Answer ALL the questions.
2. Start EACH section on a NEW page.
3. Pay special attention to spelling and sentence construction.
SOUTH AFRICA'S WORLD HERITAGE SITES
1 South Africa is home to seven of the world's official heritage sites. The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation has singled out 821 sites in 137 countries that are considered exceptionally important in terms of cultural, historical or natural value and thus need to be preserved for the future of mankind. Once UNESCO has evaluated the unique value of the site as well as the ability of the country to meet the high standards for the protection of the site, it is granted World Heritage status.
2 The Cradle of Humankind, which spans parts of Gauteng and North West Provinces, is probably the most significant heritage site in South Africa. It has one of the world's richest concentrations of human and pre-human fossils providing evidence of human evolution over the last 3.5 million years. Excavations at the Sterkfontein Caves have yielded world-famous discoveries such as the legendary Mrs Ples and Little Foot – a nearly complete ape-man skeleton. The Maropeng Visitors' Centre is situated 10 kilometres from the Sterkfontein Caves. Here the visitor can explore exhibitions that show the origins of the earth and see how the continents came into being. The journey through the centre tells of the development of humankind.
3 Robben Island was listed as a World Heritage Site because its buildings are symbols of the triumph of democracy and freedom over oppression. Between the 17th and 20th centuries it was used, at various times, as a hospital for the mentally ill, a leper colony, a military base and as the prison where Nelson Mandela was confined for 18 of his 27 years in jail.
4 UNESCO describes the St Lucia Wetlands Park as "a place of exceptional biodiversity". The varied landforms include sandy beaches, sea, dunes, wetlands, grasslands, forests, rivers and lakes. In this diversity of habitats live millions of creatures, such as whales, dolphins, turtles nesting on the beaches, more than 521 bird species and a rich variety of animal and insect life.
5 The Ukhahlamba Drakensberg Park is recognised not only for the natural beauty of the mountain range but also for the largest and most concentrated series of rock art paintings in Africa. For more than 4 000 years the San people lived in the sandstone caves and rock shelters, creating rock paintings that are considered as some of the supreme achievements of humankind.
6 From AD 900 to 1300, while Europe was still in the Dark Ages, there was a great southern kingdom that had trade networks extending as far as India, Egypt, Persia and China. At the heart of the kingdom lay a royal fortress built on top of Mapungubwe Hill overlooking the Limpopo and Shashe Rivers. Since its discovery in 1932 the site has been excavated, providing evidence of an advanced indigenous society.
7 The Cape Floral Region takes up only 0.04% of the world's land area and yet contains an astonishing 3% of its plant species. This makes it one of the globe's biodiversity hot spots. The region includes, among others, the Table Mountain Reserve, the Swartberg mountains and the Cedarberg wilderness area.
8 Some 2 billion years ago a meteorite, 10 kilometres in diameter, hit the earth in the region of the present town of Vredefort in the Free State. This meteorite, larger than Table Mountain, caused a blast of energy, the impact of which would have vapourised about 70 cubic kilometres of rock. The Vredefort Dome is the oldest, largest and most clearly visible meteorite impact site in the world.
9 World Heritage sites represent what is dear to humankind and what needs to be preserved for future generations. They remind us of our rich natural and cultural heritage and encourage us to be proud of what has been entrusted to us. These jewels are ours to enjoy, draw inspiration from, learn from and preserve.
[Adapted from: My Country South Africa – Celebrating our national symbols and heritage]
PASSAGE 2
ADVERTISEMENT
THE MAROPENG VISITOR’S CENTRE
We've got the answers to some of your questions at Maropeng in the Cradle of Humankind, a short drive from Jo'burg and Pretoria. It's a world-class attraction, which makes the history of humankind come alive in entertaining, educational and interactive ways. Take an underground boat ride through geological time. Ponder the history of life on our planet and marvel at humankind's remarkable progress, then visit one of our restaurants or the nearby Sterkfontein Caves.
A day at Maropeng should give you plenty to mull over on your drive home ... like the real reason you have such a fondness for bananas!
Open seven days a week from 09:00 to 17:00
Admission: Adults R65 and children R35
Top-class day-conference facilities and restaurants
For more information and directions visit www.discover-yourself.co.za or call +27 (0)11 668 3200.
[From: Discover South Africa, Summer 2005]
QUESTIONS BASED ON PASSAGE 1:
1.1 Name the TWO main factors that are considered before a site is given World Heritage status.
(2)
1.2 What does the acronym UNESCO stand for?
(1)
1.3 Give the meaning of the word "cradle" as it is used in everyday life.
(1)
1.4 Why is the "Cradle of Humankind" a suitable name for the World Heritage site described in paragraph 2?
(2)
1.5 Which ONE of the following statements is NOT true?
A The Cradle of Humankind is one of the most important South African heritage sites.
B Fossils of pre-historic man found in the Cradle of Humankind prove that humankind evolved over time.
C The discovery of Mrs Ples and Little Foot are important even to scientists in other countries.
D Visitors to Maropeng can take a journey to the centre of the earth and see how continents developed.
(2)
1.6 Explain why Robben Island is of particular value to humankind.
(2)
1.7 In your own words explain the meaning of "biodiversity" as it is used in paragraph 4.
(2)
1.8 Explain why the writer says that the Ukhahlamba Drakensberg Park is a site of both cultural and natural significance.
(2)
1.9 What do you think the writer wants to achieve by comparing Europe to Africa in paragraph 6?
(2)
1.10 Quote ONE word from paragraph 6 that means the same as having its origins in that place.
(1)
1.11 Is the following question TRUE or FALSE? Quote THREE consecutive words from paragraph 6 to prove your answer.
A highly developed civilisation lived and worked at Mapungubwe.
(2)
1.12 In your own words explain why the Cape Floral Region is referred to as a "hot spot" (paragraph 7).
(2)
1.13 Quote ONE word from paragraph 8 that BEST shows the destructive power of the meteorite.
1.14 What idea does the writer want to convey when referring to the heritage sites as "jewels"? (Paragraph 9)
1.15 What is humankind's most important duty regarding the heritage sites? (Paragraph 9)
1.16 Explain why the author uses the term "humankind" instead of "mankind" throughout the passage.
QUESTIONS BASED ON PASSAGE 2:
1.17 Quote TWO different words from different paragraphs of the advertisement that suggest that humans are concerned about where they come from.
1.18 What does the writer jokingly suggest about our origins when he says: "... like the real reason you have such a fondness for bananas."?
1.19 Is the following statement TRUE or FALSE? Give a reason to prove your answer.
The advertisement is aimed at attracting one-day visitors to Maropeng.
1.20 Give the reason why the words *Discover South Africa*, at the bottom of the advertisement, have been printed in italics.
SECTION B: SUMMARY
QUESTION 2
Read through the passage "Ending a relationship". In not more than 40 words, list the SEVEN guidelines given on how to end a relationship kindly.
INSTRUCTIONS
- List SEVEN facts in full sentences.
- Write your summary in point form and NOT in a paragraph.
- Number your sentences from 1 to 7.
- Give only ONE fact per sentence.
- Use your own words as far as possible.
- Indicate the number of words you have used in brackets at the end of your summary.
- You will be penalised for exceeding the maximum number of words or failing to indicate the number of words used.
ENDING A RELATIONSHIP
It's not looking good. There is silence and I know from experience what comes next. Five days have passed and my sweetheart hasn't called. No visit, no message, not even an SMS. We all know the uncertainty and heartbreak when a relationship ends.
If I have been officially booted out, how would I like to hear it? It's easy. Tell me its over instead of giving me some far-fetched excuse like: "I'm sorry I didn't phone, my phone fell in the toilet." I understand that you don't want to hurt me but tell me if you want to end things, rather than confusing me with excuses. Have the guts to tell me face-to-face. Please don't let me hear about our break-up from a friend or, even worse, a colleague at work!
I am sure that everyone would prefer a calm, sympathetic farewell to a shouting, unpleasant kind. After all, if people have been together for a while, they must have developed some ability to communicate decently. I would prefer total honesty, even though it may hurt. If I know that my companion regards me as a sporting maniac who is as romantic as a goal post, I may be able to change and have a better relationship next time.
Although breaking up is likely to focus on some negative aspects, there must have been something positive in the relationship. You could mention some good things about our time together. It will soften the blow. Whatever you do, don't make insulting or hurtful comments that you will regret later.
There is nothing as hurtful as friends returning gifts received from each other. Even worse is the demand that the other person returns tokens given in love and friendship.
Ending a relationship is never easy but it can be a lot less painful on both sides if it is done decently.
[Adapted from: Out for a Duck by Marlene Marais in Men's Health, February 2006]
BET YOU DID NOT KNOW
Interesting facts about South Africa
There are many surprising facts about South Africa that are 3.1 (opposite of "seldom") overlooked or simply not known. Here are some of these facts to test your 3.2 (know) of our 3.3 (amazing) beautiful country.
- The rocks around Barberton in Mpumalanga 3.4 (be) some of the 3.5 (...) ancient in the world. The formations are over three million 3.6 (year) old. Because they are also the most 3.7 (access) of such formations, 3.8 (science) from all 3.9 (...) the world come here to investigate how life may 3.10 (form) long ago.
- The Tugela Falls in KwaZulu-Natal is the second 3.11 (high) in the world. Water 3.12 (tumble) down 3.13 (a, an) astounding 850 metres of rock.
- Blyde River Canyon is the 3.14 (three) largest canyon in the world.
- South Africa is home to the 3.15 (world) smallest succulent plants, some of 3.16 (...) are 3.17 (less/least/shorter) than 10 mm in height.
- According to recent studies, the star-watching town 3.18 (...) Sutherland in the Northern Cape is one of the most 3.19 (geology) stable places on earth and yet it is built on a 3.20 (sixty-six-million-year- ...) volcano.
[Adapted from: Fact File in Sawubona, January 2007]
QUESTION 4
Study the graph below and answer the questions that follow.
SA under 30s working in Europe in 2006
Countries in Europe
4.1 Complete the following sentences using the graph above by:
- giving the correct form of the words in brackets;
- supplying the missing words; or
- choosing the correct option.
4.1.1 (Most/Least) under 30s choose the UK as a destination while Italy is the 4.1.2 (most/least) popular choice.
Portugal is almost 4.1.3 (...) popular as France.
In comparison with the other countries, the 4.1.4 (least/fewest) people work in Italy, because not many young people speak 4.1.5 (Italy).
It is interesting that 4.1.6 (...) under 30s prefer Belgium 4.1.7 (...) France.
4.2 The passage below contains 8 language errors (spelling, grammar and punctuation). Rewrite the passage, correcting the errors and underlining the corrections. Only the first 8 corrections will be marked.
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PALMA SOAP
Malawi
Empowering women with entrepreneurial skills whilst combatting mosquito-transmitted diseases, one bar of soap at a time.
The problem
MALARIA RATE
70% OF HOSPITAL ADMISSIONS
22% OF DEATHS
12% OF THE POPULATION
FINANCIAL INSECURITY
£4.00 / month average income
The solution
13 Beneficiaries
1 Product
1 Project Partner
£0.25/BAR Sales Price
12% Profit
= Mosquito repellent soap
Green Fingers at Darroch Court
A community garden at the Edinburgh University accommodation Darroch Court
The Goal
- To get a group of students at Darroch involved with growing their own produce in a community garden
- To encourage & promote sustainable thinking/living during contact time during the project
- To encourage students to purchase local fruit and veg rather than imported goods (to lower their carbon footprint)
The Outcome
- By setting up outdoor beds and herb pots indoors, we aim to let students learn how to grow sustainable produce
- In a recent facebook poll, 20 students said they would be happy to use the produce generated, 9 said they would happily get involved further with the project, and 5 said they would be happy to work with the team in maintaining the project.
- We hope all those involved will have had their views about sustainability & fresh produce changed, and we aim to survey at the end of the year to see our overall impact.
To left; a poster designed to promote the herb garden to students and encourage them to come and see/contribute to the garden
To right; a poster advertising a trip to Dobbies garden centre to purchase herb plants, seeds, and other supplies
LILYPADS
A social enterprise empowering local women and girls in rural Kenya by providing them with safe, affordable and sustainable pads.
The problem
• 65% of women in rural Kenya cannot afford to buy sanitary products
• Many school girls exchange sex for sanitary products or use unconventional alternatives such as cloth, leaves or even used nappies
• In an area where 25% of the population are HIV positive, transactional sex can have devastating consequences
The solution
• Lilpads makes and sells affordable reusable sanitary pads, made from recycled materials
• To combat the lack of understanding around menstruation we have developed an education model to be taught in schools
• In February we launched our pilot. We trained 12 women to sell Lilypads and deliver the education model. They delivered the menstrual health class to 5 schools and provided 150 school girls with Lilypads to trial and provide feedback. Once necessary changes have been made selling will commence.
Follow us on Facebook: @LilypadsEdinburgh
Precious Plastic Edinburgh
Building Local Recycling Machines
The problem
• The world is soon to become “Planet Plastic”, we are accumulating plastic waste at an alarming rate. (8.3B tons)
• Even conventional recycling causes emissions through transportation! (0.10kg[CO₂]/kg) We only take 21h to beat this.
• Our goal is to create recycling machines for people to recycle locally and live more sustainable lives. Help fuel the circular economy!
The solution
• We provide means for people to recycle their plastic waste directly into new products.
• We have 13 engineering students in the team.
• We have had many requests and questions online from other universities about building the machines.
• We hope to finish the injection machine, get lab space for our machines and organise local recycling events to spread awareness.
The goal
The RSFS aimed to explore the link between fashion and science through sustainability. This was done by showcasing a range of work, both on the catwalk and in the exhibition area, in order to give the audience a well-rounded take on the subject.
The outcome
We engaged with several sustainable design companies, such as Green Fibres and Hemp Eyewear, artists, such as Ruth Williams and Rebecca Sarah Black. We had exhibitors from all around the world send in their work!
We approximately 20 sponsors who helped us by providing amazing prizes for our raffle. This helped us make a profit of around £200, all of which we gave to ASCUS, our partner charity.
There are plans to run the same fashion show next year, but with an application for more funding in order to make the event bigger.
Sciennes and Ascham Court: Project Tupperware
Provide high quality, glass or recycled plastic Tupperware to the residents at our sites over the next two years.
The problem
According to the Food Standards Agency, **7 million tonnes** of food is thrown away each year - most of which could have been eaten. It is estimated to cost the average household up to **£500 per year** in wasted food and drink.
- **Our aims:** Reduce food waste, encourage batch cooking, encourage food sharing, save money and host sustainable cooking events to promote use.
The solution
We plan to begin with a pilot year at Ascham Court as this is the smaller of the two sites. This makes the site an excellent opportunity to test the project and learn from how it works and the feedback from the residents. We plan to implement a survey for the residents as Ascham to find out how they felt about the project, and what changes we could make to make it more useful.
The first lot of Tupperware will be provided in the academic year 2018/19, with the scheme eventually rolling out to Sciennes in the 2019/20 academic year.
High School Yards Garden Project
Developing a student run garden to sustainably produce organic food
The goal
• Utilise the campus to give growing spaces to students
• To provide learning and teaching space
• Creating networks for information sharing
• Get growing!
The outcome
• Great people involved, with plans to promote to future students to ensure longevity of the project
• Already begun germinating plants
• Purchased tools including mycelium for mushrooms and expanding network to source material such as free compost
• Currently preparing the site with signs and educational boards
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TEACHER MATERIALS - Butter
CONCEPTS:
ELA
-Standard 1.1- Listening and Reading
Career Development
-Standard 3a.1- Basic Skills
Social Studies
-Standard 4.1- Economics
OBJECTIVE: The students will make butter, taste it and gain an appreciation for the amount of manual labor spent in the past to produce this food.
BACKGROUND: Pioneers separated cream from their milk and churned it into butter. Many devices were created to speed up this process. Often while settlers moved across the country, the swaying motion of the wagon all day long would be sufficient to produce butter. Dairy products would be kept fresh in a cold spring or "springhouse." A good time to complete this lesson is around holiday periods when heavy cream will be in the store.
ACTIVITY:
1. Have the student read the story "Butter" or read it to them.
2. Have the students make the cow puppet following the directions given (used with permission from Ag in
3. Copy the cow onto construction paper using a ditto machine or photocopier. Have the students cut them out and assemble them.
4. Make butter (see directions).
Butter was probably first churned by accident. Some rich milk was being held in an animal skin while being carried. When its owner tried to drink his/her milk, it was no longer milk. It had churned into butter. This occurred about 4,000 years ago and butter became an important food.
Butter has been used as a medicine, a hair dressing, an oil, a poultice to ease wrinkles, as money, an indicator of wealth, and as a means to "buy" a wife. It has been eaten alone, drunk in tea, spread on almost any other food, cooked with many foods and seasonings. It has been made out of almost every milk produced by mammals. Its value was recognized by the Pilgrims. The pilgrims stored several tubs aboard the Mayflower for their ocean voyage. Modern butter, despite its manufacturing by large machines and scientific methodology, has not really changed from its earliest days.
For years, butter production was an activity that took place in each home. Cream was churned to form butter lumps. As the butter became thicker, the liquid, buttermilk, was drawn off, the butter rinsed and removed. Churns began as animal skin pouches and evolved to earthenware crocks which were rocked, shaken, or swung. Later, the dasher, a wooden stick with a blunt end was used to churn butter in a wooden vessel shaped in a cone. Modern churns developed made of glass and metal.
One pound of butter is made up of the cream found in ten quarts of milk. The richer the milk is in butterfat, the more butter it will make. The Jersey breed of cattle gives milk with the highest in butterfat, then comes Guernsey, Ayreshire, Brown Swiss, and last is the Holstein. Holstein-Friesian cattle are the black and white breed most commonly found in the United States. Although they produce milk lowest in butterfat (3.0% - 3.5%), they produce the greatest quantity of milk. Therefore, Holsteins outnumber other dairy breeds almost to the point of exclusion.
Colloquial terms including butter are:
"buttering up"
"knowing which side your bread is buttered on"
"bread and butter letter" = thank you note
"to butter" - spread with
Butter is used to name characters in play, in comic strips, and to name a particular type of yellow.
Making Butter
MATERIALS: 4 half-pints of heavy whipping cream
4 small glass jars with lids
salt
crackers
knives
spoons
paper plates
STEPS:
1. Have the students brainstorm what products are made from milk. Make a list on the chalkboard.
2. Discuss where milk comes from.
3. Explain that in the past farmers would allow fresh milk to stand until the cream rose to the top. The cream would then be skimmed off to be made into butter. Today, this takes place in a milk processing plant. We can buy milk in many forms and products.
4. Divide the children into 4 groups. Fill each jar half full with cream. Tighten the lid and give each group a jar. Have them "churn" the cream into butter by shaking the jar. As their arms tire, have them pass the jar to the next child.
5. Depending upon the temperature of the cream (at room temperature 68°F), in about 5 minutes the children should be able to feel and see a difference as they shake the jar. The butter will float to the top as a yellow mass. Press out the buttermilk and drain it off. (Having the cream at cooler temperatures will take longer. At 50 to 60°F, it will take 10 to 15 minutes. At refrigerator temperature--32 to 34°F--it will take 30 minutes to churn cream into butter.)
6. Spoon the butter onto a plate. Have the students taste it. Add salt to taste, if desired.
7. Allow each student to taste a sample on crackers unless they have a food allergy to it or their religion prohibits it.
8. If old-fashioned churns are available, have the students examine them. A local historical society may be a good source.
9. Heavy cream is 44 percent butterfat. Light cream is 18 percent butterfat. Try both types to make butter and see how long it takes and how much butter each will yield.
Butter
Butter is made from the cream in milk. The cream is lighter than the rest of the milk and it floats to the top. In the past after the cows were milked, the milk was put in a pan or jar and the cream floated to the top. Cream was skimmed off the top and churned into butter. What would happen if you let milk sit today? The milk bought in the store is homogenized. This means that the cream is mixed up so well that it won't float out.
Churns came in all shapes and sizes. This type is the most common. Churning was often the work of children. Many early machines were made to churn butter. Why? Because it was a lot of boring work.
When the pioneers travelled across the country they often had a milk cow or two. The cow would be tied to the back of the wagon and walk along behind it. After they milked the cow at night, they
let the milk stand overnight to separate the cream. Then they would tie a sealed jar filled with cream into a sling. The sling was tied to the wagon top.
The sling could sway with the moving of the wagon top. By the time they stopped the wagon, they would have butter.
Butter can still be made by using heavy cream.
Place the cream in a jar and shake it until butter forms.
Drain off the buttermilk. Add a little salt.
and taste it.
Today, butter is made in very large machines like this one.
Cut out your own cow!
Fold along dotted lines
Attach head here
Cut out and curl hair around a pencil
Attach tail here
Patterns
head pattern
ear pattern
tongue pattern
horn pattern
eye pattern
Delilah Cow
Bag Puppet
MATERIALS: cow patterns
scissors
oaktag - file folders
6" paper plate
brown, red, and white construction paper
brown or white paper lunch bags (one for each student)
paste
black marker
STEPS:
1. Reproduce the cow patterns on page 2-171. Paste onto oaktag and cut out. To make a pattern for the mouth, cut a 6" paper plate in half.
2. Have each student trace the head and mouth patterns onto brown construction paper and cut them out. Then trace the paper plate half onto white construction paper and cut out. Have students trim about 1/4" from the curve of the white half circle.
3. Students will trace the eye pattern two times onto white paper and cut out.
4. Have students trace the ear pattern two times and the tongue pattern once onto red construction paper and cut out.
5. Give each student a brown or white paper lunch bag. Students will paste the cow's face onto the bottom of the bag, as shown in the illustration. Then paste on the cow's eyes and ears.
6. Ask students to align the straight edges of the white and brown half circles and paste them together. This is the mouth. Then have students paste the mouth under the flap of the bag so that it overlaps with the cow's face when the flap is closed.
7. Students will paste the tongue onto the mouth, as shown.
8. With a black marker, have students draw eyelashes, a nose, and a smile on Delilah's face.
9. Use the puppets to put on a play, tell stories, etc. | <urn:uuid:a9449036-b362-4920-999d-01f5f3755beb> | CC-MAIN-2025-08 | https://cdn.agclassroom.org/ny/resources/activities/2/butter.pdf | 2025-02-12T23:58:03+00:00 | crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2025-08/segments/1738831951760.75/warc/CC-MAIN-20250212222727-20250213012727-00150.warc.gz | 136,051,298 | 1,869 | eng_Latn | eng_Latn | 0.976149 | eng_Latn | 0.999217 | [
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**Session Set-Up**
| 10x20 grid | 4 Goals | Supply of footballs | Bibs |
|------------|---------|---------------------|------|
| | 2 Small | | 8 blue |
| 50/60 x 30/40 grid | 2 Big | | 8 red |
| | 4 Cones | | 2 green |
**Session Detail**
1. **SD**: red player who is defender starts off the practice by passing the ball to blue attacker who runs around the back of the attacker to protect the goals.
2. **SSG**: blue player looking to play into ST to turn and finish at goal. Can be built through the thirds looking to score too.
| Competition Motivation | For the pressing team in the SSG goals and points can be awarded |
|------------------------|------------------------------------------------------------------|
| Individual Challenge | Try to turn as quick as you can to score in practice 1 |
| Unit/Team Challenge | Try to press the ball to score more goals |
| | Try to stay compact as a defending team |
| Key Questions | Have I taken a big touch so I can escape the defender and look to turn effectively in practice 1? |
| Progressions | Swap roles – roles for all – practice 1 |
| | After players regain the ball they can look to counter and score within 6 seconds |
**4 Corners | Coaching Points**
| 1. Execution of turn(s) | 1. Deciding on when, where how to turn and why |
|-------------------------|-----------------------------------------------|
| 2. Disguise with body | 2. Awareness of defender and ball |
| 3. Combinations to turn | |
| 1. Speed of dribbling and turning | 1. Communication throughout - VITAL |
|-----------------------------------|------------------------------------|
| 2. Quick change of direction | | | <urn:uuid:5402fa4f-a66a-4bbf-b5d6-8db96440f292> | CC-MAIN-2023-14 | https://www.smedleyssoccersite.com/_files/ugd/ccf19a_d4a0fcfecefe490facd4ee5945e0750a.pdf | 2023-03-24T07:07:00+00:00 | crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2023-14/segments/1679296945248.28/warc/CC-MAIN-20230324051147-20230324081147-00381.warc.gz | 1,124,044,781 | 407 | eng_Latn | eng_Latn | 0.999694 | eng_Latn | 0.999694 | [
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1. From which phrase the raga Ahir-Bhairav can be denoted?
2. Write down the pakad of the raga Kedar.
3. Where is the main difference between the raga Kedar and Kamod?
4. What is the thata of the raga Rageshri?
5. What are the Vadi and Samvadi Svaras of the raga 'Chhayanat'?
6. The phrase 'Dha Ni Sa Ga Ma Re Sa' depicts to which raga?
7. Name one seasonal raga in your syllabus.
8. What are the jatis of the raga Sohini and Rageshri?
9. How many Sruti difference is there between Vadi and Samvadi Svaras?
10. Sa Re Sa, Ni Dha, Ni Dha, Ga Ma’ Dha, Ga Ma’ Ga, Ma’ Dha Ni Sa – this phrase is related to which Raga?
11. Name one Sandhi prakash raga in your syllabus.
12. In which time period, the raga Sudha Sarang has been sung? | <urn:uuid:323693d7-02e0-4156-9f2c-be4442c31d6a> | CC-MAIN-2024-33 | https://raghunathpurcollege.ac.in/images/pagepdf/1642478657190music%20-%20bmuccchs501%20(pr).pdf | 2024-08-13T09:34:21+00:00 | crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2024-33/segments/1722641075627.80/warc/CC-MAIN-20240813075138-20240813105138-00049.warc.gz | 372,206,934 | 236 | eng_Latn | eng_Latn | 0.946296 | eng_Latn | 0.946296 | [
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