J Russell Smith

This is an excellent reference for growing high-yield fruit-and nut-bearing trees.A list of the most important books ever written about sustainable agriculture (and human health) would include Tree Crops by J. Russell Smith.

Tree Crops: A Permanent Agriculture, first published in 1929 and last updated in 1953 (and the edition reprinted here) is a classic, pioneering look at the use of trees for food, soil conservation, and sustainable agriculture. Author J. Russell Smith (1874-1966) travelled widely and shares his insights and research into agro-forestry, describing how trees such as carob, honey locust, persimmon, mulberry, oaks and pecans can be used to enrich the land and the people and animals dependent on it. Illustrated with over 80 pages of photographs.

Beside me was a tree, one lone tree. That tree was locally famous because it was the only tree anywhere in that vicinity; yet its presence proved that once there had been a forest over most of that land-now treeless and waste. The farmers of a past generation had cleared the forest. They had plowed the sloping land and dotted it with hamlets. Many workers had been busy with flocks and teams, going to and fro among the shocks of grain. Year by year the rain has washed away the loosened soil. The hamlets in my valley below the Great Wall are shriveled or gone. Only gullies remain -a wide and sickening expanse of gullies, more sickening to look upon than the ruins of fire. You can rebuild after a fire. Can anything be done about it? Yes, something can be done. Therefore, this book is written to persons of imagination who love trees and love their country, and to those who are interested in the problem of saving natural resources-an absolute necessity...(From Chapter 1)