Petr Alekseevich Kropotkin

I mean the almost horticultural treatment of our corn crops, which is widely practised in the far East, and begins to claim our attention in Western Europe as well.

Moreover, the very heavy crops of roots which are now obtained (seventy-five to 110 tons of beetroot to the acre are not infrequent) give another powerful means for increasing the number of cattle without taking the land from what is now…

But now it is capable, thanks to the work of the Flemish peasants and to irrigation, to produce the food of one milch cow per acre--the dung of the cattle being utilised for further improvements.

But on the irrigated fields of the Vosges, the Vaucluse, etc., in France, six tons of dry hay become the rule, even upon ungrateful soil; and this means considerably more than the annual food of one milch cow (which can be taken at a…

Almost every year brings some new, often unexpected improvement in the art of agriculture, which for so many centuries had been dormant.

Human skill in the treatment of living matter, and science--in its branch dealing with living organisms--step in with the intention of doing for the art of food-growing what mechanical and chemical skill have done in the art of fashioning…

For the last fifty years science--especially chemistry--and mechanical skill have been widening and extending the industrial powers of man upon organic and inorganic dead matter.

But the more we study the modern achievements of agriculture, the more we see that the limits of productivity of the soil are not attained, even in Jersey.

In fact, a considerable progress has already been realised in French agriculture by labour-saving machinery during the last twenty-five years; but there still remains an immense field for further improvement.

The “means of existence” drawn from the soil have thus grown about fifteen times quicker than the population.

While we are so often told that wheat-growing does not pay, and England consequently reduces from year to year the area of its wheat fields, the French peasants steadily increase the area under wheat, and the greatest increase is due to…

But the deeper one goes into the subject, the more new and striking data does he discover, and the more Malthus’s fears appear groundless.

Industrial wealth has grown at a rate which no possible increase of population could attain, and it can grow with still greater speed.

True, the formidable growth of the productive powers of man in the industrial field, since he tamed steam and electricity, has somewhat shaken Malthus’s doctrine.

Political economy never rises above the hypothesis of a limited and insufficient supply of the necessaries of life; it takes it for granted.

Science, down to the present day, remains permeated with Malthus’s teachings.

He thus gave to the rich a kind of scientific argument against the ideas of equality; and we know that though all dominion is based upon force, force itself begins to totter as soon as it is no longer supported by a firm belief in its own…

It appeared at the right time, like all books which have had any influence at all, and it summed up ideas already current in the minds of the wealth-possessing minority.

Few books have exercised so pernicious an influence upon the general development of economic thought as Malthus’s Essay on the Principle of Population exercised for three consecutive generations.

William Saunders, is quite right in saying that this system of supplying a great number of farmers with small quantities of choice seeds has contributed notably to increase the yield of corn in Canada.

Manures, containing only one-fifth part of the nutritious elements they were supposed to contain, were found to be quite common; while manures containing injurious matters, and no nutritious parts whatever, were not unfrequently supplied…

The falsifications discovered by these laboratories exceed all that could have been imagined.

I do not quote many excellent English manuals, but I must remark that the market-gardening culture in this country has also obtained results very highly prized by the Continental gardeners, and that the chief reproach to be addressed to it…

On the other hand, it was discovered lately that certain microbes in the soil are a necessary condition for the growth of plants.

It is a fact that chemical manures, without organic manure, seldom prove to be sufficient.