# Holy Shit  ## Metadata - Author:: [[Gene Logsdon and Brooke Budner]] - Full Title:: Holy Shit - Category: #books ## Highlights > As the old saying puts it, "Nothing is more overrated than sex and nothing so underrated as a good healthy bowel movement." ([Location 51](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B003ZHU1K4&location=51)) > The eerie notion that manure might someday be priced as high as the price farmers get for the food their livestock produce while making the manure leads to some amusing, and some notso amusing, speculation. ([Location 131](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B003ZHU1K4&location=131)) > For one thing, those people within our society who seem bent on getting rid of the livestock industry would be thrown into a quandary. They might start to look upon husbandry with a little more kindness if they understood that without it, they might not be able to grow enough fruits and vegetables for everyone. ([Location 132](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B003ZHU1K4&location=132)) > If the pitchfork again rises to the fore as one of our main tools of earthly commerce, we will achieve a healthier economy. In the meantime, learning how to use a pitchfork just might be as important as learning how to use a computer. ([Location 489](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B003ZHU1K4&location=489)) > An underlying principle at play here-and one that is still not well understood-is that in manuring, as in mulching, the most feverish microbiological activity in the soil goes on right at or under the manured or mulched soil surface, where there is plenty of oxygen to provide the music for the dancing microorganisms and their partners, earthworms and other soil fauna and flora. What we humans must always keep in mind as we go about making sure there is enough food to go around is that this body of material we call manure, or compost, is neither a factory machine nor a barren waste, but a lovely, intertwining jungle flock of living things to be fed and managed lovingly, much like we manage the other livestock on our farms. Our most important livestock, in fact, are invisible to the naked eye. ([Location 718](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B003ZHU1K4&location=718)) > The largest fertilizer company in the world, W. R. Grace, started with guano. James Bond in fiction killed Dr. No, a guano salesman, and buried him, fittingly enough I suppose, in a pile of guano. In real life, in the 1800s, bat and bird colonies were wantonly destroyed to get their excrement, as humans, blind with greed, could not even understand that if they did not allow the seabirds and bats the ability to maintain themselves, the guano deposits would soon be gone too. ([Location 1107](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B003ZHU1K4&location=1107)) > A well-fed milk cow excretes about 15 to 20 tons of feces and urine in a year. She extracts from what she eats only one-fifth of the plant nutrients. The scrupulously careful farmer of yesteryear (not many of those) could return nearly four-fifths of the nutrient value of the livestock feed to his land with the manure. Cow pies on pasture can do that without any farmer work at all. ([Location 1205](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B003ZHU1K4&location=1205)) > Walt Whitman was way ahead of his time. In a poem titled "This Compost," he wrote: "Behold the compost! behold it well! ... It grows such sweet things out of corruptions ... It gives such divine materials to men, and accepts such leavings from them at last." ([Location 1400](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B003ZHU1K4&location=1400)) > (Perhaps there is more to the biblical admonition, "No man putting his hand to the plow and looking back is fit for the kingdom of God," than is usually suggested. ([Location 1445](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B003ZHU1K4&location=1445)) > Most intriguing of all, in some areas of the Amazon and other parts of South America, farmers lacking enough naturally good soil made their own, and hundreds of acres of it! This mystery soil,now called terra preta, is apparently all that has survived centuries of human habitation-a rich black or brown soil whose main ingredient is charcoal, accompanied by humus from centuries of human cooking fires, kitchen middens, and human manure. Scattered through it are shards of pottery, further evidence that this is man-made soil. ([Location 1465](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B003ZHU1K4&location=1465)) > My happenstance of being a farmer and of also having a background in cultural history forced upon me a logic I can't deny no ([Location 1486](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B003ZHU1K4&location=1486)) > matter how hard I might want to try. Societies, becoming successful-that is, being able to dominate their environments to suit their own comfort-lose sight of the vital connection between their daily lives and farming. Then, slaves or poor people are forced to do most of the real farm work. Waste becomes a burden to be buried in middens instead of being returned to the soil as fertilizer. The rich and the educated take their food for granted and distance themselves from the daily task of food-getting. ([Location 1487](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B003ZHU1K4&location=1487)) > Interestingly enough, in vanished American civilizations, the most common long-range cause of decline was overreliance on corn or maize. Farmers first perfected its cultivation, often on land that couldn't support continuous maize farming-if any soil can. Then they started unbalancing their diets by eating too much maize compared to other foods, which meant competition for more land to grow more maize. Frequent diseases from unhealthy diets and lifestyles followed. ([Location 1489](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B003ZHU1K4&location=1489)) > As I said earlier and will probably say again, if shit were white and smelled like roses, our problems with waste management would be over. ([Location 1559](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B003ZHU1K4&location=1559)) > Sooner or later, we must learn to live in the same world as our colons. ([Location 1862](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B003ZHU1K4&location=1862)) # Holy Shit  ## Metadata - Author:: [[Gene Logsdon and Brooke Budner]] - Full Title:: Holy Shit - Category: #books ## Highlights > As the old saying puts it, "Nothing is more overrated than sex and nothing so underrated as a good healthy bowel movement." ([Location 51](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B003ZHU1K4&location=51)) > The eerie notion that manure might someday be priced as high as the price farmers get for the food their livestock produce while making the manure leads to some amusing, and some notso amusing, speculation. ([Location 131](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B003ZHU1K4&location=131)) > For one thing, those people within our society who seem bent on getting rid of the livestock industry would be thrown into a quandary. They might start to look upon husbandry with a little more kindness if they understood that without it, they might not be able to grow enough fruits and vegetables for everyone. ([Location 132](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B003ZHU1K4&location=132)) > If the pitchfork again rises to the fore as one of our main tools of earthly commerce, we will achieve a healthier economy. In the meantime, learning how to use a pitchfork just might be as important as learning how to use a computer. ([Location 489](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B003ZHU1K4&location=489)) > An underlying principle at play here-and one that is still not well understood-is that in manuring, as in mulching, the most feverish microbiological activity in the soil goes on right at or under the manured or mulched soil surface, where there is plenty of oxygen to provide the music for the dancing microorganisms and their partners, earthworms and other soil fauna and flora. What we humans must always keep in mind as we go about making sure there is enough food to go around is that this body of material we call manure, or compost, is neither a factory machine nor a barren waste, but a lovely, intertwining jungle flock of living things to be fed and managed lovingly, much like we manage the other livestock on our farms. Our most important livestock, in fact, are invisible to the naked eye. ([Location 718](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B003ZHU1K4&location=718)) > The largest fertilizer company in the world, W. R. Grace, started with guano. James Bond in fiction killed Dr. No, a guano salesman, and buried him, fittingly enough I suppose, in a pile of guano. In real life, in the 1800s, bat and bird colonies were wantonly destroyed to get their excrement, as humans, blind with greed, could not even understand that if they did not allow the seabirds and bats the ability to maintain themselves, the guano deposits would soon be gone too. ([Location 1107](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B003ZHU1K4&location=1107)) > A well-fed milk cow excretes about 15 to 20 tons of feces and urine in a year. She extracts from what she eats only one-fifth of the plant nutrients. The scrupulously careful farmer of yesteryear (not many of those) could return nearly four-fifths of the nutrient value of the livestock feed to his land with the manure. Cow pies on pasture can do that without any farmer work at all. ([Location 1205](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B003ZHU1K4&location=1205)) > Walt Whitman was way ahead of his time. In a poem titled "This Compost," he wrote: "Behold the compost! behold it well! ... It grows such sweet things out of corruptions ... It gives such divine materials to men, and accepts such leavings from them at last." ([Location 1400](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B003ZHU1K4&location=1400)) > (Perhaps there is more to the biblical admonition, "No man putting his hand to the plow and looking back is fit for the kingdom of God," than is usually suggested. ([Location 1445](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B003ZHU1K4&location=1445)) > Most intriguing of all, in some areas of the Amazon and other parts of South America, farmers lacking enough naturally good soil made their own, and hundreds of acres of it! This mystery soil,now called terra preta, is apparently all that has survived centuries of human habitation-a rich black or brown soil whose main ingredient is charcoal, accompanied by humus from centuries of human cooking fires, kitchen middens, and human manure. Scattered through it are shards of pottery, further evidence that this is man-made soil. ([Location 1465](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B003ZHU1K4&location=1465)) > My happenstance of being a farmer and of also having a background in cultural history forced upon me a logic I can't deny no ([Location 1486](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B003ZHU1K4&location=1486)) > matter how hard I might want to try. Societies, becoming successful-that is, being able to dominate their environments to suit their own comfort-lose sight of the vital connection between their daily lives and farming. Then, slaves or poor people are forced to do most of the real farm work. Waste becomes a burden to be buried in middens instead of being returned to the soil as fertilizer. The rich and the educated take their food for granted and distance themselves from the daily task of food-getting. ([Location 1487](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B003ZHU1K4&location=1487)) > Interestingly enough, in vanished American civilizations, the most common long-range cause of decline was overreliance on corn or maize. Farmers first perfected its cultivation, often on land that couldn't support continuous maize farming-if any soil can. Then they started unbalancing their diets by eating too much maize compared to other foods, which meant competition for more land to grow more maize. Frequent diseases from unhealthy diets and lifestyles followed. ([Location 1489](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B003ZHU1K4&location=1489)) > As I said earlier and will probably say again, if shit were white and smelled like roses, our problems with waste management would be over. ([Location 1559](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B003ZHU1K4&location=1559)) > Sooner or later, we must learn to live in the same world as our colons. ([Location 1862](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B003ZHU1K4&location=1862))