I am new to the list and the excerpts of Mr. Tucker's were some of the
first things I read. His were the sort of statements that tend to send
me bouncing off the walls.
I have recently found some (however minor solace) in a new technique I
acquired from my Physics teacher, Dr. Vawter, who said that if a student
were to make a series of truthful, logical statements, he could not
count them wrong even if the original premise from which they started
were totally false (the demerits would come only from that one initial
mistake, not from the body). He went on to say he used to listen to a
well-known conservative speaker whose stances regularly opposed his, but
whom he could not disagree with on hearing his argumentation. The man
was still wrong, but not in the body or detail of his statements. In the
premise.
Deep. I try not to let myself get caught up more than absolutely
necessary when it feels like a situation where change in favor of
sustainability and social justice is called into question in itself.
But on another note, re: "ridge tillage"
my limited experience (as of yet) with small-scale growing (raised bed
"intensive") led me to the important conclusion that "weeding" was
something that itself needed to be eradicated in order to maximize the
possibility of reincorporating a larger part of sustenance growing into
the average life. The idea of growing the "weeds in conjunction" with
crops is a major part of it I think. Planting more closely together I
found helps to limit the growth of the weeds so that by the time the
plants are maturing, they overshadow the weeds enough to start really
preventing their further overly obstrusive growth. But weeds also help
to keep the soil moist to an extent I think, where if it were just bare
it would be drier. Of course I'm sure you run into diminishing returns
with competing roots and all.
But I think it brings up important questions about the possible
beneficial impact on labor conditions that any sustainable agriculture
would hopefully have...I have to bet a whole lot of folks wouldn't mind
getting paid, if reintroduced in the right fashion, to be responsible
for a crop's organic weeds or "under" crops instead of digging coal or
sewing together plastic pants.
Peace, Adam