the sustainability of the soil’s vitality and health.
Understanding this proper relationship will take time
and eventually will involve growing many dierent
crops, including a large number of trees. Trees
bene*cially modify our climate, bring up and make
available nutrients from deep down in the soil, protect
the soil from erosion, help maintain healthy water
tables, and provide us with food and building materials.
Food value columns have been added to the Master
Charts for protein, calories, and calcium for each crop.
These are important, but so are many other food values
—including iron, vitamins, and amino acids. See the
reference books listed in the bibliography if you want to
pursue this further. Be sure to explore growing compost
crops in between your trees to increase the soil’s
friability and its nitrogen and organic matter content. Try
medium red clover. It has beautiful red flowers.
Note: Wheat can be threshed easily with a mini-thresher^3 made available by a
public organization in your area.Increasingly, more people want to grow food. One
hundred square feet of grain may yield 4, 8, 12, or more
pounds of edible seed. If you are in a cooler climate and
wish to grow beans for eating, try varieties such as the
peanut, yellow-eye, and cranberry beans available from
the Vermont Bean Seed Company. Dwarf fruit trees, if
nurtured properly, can yield 50 to 100 pounds of fruit
annually at maturity. Two trees on 8-foot centers in 100