J. Russell Smith
J. Russell Smith (1874-1996) was an American geographer and is considered the father of the field of agroforestry. In 1929, he released his book Tree Crops: A Permanent Agriculture, one of the best reference books on agroforestry and forest farming, and noted as a key inspirational source for Bill Mollison in creating the Permaculture Design concept. This book is a highly readable blueprint for the development of high-yield tree crops proves that vast, untapped food sources can be harvested from common species of North American trees. Smith’s philosophy is based on the idea that agriculture must be adapted to physical conditions and that farming should fit the land.
The impetus for the book came about from his global travels whereby he saw the negative impacts of soil erosion in multiple countries. So he focused his book on the idea of tree breeding and the development of genetically superior cultivars that could be grown in poor, often mountainous, soils so as to improve them. He also suggested the creation of many national branches of a “Institute of Mountain Agriculture” in order to maintain upkeep of these endeavors.
Smith had a nursery and orchard outside Round Hill, Virginia where he propagated trees he deemed useful.
He observed worldwide the catastrophe of hill agriculture whose one-time cycle he described so accurately as:
Forest — field — plow — desert.
Location: Pennsylvania, USA
Books: Influence of the Great War Upon Shipping, Tree Crops: A Permanent Agriculture, The Ocean Carrier, Industrial and Commercial Geography, The World’s Food Resources, North America
