Natural farming: a practical guide. Pat Coleby. 2004.

Natural Farming Carrie’s a simple but widely overlooked message: healthy soil makes healthy plants, which in turn make healthy animals and healthy people. The book explores the consequences in the soil of applications of superphosphate and other artificial fertilisers over decades, and explains soil chemistry in terms that every farmer can understand. It describes the exact role of each mineral and vitamin, both in the soil and in the body. And it explains how to prevent expensive disease outbreaks and minimise the use of costly artificial sprays and fertilisers.

The prescriptions are simple and can be applied to any farming enterprise - market gardens, orchards, broad acre crops and pasture - to restore the natural balance and fertility of the land, improve soil health, and increase productivity. The book is enlivened with accounts of spectacular successes in regenerating degraded land and curing animals that, in many cases, had been given up for dead.