AMS signed "Jack London," two pages, 7.5 x 5.5, stamp-dated October 6, 1916. In full: "The Chinese have farmed for forty centuries without using commercial fertilizer. I am rebuilding worn-out hillside lands that were worked out & destroyed in a generation by our wasteful California pioneer farmers. I am not using commercial fertilizer. I believe the soil is our one indestructible asset, & by green manures, nitrogen-gathering cover crops, animal manures, rotation of crops, proper tillage & draining, I am getting results which the Chinese have demonstrated for forty centuries. We are just beginning to farm in the United States. The Chinese knew the how but not the why. We know the why, but we're dreadfully slow getting around to the how." In fine condition, with several pinhole punctures to the lower left. London was a pioneer of sustainable farming in Sonoma County, California, where he had purchased a 1,000-acre ranch in 1905. This passage is published in The Book of Jack London, a biography of the great author written by his wife Charmian.
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