Book Review

This is a dirty book. In it, forestry professors Daniel D. Richter, Jr. and Daniel Markewitz examine in detail how dirt, which they call soil, was formed over millennia, was altered by centuries of agriculture, and finally during the last few decades was transformed yet again by modern forestry practices. Fortunately, these authors do not rely solely on science to tell this story. "History," states the book's forward, "is an essential element for understanding the ecological status of a place" (p. xii). It is this cross-fertilization of history and ecology that will make Understanding Soil Change appealing to environmental historians.

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Although Richter and Markewitz claim their study has "implications for soil and ecosystem dynamics across a vast and important area of the earth's surface," (p. 65) the book examines as its case study the soil of a single Piedmont farm, the Old Ray Place, in South Carolina's Calhoun Experimental Forest, during three distinct time periods. Understanding Soil Change begins by explaining the pre-human history of the farm's acidic soil, which took thousands of years to form from weather-eroded rock. The authors next examine the soil's agricultural past, which during the last three centuries involved a shift from Native American corn cultivation to plantation agriculture dominated by cotton production. Finally, the book concludes by looking at the last several decades of the farm's history, when the federal government purchased the land and began reforesting it with loblolly pines.

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