Water at the Roots. Philip Britts

      FOREWORD

      DAVID KLINE

      I wish I could have met Philip Britts. Not only was he a prolific writer and poet, a pastor, an astute observer of his natural surroundings, and, to use a phrase of his, a steward of the mysteries of God; he was also a true landsman. Although I was only a child when Philip died, it is here, as a farmer, that I immediately connect with this gifted man. While I am not a trained horticulturist as Philip was, I too am a keeper of the orchard. I plant and prune and harvest.

      As editor of Farming Magazine, I often receive letters from readers in cities. One in the Bronx wrote, “I don’t have a farm, but my heart is there. I grow tomato plants in a window box.” Philip’s words are also for people like this; he knew that even though most people do not have land to farm and cannot grow the food they eat, everyone hungers, at least at some level, for a connection with nature. And he saw this hunger in the context of a related problem: our disconnectedness from one another. As he wrote in one essay:

      Man’s relationship to the land must be true and just, but it is only possible when his relationship to his fellow man is true and just and organic. This includes the relationship of all the activities of man, the relationship of industry with agriculture, of science with art, the relationship between sexes, and above all, the relationship between man’s spiritual life and his material life.

      One of the great tragedies of the modern world is the complete divorce of the city dwellers from nature and the land….

      The decisive factor in the success of the farmer will be, ultimately, the love of farming. This love comes when we find, not in nature, but through and behind nature, that something which impels worship and service. Part of the glory of farming is that indescribable sensation that comes, perhaps rarely, when one walks through a field of alfalfa in the morning sun, when one smells earth after rain, or when one watches the ripples on a field of wheat; the sensation hinted at by the poet, when his

Restless ploughman pauses, turns and wondering,Deep beneath his rustic habit, finds himself a king.*

      This love is fed by understanding, by knowledge. Without going the whole way with Leonardo da Vinci and his “perfect knowledge is perfect love,” the more one knows of the mysteries of the earth the better one can love farming in the sense of giving one’s service to it.

      It is obvious that Philip Britts lived the life he wrote about. He knew that working with nature and her seasons matters, that farming is not just a matter of tilling the land but loving it, of nurturing instead of exploiting it. Despite his short life, he lived fully and generously. What he wrote seven decades ago is as pertinent today as when he wrote it, perhaps even more so in this greed-driven society where many thoughtful people are looking at intentional community and sustainable living as alternatives to consumerism.

      Philip, I think, would argue that while we can promote such alternatives regardless of where we live, it is best to move not just spiritually but also physically from places of decadence. Maybe not to a cave in the mountains, but to the land, where one can be nurtured and be a nurturer in return. Where one can, like Elijah, in quietness, in the natural world, listen to the voice of God.

      I wonder what Philip would have to say about today’s agribusiness, or about the mindset that believes technology will solve all the world’s food production problems. Philip clearly believed in exercising caution: before welcoming a new agricultural development simply because it is scientifically plausible or commercially profitable, we ought to take care to avoid or diminish any moral harm it might cause. One cannot help thinking here of genetically engineered plants developed to allow minimum tillage, which have led to millions of acres of farmland being soaked with herbicides.

      Philip’s writings indicate that he

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