This book is an excellent primer for gardeners, farmers, others involved with land management, composters, and anyone else who wants to understand how organic soil systems work. The chapter on water dynamics is explained thoroughly, and in a very easily understood way.
From the Introduction:
"Edaphos is an ancient Greek word meaning ground or soil. The science of edaphology' is technically the study of soil from the perspective of plant growth or plant production. This book is an analysis of the natural soil system that determines the environment for plants. Plants and all other living things. however, are also factors influencing their own environs.
This book attempts to create a holistic sense of the earth as a single entity, functioning as a result of all the physical and biological vents that occur. Although life is incredibly diverse and intensely competitive, the biosphere seems to function like a large and complex livingorganism. All of its organic and inorganic components participate as essential parts of the whole.
The edaphic factors can be simplified into four basic categories. The living; the dead; the minerals; and the atmosphere.
Within each category arc countless variables, each with an immeasurable effect on the whole system. From these factors we can derive the theory: Energy that affects anything will eventually affect everything else. It is hard to imagine, and impossible to predict, how the future of a planet can be affected by subtle changes in the living and non-living components of its mass. However, eons of evolution prove that anything is possible."