Open seeds

Current exchange rates

2009-05-23T22:36:00.001+10:00

Source:www.exchange-rates.org

Some tax havens

2009-05-23T22:32:00.000+10:00

Source:www.exchange-rates.org

Parliamentary push for new food labelling laws

2008-12-19T19:21:00.001+11:00

18/12/2008 9:16:00 AM

LABELLING laws for food containing genetically modified (GM) crops should be addressed, according to Collie-Preston MLA and Shadow Agriculture Minister Mick Murray.

“Foods containing genetically modified crops should be clearly labelled so consumers can make informed choices about what they are purchasing,” Mr Murray said.

He said there were still many issues that needed to be addressed before consumers could be confident they were purchasing food free of GM crops.

“It is my understanding that oil from cotton is currently being blended with other vegetable oils and sold to unwary consumers who assume they are making a non-GM crop food choice at the supermarket,” Mr Murray said.

“Minister for Agriculture Terry Redman said he was committed to giving farmers the choice of what they grow.

“He must now provide the same right to have a choice to all consumers.”

Mr Murray said the State Government should introduce legislation to ensure the clear labelling of all foods which contain GM crops.

“I call on the Liberal Government to protect consumers by getting a bill through Parliament before the first WA genetically modified cotton crop is harvested and the oil is sold into the marketplace,” he said.

“The legislation should ensure that shoppers are able to make their own judgements about what they and their families consume.”

Mr Murray said legislation should be extended to include the correct labelling of all imported foods that contained GM crops.

“This is a contentious issue and it is essential that consumers are empowered to make genuinely informed choices,” he said.

Minister for Agriculture and Food and Member for Warren-Blackwood Terry Redman said consumers should be able to make informed decisions when purchasing food with the ability to choose GM or non-GM food, based on clear and unambiguous labelling.

He said foods that contained more than one percent of GM content in the final food product must be labelled as ‘Genetically Modified’ under the current GM labelling requirements set by Food Standards Australia and New Zealand.

“Australia has one of the most stringent labelling requirements for GM foods,” Mr Redman said.

“Consumers should be aware that for many years GM cotton seed oil has been used widely across this country, for example in cooking fish and chips.”

WA Greens spokesperson Rae McPherson said her party had a long-held policy for comprehensive GM food labelling so consumers could identify food containing GM ingredients and make choices about the food they ate.

“Cotton seed oil is used in blended vegetable oils, which is used to make many value-added items such as biscuits,” Ms McPherson said.

“The Labor Party has not supported moves for comprehensive labelling when they were in government, but we do look forward to their support in the future.”

Ms McPherson also said that by rushing into accepting GM crops in WA, the Liberal National Government was introducing a major threat to WA’s clean, green agricultural market share without any safety net for conventional producers or consumers.

“Legislation needs to be put in place to protect both producers and consumers who do not want to grow or consume genetically modified products,” she said.

“Ultimately the Greens support a comprehensive ban on the use of GM technologies in agriculture to protect our clean green food industries.”

Mr Redman said the State Government was progressing a pathway towards the commercial trials of canola.

“Many issues are being considered including the ability of the supply chain to manage segregation,” he said.

“WA farmers face ever-growing challenges and they should have the opportunity to access the world’s best technology to ensure the viability of the agriculture sector in WA.”

Mr Redman also said the evidence from Canada and the United States suggested adoption of GM crops did not decrease the area of organic production.

“Data from those countries shows that organic cropland doubled between 1995 and 2005,” he said. “Both countries adopted GM crops in 1996.”

Ms McPherson said GM crops were a major threat to all farmers who did not want to use GM seed, because they stood to lose markets if their crops were contaminated.

“Evidence from Canada points to the fact that it is not possible to stop pollen crossing from a GM farm to a non-GM farm,” she said.

“Ironically non-GM farmers are at risk of being sued by GM companies if they are found to have the patented seeds on their land.”

Organic methods in Australia: Unavoidable

2008-10-08T22:40:00.002+11:00

Leslie White

October 6, 2008

METHODS used in organic farming will be "unavoidable" if Professor Ross Garnaut's recommendations are followed, according to organic farming groups.

Australian Carbon Farmers Coalition founder Michael Kiely said carbon uptake in soil could be improved through organic methods.

"Non-organic farmers can capture large amounts of carbon, but you can 'turbo-charge' carbon uptake in soil if you protect the microbiological community below who manufacture it," Mr Kiely said.

"Any use of toxic substances - such as synthetic farm fertilisers, pesticides and insecticides - disrupts this."

Mr Kiely said many farmers were not aware they had billions of creatures working for them in their soil.

Biological Farmers Australia Standards Chairman Dr Andrew Monk said organic producers were looking to employ methods to improve their soil's long-term carbon capture potential.

"Organic farming's . . . design and implementation, organic works with and not against nature - and is only just beginning to get the environmental recognition it deserves."

Dr Monk said there may be opportunity for certified organic farmers to take advantage of the report's focus on carbon plantations and increased tree plantings, given that under the Australian Organic Standard, producers are required to set aside a minimum of 5 per cent of their property for regionally appropriate native land preservation.

Delving into mysteries of the biodynamic kind

2008-10-08T09:40:00.000+11:00

WINE: James Halliday | September 27, 2008

WHEN I learned that David Paxton, a no-nonsense and long-established grape grower and viticultural consultant, had converted his McLaren Vale vineyards in South Australia to biodynamic practices, I decided to do several things.

2006 Paxton AAA Shiraz Grenache

One was to interview his vineyard manager, Tobie Bekkers. The other was to review the most up-to-date information on the internet. I did so notwithstanding that some of my best friends run their vineyards strictly adhering to the biodynamic principles that sprang from a series of lectures given by Austrian mystic Rudolf Steiner, beginning in June 1924.

Vanya Cullen of Cullen Wines in Western Australia's Margaret River is a committed disciple and has no doubt the practices have directly and quickly led to a discernible improvement in the quality of the state's grapes (and hence wines).

I interviewed two distinguished French disciples, Anne-Claude Leflaive (Burgundy) and Noel Pinguet (Domaine Huet, Vouvray), and have had many discussions with Aubert de Villaine of Domaine de la Romanee-Conti, who has pulled back from adoption of biodynamie, as it is known in France. Leflaive and Pinguet (the latter a mathematician by original training) say they adopted biodynamie only after comparing the results from side-by-side vineyard lots.

The tangible aspects of Steiner's method are the preparations, each with a number. Cow manure is placed in a cow's horn and buried during winter (500); a horn is filled with powdered quartz-silica (501); yarrow flowers are buried in a stag's bladder (302); camomile in a cow's intestine (503); oak bark in the skull of a domestic animal (505); and dandelions in a bovine mesentery (506).

These preparations are mixed with water and stirred in specified directions before being applied in minute quantities at specified times. It is at this point that Steiner's beliefs transcend rational analysis and become almost religious. He sees soil as an integral part of a symbiosis between planet, air and cosmos. Viticultural tasks are timed according to the lunar and astrological calendar, the time of year and day. There are leaf days, root days, flower days and fruit days, all driven by the rhythm of nature.

"Plants can only appear diseased," writes Steiner. "In the true sense of the word a plant cannot be diseased (the appearance arising) when moon influences in the soil become too strong." More mysteriously, "The bladder of the stag is connected ... with the forces of the cosmos. Nay, it is almost the image of the cosmos. We thereby give the yarrow the power quite essentially to enhance the forces it already possesses to combine the sulphur with other substances."

If pests invade a biodynamic farm, you respond by "ashing" them. If it is a mouse plague, "you catch a fairly young mouse and skin it ... when Venus is in the sign of Scorpio". You burn the skin and scatter the ash over your fields. "Henceforth, your mice will avoid the field." Other pests are repulsed with similar techniques.

How, then, did Paxton and Bekkers come to adopt biodynamic farming? Bekkers has an honour's degree in agricultural science and Paxton exudes down-to-earth pragmatism in his approach to grape growing. On the spur of the moment, they went to the inaugural biodynamic conference at Beechworth in northern Victoria several years ago, where the guest of honour was the leader of biodynamie, Nicolas Jolie from Coulee de Serrant in the Loire Valley.

"At the end of the first day we were ready to walk out," Bekkers recalls. "But we decided to stay in the hope it would make more sense."

It did, and they started a 10-row trial in the middle of a 30ha vineyard at the end of 2004. There was a response within six months and within two years the soil was much darker. "We have yet to do an analysis of bacterial life in the soil and there has been no impact on yield, but there has been a definite boost in grape flavour," Bekkers says. "It's like a home-grown tomato compared (with) a commercial supermarket one."

All of this raises more questions than it answers. Nextweek I will look in more detail at some of thosequestions.

www.winecompanion.com.au

FROM THE REGION: 2006 Paxton AAA Shiraz Grenache THE 2006 Paxton AAA Shiraz Grenache (95 points; $23) is, by any standards, a totally delicious wine. It is a blend of 75 per cent shiraz from the 45-year-old Jones Block and 25 per cent grenache from dry-grown bush vines on Quandong Farm Vineyard, spending 10 months in a mix of French and American oak, only 15 per cent new. It has an almost languid appeal, with red and black berry fruit in abundance, supported by a little spice; fruit sweet (it is only 14 per cent alcohol) but lovely and dry on the slightly savoury finish.

Preference a matter of faith for biodynamic converts

2008-10-08T09:36:00.002+11:00

James Halliday | October 04, 2008

HOW do you make head or tail of the mystical nature of biodynamics? The reality is that many more international winemakers of repute than the handful I mentioned last week are ardent practitioners and that in The Wine Companion database, 117 Australian wineries claim to be biodynamic. A few may be dubious, making poor wine, but the majority are good winemakers.

If there is to be a satisfactory answer, it must lie in the organic viticulture springboard that allows you to make the leap to biodynamic. Jancis Robinson (The Oxford Companion to Wine) uses the 1990 US Farm Bill definition of organic viticulture as a system of grape growing that does not employ industrially synthesised compounds as additions to the soil or vines to maintain or increase fertility, or to combat pest problems.

In broad terms, it allows the use of rock sulphur (not sulphur extracted from oil, even though the compound is the same) and of copper, two centuries-old sprays (along with lime) used to combat downy and powdery mildew, and which have never suffered resistance problems, although copper toxicity is an issue in Bordeaux.

Not permitted are nitrogen or similar fertilisers, systemic mildew sprays, herbicides and pesticides. Nor is the approach of modern integrated pest management allowed, even though (properly run) it should have less long-term adverse impact.

This aside, organic viticulture requires a much closer monitoring of vine health than conventional chemical management and, while initially more expensive (for example, $900 a hectare each year for hand or mechanical weeding v $350 for herbicides), it is cheaper in the long term. It builds soil structure and bacterial content and makes the vines more disease-resistant simply because they are healthier.

It is generally accepted that the step from chemical to organic is more difficult to achieve satisfactorily than the following move to biodynamic. But what does the latter achieve in terms that can be scientifically validated, rather than in terms of the passionate beliefs of the bio practitioners?

I attended a conference at the University of California's Davis campus several years ago and one of the sessions was directed to this question. One paper examined all the sensory evaluation comparisons that had been recorded over the previous decade.

It found only one with appropriate methodology, including placebo or dummy wines, among numerous tastings conducted by true believers who knew what wines were in the tasting, and it did not give a clear indication of superiority.

A lengthy article appeared in the spring 2008 edition of Wine Selector magazine involving a number of key bio players in Australia and journalist Max Allen (a true believer), who tasted a selection of bio wines.

Some of the regular panellists were able to detect the extra energy in certain biodynamic wines. Others were simply happy to find the wines were equal in quality to their conventionally made peers. Allen is quoted as saying, "Drinking great BD wines is like listening to live music: the best conventional wines are like a standard performance on CD."

What worries me is the absence of blind tastings with a mix of bio and non-bio wines from the same varieties, regions and vintage that provide a clear pattern, or any pattern at all.

On the viticultural front, a six-year study comparing biodynamic and organic vineyards from the Washington State lab was published in a peer-reviewed journal, which concluded that no consistent significant differences were found for any of the physical, chemical or biological parameters (of the tested soils).

Looking at the vines, the study states: "Analysis of leaves showed no difference between treatments. There were no differences in yield, bunch count, bunch weight and berry weight."

What do I make of all of this? The step from organic to biodynamic is a matter of religious faith and just because it embodies tenets that cannot be explained by science, or are scientifically wrong, does not mean it should be attacked or vilified.

* www.winecompanion.com.au

Australian 4th Oct 2008

2008-10-08T09:34:00.000+11:00

FROM THE REGION 2006 Kalleske Greenock Shiraz THE Kalleske family has been growing grapes in South Australia's Barossa Valley for more than 100 years. The fifth generation, John and Lorraine, stopped using chemical fertilisers and pesticides many years ago and some blocks (including Greenock) are certified organic and managed biodynamically. The 2006 Greenock Shiraz (94 points; $40) is dark magenta, with abundant red and black fruits. Hints of spice to the core of intense, bright flavours lead to a long, full and harmonious finish. An excellent wine. And we will never know how much is due to biodynamic inputs. James Halliday

HRH delivers the Sir Albert Howard Memorial Lecture

2008-10-06T23:05:00.001+11:00

2nd October 2008

I was most touched and flattered to have been asked by Dr. Vandana Shiva to deliver this year’s Albert Howard Memorial Lecture, organized by Navdanya in tribute to two remarkable men, Mahatma Gandhi and Sir Albert Howard. I would, of course, much prefer to be with you today in person and I warned Vandana when she asked me to speak at this event that I would find it impossible to come to India on this occasion. She very kindly said she understood the problem and therefore agreed to a rather truncated video lecture instead.

I think it is true to say this lecture comes at an important time, with the future of much of the world’s food production at a cross roads. Fundamental issues of food supply and food security are once again in the headlines, and there is much public discussion about what needs to be done. I want to use today’s lecture to try and tease out some of the issues and discuss the options, through the lens that Sir Albert Howard might have used were he here today. But first I must talk a little about the man himself.

Sir Albert Howard was born in England in 1873, the son of a farmer. Educated at the Royal College of Science and Cambridge University, he began his career as an agricultural scientist in the West Indies, taught briefly in England and then worked in India for more than a quarter of a century. Early in his career he complained that he was becoming a ‘laboratory hermit’, ‘learning more and more about less and less.’ This led him to change his approach entirely and he soon became known, in the words of a contemporary, as ‘a man who insisted on knowing all about everything.’

Howard was insatiably curious, thorough and rigorous, but with a strong streak of humility. And it was this combination of traits that, in a very short time, allowed him to observe and learn from the practical, every day achievements of the local farmers. In the words of his wife, herself a noted botanist: ‘he was fortunate in being able to offer India results worthy of her notice, but he could not have done so had he not first been receptive to her teaching.’ Early on in his time in India he decided that to impose Western methods on Indian agriculture was a fundamental error and that the only thing to do was ‘to improve Indian agriculture on its own lines’. And that is exactly what he did for the next twenty-five years. If only others would learn from his example in our own age…

Sir Albert applied intense observation to both plants and farming practices, with careful reference to the world of Nature, which he regarded as the ultimate source of knowledge and wisdom. He summed up his observations from this natural laboratory in these words: ‘Mother Earth never attempts to farm without livestock; she always raises mixed crops; great pains are taken to preserve the soil and prevent erosion; the mixed vegetable and animal wastes are converted into humus; there is no waste; the processes of growth and the processes of decay balance one another; ample provision is made to maintain large reserves of fertility; the greatest care is taken to store the rainfall; both plant, and animals are left to protect themselves against disease.’ He also said: ‘Nature has never found it necessary to design the equivalent of the spraying machine and the poison spray for the control of insect and fungous pests.’ These were seminal, far-reaching words that helped to set the direction for what we now know as organic farming. But Sir Albert didn’t focus on issues of agronomy and plant breeding alone. He also developed a recipe for a compost which was so successful that it was used across the country, and he made careful studies of the storage, marketing and distribution of crops, which led – among other innovations – to the development of a returnable fruit crate, to the intense annoyance of the Indian Railways! In everything he did he was at pains to see the whole picture and then provide the best possible advice to the country and people for whom he had such admiration and affection and to whom he felt such a strong and uncomplicated sense of duty.

The question, then, is what would Sir Albert Howard make of the situation we now find ourselves in? It is impossible to know, of course, and no doubt all sorts of people will further accuse me of wanting to return to “a forelock-tugging, peasant past” when, in fact, all I would like to see is autonomy given back to the small, family farmers. So, if you don’t mind, I am going to speculate anyway based on what we know of his life and work. Incidentally, I am also aware of Mahatma Gandhi’s crucial perception that Humanity has a natural tendency to consume. But, as he said, if there are no limits on that tendency then we can become obsessed with satisfying our desires, consuming ever more, but achieving very little satisfaction. What is more, Gandhi was very sure that if this tendency is legitimized by a view of the world that puts Humanity at the centre of things, operating with an absolute right over Nature, then we shall end up with a very destructive world view indeed - dare I say it, the very approach which has driven so much of Western Modernity for over a century.

Therefore the first thing that comes to mind is that someone so determined as Sir Albert to look beyond the confines of individual academic disciplines and to see the ‘big picture’ would be quick to understand the links between climate change and agriculture. Estimates of the total contribution agriculture makes to climate change vary from ten to thirty per cent, though there is little public awareness of the link. A recent summary of peer-reviewed scientific literature concluded that organic agriculture has much to offer in terms of mitigation of climate change, through its emphasis on closed nutrient cycles, and is a particularly resilient and productive system for adaptation strategies. It was this report which pointed out that organic agriculture emits 36 per cent less greenhouse gasses than the industrialized system of farming which, having broken a 10,000 year old tradition, has somehow become known as “conventional”!

This so-called ‘conventional agriculture’ is dependent to a large extent on artificial fertilisers and pesticides made from and with fossil fuels. So I feel sure that Sir Albert Howard would have been keen to address the pre-eminent challenge of climate change by working with organic systems to reduce further their contribution to this ever-growing crisis.

The next question must be about the reaction of a rigorous but practical scientist, attuned to economic issues, to the suggestion that G.M. food is now essential to feed the world. These claims, of course, have surfaced again recently in response to crises of food supply in various parts of the world. There can be few things more horrific than starvation, especially when so many of us in the Western world live with plenty, and I share entirely the desire of all those who want to tackle it. The argument, ladies and gentlemen, is all about how we solve this problem and I would suggest, having spoken to many experts, that G.M. is probably not the answer.

The key question to be answered, therefore, is whether traditional farming methods can provide the yields needed to feed the world’s population. If they can, then the risks associated with G.M. crops are surely just not worth taking. And the evidence so far is that the yields from these so-called “super crops” are generally lower than their conventional counterparts, and certainly no higher. I shall talk some more in a minute, if I may, about the recent United Nations report on Agricultural Science for Technology and Development. This was the output of a four year review by 400 experts and, interestingly, far from endorsing G.M. crops as the solution to world hunger, it argued in favour of more organic approaches, expressing particular caution about the concentration of ownership of the genes in the hands of a few companies.

So if the current generation of G.M. crops aren’t increasing yields, perhaps the next generation will do so? Yes, of course, say their protagonists. But that’s what they were saying ten years ago, with fulsome promises of crops that would fix their own nitrogen, or tolerate drought and salinity. Yet no such crop has been delivered. On the contrary, Professor Ossama El-Tayeb, Professor Emeritus of Industrial Biotechnology at the University of Cairo, said recently that: ‘...transgenicity for drought tolerance and other environmental stresses (or, for that matter, biological nitrogen fixation) are too complex to be attainable in the foreseeable future’.

As a practical man, with a strong sense of duty to farmers, Sir Albert Howard would most certainly have turned a beady eye on the problems that are now emerging, as widely predicted, with the first generation of G.M. crops. Apart from the truly appalling and tragic rate of small farmer suicides in India stemming in part from the failure of many G.M. crop varieties, these problems include insect and weed resistance, leading to increased pesticide use, together with problems of nutrient uptake and damage to biodiversity. He would also have been greatly concerned at the danger of relying on single varieties for a large proportion of any staple crop – if there are only one or two varieties being grown in bulk and disease strikes, the consequences are cataclysmic and tragic. That is why a broad gene base is essential – for both plants and animals. Equally, I am sure that Sir Albert would have been quick to realize that any G.M. crop will inevitably contaminate neighbouring fields – as long as we have wind and bees – thus making it impossible to maintain the essential integrity and certification of an organic – or just a non-G.M. - system anywhere in the vicinity of a G.M. crop. Surely, if there is even the chance of the genes from G.M. plants contaminating non-G.M. plants, then this single fact, never before known in human history, of one man’s system of farming effectively destroying the choice of another man’s – let alone the choice for the consumer - turns this whole issue into a global moral question..? Which prompts me to remind you of just two of the seven blunders that Mahatma Gandhi identified as the root causes of all violence in the world: “Commerce without Morality and “Science without Humanity”.

If Sir Albert would have been concerned by the aspects of G.M. crops that I have mentioned already, I suspect the issue that would have caused him to become greatly concerned, were he here today, would have been the question of research, and the current lopsided allocation of funding for it. As a scientist immersed in the tradition of publicly-funded research, with outputs available to all, he would surely think it more than unwise to leave such a high proportion of our research to be carried out by companies whose survival and financial progress inevitably depends on agriculture being dominated by products and techniques that can be exploited commercially. We should not be surprised that this research runs the risk of being centred on such things as patented seeds, pesticides and G.M. crops, all of which will earn a return on investment for their developers, rather than on more sustainable, low-tech approaches which would earn a return for all of humanity.

Sir Albert Howard was not opposed to business and neither, of course, am I. Indeed, in my experience it is often business that has led the way in addressing some of the most pressing and urgent social problems of the day. But it may be reasonable to suppose that Sir Albert would have regarded G.M. crops as a wrong turning on the route to feeding the world in a sustainable, or durable manner, which have become a risky and expensive distraction, diverting attention and resources away from those real, long-term solutions such as crop varieties which respond well to low input systems that, in turn, do not rely on fossil fuels.

I daresay he might also have asked why both public and private research funds could not be used to find alternative techniques to improve traditional farming methods which have stood the test of time and which do the very thing that is so urgently needed in the battle against devastating climate change – in other words, to work in harmony with natural systems, not against them. Sir Albert might easily have pointed out under these circumstances that for too long we have been conducting a gigantic experiment designed to test Nature, and the world, to destruction in order to obtain the empirical evidence that it is possible to do so. The problem, of course, is how to put all the pieces back together again…

It is hard to know where so many people’s determined belief in the availability of a big, quick, technical fix to each and every environmental problem comes from. But it is a huge barrier to making progress in so many important areas. Somehow it seems that solutions which are big and complicated, and ideally centralized, are believable. But those that are small and simple and devolved are not. They are considered as merely peripheral and not part of the “real world.”

Perhaps, again, it is a result of what Gandhi defined as the mistaken view of Humanity that sees consumerism as a viable basis for a world economy. Gandhi saw humans as essentially moral beings whose distinctive quality lies in our ability to restrain ourselves because of mutual concern. In other words, to give as well as to take; to “love” creation, in the deepest sense of that word. He called for us to examine very critically where our desires might lead us and, thus, to limit the power they have to propel us forward – his aim being to increase the chances of creating a more just and non-exploitative society.

It is clear that many people believe the only way to feed a growing world population will be through ever greater intensification of agriculture, with larger farms and more ‘efficient’ production. In this scenario, traditional practices are swept away in favour of ‘modern’ systems that rely on external inputs of chemicals, heavy machinery and genetically modified seeds. And yet, at the same time, agricultural land is permitted to be diverted away from food production in order to produce bio-fuels. These are used as a substitute for the fossil fuels which are required to produce the fertiliser and pesticides, and to power the machinery required for intensive agriculture – on the land which isn’t being used for bio-fuels. At this point surely we are entitled to ask whether this extraordinary conventional response to the challenges we face is in any way “sustainable” or, indeed, wise? The trouble is that it isn’t any sort of solution to the real problem. Ladies and gentlemen, I worry that all we are doing here is tinkering with the symptoms and not dealing with the root cause.

There are of course many examples of appropriate technologies that do not claim to provide miracle cures for intractable global issues, but which have the great advantage of working with Nature, recognizing the limitations required by Nature to manage the necessary balance, and which can be deployed alongside sustainable farming practices to boost incomes and the quality of life in rural communities. Each year, for instance, the Ashden Awards for sustainable energy celebrate exciting and innovative projects, such as the wood-saving stoves developed in India by the organization TIDE. Each stove is developed for a particular sector and with the active participation of the users. They reduce the use of biomass by at least thirty per cent, and more in some sectors, and enable better working conditions and a reduction in respiratory and eye diseases. 150,000 tons of biomass have been saved since the scheme started in 2000, leading to reduced deforestation and the saving of 77,000 tons in greenhouse gases each year.

The reason I keep sticking my sixty-year-old head above an increasingly dangerous parapet is not because it is good for my health, but precisely because I believe fundamentally that unless we work with Nature in a myriad of ways such as this we will fail to restore the equilibrium we need in order to survive on this planet. This applies whether we are talking about climate change, about the destruction of the rainforests – which of course do so much to maintain our climate in its state of balance – about water conservation, fisheries or any one of a whole raft of other issues we need to bring under some sort of sensible, wise control if our successors are to inherit anything other than a wasteland.

There is in fact a substantial body of evidence now to show that the world’s growing population can be fed most successfully in the long-term by agricultural systems that manage the land within environmental limits and maintain soil fertility through the use of crop rotations and the recycling of organic wastes, while minimizing the use of non-renewable inputs. These systems also make careful use of water and use crop varieties selected for the local conditions. Such sustainable, “organic” systems (and the Oxford Dictionary describes “sustainable,” as “keeping something going over time, or continuously”) are easily portrayed as old-fashioned, but they have stood the test of time. And they can be improved by working with small farmers in a process of demonstration and example that is as effective now as it was in Sir Albert Howard’s day. Recent research has shown increases of up to 250 per cent in maize yields in Brazil through the use of green manures and cover crops. Also yield increases of 175 per cent on Nepalese farms adopting agro-ecological practices. And in Tigray, in Ethiopia, yields increased by a factor of three to five when composting was used instead of chemical sprays.

I am, of course, entirely used to such ideas, and the evidence (yes – the evidence) that goes with them, being dismissed as romantic, idealized, ill-informed and impractical nonsense. So it was interesting, if not revealing, to read the recent U.N. report I mentioned earlier in this lecture. It is probably the first such report in the last twenty years not to have trumpeted the potential of G.M. to save the world. But there is a great deal more to it than just that.

The report which, as you remember, involved a four-year review by 400 of the world’s experts, stresses that ‘business as usual’ is no longer an option. It points out that although agricultural science and technology have made it possible greatly to increase productivity in the last fifty years, the sharing of benefits has been far from equitable. Furthermore, progress has been achieved in many cases at a high social and environmental cost. The authors therefore recommend that agricultural science places greater emphasis on the need to ‘enhance sustainability while maintaining productivity in ways that protect the natural resource base and ecological provisioning of agricultural systems.’ These methods include using natural fertilizers, intensifying natural processes and reducing the distance between agricultural production and the consumer. The report also states that thirty-five per cent of the earth’s severely degraded land has been damaged by agricultural activities. And it stresses the need to develop agricultural systems that are less dependent on fossil fuels and that favour the use of locally available resources.

I need hardly add that such sentiments would in all likelihood have met with approval from Sir Albert Howard and Mahatma Gandhi. They might have been even more pleased to know that the report also stresses an important human dimension when it says that: ‘traditional and local knowledge constitutes an extensive realm of accumulated practical knowledge and knowledge-generating capacity that is needed if sustainability and development goals are to be reached.’ This seems to me to be such an obvious point that I can never understand why it is so rarely recognized by policy-makers and politicians.

After all, farmers know their land, with all its strengths, weaknesses and complications better than anyone else ever will. And they understand the relationship with the soil. As one Indian farmer put it, the soil is ‘like a dependable Bank’ – you get back what you put into it with interest! Sustainability in this sense really does have a cultural dimension, because once that closest of personal links between people and land is broken, it cannot ever be truly recreated. That is why it surely makes sense to retain as many people as reasonably possible to care for the land and to ensure food production does not end up having ‘all its eggs in one technological, quick-fix basket’ It is in the accumulated experience of generations of farmers that true wisdom lies. Incidentally, one must surely ask the question whether – if only from a precautionary point of view – it might be wise to keep some areas of the world free from G.M. based agriculture?

One of the chief criticisms levelled at small-scale, sustainable agriculture is that it is ‘inefficient.’ But is it - especially when you look at the whole picture? Large farms can certainly produce more food per person employed, through the use of machinery and from economies of scale. But shortage of labour is not the problem in the developing world. Indeed, in many parts of the world the introduction of so-called ‘efficient’ farming is leading inexorably to a tide of dispossessed individuals and families drifting helplessly towards already overcrowded, unplanned, degraded cities in search of often non-existent work. I have seen this only too often for myself. The conditions in which countless people find themselves living can be utterly inhuman and devoid of dignity. If we continue to allow the so-called ‘industrialization of agriculture’, this situation will only worsen. And where, exactly, is all the “sustainable” future employment for so many millions of landless people going to come from, despite the best efforts of charitable organizations like my own to assist with small business development? Are we not in danger of creating, ladies and gentlemen, a generation of “environmental refugees” - people not displaced by religion or war or politics, but as the result of a failure – an absolute failure – to protect and sustain natural resources?

Small farms generally produce more food per acre than large ones, because they work the available land more intensively with more care and attention to detail. And when those small farms adopt the kind of improved practices, leading to higher yields, that I mentioned earlier, and when they are able to form large and effective marketing cooperatives, they can justifiably claim to be a good deal more ‘efficient’ than their larger neighbours, particularly if climate change and other environmental factors are included in the equation. Of course, businesses need to make profits – but not, I suggest, by using unsustainable farming systems at a huge future cost to all of our grandchildren!

So, ladies and gentlemen, where does all of this leave us? Everyone agrees that the current global food crisis is a desperate tragedy. There can be no argument there (although in my own country it is perhaps worth noting that little is being done to tackle the £10 billion worth of food which is wasted each year). The debate really is very simple. Do you think we can solve it by using traditional agricultural practices enhanced by research to increase yields, but within a truly sustainable framework? Or do you think that is impossible and that instead it is worth taking all the risks that I would argue are associated with G.M. technology? To me, the answer is pretty straightforward. I want to see trust being put back in individual farmers, with their knowledge of the land and their skills honed over generations, and thus helping them find the sustainable solutions which respect – rather than upset – Nature’s natural balance. After all, just as the myriad of small businesses are the mainstay of any economy, so are small family farmers the backbone, the lifeblood and the guardians of the rural environment.

I have no doubt that those of us who care about these issues will have to fight for many more years before we have a general acceptance that there is more than one sort of ‘efficient agriculture’, and that Nature’s limits are not shortcomings that need to be ‘fixed,’ but guidelines we need to understand and work within, recognizing that they place limitations on our ambitions and the ways in which we pursue them. This was something that Sir Albert Howard and Mahatma Gandhi both understood and did their best to communicate in their different ways. It is also something to which Dr. Vandana Shiva has dedicated her life with such extraordinary passion and expert knowledge and for which I have nothing but the greatest admiration. She may possibly subscribe to the biblical admonition that it may not be wholly wise to “put your trust in princes” – but it may be even less wise to put your trust in “fixes!”

Ladies and gentlemen, I would just like to leave you with a quote from Gandhi. As he so wisely said: ‘we may utilize the gifts of Nature just as we choose, but in her books the debts are always equal to the credits.’ Click here to watch the video on The Royal Channel on YouTube.

Prince Charles on the Moral Questions relating to GM food

2008-10-06T23:03:00.002+11:00

http://ca.youtube.com/watch?v=5dadwzpIbfo

Then you can count me out.

2008-10-06T09:41:00.003+11:00

Prince Charles on GM food security crisis.

Charles targets GM crop giants in fiercest attack yet

2008-10-06T09:28:00.002+11:00

In a provocative address to an Indian audience, the Prince echoes Gandhi with a stinging attack on 'commerce without morality'. Geoffrey Lean reports It is less than two months since Prince Charles was on the receiving end of a fusillade of scientific, political and commentariat criticism for voicing,yet again, his concerns about GM crops and foods. He was widely accused of "ignorance" and "Luddism"; of being too rich to care about the hungry, and even of trying to increase sales of his own organic produce. It was put about that Gordon Brown was angered by his intervention. Yet the Prince has responded by stepping up his campaign, making his most anti-GM speech yet, in delivering – by video – the Sir Albert Howard Memorial Lecture to the Indian pressure group Navdanya last Thursday. And he made it clear that he was going to continue. "The reason I keep sticking my 60-year-old head above an increasingly dangerous parapet is not because it is good for my health," he said " but precisely because I believe fundamentally that unless we work with nature, we will fail to restore the equilibrium we need in order to survive on this planet." True to his word, he plunged straight into the most controversial and emotive of all the debates over GM crops and foods by highlighting the suicides of small farmers. Tens of thousands killed themselves in India after getting into debt. The suicides were occurring long before GM crops were introduced, but campaigners say that the technology has made things worse because the seeds are more expensive and have not increased yields to match. The biotech industry strongly denies this, but two official reports have suggested that there "could" be a possible link. Prince Charles expressed no doubts in his lecture, delivered at the invitation of Dr Vandana Shiva, the founder of Navdanya, and one of the leading proponents of the technology's role in the deaths. He spoke of "the truly appalling and tragic rate of small farmer suicides in India, stemming in part from the failure of many GM crop varieties". Much of the controversy surrounds claims of failures by a Monsanto GM cotton called Bollguard. The GM company says that "farmers in India have found success" with it, and cites a survey in support. Its opponents produce evidence of their own to show the opposite. But Prince Charles did not stop there. Broadening his offensive, he said that "any GM crop will inevitably contaminate neighbouring fields", making it impossible to maintain the integrity of organic and conventional crops. For the first time in history this would lead to "one man's system of farming effectively destroying the choice of another man's" and "turn the whole issue into a global moral question." He quoted Mahatma Gandhi who condemned "commerce without morality" and "science without humanity". He added: "One must surely ask the question whether – if only from a precautionary point of view – it might be wise to keep some areas of the world free from GM-based agriculture." The Prince attacked the contention that "GM food is now essential to feed the world", saying that the evidence showed that modified crops' yields were "generally lower than their conventional counterparts". He called them "a wrong turning on the route to feeding the world in a sustainable or durable manner" and "a risky and expensive distraction, diverting attention and resources away from those real, long-term solutions such as crop varieties which respond well to low input systems that, in turn, do not rely on fossil fuels." There was substantial evidence "to show that a growing world population can be fed most successfully in the long term by agricultural systems that manage the land within environmental limits". Recent research had shown, he added, that organic farming techniques had increased yields in Brazil by 250 per cent and in Ethiopia were up fivefold, while the world's biggest international agricultural study – headed by Professor Bob Watson,now chief scientist at Department for Food, Environment and Rural Affairs – had backed organic farming,rather than GM to tackle word hunger. Kirtana Chandrasekaran of Friends of the Earth said: "Prince Charles is right that GM crops and industrial farming are profiting big businesses, not feeding the world's poorest." To have your say on this or any other issue visit _www.independent.co.uk/IoSblogs_

WILD FRUITS by H. D. THOREAU last installment of

2008-10-04T17:33:00.002+10:00

Thoreau's Life & Writings

at the

Thoreau Institute at Walden Woods

Wild Fruits: Last of Six Sections (pp. 199-239)

Explanation of Links

{Page 199 continued} SWEET GALE

{001} {MS} Sweet gale, September twenty-second. {002} September 22, 1860. Is yet green, but perhaps it is ripe. {003} January 25, 1855. I find an abundance of the seeds of the sweet gale in windrows frozen into the ice of the river meadows as I return (from Fair Haven Pond), which were washed out by the freshet. I color my fingers with them. And thus they are planted there, somewhat perhaps in waving lines as they wash up. {004} {MS} March 5, 1854. In the upper Nut Meadow the sweet gale grows rankly along the edges of the brook, slanted over the water almost horizontally, so as frequently to meet and conceal the water altogether. {005} It is here a dark and sluggish water, comparatively shallow with a muddy bottom. This sweet gale is now full of fruit. This and the water andromeda—wild plants, as it were, driven to the water’s edge by the white man. {006} {Page 200} {MS} December 14, 1850. {Note} On one of the islands in Loring’s Pond I found a low-branching shrub frozen into the ice near its edge with a fine spicy scent, somewhat like sweet fern, and a handsome imbricated bud (staminate). When I rubbed the dry-looking fruit in my hands, it felt greasy and stained them a permanent yellow which I could not wash out. It lasted several days and my fingers smelled medicinally. {007} August 28, 1859. Saw sweet gale fruit begin to yellow. {Note} {008} August 19, 1851. The fruit of the sweet gale by Nut Meadow Brook is now a yellowish green, and has not yet its greasy feel. {009} November 19, 1857. Going thro’ a partly frozen meadow (I. Hosmer’s or Wheeler’s land), scraping thro’ the sweet gale toward the Assabet River, {Note} I am pleasantly scented with its odoriferous fruit. {010} Gerarde says of the sweet gale, "Among the branches come forth many other little ones [that is, leaves] whereupon do grow many spokie ears or tufts, full of small flowers." {Note}

CLEMATIS

{001} {MS} Clematis, September twenty-second. {002} September 21, 1860. Just beginning to be feathered, but no show. Feathers out next day in house. {003} {MS} By the last of September {Note} the clematis begins to be feathered. A month later, when the leaves had mostly fallen, I have mistaken it, draping a low tree, for a tree {Page 201} full of white blossoms. It is said of the English species, in The Journal of a Naturalist, "I have often observed the long feathered part of the seed at the entrance of holes made by mice on the banks, and probably in hard seasons the seed may yield these creatures part of their supply." {Note}

PANICLED ANDROMEDA

{001} {MS} Panicled andromeda, September twenty-fourth. {002} September 24, 1859. Begins to brown. {003} December 6, 1856. I am excited at the sight of the rich brown fruit of the panicled andromeda, growing about the swamps—hard, dry, inedible, suitable to the season. The dense panicles of the berries are of a handsome form, made to endure. Lasting often over two seasons, only becoming darker or gray. The enduring panicled andromeda, which belongs to the hard season. {004} This appears to be the plant referred to by Manasseh Cutler, L.L.D., in the American Academy’s Reports, where he says, "White pepperbush. Blossoms white. Common in swamps. June.... It is used for fish flakes, and as the wood is very hard and durable, is one of the best shrubs employed for that purpose." Yet the "Andromeda. Linn. Gen. Plant. 485. Andromeda racemis secundis nudis, corollis rotundo ovatis. Syst. Nat." to which he refers, is really, according to a recent Systema Natur�, Linn�us’s arborea (oxydendron) of the South. {Note}

LESPEDEZA

{001} Lespedeza, September twenty-fifth. {Note}

HORSE CHESTNUT

{001} Horse chestnut, September twenty-fifth. {002} September 29, 1859. These nuts strew the roadside. Very handsome-colored but simply formed nuts, looking like mahogany knobs with the waved and curled grains of knots.

{Page 202} BAYBERRY

{001} Bayberry, September twenty-fifth. {002} September 16, 1854. My sister saw much in Princeton. {Note} {003} September 24, 1859. They are apparently ripe, though not so gray as they will be; more lead-colored. They bear sparingly here. Leaves not fallen nor changed, and I the more easily find the bushes amid the changed huckleberries, brakes, and so on, by their greenness. {Note} {004} October 15, 1859. All gone; probably eaten by birds. {005} September 21, 1860. Are perhaps ripe, but not so light a gray nor so rough or wrinkled as they will be. {Note}

CICUTA MACULATA

{001} {MS} Cicuta maculata, September twenty-fifth. {002} Bigelow says, "No botanist, even if in danger of starving in a wilderness, could indulge his hunger on a root or fruit taken from an unknown plant of the natural order Lurid�, of the Multisiliqu�, or the umbelliferous aquatics. {Note} On the contrary, he would not feel a moment’s hesitation in regard to any of the Gramina, the fruit of the Pomace�, and several other natural families, which are known to be uniformly innocent in their effects." {Note} {003} October 2, 1859. Some of the Umbellifer� have gone to seed, are very pretty to examine. The Cicuta maculata, for instance. The concave umbel is so well spaced. The different umbellets like so many constellations or separate systems in the firmament. They get a sympathy with the stars.

BASS

{001} Bass, September twenty-ninth. {002} September 29, 1854. Dry and brown. {003} {Page 203} January 27, 1856. See what I think are bass nuts on the snow of the river at Derby’s Railroad Bridge, probably from up stream. {004} September 30, 1859. Some browned. {005} Michaux says about October first. {Note}

BUTTON BUSH

{001} {MS} Button bush, September thirtieth. {002} September 27, 1860. The balls are hardly reddened. {003} {Page 204} September 30, 1860. They were fairly reddened yesterday by the frosts. {004} October 12, 1858. The balls stand out (on the two-thirds bare bushes), have ruddy or brown look, much blacker against the light, than a month ago.

ARBOR VIT�

{001} Arbor vit�, October first. {002} October 4, 1860. Say first.

SUGAR MAPLE

{001} Sugar maple, October first. {002} 1860. Was turned brown (at least in some measure) by the severe frosts of October first. {003} October 8, 1860. Are now browned—the seed end as well as wing—the severe frosts about October first about ripened them . {004} October 25, 1860. It still holds on where most of the leaves on this small tree have fallen. {005} June 19, 1860. See apparently immature abortive ones falling.

HIBISCUS

{001} Hibiscus, October first. {002} October 4, 1856. Gone to seed and pods open showing the seed.

CORN

{001} Corn, October first. {Note} {002} {MS} See them topping corn about September first or earlier even. {003} Early in August {Note} we begin to have green corn. {004} {Page 205} I remember when boiled green corn was sold piping-hot on a muster field in this town, and my father {Note} says that he remembers when it used to be carried about the streets of Boston in large baskets on the bare heads of negro women, and gentlemen used to stop, buy an ear, and eat it in the street. {005} About the first of September they begin to top corn, and the stacks of stalks set in rows around the fields reminds you of stacks of bayonets on a muster field. {006} Toward the end of September (or first of October) they begin to cut up and gather in the corn, though some is left out even till after the middle of November some years. {007} {MS} Gerarde says:

The stalk of turkey wheat is like that of the reed, full of spongy pith, set with many joints, five or six foot high, big beneath, and now and then of a purple color, and by little and little small above: the leaves are broad, long, set with veins like those of the reed. The ears on the top of the stalk be a span long, {Note} like unto the feather top of the common reed, divided unto many plumes hanging downward, empty and barren without seed, yet blooming as rye doth. The flower is either white, yellow, or purple, that is to say, even as the fruit will be. The fruit is contained in very big ears, which grow out of the joints of the stalk, three or four from one stalk, orderly placed one above another, covered with coats or films like husks and leaves, as if it were a certain sheath; out of which do stand long and slender beards, soft and tender, like those laces that grow upon savory, but greater and longer, every one fastened upon his own seed. The seeds are great, {MS} of the bigness of common peason, cornered in that part whereby they are fastened to the ear, and in the outward part round: being of color sometimes white, now and then yellow, purple, or red; of taste sweet, and pleasant, very closely joined together in eight or ten orders or ranks. This grain hath many roots, strong and full of strings.… {008} We have as yet no certain proof or experience concerning the virtues of this kind of corn; although the barbarous Indians, which know no better, are constrained to make a virtue of necessity, and think it a good food: whereas we may easily judge, that it nourisheth but little, and is of hard and evil digestion, a more convenient food for swine than for men. {Note}

{009} {MS} Lindley quotes from Schouw in Jameson’s Philosophical Journal, 1825: "it appears that in respect of the predominating kinds of grain, the earth may be divided into five grand divisions, or kingdoms. The kingdom of Rice, of Maize, of Wheat, of Rye, and lastly of Barley and Oats. The first three are the most extensive; the {Page 206} Maize has the greatest range of temperature; but Rice may be said to support the greatest number of the human race.... Asia is the native country of Rice, and America of Maize." {Note} {010} {MS} September 18, 1860. According to all accounts, very little corn is fit to grind before October first (though I hear of one kind ripe and fit to grind September first). It becomes hard and dry enough in the husk in the field by that time. But way before this, or say by the first of September, it begins to glaze (or harden on the surface), when it begins to be too hard to boil. {011} October 7, 1860. Looked thro’ Hayden’s farm and granary. He now takes pleasure in his field of corn just ready for harvesting and counts the ears on a stalk. Being early, the ears set low. The rather small ears are fully filled out and rounded at the end. He loves to estimate the number of bushels he will have, has already calculated the number of hills, some forty thousand in this field; and he exhibits some of the corn in his granary. Also his rye in barrels and his seed corn, the larger and fuller ears picked out with the husk on and tucked into the mow as he was husking (to be brought to the house when he has leisure). But all this corn will be given to his pigs and other stock; three great hogs which will dress twelve hundredweight, lie asleep under his barn, already sold. Hears of one man who sold his fat hog for $75.00. {012} {MS} November 22. Heard of a husking a week ago, though a little corn is still left in the field. {013} {CPB 2, p. 173} Brand in his Popular Antiquities describes "harvest home":

{CPB 2, p. 174} Macrobius tells us that, among the Heathens, the masters of families, when they had got in their harvest, were wont to feast with their servants, who had labored for them in tilling the ground. (Patres familiarum, et fugibus et fructibus iam co�tis, passim cum servis escerentur, cum quibus patrintuam laboris in colendo rure toleraverant. Macrob. Sauturnal. Diepium, Cap. 10.) In exact conformity to this, it is common among Christians, when the fruits of the earth are gathered in and laid in their proper repositories, to provide a plentiful supper for the harvestmen and the servants of the family. At {CPB 2, p. 175} the entertainment all are, in the modern revolutionary idea of the word, perfectly equal.… Bourne thinks the original of both these customs is Jewish. … For the Jews rejoiced and feasted at the getting in of the harvest. {014} Vacina (or Vacuna, so called as it is said � vocando, the titular deity, as is were, of rest and ease,) among the ancients, was the name of the goddess to whom rustics sacrificed at the conclusion of harvest.… {015} {Page 207} In England anciently they used to dress up a figure of corn, when they brought home their last load, which they called a Harvest Doll or a Kern (that is, corn) Baby, "by which," says one, "perhaps they would signify Ceres…" “’round which,” says another, "men and women were singing promiscuously, preceded by a drum or a pipe." {016} At Werington, in Devonshire, the clergyman of the parish informed me that when a farmer finishes his reaping, a small quantity of the ears of the last corn are twisted or tied together in a curious kind of figure, which is brought home with great acclamations, hung up over the table, and kept till the next year. The owner would think it extremely unlucky to part with this, which is called "a knack." {017} {CPB 2, p. 176} Another says, "When they have cut the corn, the reapers assemble together: a knack is made which one placed in the middle of the company holds up, crying thrice, ‘A Knack!’ which all the rest repeat: the person in the middle then says:

Well cut! Well bound! Well shocked! Well saved from the ground!

He afterwards cries "Whoof!" and his companions hollow as loud as they can.…" {018} So according to Eugene Aram, what is called the "Mell-supper, Churn-supper, Harvest Supper, Harvest-Home, Feast of In-gathering, and so on" is "as old as a sense of joy for the benefit of a plentiful harvest, and human gratitude to the Creator for his munificence to men.…" {019} This "Harvest-Home Call" is the one generally made use of in the county of Devon:

We have ploughed, we have sowed, We have reaped, we have mowed, We have brought home every load.… {Note}

CORNUS FLORIDA

{001} {MS} Cornus florida, October first. {002} October 27, 1856. At Perth Amboy, conspicuous with its scarlet berries, fed on by robins, amid its scarlet leaves. {Note}

{Page 208} QUINCE

{001} Quince, October first. {002} Ours not so early in 1860; gathered about October twentieth. {003} October 12, 1859. See them commonly left out yet, though apples are gathered. Probably their downy coats defend them. {004} {MS} Their fragrance is the best part of them, and for this they may be worth raising: to scent your chamber. {005} Pliny says, "They drag down the bent branches, and prevent the parent from increasing." Also that they were shut up in the ante-chambers of the great and hung upon the statues of the gods in their chambers (probably for their fragrance). {Note} This was better than putting them directly into a preserve pot.

BIDENS

{001} Bidens ticks, October second. {002} November 10, 1856. {Note} At Perth Amboy {Note} I used to get my clothes covered with beggar ticks in the fields {Note}—and with burrs, small and large.

HEMLOCK

{001} Hemlock, October fifth. {002} March 6, 1853. The hemlock cones have shed their seeds, but there are some closed yet on the ground. {003} October 31, 1853. The seeds are apparently ready to drop from their cones. The cones are mostly open. {004} October 15, 1856. Great part of the seeds fallen. {005} September 6, 1860. See no new cones, but many old. Apparently there were so many last year that there are none this. The cone has five rays like white pine, but little twisted.

{Page 209} BLACK SPRUCE

{001} Black spruce, October fifth. {002} May 31, 1857. Spruce cones, though now erect, at length will turn down. {003} November 20, 1857. See where squirrels, apparently, have eaten and stripped the spruce cones. {004} October 28, 1860. See no cones as yet.

LARCH

{001} {MS} Larch, October fifth. {002} This, like the hemlock, had so many cones last year that I have not seen one this year (October 28, 1860). {003} It has five rays like the white-pine cone. {004} Michaux says on some "the cones are violet colored instead of green." {Note}

CELTIS

{001} Celtis, October fifth. {002} September 4, 1853. Green. {003} September 22, 1854. Begin to yellow. {004} September 26, 1859. Still green. {005} October 15, 1859. Ripe how long? {006} October 6, 1860. Only copper-brown, perhaps owing to frost.

CHESTNUT

{001} {002} November 22, 1850. I get {003} {{004} October 15. The rain of {005} October 23, 1852. {006} December 9, 1852. The {007} December 27. Find {008} December 31, 1852. I was {009} {{010} January 25, 1853. I {011} Chestnut—evidently {012} {J {013} {{014} {{015} October 8, 1856. A few {016} October 16. Many {017} {{018} The individual nuts are {019} I forgot to say that {020} I see where the chestnut {021} November 28. {022} December 1. I have seen {023} {{024} Loudon quotes Pliny as {025} Evelyn says, referring {026} In France, according to {027} {{028} October 5, 1857. See a {029} October 6. See one or {030} October 22. Now is just {031} What a perfect chest the {032} Such is the cradle, thus {033} At last frost comes to {034} Within itself each {035} Is it not a barbarous {036} {{037} I find my account in {038} {{039} November 9, 1857. One of {040} July 4, 1858. Saw a {041} {{042} Josselyn says that the {043} March 7, 1853. Gathered {044} March 20, 1853. {MS} Chestnuts, October sixth. nothing to eat in my walk now but wild apples, sometimes some cranberries and some walnuts. name="Page 210" href="http://www.walden.org/institute/thoreau/writings/fruits/Fruits_06.htm#Page%20211">Page 210} October 11, 1852. Now the chestnuts are rattling out. The burrs are gaping and showing the plump nuts. They fill the ruts in the road and are abundant amid the fallen leaves in the midst of the wood. The jays scream and the red squirrels scold while you are clubbing and shaking the trees. the night and morning together with the wind has strewn the ground with chestnuts. The burrs, generally empty, come down with a loud sound while I am picking the nuts in the woods. I have come out {MS} before the rain is fairly over, before there are any fresh tracks on the Lincoln road by Britton’s shanty, and I find the nuts abundant in the road itself. It is a pleasure to detect them in the woods, amid the firm, crispy, crackling chestnut leaves. There is somewhat singularly refreshing in the color of this nut—the chestnut color. No wonder it gives a name to a color. One man tells me he has bought a wood-lot in Hollis to cut and has let out the picking of the chestnuts to women at the halves; as the trees will probably be cut for them, they will make rapid work of it. Chestnuts have mostly fallen. chestnuts are about as plenty as ever, both in the fallen burrs and out of them. There are more this year than the squirrels can consume. I picked three pints this afternoon, and though some bought at a store the other day were more than half mouldy, I did not find one mouldy one among these which I picked from under the wet and mouldy leaves, where they have been snowed on once. Probably they do not heat, though wet. These are also still plump and tender. I love to gather them, if only for the sense of the bountifulness of Nature they give me. chestnuts quite plenty today. this afternoon gathering chestnuts at Saw Mill Brook. I have within a few weeks spent some hours thus scraping away the leaves with my hands and feet over some square rods, and have at least learned how chestnuts are planted and new forests raised. First fall the chestnuts with the severe frosts, the greater part of them at least, and then at length the rains and winds bring down the leaves which cover them with a thick coat. I have wondered sometimes how the nuts got planted which merely fell on the surface of the earth, but already I find the nuts of the present year partially mixed with the mould, as it were under the decaying and mouldy leaves, where is all the moisture and manure they want. A large proportion of this year’s nuts are now covered loosely an {Page 211} inch deep under mouldy leaves, though they are themselves sound and are moreover concealed from squirrels thus. href="http://www.walden.org/institute/thoreau/manuscripts/berg/Notes_on_Fruits/264.htm#RECTO_T">MS} January 10, 1853. Went a-chestnutting this afternoon to Smith’s Grove with four ladies. I raked, and we got six and a half quarts, the ground being bare and the leaves not frozen. I found thirty-five chestnuts left by a mouse in his gallery. Many chestnuts are still in the burrs on the ground. My aunt found a twig which had apparently fallen prematurely with eight small burrs, all within the compass of five or six inches, and all but one full of nuts. still pick chestnuts. Some larger ones prove to contain double meats, divided as it were arbitrarily, as with a knife each part having the common division without the brown skin transverse to them. because it is packed in a little chest. {Note} 03/07/1859} March 7, 1859. I think that many of the nuts which we find in the crevices of bark, firmly wedged in, may have been placed there by jays, chickadees, and so on, to be held fast while they crack them with their bills. href="http://www.walden.org/institute/thoreau/manuscripts/berg/Notes_on_Fruits/265-266.htm#RECTO_T">MS} October 19, 1855. Afternoon to Pine Hill for chestnuts (Indian-summer day). The chestnuts are scarce and small, apparently have just begun to open their burrs. href="http://www.walden.org/institute/thoreau/manuscripts/berg/Notes_on_Fruits/265-266.htm#VERSO_T">MS} October 27, 1855. Afternoon a-chestnutting down the turnpike. It is high time we came a-chestnutting, for the nuts have nearly all fallen, and you must depend on what you can find on the ground, left by the squirrels, and cannot shake down any more to speak of. The trees are nearly all bare of leaves as well as burrs. The wind comes cold from the northwest, as if there were snow on the earth in that direction. chestnut burrs are open and have been some days before they could have felt frost, showing that they would open without it, but a stone will not jar them down, nor a club, thrown into the tree yet. I get half a pocketful out of slightly gaping burrs at the expense of many prickles in my fingers. The squirrels have cut off some burrs. I see the marks of their teeth. chestnut burrs are now open, yet a stone will not jar down many nuts. {Note} Burrs which were quite green on the eighth are now all brown and dry, and the prickles come off in your hand when you touch them; yet the nuts do not readily drop out. Many nuts have fallen within two or three days, but many squirrels have been busily picking them up. name="Page 212" href="http://www.walden.org/institute/thoreau/writings/fruits/Fruits_06.htm#Page%20213">Page 212} {MS} October 18, 1856. The chestnuts are not so ready to fall as I expected. Perhaps the burrs require to be dried now after the rain. In a day or two they will nearly all come down. They are a pretty fruit thus compactly stowed away in this bristly chest—three is the regular number—and there is no room to spare. The two outside nuts having each one convex side and a flat side within; the middle nut has two flat sides. Sometimes there are several more nuts in a burr. But this year the burrs are small and there are not commonly more than two good nuts—very often only one, the middle one—both sides of which will then be convex, bulging out each way into a thin, abortive, mere reminiscence of a nut, all shell, beyond it. It is a rich sight, that of a large chestnut tree, with a dome-shaped top—where the yellowing leaves have became thin (for most now strew the ground evenly as a carpet throughout the chestnut woods and so save some seed), all richly rough, with great brown burrs which have opened into several segments so as to shew the wholesome-colored nuts peeping forth, ready to fall on the slightest jar. very interesting and of various forms according to the season and the number in a burr. The base of each, where it was joined to the burr, is marked with an irregular dark figure {MS} on a light ground—oblong, crescent shaped, much like a spider or other insect with a dozen legs—while the upper or small end tapers into a little white woolly spire crowned with a star, and the whole upper slopes of the nuts are covered with the same hoary wool, which reminds you of the frosts on whose advent they peep forth. (Each nut stretches forth a little starry hand at the end of a slender arm, and by this, when mature, you may pull it out without fear of prickles.) Within this thick, prickly burr the nuts are about as safe, until they are quite mature, as a porcupine behind its spines. Yet I see where the squirrels have gnawed through many closed burrs and left the pieces on the stumps. there are sometimes two meats within one chestnut shell, divided transversely, and each covered by its separate brown-ribbed skin. As if Nature meant to smuggle the seed of an additional tree into this chest and multiply chances. trees have been sadly bruised by the large stones cast against them in previous years and which still lie around. Unexpectedly find many chestnuts in the burrs which have fallen (at Smith’s Grove) some time ago. Many are spoiled, but the rest {Page 213} being thus moistened are softer and sweeter than a month ago, very agreeable to my palate—the burrs, from some cause, having fallen without dropping their nuts. more chestnuts in the streets of New York than anywhere else this year—large and plump ones roasting in the street, and popping on the steps of banks and exchanges. Was surprised to see that the citizens made as much of the nuts of the wild wood as the squirrels. Not only the country boys—all New York goes a-nutting. Chestnuts for cabmen and newsboys, for not only are squirrels {Note} alone to be fed. href="http://www.walden.org/institute/thoreau/manuscripts/berg/Notes_on_Fruits/269-272.htm#RECTO_T">MS} December 12. Dug chestnut burrs out of the snow (as the squirrels have done), and though many of these nuts are softened and discolored, they have a peculiarly sweet and agreeable taste. saying that "Chestnuts are better roasted than cooked in any other manner" {Note}—in which I agree with him. to the chestnut, "We give that fruit to our swine in England, which is amongst the delicacies of princes in other countries; and, being of the larger nut, is a lusty and masculine food for rustics at all times, and of better nourishment for husbandmen than cale and rusty bacon; yea, or beans to boot." {Note} Loudon, "The husks of the chestnuts beaten off the trees being generally attached to the nuts, they are trodden off by peasants furnished with heavy sabots, when the nuts are wanted for immediate use…." {Note} href="http://www.walden.org/institute/thoreau/manuscripts/berg/Notes_on_Fruits/269-272.htm#VERSO_T">MS} September 24. Minott tells of them finding near a bushel of chestnuts in a rock when blasting for the mill-brook ditch near Flint’s Pond. {Note}He said it was the gray squirrel’s work. red squirrel cast down a chestnut bur. two chestnut burrs open in the woods. The squirrels, red and gray, are on all sides throwing them down. You cannot stand long in the woods without hearing one fall. the time for chestnuts. chestnut is packed in. I now hold a green burr in my hand—which, round, must have been two and a quarter inches in diameter—from which three plump nuts have been extracted. It has a straight stout stem three-sixteenths of an inch in diameter, set on strongly and abruptly. It has gaped {Note} {Page 214} in four segments or quarters, revealing the thickness of its walls (from five-eighths to three-quarters of an inch); with such wonderful care Nature has secluded and defended these nuts, as if they were her most precious fruits, while diamonds are left to take care of themselves. First, it bristles all over with sharp green prickles, some nearly half an inch long, like a hedgehog rolled into a ball. The little stars on the top of the nuts are but shorter and feebler spines which mingle with the rest. They stand up close together, three or more, erecting their feeble weapons, as an infant in the arms {Note} of its nurse might put out its own tiny hands to fend off the aggressor. The prickles rest on a thick (one-sixteenth to one-eighth of an inch), stiff, bark-like rind—which again is most daintily lined with a kind of silvery fur or velvet plush (one-sixteenth of an inch thick) {MS} even rising in a ridge between the nuts, like the lining of a casket in which the most precious commodities are kept. I see the brown-spotted white cavities where the bases of the nuts have rested and sucked up nourishment from the stem. There is no waste room; the chest is packed quite full. Half-developed nuts are the waste-paper used in the packing to fill the vacancies. daintily lined, in which they have been rocked in their infancy. With what steadiness the nuts must be held within these stout arms—there can be no motion on their bases—and yet how tenderly, by a firm hold that relaxes only as they grow, the walls that confine them, superfluously strong as they seem, expanding as they grow! The chestnut with its tough shell looks as if it were able to protect itself, but see how tenderly it has been reared in its cradle, before its green and tender skin hardened into a shell. unlock this chest. It alone holds the true key. Its lids straightway gape open, and the October air rushes in, dries the ripe nuts, and then, with a sudden gust, shakes them all out in a rattling shower down upon the withered leaves. {MS} The October air comes in, as I have said, and the light too, and proceeds to paint the nuts that clear, handsome reddish brown which we call chestnut. Nowadays the brush that paints chestnuts is very active. It is entering into every open burr over the stretching forests’ tops for hundreds of miles, without horse or ladder, and rapidly putting on coats of this wholesome color. Otherwise the boys would not think they had got perfect nuts. And that this may be further protected, perchance, both within the burr and afterward, the nuts themselves are partly covered toward the top, where they are first exposed, with that {Page 215} same soft velvety down. And then Nature drops it on the rustling leaves—a done nut, prepared to begin a chestnut’s course again. individual nut is lined with a reddish velvet, as if to preserve the seed from jar and injury in falling, and perchance from sudden damp and cold, and within that a thin white skin enwraps the meat. {Note} Thus, it is lining within lining and unwearied care—not to count closely, six coverings at least—before you reach the contents! way, to jar the tree? I trust I do repent of it. Gently shake it only, or, better, let the wind shake it for you. You are gratified to find a nut that has in it no bitterness—altogether palatable. href="http://www.walden.org/institute/thoreau/manuscripts/berg/Notes_on_Fruits/273-274.htm#RECTO_T">MS} October 24, 1857. I get a couple of quarts of chestnuts at Smith’s grove by patiently brushing the thick bed of leaves aside with my hand in successive concentric circles {Note} till I reach the trunk. More than half were under one tree. I believe that I get more by resolving, where they are reasonably thick, to pick all under one tree first. Begin at the tree and brush the leaves with your right hand in toward the stump while your left holds the basket, and so go round and round it in concentric circles, each time laying bare about two feet in width, till you get as far as the boughs extend. You may presume that you have got about all there are then. It is best to reduce it to a system. Of course, you will shake the tree first, if there are any on it. The nuts lie commonly two or three together as they fell. this long-continued monotonous labor of picking chestnuts all the afternoon, brushing the leaves aside without looking up, absorbed in that, and forgetting better things awhile. I rebound afterward and between whiles with fresher sense. It is as good as a journey; I seem to have been somewhere and done something. It is a slight adventure. I have been so much in the habit of looking for Indian relics that my eye is educated to discover anything on the ground—as chestnuts and so on. It is probably wholesomer to look at the ground much than at the heavens. As I go stooping and brushing the leaves aside by the hour, I am not thinking of {MS} chestnuts merely, but I find myself humming a thought of more significance. This occupation affords a certain broad pause and opportunity to start again afterward—turn over a new leaf. name="Page 216" href="http://www.walden.org/institute/thoreau/writings/fruits/Fruits_06.htm#Page%20217">Page 216} I hear the dull thump of heavy stones {Note} against the trees from far thro’ the rustling wood, where boys are ranging for nuts. the company today told of George Melvin once, for a joke, directing Jonas Melvin to go to the widow Hildreth’s woodlot and gather the chestnuts. They were probably both working there (at Hildreth’s). He accordingly took the oxen and cart and some ladders and another hired man, and they worked all day and got half a bushel. {Note} chestnut tree in Loudon, New Hampshire. First and frequently. {Note} href="http://www.walden.org/institute/thoreau/manuscripts/berg/Notes_on_Fruits/275-276.htm#VERSO_T">MS} October 14, 1859. The chestnuts generally have not yet fallen, though many have. I find under one tree a great many burrs apparently not cast down by squirrels, for I see no marks of their teeth, and not yet so open that any of the nuts fall out. They do not all wait till frosts open the burrs before they fall, then. Indians hereabouts used to sell chestnuts to the English for twelve pence a bushel. {Note} a few chestnuts. {Note} A good many if not most are now turned black and soured, or spoiled and softened by the wet. Where they are less exposed to moisture—close to the base of the (or on) stumps, where the ground is more elevated, or where they are protected under a very thick heap of light lying leaves—they are perfectly sound and sweet and fresh yet, neither shrivelled nor soured. This peculiar condition is probably requisite to preserve their life for sprouting. I planted some in Sophia’s {Note} pot. No doubt the mice and squirrels put many in secure, sufficiently dry, and sufficiently moist places for this purpose—and so do a service. {Note} At Flint’s Pond gathered a handful or two of chestnuts on a sloping bank under the leaves, every one sound and sweet, but mostly sprouting. There were none black as at C. Smith’s, proving that in such places as this, somewhat warm and dry, they are all preserved the winter through. Now their new groves of chestnuts and oaks are being born.

WALNUTS

{001} {MS} Walnuts, October thirteenth. {Note} {002} May 7, 1852. The ground under the walnuts (on the hill) {Note} is richly strewn with {Page 217} nut shells broken and gnawed by squirrels, like an unswept dining hall in early times. {003} August 18, 1852. Perceived today, and some weeks since (August third) the strong invigorating aroma of green walnuts, astringent and bracing to the spirits, the fancy and imagination, suggesting a tree that has its roots well in amid the bowels of Nature. Their shells are invigorating to smell—suggesting a strong, nutty native vigor. A fruit which I am glad that our zone produces, looking like the nutmeg of the East. I acquire some of the hardness and elasticity of the hickory when I smell them. They are among our spices; high-scented, aromatic, as you bruise one against another in your hand, almost like nutmegs, only more bracing and northern—fragrant stones which the trees bear. {004} October 23, 1852. See where larger boys have gathered the mockernut, though it has not fallen out of its husks. {005} October 24, 1852. See boys far off on the hillside gathering walnuts, and on the twenty-eighth. October is the month for barberries and walnuts. {006} {MS} September 23, 1852. Some acorns and hickory nuts (mockernuts) on the ground, but they have not begun to shell. The walnuts {Note} rubbed together smell like varnish. {007} October 27, 1853. Now is the time to look for walnuts, last and hardest nut of the year. {008} October 31, 1853. Now appears to be the very time for walnuts. I knock down showers with a stick, but all do not come out of the shells. {009} November 1, 1853. Gathered five or six quarts of pignuts, partly by clubbing the trees, thinking they might furnish entertainment some evening the coming winter. Not more than half are out of the shells, but it is pleasant shelling them to have one’s fingers scented with their fine aroma (the red squirrel reproving the while). {Note} {010} November 2, 1853. I gather some fine large pignuts by the wall near the beeches on Asher’s land. It is just the time to get these, and this seems to be quite early enough for most pignuts. (Wall-nutting last of October and first of November.) {011} November 6, 1853. Gathered some of those fine large mockernuts which are now in their prime: Carya tomentosa. I am struck by the variety in the form and size of the walnuts (in shells). Some with a slight neck and slightly club shaped, perhaps the most common. Some much longer, nearly twice as long as wide. {Page 218} Some (like the mockernut) slightly deformed or rather fattened above. Some pignuts very large and regularly obovate, one and a quarter inches in diameter. {012} November 7, 1853. I shook two mockernut trees, one just ready to drop its fruit, and most came out of the shells; but the other tree was not ready—only a part fell, and those mostly in the shells. This is the time {MS} for our best walnuts, the smallest or pignuts, say the last of October. Got a peck and a half shelled. I did not wish to slight any of Nature’s gifts. I am partial to the peculiar and wholesome sweetness of a nut, and I think that some time is profitably spent every autumn in gathering even such as our pignuts. Some of them are a very sizeable, rich-looking, and palateable fruit. How can we expect to understand Nature unless we accept like children these her smallest gifts, valuing them more as her gifts than for their intrinsic value. I love to get my basket full, however small and comparatively worthless the nut. It takes very severe frosts, and sun and wind thereafter, to kill and open the shells so that the nuts will drop out. Many hold on all winter. I climbed to the tops of the trees and then found that shaking would not do, only jarring the limbs with my feet. It is remarkable how these nuts are protected, some with an outer shell about quarter of an inch thick and an inner nearly as thick as the other, and when cracked open the meat is still hard to extract. I noticed, however, that the nuts on one tree (the second) notwithstanding these thick shells, were now full of fine cracks, as if now that they were ripe they had made themselves ready to be cracked by man or squirrels or the frost. They really crack much easier. It is a hard, tough {MS} tree, whose fruit is stones, fit to have been the food of man in the Iron Age. I should like to see a man whose diet was berries and nuts alone. Yet I would not rob the squirrels who, before any man, are the true owners. {013} September 26, 1855. The squirrels have already begun on the mockernuts, though the trees are still covered with yellow and brown leaves, and the nuts do not fall. {014} December 5, 1856. There are a great many walnuts on the trees, seen black against the sky, and the wind has scattered many over the snow-crust. It would be easier gathering them now than ever. {015} December 10, 1856. Gathered this afternoon quite a parcel of walnuts on the hill. It has not been better picking there this season. They lie on the snow, or rather sunk an inch or two into it, and sometimes the trees hang quite full. I see squirrel tracks leading straight from tree to tree. {016} {Page 219} December 16, 1856. Mrs. Moody {Note} very properly calls eating nuts "a mouse-like employment." It is quite too absorbing. You cannot read at the same time, as when you are eating an apple. It is a social employment. {017} June 12, 1857. Michaux says that mockernuts are of various sizes and forms {MS}—some round, some oblong—{Note} and so I have found them. {018} September 24, 1857. Squirrel buries pignuts. {019} October 20, 1857. I meet the hunter with his game-bag full of nuts and barberries. {020} {MS} August 20, 1854. I hear a sound (on hill) as of green pignuts falling from time to time, and see and hear the chickaree thereabouts!! {021} March 6, 1853. Gather a pocketful of pignuts from a tree on Lee’s hill, half of them still sound. {022} I can about excuse a man’s intemperance if it was a walnut tree he fell from and so broke his back—he was so well employed. {023} Michaux says the mockernut is "odorous" and of remarkably various forms. "The shell is very thick and extremely hard"; that is, the cover. "The kernel is sweet but minute, and difficult to extract, on account of the strong partitions which divide it; hence, probably, is derived the name of Mockernut, and hence, also, this fruit is rarely seen in the markets." {024} Shellbark Hickory is "ripe about the beginning of October.… The entire separation of the husk, and its thickness disproportioned to the size of the nut, form a character peculiar to the shell-bark hickories.… Contains a fuller and sweeter kernel than any American walnut except the Pacanenut." {025} Pignut hickory nuts vary in form more than the other kinds. "Some are oval and when covered with their husks, resemble young figs, others are wider than they are long, and others are perfectly round." {Note} And they are of as various sizes. {026} {MS} October 2. I observed that many pignuts has fallen yesterday though quite green. {027} October 14. At Baker’s wall two of the walnut trees are bare but full of green nuts (in their green cases) which make a very pretty sight as they wave in the wind. So distinct you could count every one against the sky, for there is not a leaf on these trees, but other walnuts nearby are yet full of leaves. You have the green nut contrasted with the clean gray trunks and limbs. These are pignuts. {028} {MS} November 18. Now is the time to gather mockernuts {029} November 19. A-mockernutting. Those long mockernuts appear not to have {Page 220} got well ripe this year. They do not shed their husks, and the meat is mostly skinny, soft, and flabby. May have been too cold. I shook the trees. It is just the time to gather them. How hard they rattle down, like stones! There is a harmony between this stony fruit and these hard, tough limbs which beat it. {030} November 20. When walnut husks are fairly opened, showing the white shells within (the trees being either quite bare or with a few withereed leaves at present), a slight jar with the foot on the limbs causes them to rattle down, and on bare pasture ground it is very easy picking them up. {031} September 14. Even the tough-twigged mockernut, yet green, is blown off in some places by this strong wind. I bring home a twig with three of its great nuts together, as big as small apples, and children follow and eye them, not knowing what kind of fruit it is.

CEDAR

{001} {MS} Cedar berries, October fourteenth. {002} October 19. How long? Fourteenth at least. {003} November 16, 1853. Admire the fine blue color of the cedar berries. {004} November 30, 1853. What a heavenly blue have the cedar berries (in Mason’s pasture) a peculiar light blue whose bloom rubs off, contrasting with the green or purplish-brown leaves.

{Page 221} CHECKERBERRY

{001} Checkerberry, October fifteenth. {002} June 3, 1851. An abundance of very large checkerberries on Asnebumskit Hill in Paxton, said to be the highest land in Worcester County except Wachusett . {Note} Such I thought must be the bluets. Whence are brought those which we see in the markets. {003} November 16, 1851. Plenty of ripe checkerberries now. {004} September 11, 1853. Full grown but green. {005} October 26, 1853. Have now a fine, clean, fresh tint—a peculiar pink. {006} March 4, 1854. Are revealed, many of them somewhat shrivelled. {007} March 6. {Note} See children checkerberrying. {008} September 6, 1854. Just beginning to redden. {009} May 15, 1856. Very abundant on the south side of Pine Hill by the pitch-pine wood. Now is probably the last time to gather them. {010} August 19, 1856. Green; about grown. {011} October 8, 1856. Find many checkerberries on Smith’s Hill (near chestnuts) which appear to be just ripe, a lighter pink color with two little checks on the stem side, the marks of what I suppose are the two outer calyx leaves. {012} October 15, 1856. An abundance of checkerberries by the hemlock at Viola Muhlenbergii Brook. A remarkable year for berries—even this, too, is abundant like the rest. They are tender and more palatable then ever now. I find a little pile of them, {MS} maybe fifteen or twenty, on the moss with each a little indentation or two on it, made by some bird or quadruped. {013} April 1, 1857. Checkerberries very fine and abundant, now near Viola Muhlenbergii Brook, {Note} contrasting with the red-brown leaves. They are not commonly touched by the frost. {014} May 21, 1857. I find checkerberries still fresh and abundant. Last year was a remarkable one for them. They lurk under the low leaves (often), scarcely to be detected when you are standing up almost below the level of the ground, dark scarlet berries, some of them half an inch in diameter, broad, pear-shaped, of a pale or hoary pink color beneath. The peduncle curves downward between two leaves. There they lurk under the glossy dark-green brown-spotted leaves, close to the {Page 222} ground. They make a very handsome nose-gay. (Thus, meeting strawberries soon, they fetch the berry year about.) {015} September 18, 1859. See them not yet fully grown nor ripe, somewhat pear shaped, and whitish at the blossom end. {016} Loudon says Gaultherii procumbens, "Partridge Berry, Mountain Tea, Spring Winter Green.… A little shrubby plant somewhat resembling seedling plants of Kalmia latifolia." {Note} {017} August 19, 1852. They never bloom, {Note} looking almost like snow-white berries. {018} August 19, 1852. What are the checkerberry-scented plants? Checkerberry, black and yellow birch, Polygala (caducous and cross-leaved and whorled at root), Chiogenes hispidula. {019} {MS} March 17, 1858. How indulgent is Nature, to give to a few common plants like checkerberry this aromatic flavor (we have all the scent of orange and lemon and cinnamon here) to relieve the general insipidity. Perhaps I am most sensible of the presence of these plants when the ground is first drying up this season, and they are fairly out. {020} October 14, 1858. The roots of the red-pine sapling have not only a sweet-earthy but a decidedly checkerberry scent. Digging under a tuft in the fall you find this thick white shoot in the earth ready to rise up in the spring (as October 19, 1860). {021} {Page 223} September 23, 1860. The root of the freshest red-pine sapling has a decided checkerberry scent and for a long time, a week after in my chamber the bruised plant has a very pleasant earthy sweetness. It then passes into an earthy sweetness. This shows how innate this fragrance is in the soil. {022} According to Bigelow the aromatic flavor of the checkerberry is also perceived in the Gaultheria hispidula, in Spir�a ulmaria, in the root of Spir�a lobata, and in birches. {Note} {023} Manasseh Cutler, LL.D., 1785, says that the fruit is not ripe till the following spring. "Common in pine and shrub oak land." The berries "are sometimes eaten by children in milk." {Note}

THE FALL

{001} {MS} As long ago as September fourteenth, {Note} all things suggested fruit and the harvest, and flowers looked late, and for some time the sound of the flail had been heard in the barns. Like the fruits, when cooler weather and frosts arrived, and we shifted from the shady to the sunny side of the house and sat there in an extra coat for warmth—we too were braced and ripened. Our green, leafy, and pulpy thoughts acquired color and flavor, and perchance {Note} a sweet nuttiness at last, worth your cracking. {MS} It is somewhat cooler and more autumnal, and a great many leaves have fallen, and the trees begin to look thin. You incline to sit in a sunny and sheltered place. {002} This season, {Note} the fall, which we have now entered on, commenced, I may say, as long ago as when the first frost was seen and felt in low ground in August. From that time, even, the year has been gradually winding up its accounts. Cold, methinks, has been the great agent which has checked the growth of plants, condensed their energies, and caused their fruits to ripen—in September especially. Perchance man never ripens within the tropics. {Note} {003} October 4. Now the year duly begins to be ripe—ripened by the frost, like a persimmon. {004} October 11. There was a very severe frost this morning. Ground stiffened; probably a chestnut-opening frost—a season-ripener—opener of the burrs that enclose the Indian Summer. Such is the cold of early or mid-October. {005} {Page 224} October 16. This cold refines and condenses us. Our spirits are strong, like that pint of cider in the middle of a frozen barrel. {Note} {006} October 11, 1857. The seventh day of glorious weather. These might be called Harvest Days. {Note} Within a week most of the apples have been gathered, potatoes are being dug, corn is still left in the fields.

BLACK WALNUT

{001} {MS} Black walnut, October fifteenth. {Note} {002} {MS} November 12, 1853.Tasted today a black walnut, a spherical and corrugated nut with a large meat, but of a strong oily taste. {003} October 28. Walnuts commonly fall, and the black walnuts at Smith’s are at least half fallen. They are of the form and size of a small lemon, {Note} and, what is singular, have now taken moist from the ground a rich nutmeg fragrance. They are now turning dark brown. Gray says it is rare in the eastern but very common in the Western states. {Note} Emerson says that though rare, it is found in Massachusetts. {Note} It is much the most remarkable nut that we have, then. {004} Michaux says our black walnut most resembles the European, is more round. {Note} {005} October 28, 1860. Say half fallen.

YELLOW BIRCH

{001} {MS} Yellow birch, October fifteenth. {002} October 15, 1859. The yellow birch are bare, revealing the fruit; the short, thick, brown catkins now ripe and ready to scale off. How full the trees are!—almost as thick as the leaves were.

ALDER

{001} Alder, October fifteenth. {002} Falling all winter.

{Page 225} SHAGBARK

{001} Shagbark, October twentieth. {Note} {002} {MS} November 15. In Worcester, gathered half a pocketful of shagbarks, of which many still hung on the trees, though most had fallen. {003} December 18, 1856. Am told that they sometimes get a dozen bushels of shelled shagbarks from one tree. {MS} Shagbarks hanging {Note} on the trees on the Souhegan River, {Note} where they have not been gathered. {004} {MS} September 1, 1859. You must be careful not to eat too many nuts. I one winter met a young man whose face was all broken out into large pimples (or sores) who, when I inquired what was the matter, announced that he and his young wife being fond of shagbarks, he had bought a bushel of them in the fall, and they spent their winter evenings eating them—and this was the consequence. {005} {MS} October 20, 1854. For the most part shagbarks do not rattle out yet (at Wachusett), {Note} but it is time to gather them on account of squirrels.

ARTICHOKE

{001} {MS} Artichokes, October twentieth. {002} Gookin says that the Indians used artichokes in their pottage. {Note} {003} October 20, 1859. Dug some. Now is the time to begin to dig them, the plant being considerably frost-bitten. Tried two or three plants. The largest tuber was about one inch in diameter. The main root ran down straight about six inches and then terminated abruptly thus: They have quite a nutty taste eaten raw. {004} Hind sees them in the northwest in the richest profusion. {Note}

GOLDENROD

{001} Goldenrods fuzzy October twenty-first. {002} Almost all were fuzzy about October 10, 1860.

{Page 226} WHITE AND BLACK BIRCHES

{001} White birch, November first. {002} November 4, 1860. Has but recently begun to fall. I see a quarter of an inch of many catkins bare. May have begun a week. {003} December 4, 1856. I see where the pretty brown bird-like birch scales have been blown into the numerous hollows of the thin-crusted snow. So bountiful a table is spread for the birds. For how many thousand miles this grain is scattered over the earth under the feet of all walkers, in Boxboro and Cambridge {Note} alike, and rarely an eye distinguishes it. {004} January 14, 1856. The white-birch catkins appear to have their seeds first at the base, though they may be the uppermost. They are {MS} blown or shaken off, leaving a bare thread-like cone. {005} May 12, 1858. I notice that birches near meadows where there is an exceedingly gentle inclination (over which water has flowed and receded) grow in more or less parallel lines, apparently the seed having been dropt there either by a freshet or else lodged in the parallel waving hallows of the snow. {006} February 18, 1854. This is a common form of the black-birch scale: {Note} {007} February 21, 1854. The difference between the white- and black-birch scales is that the wings of the first are curved backwards like a real bird’s. The seeds of this also are broadly winged, like an insect with two little antenn�. {Note} {008} {MS} The birch seed is also blown far over the snow like the pine seed. Walking up our river on the second of March 1856—by Mr. Prichard’s land, {Note} where the shores and neighboring fields were comparatively bare of trees—I was surprised to see on the snow over the river a great many birch scales and seeds, though the snow had but recently fallen and there had been but little wind. There was one seed or scale to a square foot; yet the nearest {MS} birches were a row of fifteen along a wall thirty rods off. When, leaving the river, I advanced toward these, the seeds became thicker and thicker, till at half a dozen rods from the trees, they quite discolored the snow; while on the other side, or eastward of the birches, there was not one. These trees appeared not to have lost a quarter part of their seeds yet. As I returned up the river, I saw some of their seeds forty rods off, and perhaps in a more favorable direction {Page 227} I might have found them much further; for, as usual, it was chiefly the scales which attracted my attention, and the fine winged seed which it is not easy to distinguish had probably been winnowed from them. It suggested how unwearied Nature is in spreading her seeds. Even the spring does not find her unprovided with birch—aye, and alder and pine—seed. A great proportion of the seed that was carried to a distance lodged in the hollow above the river, and when the river broke up, was carried far away to distant shores and meadows. For, as I find by experiment, though the scales soon sink in water, the seeds float for many days. {009} {MS} It is stated in Loudon’s Arboretum that the small white birch is "rarely found in groups; and single trees are met with only at considerable intervals." {010} {MS} Loudon, speaking of the European variety of the common white birch, says, "According to Pallas, the birch is more common than any other tree throughout the whole of the Russian Empire; being found in every wood and grove from the Baltic Sea to the Eastern Ocean." Loudon also learns from a French author that "in Prussia, the birch is planted everywhere; and it is considered to afford security against a dearth of fuel, and to insure the prosperity of the woods by the dissemination of its seeds, which fill up every blank that occurs." {Note}

PITCH PINE

{001} {MS} Pitch pine, November fourteenth. {002} November 9, 1851. Pitch-pine cones are very beautiful—not only the fresh leather-colored ones, but especially the dead gray ones, covered with lichens, the scales so regular and close, like an impenetrable coat of mail. These are very handsome to my eye. Also these which have long since opened regularly and shed their seeds. I live where the Pinus rigida grows, with its firm cones, almost as hard as iron, armed with recurved spines. {003} August 29, 1854. Squirrels have stripped some pitch-pine cones. {004} December 28, 1854. Some Cape Cod man told Gardiner that it took eighty bushels of pitch-pine cones to make one bushel of seeds with the wings on. Yet European or French pine seed cost not quite two hundred dollars per bushel delivered at New York. {Note} {005} April 29, 1857. On the pitch pines beyond John Hosmer’s I see old gray cones within two feet of the ground on the trunk, sometimes a circle of them around it, {Page 228} which must have been formed on the young tree some twenty-odd years ago—so persistent are they. {Note} {006} November 14, 1857. Squirrels have carried the cones to walls, and the scales are strewn all along beneath. {007} {MS} February 28, 1858. I see twenty-four cones brought together under one pitch-pine tree in the side of an open field, gnawed off but not opened. Evidently gathered from this tree ready to be transported, but left behind. {008} April 2, 1859. Two hundred thirty-nine pitch-pine cones left in one heap. {009} Michaux says "Wherever these trees grow in masses the cones are dispersed singly over the branches, and, as I have learned by constant observation, they release the seeds the first autumn after their maturity; but on solitary stocks, exposed to the buffetting of the winds, the cones are collected in groups of four, five, or even a larger number, and remain closed for several years." {Note} {010} January 25, 1855. A pine cone blossoms out now fully in about three days in the house. They begin to open about halfway up. They are exceedingly regular and handsome; the scales with shallow triangular crescent-shaped extremities, the prickles pointing downward are most open above, and are so much recurved at the base of the cone that they lie close together and almost flat there, or at right angles with the stem, like a shield of iron scales making a perfectly regular figure of thirteen curved rays, thus: —only far more regular. There are just thirteen rays in each of the three I have. These vary {MS} in their roundness or the flatness of the cone. So the white-pine cones in their length. End of scale on side of cone: {011} February 22, 1855. Pitch-pine cones must be taken from the tree at the right season else they will not open or blossom in a chamber. I have one which was gnawed off by squirrels, apparently of full size, but which does not open. Why should they thus open in the chamber or elsewhere? I suppose that under the influence of heat or dryness the upper side of each scale expands while the lower contracts, or perhaps only the one expands or the other conracts. I notice that the upper side is a lighter, almost cinnamon color, the lower a darker (pitchy?) red. {012} March 3, 1855. A few rods from the broad pitch pine beyond Hubbard’s Grove, I find a cone which was probably dropt by a squirrel in the fall, for I see the marks of its teeth where it was cut off; and it has probably {MS} been buried by the {Page 229} snow till now, for it has apparently just opened, and I shake its seeds out. Not only is this cone resting upright on the ground fully blossomed, a very beautiful object, but the winged seeds which half fill my hand—small triangular black seeds with thin and delicate flesh-colored wings—remind me of fishes, alewives perchance, their tails more or less curved: (I do not show the curve of the tail.) {013} I see in another place under a pitch pine many cores of cones which the squirrels have completely stripped of their scales, excepting about three at the extremity which cover no seeds, cutting them off regularly at the seeds {Note} or close to the core, leaving it in this form: —or more regular. From some partially stript I see that they begin at the base. These you find left on and about stumps where they have sat and under the pines. Most fallen pitch-pine cones {MS} show the marks of squirrels’ teeth—and that they were cut off. {014} November 14, 1855. Heard today in my chamber about 11 a.m. a singular sharp crackling sound by the window, which made me think of the snapping of an insect (with its wings or striking something.) It was produced by one of three small pitch-pine cones which I gathered on the seventh of this month {Note} and which lay in the sun on the window-sill. I noticed a slight motion still in the scales at the apex, when suddenly with a louder crackling it, or the scales, separated with a snapping sound on all sides of it. It was a general and sudden bursting or expanding of all the scales, with a sharp crackling sound and a motion of the whole cone as by a force pent up within it. I suppose the strain only needed to be relieved in one point for the whole to go off. {015} November 20, 1855. Again I hear that sharp crackling, snapping sound and hastening to the window find that another of the pitch-pine cones gathered November seventh, lying in the sun or which the sun has reached, has separated its scales very slightly at the apex. It is discoverable only on a close inspection; but while I look, the whole cone opens its scales with a smart crackling, and rocks and seems to bristle {MS} up, scattering the dry pitch on the surface. They all thus fairly loosen and open, though they do not at once spread wide open. It is almost like the disintegration of glass. As soon as the tension is relaxed in one part it is relaxed in every part. {Note} {016} {MS} Unlike the white pine, the pitch pine is opening its cones and dispersing its seed gradually all winter, and it is not only blown far through the air, but slides yet {Page 230} further over the snow and ice. It has often occurred to me that it was one value of a level surface of snow, especially a crusted snow, that by its smoothness it favored the distribution of such seeds as fell on it. I have many times measured the direct distance on a snowy field from the outmost pine seed to the nearest pine to windward, and found it equal to the breadth of the widest pasture. I have seen that the seed thus crossed one of our ponds, {Note} which is half a mile wide, and I see no reason why it should not be blown many miles in some cases. In the fall it would be detained by the grass, weeds, and bushes, but the snow having first come to cover up all and make a level surface, the restless pine seeds go dashing {MS} over it like an Esquimaux sledge with an invisible team until, losing their wings or meeting with some insuperable obstacle, they lie down once for all, perchance to rise up pines. Nature has her annual sledding to do, as well as we. In a region of snow and ice like ours, this tree can be gradually spread thus from one side of the continent to the other. {017} By the middle of July, {Note} I notice on the shore of the above-mentioned pond, just below the high-water line, many little pitch pines which have just sprung up amid the stones and sand and muck, whose seed has been blown or drifted across. There are some places for a row of pines along the water’s edge, which at length, after fifteen or twenty years, are tipped over and destroyed by the heaving of the frozen shore. {018} {MS} March 22, 1856. At Walden, near my old residence, I find that since I was here on the eleventh, apparently within a day or two, some gray or red squirrel or squirrels have been feeding on the pitch-pine cones extensively. The snow under one young pine is covered quite thick with the scales which they have dropped while feeding overhead. I count the cores of thirty-four cones in the snow there, and that is not all. Under another pine there are more than twenty and a well-worn track from this to a fence-post three rods distant, under which are the cores of eight cones and a corresponding amount of scales. The track is like that of a very small rabbit going up the page: They have gnawed off the cones, which were perfectly closed. I see where one has taken one of a pair and left the other partly off. He had first sheared off the needles that were in the way, and then gnawed off the sides or cheeks of the twig in order to come at the stem of the cone, which as usual was severed by successive cuts, as with a knife, while bending it. One or two small—perhaps dead (probably still last summer, {Page 231} when little over a year old), certainly unripe—ones were taken off and left unopened. {019} I find that many of these young pines are now full of unopened cones, which apparently will be two years old next summer—and these the squirrels now eat. There are also some of them open, perhaps on the most thrifty twigs. {020} {MS} February 27, 1853. A week or two ago I brought home a handsome pitch-pine cone, which had freshly fallen and was closed perfectly tight. It was put into a table drawer. Today I am greatly surprised to find that it has there dried and opened with perfect regularity, filling the drawer; and from a solid, narrow, and sharp cone has become a broad, rounded, open one—has in fact expanded with all the regularity of a flower’s petals into a conical flower of rigid scales and has shed a remarkable quantity of delicate winged seeds. Each scale, which is very elaborately and perfectly constructed, is armed with a short spine pointing downward, as if to protect its seed from squirrels and birds. That hard closed cone, which defied all violent attempts to open it and could only be cut open with a knife, has thus yielded to the gentle {MS} persuasion of warmth and dryness. The expanding of the pine cones—that, too, is a season. {021} March 6. Part of the pitch-pine cones are still closed. {022} March 27, 1853. The base of the pitch-pine cone which, closed, was semi-circular, after it has opened becomes more or less flat and horizontal by the crowding of the scales backward upon the smaller and imperfect ones next the stem; and, viewed on this flat end, they are handsomely arranged in curving rays. {Note} {023} {J 01/24/1855} We can perhaps imagine how the primitive wood looked to William Wood, the author of New England’s Prospect, who left New England August fifteenth 1633, from the sample still left in Maine. He says, "The timber of the country grows strait, and tall, some trees being twenty, some thirty foot high, before they spread forth their branches; generally the trees be not very thick, tho’ there be many that will serve for mill-posts, some being three foot and an half over." One would judge from accounts that the woods were clearer than the primitive wood that is left on account of Indian fires, for he says you might ride a-hunting in most places. "There is no underwood, saving in swamps," which the Indian fires did not burn. "Here no doubt might be good done with saw mills; {Page 232} for I have seene of these stately high grown trees [he is speaking of pines particularly] ten miles together close by the river [probably Charles River] side." {Note}

JUNIPER REPENS

{001} {MS} Juniper repens, March first. {002} April 2, 1853. Those in shade green; in light, turning purplish. {003} September 4, 1853. Now a hoary green, but full grown. {004} April 30, 1855. I now see many Juniper repens berries of a handsome light blue above, being still green beneath, with three hoary pouting lips. {005} September 29, 1859. Quite green yet. See some of last year’s dark-purple ones at the base of the branchlets. {006} October 19. Though the dark-blue or ripe are chiefly on the lower part of the branches, I see fresh green ones on old wood as big as a pipe stem, and often directly opposite to purple ones! They are strangely mixed up. I am not sure but some of this year’s berries are already ripe. {007} Pliny speaks of a wine made by boiling the juniper berries (Bohn says it is the Juniper communis of Linn�us) in must. {Note} {008} Loudon says of the berries of the Juniper communis, "They continue on the bush two years," and "The berries are, {MS} however, the most useful product of the juniper. Many kinds of birds feed on them, and when burnt, they were formerly {Page 233} thought to possess the power of preventing infection. They are, however, now principally used in making gin"; that is, to flavor it. {Note} {009} I surveyed for a man {Note} one winter who was continually going into the juniper bushes to see if the berries were ripe, for he used them to flavor some liquor which he made. He got so thirsty in the meanwhile, perhaps by anticipation, that he would exclaim with emphasis, "I wish I had a barrel of rum up here." Yet he went by the purest springs as if they were useless.

WINTER FRUITS

{001} Berries that hold on into winter are to be enumerated and perhaps deserve a separate notice—as sumac, rose hips and so on, dogwood and so on, winterberry above all, cattail, haws, two-leaved Solomon-seal, barberry, shrivelled pyrus, cranberries, sweet gale, green briar, pitch pine and so on, witch hazel, panicled andromeda, bayberry, hemlock, spruce, larch, cedar, juniper, checkerberry, walnuts, birches, and alders.

{001} {MS} How little we insist on truly grand and beautiful natural features. There may be the most beautiful landscapes in the world within a dozen miles of us, for aught we know—for their inhabitants do not value nor perceive them, and so have not made them known to others—but if a grain of gold were picked up there or a pearl found in a fresh-water clam, the whole state would resound with the news. Thousands annually seek the White Mountains {Note} to be refreshed by their wild and primitive beauty, but when the country was discovered a similar kind of beauty prevailed all over it—and much of this might have been preserved for our present refreshment if a little foresight and taste had been used. {002} I do not believe that there is a town in this country which realizes in what its true wealth consists. I visited the town of Boxboro only eight miles west of us last fall, and far the handsomest and most memorable thing which I saw there was its noble oak wood. {Note} I doubt if there is a finer one in Massachusetts. Let it stand fifty years longer and men will make pilgrimages to it from all parts of {MS} the country, and {Page 234} for a worthier object than to shoot squirrels in it. {Note} And yet I said to myself, Boxboro would be very like the rest of New England if she were ashamed of that woodland. Probably, if the history of this town is written, the historian will have omitted to say a word about this forest—the most interesting thing in it—and lay all the stress on the history of the parish. {003} It turned out that I was not far from right, for not long after I came across a very brief historical notice of Stow, which then included Boxboro, written by the Reverend John Gardner in the Massachusetts Historical Collections nearly a hundred years ago—in which Mr. Gardner, after telling us who was his predecessor in the ministry and when he himself was settled, goes on to say, "As for any remarkables, I am of the mind there have been the fewest of any town of our standing in the Province.... I can’t call to mind above one thing worthy of public notice, and that is the grave of Mr. John Green" who it appears, when in England, "was made clerk of the {MS} exchequer" by Cromwell. "Whether he was excluded from the Act of Oblivion or not I cannot tell," says Mr. Gardner. At any rate, he returned to New England and, as Mr. Gardner tells us, "lived and died, and lies buried in this place." {Note} {004} I can assure Mr. Gardner that he was not excluded from the act of oblivion. {005} It is true Boxboro was less peculiar for its woods at that date, but they were not less interesting absolutely. {006} I remember talking a few years ago with a young man who had undertaken to write the history of his native town, a wild and mountainous town far up-country, whose very name suggested a hundred things to me, and I almost wished I had the task to do myself, so few of the original settlers had been driven out, and not a single clerk of the exchequer buried in it. But to my chagrin I found that the author was complaining of want of materials, and that the crowning fact of his story was that the town had been the residence of General C—— and the family mansion was still standing. {Note} Around this all the materials of this history were to arrange themselves. {007} {J 03/18/1861} You can’t read any genuine history, as that of Herodotus or the Venerable Bede, {Note} without perceiving that our interest depends not on the subject but on the man—on the manner in which he treats the subject and the importance he gives it. A feeble writer and without genius must have what he thinks a great theme, which we are already interested in through the accounts of others, but a genius—a Shakespeare, for instance—would make the history of his parish more interest- {Page 235} ing than another’s history of the world. Wherever men have lived, there is a story to be told, and it depends chiefly on the story-teller or historian whether that is interesting or not. {Note} {008} {MS} I have since heard, however, that {MS} Boxboro is content to have that forest stand, instead of the houses and farms that might supplant it, not because of its beauty, but because the land pays a much larger tax now than it would then. {Note} Nevertheless it is likely to be cut off within a few years for ship-timber and the like. It is too precious to be thus disposed of. I think that it would be wise for the state to purchase and preserve a few such forests. If the people of Massachusetts are ready to found a professorship of Natural History, {Note} do they not see the importance of preserving some portions of Nature herself unimpaired? {009} I find that the rising generation in this town do not know what an oak or a pine is, having seen only inferior specimens. Shall we hire a man to lecture on botany—on oaks, for instance, our noblest plants—while we permit others to cut down the few best specimens of these trees that are left? It is like teaching children Latin and Greek while we burn the books printed in those languages. {MS} It is my own way of living that I complain of as well as yours, and therefore I trust that my remarks will come home to you. I hope that I am not so poor a shot, like most clergymen, as to fire into a crowd of a thousand men without hitting somebody, though I do not aim at any one. {010} Thus, we behave like oxen in a flower garden. The true fruit of Nature can only be plucked with a fluttering heart and a delicate hand, not bribed by any earthly reward. No hired man can help us to gather that crop. Among the Indians the earth and its productions generally were common and free to all the tribe, like the air and water, but among us who have supplanted the Indians the public retain only a small yard or common in the middle of the village, with perhaps a graveyard beside it, and the right of way, by sufferance, by a particular narrow route, which is annually becoming narrower, from one such yard to another. I doubt if you can ride out five miles in any direction without coming to where some individual is tolling in the road, and he expects the time when it will all revert to him or his heirs. This is the way we civilized men have arranged it. {011} I am not overflowing with respect and gratitude to the fathers who thus {MS} laid out our New England villages, whatever precedents they were influenced by, for I think that a ’prentice hand liberated from Old English prejudices could have done much better in this New World. If they were in earnest seeking thus far away {Page 236} "freedom to worship God," as some assure us, {Note} why did they not secure a little more of it, when it was so cheap and they were about it? At the same time that they built meetinghouses, why did they not preserve from desecration and destruction far grander temples not made with hands? {012} What are the natural features which make a township handsome and worth going far to dwell in? A river with its waterfalls, meadows, lakes, hills, cliffs, or individual rocks, a forest and single ancient trees. Such things are beautiful. They have a high use which dollars and cents never represent. If the inhabitants of a town were wise, they would seek to preserve these things, though at a considerable expense. For such things {MS} educate far more than any hired teachers or preachers, or any at present recognized system of school education. I do not think him fit to be the founder of a state or even of a town who does not foresee the use of these things, but legislates, as it were, for oxen chiefly. It would be worth the while if in each town there were a committee appointed to see that the beauty of the town received no detriment. If here is the largest boulder in the country, then it should not belong to an individual nor be made into door-steps. In some countries precious metals belong to the crown; so here more precious objects of great natural beauty should belong to the public. Let us try to keep the New World new, and while we make a wary use of the city, preserve as far as possible the advantages of living in the country. {013} I think of no natural feature which is a greater ornament and treasure to this town than the river. It is one of the things which determine whether a man will live here or in {MS} another place, and it is one of the first objects which we show to a stranger. In this respect we enjoy a great advantage over those neighboring towns which have no river. Yet the town, as a corporation, has never turned any but the most purely utilitarian eyes upon it and has done nothing to preserve its natural beauty. They who laid out the town should have made the river available as a common possession forever. The town collectively should at least have done as much as an individual of taste who owns an equal area commonly does in England. Indeed, I think that not only the channel, but one or both banks of every river should be a public highway, for a river is not useful merely to float on. In this case, one bank might have been reserved as a public walk and the trees that adorned it have been protected, and frequent avenues have been provided leading to it from the main street. This would have cost but few acres of land and but {Page 237} little wood, and we should all have been gainers by it. {MS} Now it is accessible only at the bridges, at points comparatively distant from the town, and there there is not a foot of shore to stand on unless you trespass on somebody’s lot; and if you attempt a quiet stroll down the bank, you soon meet with fences built at right angles with the stream and projecting far over the water, where individuals—naturally enough, under the present arrangement—seek to monopolize the shore. At last we shall get our only view of the stream from the meetinghouse belfry. As for the trees which fringed the shore within my remembrance—where are they? and where will the remnant of them be after ten years more? {014} So, if there is any central and commanding hilltop, it should be reserved for the public use. Think of a mountaintop in the township, even to the Indians a sacred place, only accessible through private grounds. A temple, as it were, which you cannot enter without trespassing—nay, the temple itself private property and standing in a man’s cow-yard, for such is commonly the case. New Hampshire courts {MS} have lately been deciding, as if it was for them to decide, whether the top of Mount Washington belonged to A—— or B——, and it being decided in favor of B——, I hear that he went up one winter with the proper officers and took formal possession. {Note} That area should be left unappropriated for modesty and reverence’s sake—if only to suggest that the traveller who climbs thither in a degree rises above himself, as well as his native valley, and leaves some of his grovelling habits behind. {015} I know it is a mere figure of speech to talk about temples nowadays, when men recognize none and associate the word with heathenism. Most men, it appears to me, do not care for Nature and would sell their share in all her beauty for as long as they may live for a stated and not very large sum. Thank God, they cannot yet fly and lay waste the sky as well as the earth! We are safe on that side for the present. It is for the very reason that some do not care for these things that we need to combine to protect all from the vandalism of a few. {016} It is true, we as yet take liberties and go across lots in most directions, but we naturally take fewer and fewer liberties every year, as we meet with more resistance, and we shall soon be reduced to the same straights they are in England, where going across lots is out of the question, and we must ask leave to walk in some lady’s park. There are a few hopeful signs. There is the growing library, and then the town does set trees along the highways. But does not the broad landscape {Page 238} itself deserve attention? We cut down the few old oaks which witnessed the transfer of the township from the Indian to the white man, and perchance commence our museum with a cartridge box taken from a British soldier in 1775. {Note} {017} {MS} I think that each town should have a park, or rather a primitive forest, of five hundred or a thousand acres, either in one body {MS} or several, where a stick should never be cut for fuel, nor for the navy, nor to make wagons, but stand and decay for higher uses—a common possession forever, for instruction and recreation. All Walden Wood might have been reserved, with Walden in the midst of it, and the Easterbrooks Country, an uncultivated area of some four square miles in the north of the town, might have been our huckleberry field. If any owners of these tracts are about to leave the world without natural heirs who need or deserve to be specially remembered, they will do wisely to abandon the possession to all mankind and not will them to some individual who perhaps has enough already—and so correct the error that was made when the town was laid out. As some give to Harvard College or another institution, so one might give a forest or a huckleberry field to Concord. This town surely is an institution which deserves to be remembered. Forget the heathen in foreign parts, and remember the pagans and salvages {Note} here. {MS} We hear of cow commons and ministerial lots, but we want men commons and lay lots as well. There is meadow and pasture and woodlot for the town’s poor; why not a forest and huckleberry field for the town’s rich? We boast of our system of education, but why stop at schoolmasters and schoolhouses? {MS} We are all schoolmasters, and our schoolhouse is the universe. To attend chiefly to the desk or schoolhouse while we neglect the scenery in which it is placed is absurd. If we do not look out we shall find our fine schoolhouse standing in a cow-yard at last. {018} It frequently happens that what the city prides itself on most is its park, those acres which require to be the least altered from their original condition. {019} Live in each season as it passes; breathe the air, drink the drink, taste the fruit, and resign yourself to the influences of each. Let these be your only diet-drink and botanical medicines. In August live on berries, not dried meats and pemmican, as if you were on shipboard making your way through a waste ocean or on the Darien Grounds. {Note} Be blown on by all the winds. Open all your pores and bathe in all the tides of Nature, in all her streams and oceans, at all seasons. Miasma and infection are from within, not without. The invalid brought to the brink of the grave by an unnatural life, instead of imbibing the great influence that Nature is, drinks only of the tea made of a particular herb, while he still continues his un- {Page 239} natural life—saves at the spile and wastes at the bung. {Note} He does not love Nature or his life, and so sickens and dies, and no doctor can cure him. {MS} Grow green with spring, yellow and ripe with autumn. Drink of each season’s influence as a vial, a true panacea of all remedies mixed for your especial use. The vials of summer never made a man sick, only those which he had stored in his cellar. Drink the wines, not of your own, but of Nature’s bottling—not kept in a goat- or pig-skin, but in the skin of a myriad fair berries. Let Nature do your bottling, as also your pickling and preserving. For all Nature is doing her best each moment to make us well. She exists for no other end. Do not resist her. With the least inclination to be well, we should not be sick. Men have discovered, or think that they have discovered, the salutariness of a few wild things only, and not of all Nature. Why, Nature is but another name for health. Some men think that they are not well in spring or summer or autumn or winter; (if you will excuse the pun) it is only because they are not indeed well; that is, fairly in those seasons.

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'Miracles of modern civilsation'

2008-10-02T12:16:00.003+10:00

Mind Control Technology: MIND CONTROL TECHNOLOGY America's consumption of psychotropic drugs is so great that Prozac has made its way into the water supply and is contaminating fresh water fish. Not satisfied with this achievement, in July 2004, President Bush's 'New Freedom Commission on Mental Health' recommended screening all American school children for mental illness with a view to possible treatment with new antidepressants and anti-psychotic drugs. George Bush sr. sits on the board of Eli Lilly, which manufactures Zyprexa, one of the anti-psychotics recommended by the Commission. (101)(102) Ritalin is prescribed to about two million American children. It has become the standard way for teachers and parents to deal with unruly children even to the point where children are being threatened with expulsion or being taken into care if they do not take it.(103) Ritalin is an ideal mind control drug because it suppresses the natural energy and spirit of young people often leaving them robotic, lethargic, depressed, or withdrawn. It also introduces the idea at an early age that drugs are an acceptable way of dealing with social problems. Europe is not being left behind on the quest for 'soma'. Nearly one in four French people are on tranquillizers, antidepressants, anti psychotics, or other mood-altering prescription drugs. An average of 40% of men and women aged over 70 in France were routinely prescribed at least one of this class of dependence-creating drug, as well as some 4% of all children under nine.(104) As discussed in chapter 11, the U.K. draft Mental Health Bill creates powers to compel medication for a whole range of 'disorders of the mind.' Prozac and other SSRIs are capable of inducing psychosis and suicidal depression. In the U.K., certain SSRIs have recently been banned from being prescribed to children after a string of suicides. The active ingredient in prozac and many other drugs is fluoride, which has been linked to brain damage and loss of I.Q. (see Fluoride below). BRAIN MICROCHIPS The future of mind control and even body control, lies in electronic implants which are currently under development. The U.S. military-directed research of implantable microchips and their war fighting applications was discussed earlier in Chapter 12. Some recent news articles describe medical applications of microchips with mind and body control potential. The BBC reported that patients with chronic migraines could one day have an electric device implanted into their foreheads to control the pain. Doctors in the United States have already used the treatment successfully on one woman, who was suffering from constant headaches.(105) The BBC also reported that U.S scientists writing in Nature Materials describe a drug-containing microchip which can be implanted in the body. This releases the medication slowly so the patient no longer has to take any pills. (106) With satellite linked implantable microchips being developed by Applied Digital Solutions Inc., the prospect of remote controlled medical implants may not be too distant. ELECTROMAGNETIC MIND CONTROL Congressman Dennis Kucinich's 2001 Preservation of Space Act calls for a ban on: the use of land-based, sea-based, or space-based systems using radiation, electromagnetic, psychotronic, sonic, laser, or other energies directed at individual persons or targeted populations for the purpose of information war, mood management, or mind control of such persons or populations. Kucinich was refering to technologies he had learned about during his chairmanship of the House Armed Services Oversight Committee. Private researchers, such as Dr. Nick Begich, have turned up some remarkably frank discussions of mind control published by the U.S. Military. The Mind Has No Firewall, by Timothy L. Thomas, published in the spring 1998 issue of the U.S Army War College's quarterly Parameters, describes decades of research in the U.S. and Soviet Union focused on manipulating human behaviour. Propaganda is considered a key tool of psychotronic warfare, including tactics such as 'information overload'. Certain electronic devices are completely undetectable, e.g. the "Russian Virus 666" which can broadcast subliminal images. This can put viewers of television or computer screens into a trance and change their perceptions. Dr. Begich obtained documents from the Scientific Advisory Board of the Air Force in which researchers envisage the development of electromagnetic weapons which can prevent voluntary muscular movements, control emotions, produce sleep, interfere with memory, and delete experience. Russian army Major I. Chernishev writing in the military journal Orienteer of February1997, describes the development of a pyschotronic generator capable of broadcasting through telephone lines, TV, radio networks, supply pipes, and incandescent lights.(107) Even more disturbing is the use of high power microwaves in the gigahertz range to beam sounds directly into human brains and literally talk to them. As early as 1933, Soviet scientists had discovered that microwave irradiation caused central nervous system changes and affected behaviour even at low intensity. Physiological disturbances include immune suppression, hormonal imbalances, sleep impairment and sterility. (108) The new British police radio system called TETRA, uses pulsed microwaves at 17.6Hz, a frequency in the 13Hz to 20Hz beta range of the human brain's electrical activity. Unlike ordinary mobile phone masts which only respond on demand and produce a continuous microwave signal, TETRA masts are permanently active. TETRA is a ?3 billion system initiated by the Home Office that will be adopted by all British police forces by the end of 2005.(109) Interference with the alpha wave of brain activity is threatened by the U.S. Defense Dept.'s High Frequency Active Auroral Research Program (HAARP), a gigantic electromagnetic frequency generator in Alaska: The alpha-wave frequency of the human brain is known to be between eight and twelve hertz... The ionospheric wave-guide oscillates at eight hertz, making it a good harmonic carrier of low frequency sound (LFS) waves. In the June 17 1976 issue of New Scientist, Dr Frank Barnaby, Director of the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, warned that if methods could be devised to produce greater field strengths of such low-frequency oscillations, either by natural or artificial means, then it might become possible to impair performance of a large group of people in selected regions over extended periods.(110) There are equivalent projects elsewhere in the world - European Incoherent Scatter Radar site (EISCAT) in Tromsoe, Norway and SURA in Nizhny Novgorod, Russia. 14. 8 JUNK FOOD The Western diet is a 'slow kill' which largely goes undetected. Three major components - sugar, caffeine, and hydrogenated vegetable oils- open the door for every type of disease by playing havoc with the body's metabolism and immune system. On top of this are the neuro-toxic and cancer causing flavour enhancers which are added to the majority of processed foods and soft drinks especially in the U.S.. A report, Adolescent Health, published by the British Medical Association, in December 2003 stated that the present generation of children and teenagers will turn into the most obese and infertile adults in the history of mankind. (111) SUGAR Refined sugar is extremely immune suppressing and is the first item that should be cut out of the diet of anyone suffering from chronic illness or wanting to avoid it. A suppressed immune system opens the door to every serious disease including cancer. Caffeine exacerbates this effect. (112) HYDROGENATED VEGETABLE OIL For decades the public health authorities persuaded the public that animal fats were bad and that they should consume healthier poly-unsaturated fats found in vegetable oils. The current hysteria regarding cholesterol stems from research done during the 1940s and 1950s by the manufacturers of the new margarines and 'healthy' fats made with hydrogenated vegetable oils. The suggestion was that cholesterol (specifically LDL-cholesterol) was responsible for heart disease, which was even then beginning to increase, due to the relatively high-fat diet enjoyed by most westerners. This is not borne out by the facts. Western diets had always contained a relatively high proportion of red meat. In 1978, Dr. Mary Enig also proved that cancer rates were directly related to consumption of vegetable oils (including hydrogenated vegetable oils) and total fat intake, but not related to animal fat consumption. This research is often ignored by the cholesterol lobby, despite the fact that it has been confirmed by other researchers. When food manufacturers heat vegetable oil at very high temperatures 250- 400 C and usually in the presence of catalysts, they undergo hydrogenation which turns them into saturated fats. The melting point of the oil is raised, turning many previously liquid oils into solids. Shelf-life is increased, as the resulting oil is less susceptible to degrading over time. All nutritional value in the original oil is lost. The texture of the resultant solid can be made to resemble that of natural animal fats. However, during this process, 'trans-fats' are formed which are found to cause significant increases in blood cholesterol. Most processed foods in supermarkets that contain fat will therefore be laden with these potentially lethal trans-fats. (113) Ischaemic heart disease (IHD) was virtually unknown until the 1940s, when hydrogenated vegetable oils were introduced. Now it is one of the biggest killer in the Western world. The dangers of trans-fats were recognized as long ago as 1958, but the vegetable oil industry continues to bad-mouth safer natural animal fats. Announced on the front page of The Daily Mail on 5 July 2003, threats of legal action have caused major multi-national food companies including Cadbury, Kellogg, Nestle and United Biscuits to reduce or eliminate hydrogenated vegetable oils from their products. Fearing litigation like that taken against cigarette companies, the food companies decided to take drastic action. On 11th March 2003, Denmark passed a law banning all but the tiniest amount of trans-fat from food. (114) On 12th January 2005, the U.S. Government issued guidelines to manufacturers and consumers to reduce trans-fat intake and has forthcoming legislation on mandatory labeling. (115) EXCITOTOXINS There are a growing number of clinicians and scientists who are convinced that a group of compounds called excitotoxins play a critical role in the development of several neurological disorders. , Excitotoxins: The Taste That Kills, by neuro-surgeon Dr. Russell Blaylock, describes how the common flavour enhancers monosodium glutamate, hydrolyzed vegetable protein, and Aspartame/Nutrasweet are extremely neuro-toxic. They literally put holes in the brain, and cause neurological diseases and cancer, as proven in an enormous body of scientific research. Brain tumours grow rapidly in the presence of the concentration of glutamic acid. Fully aware of these facts, the public health regulators have allowed hundreds of millions of people to consume excitotoxins for over fifty years. The sweetener Aspartame would never have been approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in 1981 without lobbying by G.D. Searle Inc.( since bought out by Monsanto) headed by Donald Rumsfeld. The FDA regulators who approved Aspartame went on to take jobs in the multi-billion dollar Aspartame industry. In addition to the FDA Commissioner who left to take up a job with G.D. Searle, four other FDA officials connected with the approval of Aspartame took positions connected with the Aspartame industry between 1979 and 1982: The Deputy FDA Commissioner, the Special Assistant to the FDA Commissioner, the Associate Director of the Bureau of Foods and Toxicology, and the Attorney involved with the Public Board of Inquiry. (116) The Food and Drug Administration once listed 92 adverse reactions from 10,000 consumer complaints and would send the list to all inquirers. In 1996 the FDA stopped taking complaints and now denies existence of the report. In September 2004, a $350 million class action lawsuit was filed against Monsanto. The suit charges the defendants with manufacturing and marketing a deadly neurotoxin unfit for human consumption, while they assured the pubic that aspartame products are safe and healthful, even for children and pregnant women. Donald Rumsfeld is mentioned throughout the lawsuit. (117) Worse still, regulations allow food manufacturers to label their foods 'contains no flavour enhancers' if the MSG content is less than 99% pure. MSG can be described as anything the food companies like such as 'spice extracts' or 'natural flavourings'.(118) (119) Most savoury processed foods purchased in supermarkets contain either MSG or hydrolyzed vegetable protein. SOY In 1924 soybean production in the U.S. was only at 1.8 million acres harvested. Today, the soybean is America's third largest crop (harvesting 72 million acres in 1998), supplying more than 50 percent of the world's soybean demand. Most of these beans are made into animal feed and are manufactured into soy oil for use as vegetable oil, margarine and shortening. For more than 20years now, the soy industry has concentrated on finding alternative uses and new markets for soybeans and soy byproducts. It can now be found disguised as everything from soy cheese, milk, burgers and hot dogs, to ice cream, yogurt, vegetable oil, baby formula and flour. These are often marketed as low-fat, dairy-free, or as a high-protein, meat substitute for vegetarians. But soy isn't always mentioned on food labels. Today, 60% of the food on America's supermarket shelves contain soy derivatives (i.e. soy flour, textured vegetable protein, partially hydrogenated soy bean oil, soy protein isolate). (120) All soybean producers pay a mandatory assessment of one-half to one per cent of the net market price of soybeans. The total - something like US$80 million annually - supports United Soybean's programme to strengthen the position of soybeans in the marketplace. Public relations firms help convert research projects into newspaper articles and advertising copy, and law firms lobby for favourable government regulations. IMF money funds soy processing plants in foreign countries, and free trade policies keep soybean abundance flowing to overseas destinations. The push for more soy consumption has been relentless and global in its reach. (121) On 25th October 1999, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) decided to allow a health claim for products "low in saturated fat and cholesterol" that contain 6.25 grams of soy protein per serving. The best marketing strategy for a product that is inherently unhealthy is, of course, a health claim. Two senior U.S. government scientists, Drs. Daniel Doerge and Daniel Sheehan of the National Center for Toxicological Research, broke ranks with the FDA, claiming that soy could increase the risk of breast cancer in women, cause brain damage and thyroid disorders, and cause sexual abnormalities in infants. They wrote an internal protest letter warning of 28 studies revealing toxic effects of soy, mostly focusing on chemicals in soy known as isoflavones, which have effects similar to the female hormone oestrogen. (122)They pointed to a major study of 3,734 Japanese American men which found that soy consumption was associated with increased brain shrinkage in middle age, increased cognitive impairment and Alzheimer's disease. (123) Soy has the highest level of glutamic acid of any plant food, therefore it has an excitotoxic effect on the brain. (124) In May 2003, the U.K. Government's Committee on Toxicity of Chemicals in Food, Consumer Products and the Environment issued a report on phytoestrogens and health. It concluded, After reviewing the data and conclusions in the report relating to soy-based infant formula, SACN considered that there is cause for concern about the use of soy-based infant formula. Additionally, there is neither substantive medical need for, nor health benefit arising from, the use soy-based infant formulae (125) The Committee also noted that, exposure to oestrogen in infants can lead to menstrual problems in females and low sperm count in males. "The amount of phytoestrogens that are in a day's worth of soy infant formula equals 5 birth control pills," says Mary G. Enig, Ph.D., president of the Maryland Nutritionists Association. She and other nutrition experts believe that infant exposure to high amounts of phytoestrogens is associated with early puberty in girls and retarded physical maturation in boys. A study published in The Lancet in July 1997, by Dr K. Setchell et al. found that in the blood of infants tested, concentrations of soy isoflavones were 13000-22000 times higher than natural estrogen concentrations in early life. (126) A study of babies born to vegetarian mothers, published in the BritishJournal of Urology in January 2000, indicated just what those changes in baby's development might be. Mothers who ate a vegetarian diet during pregnancy had a fivefold greater risk of delivering a boy with hypospadias, a birth defect of the penis. The authors of the study suggested that the cause was greater exposure to phytoestrogens in soy foods popular with vegetarians. (127) Early maturation in girls is frequently a harbinger for problems with the reproductive system later in life, including failure to menstruate, infertility and breast cancer. (128) In short, soy is certainly nature's contraceptive and may also be affecting the sexual characteristics and sexual orientation of future generations. It is recognized that transexuality is a medical condition caused by the effect of hormonal aberrations on the brain of the developing foetus. (129) On 20 January 2005, the U.K. Civil Service website on Diversity reported that, Estimates vary on the number of transvestite men in the population, owing to the lack of any research data whatsoever. Informed guesses have been as high as 1 in 20 adult males. Certainly estimates between 1/100 and 1/200 would not be outrageous, if judged only by the commercial success of businesses catering for the interests of those people. .... Depending where you draw the line in what to count, between 1 in 200 and 1 in 1000 children are born with a visible or concealed ambiguity in their genitals, gonads and/or chromosomes which qualify them as Intersex (130) Soy is not the only substance linked to sexual changes in humans. The National Geographic magazine reported that scientists are warning that chemicals in pesticides, plastics and other products are 'endocrine disrupters' which are having a serious gender altering impact on both animals and humans. (131) 14. 9 FLUORIDE Water fluoridation has been rejected by most Western European nations but the U.K. currently fluoridates 11% of its water supply and the U.S around 60%. The 2003 Water Act requires British water companies to fluoridate the water supply if requested to do so by the local Strategic Health Authorities. However any decision by health authorities must follow public consultation at the local level. (132) (133) A by-product of the nuclear power, fertilizer, and other heavy industries, fluoride is more toxic than lead and only marginally less toxic than arsenic. Dr. R. Swinburne Clymer tried to expose the purpose of water fluoridation in his book, The Age of Treason (1957). He wrote: Charles Eliot Perkins, a research worker in chemistry, biochemistry, physiology and pathology . . . was sent by the United States Government to help take charge of the I.G. Farben chemical plants in Germany at the end of the second world war. What follows are statements from a letter which Mr. Perkins wrote the Lee Foundation for Nutritional Research. . . . '. . . In the 1930s Hitler and the German Nazis envisioned a world to be dominated and controlled by the Nazi philosophy of pan-Germanism. . . . mass control which was submitted to and adopted by the German General Staff. This plan was to control the population in any given area through mass medication of drinking water supplies. By this method they could control the population of whole areas, reduce population by water medication that would produce sterility in the women, and so on. In this scheme of mass control, sodium fluoride occupied a prominent place. We are told by the ideologists who are advocating the fluoridation of water supplies in this country that their purpose is to reduce the incidence of tooth decay in children . . . the real reason behind fluorination is not to benefit children's teeth. The real purpose behind water fluorination is to reduce the resistance of the masses to domination and control and loss of liberty. . . . there is a small area of brain tissue that is responsible for the individual's power to resist domination. Repeated doses of infinitesimal amounts of fluorine will in time gradually reduce the individual's power to resist domination by slowly poisoning and narcotizing this area of brain tissue and make him submissive to the will of those who wish to govern him. . . . . . . any person who drinks artificially fluorinated water for a period of one year or more will never again be the same person, mentally or physically.' (134) On 29th June 2000, Dr William J. Hirzy testified before the U.S. Senate Subcommittee on Wildlife, Fisheries and Drinking Water.(135) He represented the labour union of the professional toxicologists, biologists, chemists, engineers and lawyers working at the headquarters of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. The union voted to oppose water fluoridation in 1997. These are some of the points Dr Hirzy made to the committee: - According to a study by the National Institute of Dental Research, 66 percent of American children in fluoridated communities show the visible sign of over-exposure and fluoride toxicity, dental fluorosis. - In 1998, the results of a fifty-year fluoridation experiment involving Kingston, New York (un-fluoridated) and Newburg, New York (fluoridated) were published. In summary, there is no overall significant difference in rates of dental decay in children in the two cities, but children in the fluoridated city show significantly higher rates of dental fluorosis than children in the unfluoridated city. -There is epidemiological evidence showing elevated bone cancer in young men related to consumption of fluoridated drinking water. - In 1990, the results of the National Toxicology Program cancer bioassay on sodium fluoride were published, the initial findings of which would have ended fluoridation. But a special commission was hastily convened to review the findings, resulting in the salvation of fluoridation through systematic downgrading of the evidence of carcinogenicity. The final, published version of the NTP report says that there is, "equivocal evidence of carcinogenicity in male rats," changed from "clear evidence of carcinogenicity in male rats." The change prompted Dr. William Marcus, who was then Senior Science Adviserand Toxicologist in the Office of Drinking Water, to blow the whistle about the issue, which led to his firing by EPA. Dr. Marcus sued EPA, won his case and was reinstated with back pay, benefits and compensatory damages. - Since 1994 there have been six publications that link fluoride exposure to direct adverse effects on the brain. Two epidemiology studies from China indicate depression of I.Q. in children. A 1998 paper shows brain and kidney damage in animals given the "optimal" dosage of fluoride, viz. one part per million. Another publication links fluoride dosing to adverse effects on the brains pineal gland and pre-mature onset of sexual maturity in animals - In three landmark cases adjudicated since 1978 in Pennsylvania, Illinois and Texas, judges with no interest except finding fact and administering justice, heard prolonged testimony from proponents and opponents of fluoridation. None of them could find evidence supporting fluoridation but all were convinced of its toxicity. Judge Anthony Farris in Texas found: "[That] the artificial fluoridation of public water supplies, such as contemplated by {Houston} City ordinance No. 80-2530 may cause or contribute to the cause of cancer, genetic damage, intolerant reactions, and chronic toxicity, including dental mottling, in man; that the said artificial fluoridation may aggravate malnutrition and existing illness in man; and that the value of said artificial fluoridation is in some doubt as to reduction of tooth decay in man - In recent years, two prominent dental researchers who were leaders of the pro-fluoridation movement announced reversals of their former positions because they concluded that water fluoridation is not an effective means of reducing dental caries and that it poses serious risks to human health. The late Dr. John Colquhoun was Principal Dental Officer of Aukland, New Zealand, and he published his reasons for changing sides in 1997. In 1999, Dr. Hardy Limeback, Head of Preventive Dentistry, University of Toronto, announced his change of views, then published a statement dated April 2000. The scienfic literature is full of studies that support Dr Hirzy's testimony. Animal studies show decreased fertility and higher rates of miscarriage in animals that drank fluoridated water. Fluoridation leads to osteoporosis and increased fractures. Regions with high levels of fluoride in the drinking water have 220% more fractures. Fluoride accumulates in the thyroid gland and produces hypothyroidism. Communities with fluoridated water have higher rates of cancer than non-fluoridated communities. The incidence of osteogenic sarcoma in males is 70% higher in fluoridated regions. Phyllis Mullenix showed the disastrous effect of water fluoridation on the brains of unborn and newborn animals, and numerous studies show a reduction of I.Q. in humans. Fluoride is the active ingredient in Prozac, Paxil, and several other widely used psychotrophic medications. (136) The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has never approved any fluoride product for the purpose of preventing tooth decay. (137) ENd Notes/ Resources: 101. Over 5200 Concerned Adults Refuse to Comply with New Freedom Initiative for Mental Health Screening in the Schools (PRWEB) October 21, 2004 http://www. infowars. com/print/ps/newfreedom_pettition. htm 102. Jeanne Lenzer, Bush plans to screen whole U.S. population for mental illness, 21 June 2004. http://www. worldnetdaily. com/news/article. asp?ARTICLE_ID=39078 103. Schools in row over Ritalin, BBC, London, 24 July 2003. See http://news. bbc. co. uk/1/hi/health/3093087. stm 104. Jon Henley, Depressed, moi? Why the French are driven to drugs, The Guardian, London, 8 Nov. 2003. See http://www. guardian. co. uk/france/story/0,11882,1080507,00. html 105. Implant 'could cure migraines,' BBC, London, 24 Feb. 2003. See http://news. bbc. co. uk/2/hi/health/2772885. stm 106. Microchip 'could do away with pills', BBC, London, 19 Oct. 2003. See http://news. bbc. co. uk/1/hi/health/3205800. stm 107. Horowitz, Death in the Air, op cit., pp.301-304 and Dr Begich's article Star Wars, Star Trek and Killing Politely. See http://www. earthpulse. com/haarp/starwars. html 108. Ibid., p. 335 109. Does TETRA pulse? Does it matter?, Tetrawatch website, http://www. tetrawatch. net/tetra/pulse. php 110. Ibid., p.223. 111. Teen generation will be 'world's sickest adults', The Daily Telegraph, London, 9 Dec.2003. See http://www. prisonplanet. com/120903teengeneration. html 112. Garth L. Nicolson Ph.D. and Richard Ngwenya Ph.D, Dietary Considerations for Patients with Chronic Illnesses and Multiple Chronic Infections: A Brief Outline of Eighteen Dietary Steps to Better Health. See http://www. immed. org/reports/treatment_considerations/ TownsendDietConsid.-01.8.6. html 113. Health Risks from Processed Foods and The Dangers of Trans Fats Dr. Mary Enig Interviewed By Richard A. Passwater, Ph.D. See http://www. mercola. com/2000/june/10/trans_fats. htm 114. FX, the Campaign Against Trans Fats in Food http://www. tfx. org. uk/key6. html 115. USDA / HSS 2005 guidelines : "Cut trans, TFX, the Campaign Against Trans Fats in Food. http://www. tfx. org. uk/page121. html 116. Dr Joseph Mercola, Aspartame: What You Don't Know Can Hurt You. See http://www. mercola. com/article/aspartame/hidden_dangers. htm 117. Racketeering (Rico)Charges filed Against NutraSweet, Dr. Moser of NS, American Diabetes Assn, Monsanto, Press Conf 9/16 A.M. Sacramento, PRWeb, 17 September 2004. http://www. highway2health. net/ASPARTAME/Racketeering_Charges_Against_NutraSweet . htm 118. www. truthinlabeling. org 119.. Dr Russell Blaylock, op cit. 120. Soy: Too Good to be True Brandon Finucan & Charlotte Gerson, Gerson Institute Newsletter Volume 14 #3 http://www. mercola. com/2000/feb/13/more_on_soy. htm 121. Newest Research On Why You Should Avoid Soy Sally Fallon & Mary G. Enig, Ph.D. http://www. mercola. com/article/soy/avoid_soy. htm 122. The Guardian, 13 August, 2000 http://www. mercola. com/2000/aug/20/soy_dangers. htm 123. The Trouble With Tofu: Soy and the Brain By John D. MacArthur http://www. mercola. com/2000/sep/17/soy_brain. htm 124. Dr Russell Blaylock, Interviewed by Dr Stanley Monteith on Radio Liberty, 2 December 2003. See www. radioliberty. com 125. Report examines impact of phytoestrogens on health, 01 May 2003 http://www. soyonlineservice. co. nz/hot. htm 126. MacArthur op cit. 127. Fallon & Enig op cit. 128. Ibid 129. FAQs on Transexuality, Inland Revenue Diversity and Equality Unit, 2003 http://www. diversity-whatworks. gov. uk/publications/doc/transsexualqanda2003. doc 130. Transgender | Background / Facts & Figures, The Cabinet Office http://www. diversity-whatworks. gov. uk/transgender/index. asp 131. James Owen, Animals%u2019 Sexual Changes Linked to Waste, Chemicals,National Geographic News 1st March 2004 132. Debbie Andalo, Public to make fluoride decision, The Guardian, 28 July 2004 http://www. fluoridealert. org/news/1987. html 133. Andy Kelly,We'll Fight Fluoride Tooth and Nail, Warns Council, Daily Post, 02 August 2004 http://www. fluoridealert. org/news/1989. html 134. Stanley Monteith MD, Radio Liberty Newsletter. November, 2004. See http://www. radioliberty. com/nlnov04. html 135. See Fluoride Alert website, http://www. fluoridealert. org/testimony. htm 136. Stanley Monteith MD, Radio Liberty Newsletter. November, 2004. See http://www. radioliberty. com/nlnov04. html 137. Dr David Kennedy, interviewed on Radio Liberty, 30 December 2004. Listen on-line at http://www. policestateplanning. com/fluoride. htm

Wednesday October 1, 2008 - 10:35am (EDT)

Previous Post: Letter to Christian Soldiers

Protest in Luxembourg

2008-10-02T10:50:00.005+10:00

Greenpeace Protest

01-OCT-08

Greenpeace protest against GM crops

Greenpeace in Luxembourg today petitioned the office of the Ministry of Health shortly after 13:30. The petition was in protest agaonst the use of genetically-modified crops in the Grand Duchy. Greenpeace representatives handed the Minister of Health, Mars Di Bartolomeo, a petition entitled "Luxembourg sans maïs Monsanto" which was launched on 2 May this year after the screening on RTL television of "Le monde selon Monsanto/ Monsanto mat Gëft a Genen". The petition, containing 1,500 signatures, was against the use of MON810 (1) and MON863 (2) genetically-modified crops, in Luxembourg. Greenpeace activists also reminded the Minister of the dozer or so studies that have been undertaken in this domain which have highlighted the negative consequences of using these two specific GM crops. Mr Maurice Losch, spokesman, called for the Minister to ban the GM crops before the end of the year.

Afterthoughts: A primer on the Wall Street meltdown

2008-10-01T18:32:00.001+10:00

By Walden Bello INQUIRER.net First Posted 03:56:00 10/01/2008

Other Most Read Stories x

Opinion

NEW YORK — Flying into New York Tuesday, I had the same feeling I had when I arrived in Beirut two years ago, at the height of the Israeli bombing of that city — that of entering a war zone. The immigration agent, upon learning I taught political economy, commented, “Well, I guess you folks will now be revising all those textbooks?” The bus driver welcomed passengers with the words, “New York is still here, ladies and gentlemen, but Wall Street has disappeared, like the Twin Towers.” Even the usually cheerful morning shows feel obligated to begin with the bad news, with one host attributing the bleak events to “the fat cats of Wall Street who turned into pigs.”

This city is shell-shocked, and most people still have to digest the momentous events of the last two weeks:

• a trillion dollars’ worth of capital going up in smoke in Wall Street’s steep plunge of 778 points on Black Monday II, Sept. 29, as investors reacted in panic to US House of Representatives’ rejection of President George W. Bush’s gargantuan $700 billion bailout of financial institutions on the verge of bankruptcy;

• the collapse of one of the Street’s most prominent investment banks, Lehman Brothers, followed by the largest bank failure in US history, that of Washington Mutual, the country’s largest savings and loan institution;

• Wall Street effectively nationalized, with the Federal Reserve and the Department of Treasury making all the major strategic decisions in the financial sector and, with the rescue of the American International Group (AIG), the amazing fact that the US government now runs the world’s biggest insurance company;

• Over $5 trillion in total market capitalization has been wiped out since October of last year, with over a trillion of this accounted for by the unraveling of Wall Street’s financial titans.

The usual explanations no longer suffice. Extraordinary events demand extraordinary explanations. But first…

Is the worst over?

No, if anything is clear from the contradictory moves of the last week — allowing Lehman Brothers and Washington Mutual to collapse while taking over AIG, and engineering Bank of America’s takeover of Merrill Lynch — there is no strategy to deal with the crisis, just tactical responses, like the fire department’s response to a conflagration.

The proposed $700-billion buyout of banks’ bad mortgaged-backed securities is not a strategy but mainly a desperate effort to shore up confidence in the system, to prevent the erosion of trust in the banks and other financial institutions and preventing a massive bank run such as the one that triggered the Great Depression of 1929.

What caused the collapse of global capitalism’s nerve center? Was it greed?

Good old fashioned greed played a part. This is what Klaus Schwab, the organizer of the World Economic Forum, the yearly global elite jamboree in the Swiss Alps, meant when he told his clientele in Davos earlier this year: “We have to pay for the sins of the past.”

Was this a case of Wall Street outsmarting itself?

Definitely. Financial speculators outsmarted themselves by creating more and more complex financial contracts like derivatives that would securitize and make money from all forms of risk — including exotic futures instruments as “credit default swaps” that enable investors to bet on the odds that the banks’ own corporate borrowers would not be able to pay their debts! This is the unregulated multi-trillion-dollar trade that brought down AIG.

On Dec. 17, 2005, when International Financing Review (IFR) announced its 2005 Annual Awards — one of the securities industry's most prestigious awards programs — it had this to say: "[Lehman Brothers] not only maintained its overall market presence, but also led the charge into the preferred space by ... developing new products and tailoring transactions to fit borrowers' needs…. Lehman Brothers is the most innovative in the preferred space, just doing things you won't see elsewhere."

No comment.

Was it lack of regulation?

Yes — everyone acknowledges by now that Wall Street’s capacity to innovate and turn out more and more sophisticated financial instruments had run far ahead of government’s regulatory capability, not because government was not capable of regulating but because the dominant neoliberal, laissez-faire attitude prevented government from devising effective mechanisms with which to regulate. The massive trading in derivatives helped precipitate this crisis, and the US Congress paved the way when it passed a law excluding derivatives from being regulated by the Securities Exchange Commission in 2000.

But isn’t there something more that is happening? Something systemic?

Well, George Soros, who saw this coming, says what we are going through is the crisis of the “gigantic circulatory system” of a “global capitalist system that is…coming apart at the seams.”

To elaborate on the arch-speculator’s insight, what we are seeing is the intensification of one of the central crises or contradictions of global capitalism which is the crisis of overproduction, also known as over-accumulation or overcapacity.

This is the tendency for capitalism to build up tremendous productive capacity that outruns the population’s capacity to consume owing to social inequalities that limit popular purchasing power, thus eroding profitability.

But what does the crisis of overproduction have to do with recent events?

Plenty. But to understand the connections, we must go back in time to the so-called Golden Age of Contemporary Capitalism, the period from 1945 to 1975.

This was a period of rapid growth both in the center economies and in the underdeveloped economies — one that was partly triggered by the massive reconstruction of Europe and East Asia after the devastation of the Second World War, and partly by the new socioeconomic arrangements that were institutionalized under the new Keynesian state. Among the latter, key were strong state controls over market activity, aggressive use of fiscal and monetary policy to minimize inflation and recession, and a regime of relatively high wages to stimulate and maintain demand.

So what went wrong?

Well, this period of high growth came to an end in the mid-seventies, when the center economies were seized by stagflation, meaning the coexistence of low growth with high inflation, which was not supposed to happen under neoclassical economics.

Stagflation, however, was but a symptom of a deeper cause: the reconstruction of Germany and Japan and the rapid growth of industrializing economies like Brazil, Taiwan, and South Korea added tremendous new productive capacity and increased global competition, while social inequalities within countries and between countries globally limited the growth of purchasing power and demand, thus eroding profitability. This was aggravated by the massive oil price rises of the seventies.

How did capitalism try to solve the crisis of overproduction?

Capital tried three escape routes from the conundrum of overproduction: neoliberal restructuring, globalization, and financialization.

What was neoliberal restructuring all about?

Neoliberal restructuring took the form of Reaganism and Thatcherism in the North and Structural Adjustment in the South. The aim was to invigorate capital accumulation, and this was to be done by (1) removing state constraints on the growth, use and flow of capital and wealth; and (2) redistribute income from the poor and middle classes to the rich on the theory that the rich would then be motivated to invest and reignite economic growth.

The problem with this formula was that in redistributing income to the rich, you were gutting the incomes of the poor and middle classes, thus restricting demand, while not necessarily inducing the rich to invest more in production. In fact, what they did was to channel a large part of their redistributed wealth to speculation.

The truth is neoliberal restructuring, which was generalized in the North and south during the eighties and nineties, had a poor record in terms of growth: global growth averaged 1.1 per cent in the nineties and 1.4 in the eighties, whereas it averaged 3.5 per cent in the 1960’s and 2.4 per cent in the seventies, when state interventionist policies were dominant. Neoliberal restructuring could not shake off stagnation.

How was globalization a response to the crisis?

The second escape route global capital took to counter stagnation was “extensive accumulation” or globalization, or the rapid integration of semi-capitalist, non-capitalist, or pre-capitalist areas into the global market economy. Rosa Luxemburg, the famous German revolutionary economist, saw this long ago as necessary to shore up the rate of profit in the metropolitan economies. How? By gaining access to cheap labor, by gaining new, albeit limited, markets, by gaining new sources of cheap agricultural and raw material products, and by bringing into being new areas for investment in infrastructure. Integration is accomplished via trade liberalization, removing barriers to the mobility of global capital, and abolishing barriers to foreign investment.

China is, of course, the most prominent case of a non-capitalist area to be integrated into the global capitalist economy over the last 25 years.

To counter their declining profits, a sizable number of the Fortune 500 corporations have moved a significant part of their operations to China to take advantage of the so-called “China Price” — the cost advantage deriving from China’s seemingly inexhaustible cheap labor. By the middle of the first decade of the 21st century, roughly 40 t0 50 per cent of the profits of US corporations were derived from their operations and sales abroad, especially China.

Why didn’t globalization surmount the crisis?

The problem with this escape route from stagnation is that it exacerbates the problem of overproduction because it adds to productive capacity. A tremendous amount of manufacturing capacity has been added in China over the last 25 years, and this has had a depressing effect on prices and profits. Not surprisingly, by around 1997, the profits of US corporations stopped growing. According to another index devised by economist Philip O’Hara, the profit rate of the Fortune 500 went from 7.15 in 1960-69 to 5.30 in 1980-90 to 2.29 in 1990-99 to 1.32 in 2000-2002.

What about financialization?

Given the limited gains in countering the depressive impact of overproduction via neoliberal restructuring and globalization, the third escape route became very critical for maintaining and raising profitability: financialization.

In the ideal world of neoclassical economics, the financial system is the mechanism by which the savers or those with surplus funds are joined with the entrepreneurs who have need of their funds to invest in production. In the real world of late capitalism, with investment in industry and agriculture yielding low profits owing to overcapacity, large amounts of surplus funds are circulating and being invested and reinvested in the financial sector — that is, the financial sector is turning in on itself.

The result is an increased bifurcation between a hyperactive financial economy and a stagnant real economy. As one financial executive notes, “there has been an increasing disconnect between the real and financial economies in the last few years. The real economy has grown … but nothing like that of the financial economy — until it imploded.”

What this observer does not tell us is that the disconnect between the real and the financial economy is not accidental — that the financial economy exploded precisely to make up for the stagnation owing to overproduction of the real economy.

What were the problems with financialization as an escape route?

The problem with investing in financial sector operations is that it is tantamount to squeezing value out of already created value. It may create profit, yes, but it does not create new value — only industry, agriculture, trade and services create new value. Because profit is not based on value that is created, investment operations become very volatile and prices of stocks, bonds, and other forms of investment can depart very radically from their real value — for instance, the stock of Internet startups that keep on rising, driven mainly by upwardly spiraling financial valuations, that then crash. Profits then depend on taking advantage of upward price departures from the value of commodities, then selling before reality enforces a “correction,” that is a crash back to real values. The radical rise of prices of an asset far beyond real values is what is called the formation of a bubble.

Why is financialization so volatile?

Profitability being dependent on speculative coups, it is not surprising that the finance sector lurches from one bubble to another, or from one speculative mania to another.

Because it is driven by speculative mania, finance driven capitalism has experienced about 100 financial crises since capital markets were deregulated and liberalized in the 1980s.

Prior to the current Wall Street meltdown, the most explosive of these were the Mexican Financial Crisis of 1994-95, the Asian Financial Crisis of 1997-98, the Russian Financial Crisis of 1996, the Wall Street Stock Market Collapse of 2001, and the Argentine Financial Collapse of 2002.

Bill Clinton’s treasury secretary, Wall Streeter Robert Rubin, predicted five years ago that “future financial crises are almost surely inevitable and could be even more severe.”

How do bubbles form, grow, and burst?

Let’s first use the Asian Financial Crisis of 1997-98 as an example.

• First, capital account and financial liberalization at the urging of the IMF and the US Department of Treasury; • Then, entry of foreign funds seeking quick and high returns, meaning they went to real estate and the stock market;

• Overinvestment, leading to fall in stock and real estate prices, leading to panicky withdrawal of funds — in 1997, $100 billion left the East Asian economies in a few weeks;

• Bailout of foreign speculators by the IMF; • Collapse of the real economy — recession throughout East Asia in 1998; • Despite massive destabilization, efforts to impose both national and global regulation of financial system were opposed on ideological grounds.

Let’s go to the current bubble. How did it form?

The current Wall Street collapse has its roots in the Technology Bubble of the late 1990s, when the price of the stocks of Internet startups skyrocketed, then collapsed, resulting in the loss of $7 trillion worth of assets and the recession of 2001-02.

The loose money policies of the Fed under Alan Greenspan had encouraged the Technology Bubble, and when it collapsed into a recession, Greenspan, to try to counter a long recession, cut the prime rate to a 45-year low of 1.0 per cent in June 2003 and kept it there for over a year. This had the effect of encouraging another bubble — the real estate bubble.

As early as 2002, progressive economists such as Dean Baker of the Center for Economic Policy Research were warning about the real estate bubble. However, as late as 2005, then Council of Economic Adviser Chairman and now Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke attributed the rise in US housing prices to “strong economic fundamentals” instead of speculative activity. Is it any wonder that he was caught completely off guard when the subprime crisis broke in the summer of 2007?

And how did it grow?

Let’s hear it from one key market player himself, George Soros: “Mortgage institutions encouraged mortgage holders to refinance their mortgages and withdraw their excess equity. They lowered their lending standards and introduced new products, such as adjustable mortgages (ARMs), “interest only” mortgages, and promotional teaser rates.” All this encouraged speculation in residential housing units. House prices started to rise in double digit rates. This served to reinforce speculation, and the rise in house prices made the owners feel rich; the result was a consumption boom that has sustained the economy in recent years.”

Looking at the process more closely, the subprime mortgage crisis was not a case of supply outrunning real demand. The “demand” was largely fabricated by speculative mania on the part of developers and financiers that wanted to make great profits from their access to foreign money — lots of it from Asia — that flooded the US in the last decade. Big ticket mortgages or loans were aggressively made to millions who could not normally afford them by offering low “teaser” interest rates that would later be readjusted to jack up payments from the new homeowners.

But how could subprime mortgages going sour turn into such a big problem?

Because these assets were then “securitized” with other assets into complex derivative products called “collateralized debt obligations” (CDOs) by the mortgage originators working with different layers of middlemen who understated risk so as to offload them as quickly as possible to other banks and institutional investors. These institutions in turn offloaded these securities onto other banks and foreign financial institutions. The idea was to make a sale quickly, make a tidy profit, while foisting the risk on the suckers down the line.

When the interest rates were raised on the subprime loans, adjustable mortgages and other housing loans, the game was up. There are about six million subprime mortgages outstanding, 40 percent of which will likely go into default in the next two years, Soros estimates.

And five million more defaults from adjustable rate mortgages and other “flexible loans” will occur over the next several years. But securities whose values run into trillions of dollars have already been injected, like virus, into the global financial system. Global capitalism’s gigantic circulatory system was fatally infected.

But how could Wall Street titans collapse like a house of cards?

For Lehman Brothers, Merrill Lynch, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and Bear Stearns, the losses represented by these toxic securities simply overwhelmed their reserves and brought them down. And more are likely to fall once their books — since lots of these holdings are recorded “off the balance sheet” — are corrected to reflect their actual holdings of these assets.

And many others will join them as other speculative operations such as credit cards and different varieties of risk insurance seize up. American International Group (AIG) was felled by its massive exposure in the unregulated area of credit default swaps, derivatives that make it possible for investors to bet on the possibility that companies will default on repaying loans. Such bets on credit defaults now make up a $45 trillion market that is entirely unregulated. It amounts to more than five times the total of the US government bond market. The mega-size of the assets that could go bad should AIG collapse was what made Washington change its mind and salvage it after it let Lehman Brothers collapse.

What’s going to happen now?

We can safely say then that there will be more bankruptcies and government takeovers, with foreign banks and institutions joining their US counterparts; that Wall Street’s collapse will deepen and prolong the US recession; and that in Asia and elsewhere, a US recession will translate into a recession, if not worse. The reason for the last point is that China’s main foreign market is the US and China in turn imports raw materials and intermediate goods that it uses for its exports to the US from Japan, Korea, and Southeast Asia. Globalization has made “decoupling” impossible. The US, China, and East Asia are like three prisoners bound together in a chain-gang.

In a nutshell…?

The Wall Street meltdown is not only due to greed and to the lack of government regulation of a hyperactive sector. The Wall Street collapse stems ultimately from the crisis of overproduction that has plagued global capitalism since the mid-1970s.

Financialization of investment activity has been one of the escape routes from stagnation, the other two being neoliberal restructuring and globalization. With neoliberal restructuring and globalization providing limited relief, financialization became attractive as a mechanism to shore up profitability. But financialization has proven to be a dangerous road, leading to speculative bubbles that lead to the temporary prosperity of a few but which ultimately end up in corporate collapse and in recession in the real economy.

The key questions now are: How deep and long will this recession be? Does the US economy need another speculative bubble to drag itself out of this recession? And if it does, where will the next bubble form? Some people say the military-industrial complex or the “disaster capitalism complex” that Naomi Klein writes about is the next one, but that’s another story?

Walden Bello is president of Freedom from Debt Coalition, senior analyst at Focus on the Global South, and professor of Sociology at the University of the Philippines.

Demeter Farm has a Biodynamic Field Day 12 Oct 2008 2pm-5pm Tasmania

2008-10-01T11:56:00.002+10:00

http://www.organicweek.net.au/events_detail_public.php?ID=163

Len Aldi's open Letter to the Monsanto CEO Hugh Grant

2008-10-01T11:36:00.005+10:00

Mr Len Aldis, Britain-Vietnam Friendship Society Secretary, recently sent an open letter to Monsanto's president and Chief Excutive Officer,asking him to accept his responsibility for the manufacture of Agent Orangeand its use on Vietnam, and make financial compensation to the victims, and their families. OPEN LETTER TO MONSANTO Mr Hugh Grant. President and Chief Executive Officer Monsanto. 800 North Lindbergh Boulevard St Louis. USA Dear Mr Grant, In 1961, three years after you were born, U.S. forces began their ten-year use of Agent Orange in South Vietnam. Over those years Eighty Million litres of the chemical was sprayed destroying forests, poisoning the rivers, lakes and the land. An even greater crime was the many thousands of Vietnamese people that died from the chemical and the hundreds of thousands that were crippled. 1981, six years after the American War on Vietnam ended; you joined the company that, along with others, was responsible for the manufacture of Agent Orange. Today in Vietnam there are 3.5 million people from new born babies to veterans suffering from the effects of the chemical your company made. Not to forget the many U.S. veterans also affected, like the Vietnamese many have died and are dying. You were Mr Grant, at the time you joined Monsanto, fully aware of the effects that Agent Orange had had, you certainly knew when you became the company’s president and its chief executive. Yet Mr Grant you failed to take any steps to alleviate the consequences of Monsanto’s manufacture of Agent Orange. Indeed, not one word of regret to the Vietnamese victims has come from your lips despite facing lawsuit after lawsuit by victims from Vietnam, U.S. and South Korea. Monsanto is, as you well know, the leading company involved with Genetic Modified (GM) crops. Your company has gone from creating one poison to another, both have and are still killing many thousands of people. Where does it end Mr Grant? How can you live with the knowledge that you, and Monsanto through the use of Agent Orange and GM seeds etc are responsible for the deaths and physically crippling millions of people in the countries that your products were used and are sold? I regret that here in my country Monsanto has also left a legacy, by its disposal of tonnes of chemical waste in a number of municipal sites. A particular site, Brofiscin Quarry in Wales, is causing acute concern by your chemical waste leaking into the water supply and into the atmosphere. Farmers nearby have reported abnormal births among their animals. Despite questions to government ministers it would appear that they, like Monsanto, are not concerned. In August a junior minister Phil Woolas, MP from the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA), on the instructions of the Prime Minister, met with a group of companies that included Monsanto, Dow Chemical (one of your partners in the Agent Orange crime) to discuss introducing GM crops in the UK. This meeting and proposed policy has met with great hostility from people and organisations anxious about our food being poisoned by genetic engineering. Thankfully, people here and in other countries are becoming more aware of the products of Monsanto and the danger they hold for the people. They are also becoming aware of the lawsuit brought by the Vietnamese people against your company and others in the U.S. Courts, and know that documents are being prepared to be placed before the U.S. Supreme Court seeking Justice for the crimes that Monsanto, Dow Chemical etc committed on the Vietnamese people. Mr Grant, there is still time for you and your company to make amends for these crimes. Accept your responsibility for the manufacture of Agent Orange and its use on Vietnam. Make financial compensation to the victims, and their families. For many thousands of Vietnamese it is too late, they have died, their suffering is at an end, but for the present 3.5 million, their suffering continues. Yours sincerely Len Aldis Secretary: Britain-Vietnam Friendship Society

Seed for seed

2008-09-30T19:22:00.002+10:00

Tuesday » September 30 » 2008

Battling one seed at a time

From backyard gardens, seed savers quietly wage food campaign

Julie Beun-Chown

Canwest News Service

Tuesday, September 30, 2008

Dan Jason doesn't look like your textbook standard, fair trade-certified, dyed-in-the-organic-wool eco-warrior.

For one thing, he's never hung off the bow of the Rainbow Warrior and defied Japanese whalers. His voice is too soft for a megaphone and he's the last person you'd see throwing bricks at an anti-globalization rally.

But he is one of several Canadians leading a quiet revolution -- from the safety of his garden.

Armed with nothing more than a trowel, the Internet and a determination to ensure that all Canadians have access to food fundamentals, the owner of British Columbia's Salt Spring Seeds and author of Saving Seeds As If Our Lives Depended On It has been working behind the scenes in food politics to keep seeds in the hands of backyard producers.

From his home on B.C.'s Saltspring Island, the slight, 61-year-old Montreal native oversees not just his booming organic seed company, but the Seed and Plant Sanctuary for Canada, a charitable organization dedicated to preserving open-pollinated, non-genetically modified (GMO) organic seeds from all food and medicinal plants grown in Canada.

Canadians worried about escalating food costs and the long-term impact of GMO products apparently can't get enough of it.

"It's incredible what's been happening across the country this year," he says. "Communities are realizing that food security equates with seed security. People are realizing that their food source will come down to local production before too long, if it's to remain accessible and reasonably priced. In the past few months, I've had 5,000 e-mails from people who are digging up their lawns, buying seeds and taking down the garage to build greenhouses. People are worried. It's happening in an unbelievable way."

It's not just his crusade. The Toronto-based charity Seeds of Diversity is a living gene bank carrying 1,900 varieties of public domain, non-hybrid vegetable, fruit, grain, flowers and herb seeds.

In Kingston, at the award-winning Heirloom Seed Sanctuary owned by the Sisters of Providence of St. Vincent de Paul, curators Robert and Carole Mouck keep seeds from non-hybrid heirloom produce like the Monk pea, cultivated in the 1500s, and the Yellow Pear tomato from 1805.

Internationally, the Norwegian government is funding the Global Crop Diversity Trust, a sort of multi-million-dollar Domesday warehouse buried on an Arctic island that has every agricultural seed in the world.

It's a state of affairs that is increasingly necessary, observes Brewster Kneen, an Ottawa-based food policy critic and author of Farmageddon: Food and the Culture of Biotechnology.

Mr. Kneen says seed sharing is now critical, and not just because of escalating food costs and fears about GMO food. There is also the threat of Genetic Use Restriction Technology (GURT), or terminator seeds, which cause sterility in second generation plants or underproduction in first generation seeds untreated with specific biochemicals.

In addition, some critics believe that our reliance on the relatively few varieties sold commercially by seed production companies is actually causing the loss of thousands of open-pollinated plants that normally would exist through traditional seed-saving practices.

"With all the public concern about food, people need to think about where their seeds are coming from and who controls seed supplies," he says. "Three corporations control most of the seeds and that's a desperate situation."

How desperate? According to the American-born Mr. Kneen, who will launch a proposed national seed policy at the Food Secure Canada meeting in Ottawa in November, GMO and hybrid seeds adapted to a narrow set of conditions are extremely vulnerable to climate change unless they are widely shared and openly propagated. "And that's a very silly place to put ourselves."

But not everyone thinks so. Proponents of GMO technology believe that gene manipulation will enhance harvests and help overcome food shortages.

According to the Monsanto website, the next decade of biotechnology will address "land and resource limitations, such as improved drought tolerance, saline tolerance and increased yields" to feed a world population that grows by 70 million annually.

And after 12 years of GMO use and regulation, the corporation says "experts estimate more than one trillion meals containing ingredients from biotech crops have been consumed with no reliable documentation of any food safety issues for people or animals."

2008-09-30T11:57:00.003+10:00

Monsanto in the News

Show All

09/29/08 - Wales, Scotland & Ireland Reject UK Push to Plant Genetically Engineered Crops
09/27/08 - Week's Top New Stories on Genetically Engineered Food & Crops (Sept. 26, 2008)
09/26/08 - Monsanto Profiteering Condemned by President of the U.N. General Assembly
09/25/08 - Monsanto, Wall Street and the So-Called Regulators
09/24/08 - Natural Alternatives to GM Crops
09/23/08 - Alert: FDA to Release Guidelines on GM Animals
09/22/08 - GM Watch: Michael Pollan and Monsanto CEO at Google on YouTube
09/21/08 - Biotech Snake Oil: A Quack Cure for Hunger by Bill Freese
09/20/08 - FDA Will Not Require Labeling of Genetically Engineered Animals That are Sold as Food
09/20/08 - Transgenic Crops' Days May Be Numbered
09/18/08 - GM Watch: Former Monsanto Director Advising Obama
09/17/08 - Monsanto Expects Roundup to Generate $1.8 Billion in Profits in 2008
09/17/08 - Grist Magazine Interviews Deborah Coons Garcia, the Director of "The Future of Food"
09/08/08 - 'Battle In Seattle' Movie Opens Depicting 1999 Historic Shut Down of WTO Meetings--OCA & Other Green Groups Continue the Battle
09/07/08 - Top Stories of the Week on GMO Food & Crops
09/06/08 - Corporate Lobbyists, Posing as Poor Farmers, Attack Organics & Pimp the Benefits of Genetic Engineering
09/05/08 - Poison In Your Stomach: Genetically Modified Eggplants
09/05/08 - Monsanto Successfully Intimidates Missouri Farmers for 'Crime' of Seed Saving
09/04/08 - Comparing Obama & McCain on Ethanol, Corporate Globalization & GMOs
09/02/08 - California Legislature Passes Bill Protecting Farmers Against Monsanto Lawsuits
09/02/08 - Federal Court Upholds Ban on Monsanto's Genetically Engineered Alfafa
09/01/08 - Genetically Engineered Pig or Cow for Dinner?
09/01/08 - Survey of Top News Articles on Genetically Engineered Foods & Crops
08/29/08 - Lower Crop Insurance Rates for GMOs: USDA's Gift to Monsanto
08/28/08 - The World According to Monsanto - Film Review
08/27/08 - Lower Crop Insurance Rates for GMOs: USDA's Gift to Monsanto
08/27/08 - Monsanto's Roundup & GE Cotton Spawn Pigweed Epidemic in America's Cotton Fields
08/26/08 - Monsanto Sues Over Patented Seed
08/25/08 - Farmers Pleased Monsanto is Getting Out of Cow Hormone Business
08/24/08 - Scotland Government Backs Prince Charles in Rejecting GMOs
08/22/08 - Vandana Shiva: Prince Charles is Right--We Need Sustainable Farming Not GMOs
08/21/08 - Eli Lilly's Acquisition of rBGH: OCA Pledges to Pressure the Drug Giant & 'Tarnish Their Image'
08/21/08 - Don't Believe the Lying Promises of Monsanto & the Biotech Industry
08/21/08 - More on Elanco Buying Bovine Growth Hormone from Monsanto
08/20/08 - Corporados at Drug Giant Eli Lilly Will Now Push Monsanto's Controversial Bovine Growth Hormone
08/20/08 - Home Depot: Do the Right Thing, Dump Monsanto!
08/20/08 - Legislators: Say NO to Monsanto's Dirty Money
08/19/08 - An Ohio Nurse's Response to rBGH Spin
08/19/08 - Monsanto's rBGH to be Used in Farmed Fish?
08/18/08 - GE Sugar Leaves Sour Taste
08/18/08 - Top GMO Stories of the Week (Aug. 17, 2008)
08/18/08 - Volunteer Reapers Destroy More of Monsanto's GMO Crops in France
08/16/08 - Biotech Companies Denounce UK's Most Famous Organic Farmer, Prince Charles
08/16/08 - National Family Farm Coalition: Dairy Farmers Praise Monsanto Selling Off rBGH Division
08/13/08 - Prince Charles Slams Biotech Companies False Claim that GMOs Can Help Solve the Global Food Crisis
08/12/08 - Sowing Feudalism
08/12/08 - As GMO Sugar Beets Sneak Into the Food Supply, Citizens Fight Back
08/12/08 - Monsanto is Getting Out of the rBGH Business
08/11/08 - Got rBST? It May Sound Fishy But That's the New Use for Posilac
08/11/08 - Monsanto's Biotech Bullying & Seed Monopolization Continues
08/08/08 - A Decade of Consumer Pressure Is Driving Monsanto's Bovine Growth Hormone off the Market
08/07/08 - Consumer Victory: Monsanto Admits They Are Dumping Their Controversial Bovine Growth Hormone
08/05/08 - Summary of Week's GMO Stories: Battling the Biotech Bullies
08/04/08 - Author Claire Hope Cummings Dishes the Dirt on Genetically Modified Food
08/01/08 - Top Articles from July 2008 on Genetic Engineering, Monsanto, the Food Crisis, & Related Issues

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And all is not well in Monsanto-land

2008-09-29T22:05:00.002+10:00

Everything You Never Wanted to Know About Monsanto's Modus Operandi (M.O.)

Monsanto Roundup (Glyphosate)

Homepage

If You Think Monsanto's Roundup is a Safer Pesticide, Please read the articles and papers on this page ! Because all herbicides are pesticides, Roundup is a pesticide as defined by the EPA.

If you're still not convinced that Roundup is a highly toxic and persistent pesticide, read on, while at the same time remembering the other contributions that Monsanto has made to society such as:

Saccharin, Astroturf, agent orange, dioxin, sulphuric acid, polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), plastics and synthetic fabrics, research on uranium for the Manhattan Project that led to the construction of nuclear bombs, styrene monomer, an endless line of pesticides and herbicides (Roundup), rBGH (recombinant bovine growth hormone that makes cows ill), genetically engineered crops (corn, potatoes, tomatoes, soy beans, cotton), and it's most significant product to date; Lies, Factual Distortions and Omissions. Here's one of the distortions that Monsanto had on its website a while back. "Sustainability - the idea that the resources and people of this world are finite. That for any business decision we make, we must consider the effect it will have on us and our children. That the products we make must not use up all of a natural resource, or even worse, contaminate what is left behind."
Take a look at what Monsanto is doing to Canadian canola farmer Percy Schmeiser. And he's far from being the sole recipient of Monsanto's vengeful wrath. Hundreds, perhaps thousands of farmers around the world are being sued after Monsanto's police "find" their patented crops on the farmers' lands without paying for use of the technology. Also see the Monsanto Technology Agreement, in which farmers must sign away all rights in order to sow Monsanto seed

Iraq: Plowing for Profits U.S.: Agribusiness Eyes Iraq’s Fledgling Markets - In These Times 15mar2005
Seeds of Destruction: The Geopolitics of GM Food - Current Concerns (Zurich) 6mar2005
Tillamook Bans Monsanto Growth Hormone - AP 19feb2005
Roundup Ready Alfalfa On The Way - Capital Press Agriculture Weekly 11feb2005
Canada: Ban Endures on Terminator Seeds - Inter Press Service (IPS) 11feb2005
Canada Backs Terminator Seeds - The Guardian (UK) 9feb2005

Monsanto Loses Appeal of French Ban on Modified Corn - St. Louis Post-Dispatch 20mar2008
Kroger to Complete Transition to Certified rBST-Free Milk by Early 2008 - Press Release / Kroger's 1aug2007
Biotech GM Seeds Buccaneers Destroy India's Rice Economy - Global Research 21dec2006
Unidentified Inert Ingredients in Pesticides: Implications for Human and Environmental Health Cox & Surgan / EHP - 18aug2006
Biopharming Rules Broken - ScienceNOW Daily News 15aug2006
Unborn Babies Could be Harmed by GMOs: Mortality Rate for New-Born Rats Six Times Higher When Mother Was Fed on a Diet of Genetically Modified Soya - The Independent (UK) 8jan2006
- GM Soy Affects Offspring: Results of Russian Scientists’ Studies - Regnum News Agency (Russia) 11jan2006
CSIRO: Australia Research Group Halts Work On Gene-Modified Peas - Dow Jones Newswires 18nov2005
Monsanto Sets Aggressive Target: 20 percent, year over year - over year - St Louis Post-Dispatch 10nov2005
France: Ballarin's Tainted Corn: Biotech-Crop Battle Heats Up as Strains Mix With Others: Fears Hurt U.S. Farmers - Wall Street Journal 8nov2005
Monsanto To Buy Back Up To $800M Of Stock Over 4 Years - Dow Jones Newswires 26oct2005
Genetic Engineering in Agriculture and Corporate Engineering in Public Debate: Risk, Public Relations, and Public Debate - Int. J. Occ. and Env. Health 1oct2005
Global Seed Industry Concentration – 2005 - ETC Group Communiqué 6sep2005
Monsanto Fined For Bribing Indonesian Officials to Avoid Environmental Studies for Bt Cotton - ifrik 1sep2005
Monsanto in Snit Over Use of Roundup, Ready - The Agribusiness Examiner 30aug2005
Monsanto Finally Admits to Creating 181 Roundup Resistant Superweeds - From Monsanto Website 27aug2005
"America's Heartland" Television Show Criticized Over Its Sponsors - Sacramento Bee 26jul2005
EU Ministers Uphold Sovereign Right to Ban GMOs - Reuters 24jun2005
Amphibian Roundup Herbicide Kills More Than Weeds: Frog Species are Rapidly Dying Off - San Francisco Chronicle 23jul2005
- Roundup: Pesticides and Amphibians: The Importance of Community Context - Relyea et al / Ecological Applications 1jul2005
Monsanto Raises Concerns About Corn - Canadian Press (CP) 22jun2005
Monsanto's $2 Billion Senior Unsecured Shelf 'A-' - Press Release / Standard & Poor's 26may2005
Deceit: Health Fears Over Secret Study into GM Food Rats Fed GM Developed Abnormalities in Blood and Kidneys - The Independent (UK) 22may2005
Argentina: Farmers Don't Have To Pay Some Seed Royalties - Dow Jones Newswires 20may2005
Arrogance: Directors' Fees Soar: Monsanto Boosts Pay $20,000; Centene, MEMC jump 140% - St. Louis Business Journal 6may2005
India: GEAC Rejects 3 Varieties of Monsanto Bt Cotton in Andhra Pradesh - Financial Express (India) 4may2005
India Bans 3 Monsanto Genetically Modified Cotton Types - AP 3may2005
Monsanto To Confirm Earnings, Cash Flow Guidance - Dow Jones Newswires 26apr2005
Murder: The Lethal Impacts of Roundup and Predatory Stress on Six Species of North American Tadpoles - Archives of Environmental Contamination and Toxicology 1apr2005
Murder: Roundup Highly Lethal to Amphibians - Press Release / University of Pittsburgh 1apr2005
Dr. Relyea Responds to Monsanto's Concerns Regarding Recent Published Study - Dr. Relyea 1apr2005
- The Impact of Insecticides and Herbicides on the Biodiversity and Productivity of Aquatic Communities - Ecological Applications 1apr2005
Greed: Monsanto Inks Soybean Royalty Deal with Brazil - St. Louis Business Journal 29mar2005
Argentine Farmers Head to Europe in Monsanto Fight - St. Louis Business Journal 28mar2005
Poland to Ban Monsanto GMO Maize Seed - Reuters 22mar2005
Poland to Ban Monsanto's Genetically Modified Corn - St. Louis Business Journal 22mar2005
Monsanto Chalks Up Crop of Global Biotech Victories - AP 19mar2005
Roundup Doesn't Poison Only Weeds - Le Monde (France) 12mar2005
Roundup and placental cells: Differential effects of glyphosate and Roundup on human placental cells and aromatase - Environmental Health Perspectives 24feb2005
Tillamook Bans Monsanto Growth Hormone - AP 19feb2005
Tillamook, Milk and GMO Hormones - KGW (Portland, OR) 18feb2005
Emergent Genetics Purchase: Emergent 'Raises The Bar,' Aids Growth - Dow Jones Newswires 17feb2005
Biotech Shareholders Call for Reporting Impacts of Biotech Products - Organic Food Quality and Health Research Newsletter Feb/Mar 1feb2005
GM Grass Genes Travel Much Further Than Expected - Gene Watch 1feb2005
Celebrex: Pfizer Says 1999 Trials Revealed Risks With Celebrex - NY Times 1feb2005
Iraq: Order 81 - The Ecologist 1feb2005
Monsanto Sues Farmer Customers Over Piracy Issues: It's efforts to protect its technology often turn farmer against farmer - Des Moines Register 30jan2005
World Social Forum Protests Transgenic Foods - Agence France Presse 28jan2005
The Laws of Nature - Ignacio Chapela and John F Garcia 27jan2005
Bribery: Monsanto Bribery Charges in Indonesia by DoJ and USSEC - Third World Network Malaysia 27jan2005
Monsanto Co. to Pay $1 Billion For Produce-Seed Firm Seminis - Wall Street Journal 25jan2005
Monsanto in $1.4bn Deal with Seminis - Financial Times (UK) 24jan2005
Hungary Bans Monsanto MON 810 GMO Maize Seeds - Reuters 19jan2005
Monsanto $1.5 Million Fines for Genetic Engineering Bribe Illustrates Risks of GE Strategy - Social Funds 19jan2005
Monsanto Charged With Using US Patent Laws to Control Staple Crop Seeds - Agribusiness Examiner 19jan05
Brazilian Court Suspends Royalty Payments to Monsanto - St. Louis Business Journal 13jan2005
Monsanto: Prosecuting American Farmers: Monsanto's Investigations, Coerced Settlements & Lawsuits - Center for Food Safety 12jan05
Bribery: Monsanto Company Charged with Bribing Indonesian Government Official: Pays $1 Million Penalty - US Department of Justice 6jan2005
Genetically Engineered Crops and Pesticide Use in the United States: The First Nine Years - (Executive Summary) Charles Benbrook / BioTech InfoNet 25oct04
Louise Schmeiser Sues: Monsanto Facing Another Schmeiser Suit - Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) 19oct04
Roundup Ready Sugar Beet: Monsanto Co. and KWS SAAT AG Petition . . . for Sugar Beet . . . Tolerance to the Herbicide Glyphosate - APHIS USDA 19oct04
Monsanto's Gift to Iraq
- World Food Day in Iraq: Iraqi Farmers Aren't Celebrating - Press Release / GRAIN 15oct04
- Iraq's New Patent Law: A Declaration of War Against Farmers - Press Release / Focus on the Global South and GRAIN 15oct04
  - Iraq: Coalition Provisional Authority Order Number 81: Patent, Industrial Design, Undisclosed Information, Integrated Circuits and Plant Variety Law - CPA (Iraq) 26apr04
Monsanto's Royalty Grab in Argentina. . . Or: How corporations get their way with a little help from their friends in government - GRAIN 8oct04
Monsanto Reports Fourth-Quarter Loss - AP 6oct04
Cargill To Process Monsanto's Vistive Low Linolenic Soybeans - Dow Jones Newswires 4oct04
VISTIVE: New Soybean Variety Will Provide A Trans Fat Solution to the Food Industry - Monsanto Press Release / PRNewswire 4oct04
North American Commission for Environmental Cooperation Report Could Put a Crimp in Corn Exports - Chicago Tribune 29sep04
Monsanto Chief Technology Officer Previews Advancing Pipeline of Next-Generation Biotech Traits - Monsanto Press Release / PRNewswire-FirstCall 29sep04
EIS; Petition for Deregulation of Genetically Engineered Glyphosate-Tolerant Creeping Bentgrass -APHIS [Docket No. 03–101–2] Federal Register Notices 24sep04
Genes From Engineered Grass Spread for Miles: 13 miles! - NY Times 21sep04
Argentina Rejects Monsanto Plan To Collect GMO Royalties - Dow Jones Newswires 21sep04
Mexico: Update #2: Maize and Biodiversity Report - Press Release / North America Commission for Environmental Cooperation (CEC) 17sep04
Roundup Resistance: Morning Glories Creeping Around Popular Herbicide - Press Release / Univ. of Georgia 24aug2004
Roundup-Resistant Tropical Spiderwort: Little-Known Weed Causing Big Trouble in Southeast - ARS / USDA 24aug2004
Mexico: The Day the Sun Dies: Contamination and Resistance in Mexico - Seedling (Spain) 16aug04
Super Coca? - Transnational Institute (TNI) 8sep04
India: Monsanto Boosts GM Cotton Seed Sales To India Five-Fold - Dow Jones Newswires 7sep04
New Super Strain of Coca Plant Stuns Anti-Drug Officials - The Scotsman (Scotland) 27aug04
Roundup Resistance: Glyphosate-Resistant Mare's Tail Infests Southeast Missouri Fields - Delta Farm Press 5aug2004
Roundup-Resistant: Weed Control Could be Circle of Truths: A Dog Chasing Its Own Tail - Delta Farm Press 29jul2004
Percy Schmeiser (legal evaluation): Goliath v. Schmeiser - GeneWatch 1jul04
Percy Schmeiser: Independent farming hangs in balance as lone Canadian farmer battles biotech giant Monsanto - Common Ground 1jul04
Monsanto Gift to Benefit Agriculture in the Classroom - Monsanto Press Release 23jun04
So, Who Really Won the Schmeiser Decision? - E Ann Clark, Ph.D. / Crop Choice 13jun04
Monsanto: Agent Blue and the Business of Killing Rice - Focus on the Global South / ZNet 3jun04
Feeding Our Deepest Fears: How Big Agriculture and the US Government Bungled the Biotech Revolution and Made a Deal With The Devil - Playboy 1jun04
What Makes Percy Schmeiser So Persistent? - Interview by Paul Goettlich / Mindfully.org 27may04
Monsanto Canada Inc. v. Schmeiser - SUPREME COURT OF CANADA / Ruling on appeal from Federal Court of Appeal 21may04
- Monsanto Wins Landmark Case: Supreme Court Rules Against Farmer: He Infringed on Biotech Giant's Patent - Toronto Star (Canada) 22may04
- Monsanto Wins Patent Case on Plant Genes - NY Times 22may04
- What a Patent Means - Editorial / Globe and Mail (Toronto) 22may04
- Monsanto Wins Landmark Case - Toronto Star (Canada) 22may04
- Monsanto Wins Key Biotech Ruling - Globe and Mail (Toronto) 21may04
- Canada High Court Backs Monsanto In Seed Dispute - Dow Jones Newswires 21may04
- Schmeiser Decision Causes Uproar Around the World - CNW (Canada) English & French 21may04
- Monsanto Prevails in Patent Fight Against Percy Schmeiser - Wired News 21may04
- Supreme Court Case Decision Sets Dangerous Precedent - National Farmers Union 21may04
- Canadian Supreme Court Tramples Farmers' Rights—Affirms Corporate Monopoly On Higher Life Forms - ETC Group News Release 21may04
- Canadian Court Rules Against Farmers, For Monsanto: Fight to Protect Farmers' Rights in Biotech Seed Disputes Will Continue - IATP Press Release 21may04
- Also see OncoMouse Agreement: MOU between DuPont and Public Health Service U.S. Department of Health and Human Services - 1jul99
Sales Cutback: Monsanto: It's All Coming Home to Roost - The Business Times (Singapore) 13may04
Syngenta Refutes Monsanto Lawsuit As Without Merit - Dow Jones Newswires 13may04
Monsanto Sues Syngenta Over Corn Patent - AP 13may04
Monsanto Shelves Plan for Modified Wheat - NY Times 11may04
Carl Casale, Executive Vice President: Monsanto Drops Genetically Modified Wheat - Monsanto Press Release 10may04
India: Monsanto's Bt Cotton in India an Abysmal Failure - GM Watch 3may04
Monsanto v Homan McFarling: Appeals Court Sets Aside $780K Monsanto Award in Miss. Dispute - AP 28apr04
Monsanto v Homan McFarling: Mississippi Farmer Gets Big Break from Appeals Court in Monsanto Biotech Seed Case - CropChoice 27apr04
Mexico: JPAC Initial Recommendations To CEC Council / Maize and Biodiversity Symposium of the Commission for Environmental Cooperation 13apr04
Update on the Occurrence of Glyphosate-Resistant Marestail/Horseweed - Pest & Crop (Purdue) 9apr04
Brazil's Parana State Bans Monsanto, BASF Pesticides on Risks - Bloomberg 5apr04
Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI): Industry Lobbying for Genetic Engineered Crops in Australia - GM Watch daily 4mar04
Monsanto Faces Investigation Of Possible Bribe in Indonesia - Wall Street Journal 22mar04
GM Sweet Potato: Wambugu Wambuzling Again: Says GM Sweet Potato a Resounding Success? - GM Watch 17mar04
Seed Concerns Donate Data on Corn Gene - NY Times 17mar04
Monsanto Raises Idea of U.S.-only GMO Wheat Release: But US Farmers Don't Want It - Reuters 16mar04
GM Proof? - Daily Mail (UK) 6mar04
Filipino Islanders Blame GM Crop for Mystery Sickness: Monsanto denies scientist's claim that maize may have caused 100 villagers to fall ill - The Guardian 3mar04
Bt Corn Causes Fevers, Respiratory Illnesses and Skin Reactions: Scientists Suspect Health Threat from GM Maize - The Guardian (UK) 27feb04
GM - The Great Betrayal - Daily Mail (UK) 20feb04
Biotech Giants Accused of using new EU member states as Trojan Horse - The Guardian (UK) 14feb04
Anniston: Cleanups Wait as Companies Debate Liability (Monsanto, Pharmacia, Pfizer, Solutia) St. Louis Post-Dispatch 7feb04
Retired farmer files class-action lawsuit against Monsanto - St. Louis Post-Dispatch 5feb04
Biotech Giant Pulls Out of Zimbabwe - The Daily News (Harare) 30jan04
Kerry and Monsanto: Sleeps With Wolves - Notmilk 2feb04
Monsanto: Ready to Blossom? - Business Week Online 3feb04
GM Foods Dangerous If Used As Main Meals - East African Standard (Nairobi) 2feb04
rBGH: FDA, Monsanto Need to Reveal Truth about Growth Hormone - The Capitol Times 2feb04
Observations on the Supreme Court hearing of Percy Schmeiser - E Ann Clark Ph.D. / Cropchoice 2feb04
Biotech Industry Gives Record $150,000 to Fight Proposed Altered-Crop Ban - The Press Democrat 31jan04
Monsanto's Chapati Patent Raises Indian Ire - The Guardian (UK) 31jan04
Monsanto May Drop GMO Wheat Without Grower Backing - Reuters 24jan04
rBGH, rBST: Monsanto Media Statement on the Pricing of Posilac aka: rBGH, rBST, Recombinant Bovine Growth Hormone, and so on. 22jan04
Monsanto plans to dump GM wheat in South Africa - Sunday Times (South Africa) 22jan04
Percy Schmeiser: Canada's Supreme Court Hears Monsanto's Seed Dispute Case - AP 21jan04
Piracy Impels Monsanto to Suspend Seed Sales to Argentina- AP 20jan04
Percy Schmeiser: Activists At Mumbai Meeting Back Canadian Farmer Vs Monsanto - Dow Jones Newswires 20jan04
Percy Schmeiser vs Monsanto: Supreme Court Grapples with Arguments on Patenting of Genes and Plants - Canadian Press 20jan04
Percy Schmeiser: Small Canadian Farmer Fights Monsanto - AP 20jan04
Percy Schmeiser's Battle Over GMOs Heads to Canada's High Court - Reuters 19jan04
Percy Schmeiser: Unlikely Hero: Canadian Farmer Stands Up Against Monsanto in Biotech Battle - Sacramento Bee 19jan04
Percy Schmeiser's Future is Our Future - Vandana Shiva / The Council of Canadians 19jan04
Judge Rodney Sippel Refuses to Step Down from Monsanto Price-Fixing Case - AP 16jan04
Schmeiser Case Heads for Top Court The Star Phoenix (Canada) 13jan04
Roundup Ready Wheat = More Pesticides: Genetically Engineered Wheat may lead to More Use of Chemicals - Canadian Press 12jan04
Saskatchewan Organic Farmers File Lawsuit Against Monsanto and Aventis - The Canadian Press 10jan04
AgCan Ends Testing of GE Wheat Developed with Monsanto - The Canadian Press 9jan04
Bias Issue Faces Judge in Monsanto Case - NY Times 9jan04
Monsanto Posts Loss of $97 Million - St Louis Post-Dispatch 8jan04
Monsanto Accused of Price-Fixing - The Guardian (UK) 7jan04
Monsanto Posts Loss of $97 Million - St Louis Post-Dispatch (plus Dow Jones Newswires and AP) 8jan04
'Confident' Business Practices 'Above Board' - Dow Jones Newswires 7jan04
Monsanto and Pioneer Hi-Bred: Questions Seen on Seed Prices Set in the 90's - NY Times 6jan04
Monsanto Co. and The Scotts Co. Availability of petition for determination of nonregulated status for genetically engineered glyphosate-tolerant creeping bentgrass; Request for information and comment - Federal Register 5jan03
Canada: Monsanto Delays Registry of Roundup Ready Wheat - National Post (Toronto) 3jan04
Got Hormones? Stanley Bennett says, "We're in the business of marketing milk, not Monsanto's drugs" - Time Magazine 22dec03
GM Crops Increase Pesticide Use - ISIS 11dec03
GM Seeds, Generic Glyphosate taking a bigger bite out of major crop protection chemical markets - PRNewswire 10dec03
Pioneer Offers 40 Corn Hybrids that Resist Popular Herbicide Roundup - Des Moines Register 19nov03
Percy Schmeiser vs. Monsanto Reaches Canada's Supreme Court Early Next Year - Toronto Star (Ontario, Canada) 12nov03
Homan McFarling: Saving Seeds Subjects Farmers to Suits Over Patent - NY Times 2nov03
Monsanto Fined for Crop Tests Modified Corn, Cotton Improperly Handled - Washington Post 18oct03
Monsanto Overhauling Businesses - NY Times 16oct03
Crops Giant Retreats From Europe Ahead of GM Report - The Independent (UK) 16oct03
Monsanto's Loss Widened in Period Amid Price War - Wall Street Journal 16oct03
Monsanto Cuts Jobs Because of . . . WHAT? - St Louis Post-Dispatch 15oct03
GM Crops Giant Monsanto Pulls Out of Europe - Daily Telegraph (UK) 15oct03
Monsanto Posts Loss, to Cut Jobs - Fox News 15oct03
Monsanto Pulling Out of Cambridge - BBC News 15oct03
Monsanto Retreating from European Wheat Business - Reuters 15oct03
Banning GM Crops Not Enough to Save Wildlife - New Scientist 15oct03
Judge Allows Antitrust Case Against Seed Producers - NY Times 24sep03
rBGH Labeling May Harm Dairy Industry - Badger Herald (Wisconsin) 22sep03
Monsanto Urges Brazil Soy Growers to Pay Royalties - Reuters 16sep03
Indian Farmers Wreck Monsanto Research Station in Bangalore - AP 12sep03
Indian Farmers Target Monsanto: Following the suicide of 70 farmers in last 3 months - BBC News 11sep03
Japan Wheat Buyers Warn Against Biotech Wheat in US - Reuters 10sep03
Brazil Court Overturns GM Soy Ruling - just-food.com 9sep03
Monsanto's French GM Maize Crop Attacked - Reuters 6sep03
Solutia, Monsanto Agree to Pay $600 Million to Settle PCB Claims - Wall Street Journal 21aug03
Deal Reached in PCB Trials - Anniston Star 21aug03
Brazil Soy Ruling Overmatched By Monsanto's Solutia Woes - Dow Jones News Wires 20aug03
Brazil Faces GM Soy Battle Despite Legal Progress - Reuters 13aug03
Monsanto Investors Warned of Solutia-related Threat: $2.3 Billion Hit Looming - Reuters 4aug03
Monsanto Sues Dairy in Maine Over Label's Remarks on Hormones - NY Times 12jul03
Got Posilac? - St. Louis Post-Dispatch 10aug03
rBGH: Monsanto Sues Oakhurst Dairy Over Advertising, Labeling Growth Hormone AP 8jul03
Agent Orange: High Court Deadlocks on Agent Orange Case - AP 9jun03
Brazil: Landless Rural Workers' Movement Invades Monsanto Farm - BBC 3jun03
Failure of the GMO's in India - Dr. Vandana Shiva & Afsar H Jafri 31may03
Monsanto Struggles Even as It Dominates - NY Times 31may03
RoundUp Herbicide-Resistant Weed May Invade Pennsylvania Crops - PennState News 30may03
Monsanto Large-Scale Child Labour in India's Cotton Seed Production - Indian Committee of the Netherlands (ICN) 17may03
U.S. Seeks Data From Monsanto In Probe of Herbicide Industry - Wall Street Journal 17mar03
Monsanto Reaps Some Anger with Hard Line on Reusing Seed - Post-Dispatch 12may03
Danish Drinking Water Contaminated by Monsanto's Roundup Herbicide - Politiken (Denmark) 10may03
Monsanto Taken to Supreme Court by Canadian Farmer Percy Schmeiser - Reuters 9may03
Monsanto & Kansas State U. Form Biotech Deal - St. Louis Business News 9may03
Monsanto vs Schmeiser: The Classic David vs Goliath Struggle..... - Press Release 8may03
Monsanto Brazil Seeks Royalties for Illegal RoundupReady Soy - Reuters 5may03
The teratogenic potential of the herbicide glyphosate-Roundup® in Wistar rats Toxicology Letters v.142, i.1-2, 30apr03
India Bars Monsanto Gene-Modified Cotton In North - AP 25apr03
India: Monsanto Tried to Disrupt Our Meeting - Gene Campaign (India) 17apr03
Monsanto's "Shock and Awe" - Devinder Sharma / AgBioIndia Bulletin 17apr03
Justice Department Opens Monsanto Antitrust Probe - Wall Street Journal 14mar03
The effects of acute pesticide exposure on neuroblastoma cells chronically exposed to diazinon - Toxicology v.185, i.1-2, 14mar03
Monsanto & Other Firms will Share Technology with Africa - Washington Post 11mar03
Monsanto Wants to Sow a Genetically Modified Future - St. Louis Post-Dispatch 22feb03
Roundup Unready - NY Times Editorial/Op-Ed 19feb03
Monsanto Sees Opportunity in Glyphosate Resistant Volunteers - CropChoice 15jan03
Roundup: Widely Used Crop Herbicide Is Losing Weed Resistance - Andrew Pollack/ NY Times 14jan03
Roundup-resistant weeds are cropping up The herbicide is so popular that it may not be as effective as it was initially - Des Moines Register 10jan03
Glyphosate Resistance Dominates Weed Science Meetings - Successful Farming 6dec02
- Glyphosate-Resistant Weeds: Will They Decrease Land Value? - Syngenta Dec02
Monsanto vs Homan McFarling: Judge Clevenger understands - CropChoice 5dec02
Report on Issues Related to the Aerial Eradication of Illicit Coca in Colombia BINLFA Sep02
Roundup Resistance NOT Wanted - Western Producer 29aug02
Roundup Ready Golf Course Grass Fight: Group wants to block sales of herbicide-resistant grass - SF Chronicle 2aug02
Roundup/Acrylamide: Acrylamide In Cooked Foods: The Glyphosate Connection - Monsanto's Residues Poisoning Consumers - ISIS Report 1aug02
- Acrylamide in Food: Uncharted Territory - Science v.297 5jul02
- Acrylonitrile: Reasonably Anticipated to be a Human Carcinogen 9th Report on Carcinogens
- Acrylamide in Food: Uncharted Territory - Science v.297 5jul02
- Environmental Degradation of Polyacrylamides - Ecotoxicology and Environmental Safety 1jun97
Roundup Provokes Cell Division Dysfunction at the Level of CDK1/Cyclin B Activation - Chem Res Toxicol 15(3):326-31 Mar02
Too Much Roundup: The Plan Colombia Vote - WINONA LADUKE / The Winona LaDuke Reader Mar02
Coca Eradication: Violation of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms in any Part of the World - Economic and Social Council / United Nations 24jan02
Spraying Of Roundup In Colombia: Practice A Health Hazard And Waste Of Tax-Payers’ Money - 60 Minutes: Herbicide Problems - CBS 14jan02
Glyphosate [Roundup] and plant growth regulators Chlormequat & Mepiquat in Cereals produced in Denmark - Food Additives and Contaminants Oct01
Colombian Court Immediately Suspends Aerial Spraying of Roundup on Drug Crops - Reuters 27jul01
Monsanto's Roundup Sales Rose 4 percent in the second quarter, led by gains in the United States and Argentina - Reuters 25jul01
Effects of Acute Exposure to a Commercial Formulation of Glyphosate on the Tadpoles of Two Species of Anurans - Bull. Environ. Contam. Toxicol. Jul/Aug01
Biotech Soybeans Plant Seed of Risky Revolution: Critics fear health dangers and an ecosystem changed forever - LA Times 1jul01
Horseweed Roundup Now Resistant: Find will affect Farmers' Strategies Nationwide - Indianapolis Star 20feb01
Bumper Crop Basics: Yellow Leaf Mystery Solved (Roundup Problem) - Farm Progress 5feb01
Fraudulent Conclusion Facts Found by Inspection of the Safety Assessment of GM Roundup Tolerant Soybean: Monsanto's Dangerous Logic as seen in the Application Documents submitted to Health Ministry of Japan - Technology and Man magazine1nov00
Glyphosate Fact sheet (in two parts) Caroline Cox / Journal of Pesticide Reform Fall98 rev.Oct00
Roundup Inhibits Steroidogenesis by Disrupting StAR Expression - Walsh, LP, McCormick, C, Martin, C., Stoccol, DM. / EHP Aug00
- Roundup Introduction - Caroline Cox Journal of Pesticide Reform Fall98 (an earlier version of the Oct00 edition above)
Monsanto's Toxic Bear: Roundup - HighGrader Magazine Sep/Oct99
Monsanto's Roundup Linked to Cancer - Press Release 22jun99
The Green Machine - Monsanto Co's Transgenic Products Tightens Their Control of Seed Market - Harper's Magazine 1apr99
A case-control study of non-Hodgkin lymphoma and exposure to pesticides - Lennart Hardell, and Mikael Eriksson. / Cancer 12mar99
Environmental Degradation of Polyacrylamides II. Effects of Environmental (Outdoor) Exposure - Ecotoxicology and Environmental Safety 1jun97
Monsanto v Attorney General of NY State: Attorney General of the State of New York. Consumer Frauds and Protection Bureau. Environmental Protection Bureau. 1996. In the matter of Monsanto Company, respondent. Assurance of discontinuance pursuant to executive law § 63(15). New York, NY, Nov. - Nov96
In vitro percutaneous absorption of model compounds glyphosate and malathion from cotton fabric into and through human skin - Food Chem Tox Aug96
Atrazine: Monsanto's Dirty Tricks from Toxic Deception - Dan Fagan, Marianne Lavelle, and the Center for Public Integrity 1996
Monsanto Corporation Criminal Investigation Cover-up of Dioxin Contamination in Products Falsification of Dioxin Health Studies - EPA 15nov90
Roundup - Glyphosate Abstracts
Glyphosate Properties - Center for the Evaluation of Risks to Human Reproduction (CERHR)

Monsanto Viciously Threatens, Bullies and Ruins Farmers

HEARTBREAK IN THE HEARTLAND: The true cost of genetically engineered crops Transcribed by mindfully.org 21jul02
Percy Schmeiser speaking on Biotech Bullies Threaten Farmer and Consumer Rights at the University of Texas at Austin 10oct01
Example of an actual extortion letter from Monsanto to a farmer `
Monsanto Technology Agreement - All farmers must sign away all rights in order to sow Monsanto seed

Genetic Engineering and Productivity

Do GM Crops Mean Less Pesticide Use? - Charles Benbrook / Pesticide Outlook Oct01
Monsanto Roundup-Ready Soybeans under fire - St. Louis Business Journal 17aug01
Roundup Ready Beans and Herbicide - Charles Benbrook 10dec00
Roundup 70% of Monsanto sales - Traditional Seeds & Tech Feeds for GMOs comprising the remainder - DJN 13oct00
Buried Data in Monsanto's Study on Roundup Ready Soybeans - Whole Life Times Aug00
Monsanto Discovers Wild Gene Fragments in Roundup Ready Soya - Agribusiness Examiner 6jun00
Research Shows Roundup Ready Soybeans Yield Less - IANR News Service, University of Nebraska 16may00
Roundup's Surprise Crop Puzzles Farmer Percy Schmeiser - Guardian 5feb00
Troubled Times Amid Commercial Success for Roundup Ready Soybeans: Glyphosate Efficacy is Slipping - Dr. Charles M. Benbrook 3may01
Monsanto's Roundup Victim of its Success: Widespread Herbicide Resistance, More Diseases - St. Louis Post-Dispatch 3may01
North Dakota, Montana Consider Moratoriums on Roundup Ready Wheat - Cropchoice News 9feb01
Farmers, Foreign Markets Send Negative Signals on Roundup Ready Wheat - Cropchoice 1feb01
Monsanto's Roundup-Ready Soy Beans Cracking in Heat - New Scientist 20nov99
Roundup Ready Soya and Yield-Drag (Benbrook) - Doug Powell 12nov99
Evidence of the Magnitude and Consequences of the Roundup Ready Soybean Yield Drag - C. Benbrook 13jul99
Are Roundup Ready weeds in your future? - Bob Hartzler Department of Agronomy, Iowa State University 3nov98
Monsanto Confirms Australian Rye Grass Resistant to Roundup - (Transcript) Australian Broadcasting Corp. 14sep97

More...

the metabolite of glyphosate is aminomethylphosphonic acid
Will GMOs Feed the World? - Paul Goettlich 4mar02
OncoMouse Agreement: Memorandum of Understanding between E.I. DuPont de Nemours and Company and Public Health Service U.S. Department of Health and Human Services - 1jul99
Monsanto: A Checkered History - Brian Tokar / The Ecologist Sep/Oct98
Monsanto's Dirty Tricks: Atrazine - from Fagan, D. and Lavelle, M. (1996) Toxic Deception
rBGH, Monsanto and Corporate Agriculture Information About Intellectual Property Rights - IATP Aug94
rBGH study by Monsanto scientist: Isolation of Escherichia coil synthesized recombinant eukaryotic proteins that contain ε-N-acetyllysine - Protein Science 1jul94
Monsanto + MIT + Plastic = Disneyland's Home of the Future 1957

Still More...

Neotame Artificial Sweetener Approved by FDA: But is is Safe? Mindfully.org 6jul02

To send us your comments, questions, and suggestions click here The home page of this website is www.mindfully.org Please see our Fair Use Notice

Nature law in music. Violinist comes to town

2008-09-26T13:10:00.002+10:00

Date: Sep 22,

Emmanuel Vukovich, an award-winning solo violinist, will be having a concert on Sunday, Sept. 28 at 3 p.m.

It will be held at Novalis Hall, located at 7841 4th Line, Angus. Listeners will enjoy Quebecois and Celtic traditional music as well as an original composition inspired by the legend of Parzifal and selections from Bach.

Vukovich, a Calgary native, studied music at the Julliard School in New York City where he discovered biodynamic agriculture and was instantly hooked. Essentially a method of organic farming, biodynamic agriculture emphasizes the use of manures and compost instead of artificial chemicals.

He currently lives on a biodynamic farm near Montreal.

Tickets will be $20 each and can be reserved by calling 722-5408, or by e-mail at rsvp@novalisproject.com

this is only a test

2008-09-26T12:19:00.002+10:00

     COMMONWEALTH OF AUSTRALIA CONSTITUTION ACT

An Act to constitute the Commonwealth of Australia             
[9th July 1900]

 Whereas the people of New South Wales, Victoria, South Australia,
Queensland, and Tasmania, humbly relying on the blessing of Almighty God,
have agreed to unite in one indissoluble Federal Commonwealth under the
Crown of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, and under the
Constitution hereby established:

 And whereas it is expedient to provide for the admission into the
Commonwealth of other Australasian Colonies and possessions of the
Queen:

 Be it therefore enacted by the Queen's most Excellent Majesty,
by and with the advice and consent of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal,
and Commons, in this present Parliament assembled, and by the
authority of the same, as follows:-

 1. This Act may be cited as the Commonwealth of Australia
Constitution Act.

 2. The provisions of this Act referring to the Queen shall extend
to Her Majesty's heirs and successors in the sovereignty of the
United Kingdom.

 3. It shall be lawful for the Queen, with the advice of the Privy
Council, to declare by proclamation that, on and after a day therein
appointed, not being later that one year after the passing of this Act,
the people of New South Wales, Victoria, South Australia, Queensland
and Tasmania, and also, if Her Majesty is satisfied that the people of
Western Australia have agreed thereto, of Western Australia, shall be
united in a Federal Commonwealth under the name of the Commonwealth of
Australia. But the Queen may, at any time after the proclamation,
appoint a Governor-General for the Commonwealth.

 4. The Commonwealth shall be established, and the Constitution of the
Commonwealth shall take effect, on and after the day so appointed. But
the Parliaments of the several colonies may at any time after the
passing of this Act make any such laws, to come into operation on the
day so appointed, as they might have made of the Constitution had taken
effect at the passing of this Act.

 5. This Act, and all laws made by the Parliament of the Commonwealth
under the Constitution, shall be binding on the courts, judges, and people
of every State and of every part of the Commonwealth, notwithstanding
anything in the laws of any State; and the laws of the Commonwealth
shall be in force on all British ships, the Queen's ships of war
excepted, whose first port of clearance and whose port of destination
are in the Commonwealth.

 6. "The Commonwealth" shall mean the Commonwealth of Australia as
established under this Act.
 "The States" shall mean such of the colonies of New South Wales, New
Zealand, Queensland, Tasmania, Victoria, Western Australia, and South
Australia, including the northern territory of South Australia, as for
the time being are parts of the Commonwealth, and such colonies or
territories as may be admitted into or established by the Commonwealth
as States; and each of such parts of the Commonwealth shall be called "a
State".
 "Original States" shall mean such States as are parts of the
Commonwealth at its establishment.

 7. The Federal Council of Australasia Act, 1885, is hereby repealed,
but so as not to affect any laws passed by the Federal Council of
Australasia and in force at the establishment of the Commonwealth.
 Any such law may be repealed as to any State by the Parliament of
the Commonwealth, or as to any  colony not being a State by the
Parliament  thereof.

 8. After the passing of this Act the Colonial Boundaries Act, 1895,
shall not apply to any colony which becomes a State of the Commonwealth;
but the Commonwealth shall be taken to be a self-governing colony for
the purposes of that Act.

 9. The Constitution of the Commonwealth shall be as follows:-

Chapter I  The Parliament                            Part I General

 1. The legislative power of the Commonwealth shall be vested in a
Federal Parliament, which shall consist of the Queen, a Senate, and
a House of Representatives, and which is herein-after called "The
Parliament," or "The Parliament of the Commonwealth."

2. A Governor-General appointed by the Queen shall be Her Majesty's
representative in the Commonwealth, and shall have and may exercise
in the Commonwealth during the Queen's pleasure, but subject to this
Constitution, such powers and functions of the Queen as Her Majesty
may be pleased to assign to him.

 3. There shall be payable to the Queen out of the Consolidated
Revenue fund of the Commonwealth, for the salary of the Governor-
General, an annual sum which, until the Parliament otherwise provides,
shall be ten thousand pounds.
 The salary of the Governor-General shall not be altered during his
continuance in office.

 4. The provisions of this Constitution relating to the Governor-
General extend and apply to the Governor-General for the time being, or
such person as the Queen may appoint to administer the Government of
the Commonwealth; but no such person shall be entitled to receive any
salary from the Commonwealth in respect of any other office during his
administration of the Government of the  Commonwealth.

 5. The Governor-General may appoint such times for holding the
sessions of the Parliament as he thinks fit, and may also from time to
time, by Proclamation or otherwise, prorogue the Parliament, and may in
like manner dissolve the House of Representatives.
 After any general election the Parliament shall be summoned to meet
not later than thirty days after the day appointed for the return of the
writs.
 The Parliament shall be summoned to meet not later than six months
after the establishment of the Commonwealth.

 6. There shall be a session of the Parliament once at least in every
year, so that twelve months shall not intervene between the last
sitting of the  Parliament in one session and its first sitting in the
nextsession.

                                         Part II The Senate

 7. The Senate shall be composed of senators for each State, directly
chosen by the people of the State, voting, until the Parliament otherwise
provides, as one electorate.

 But until the Parliament of the Commonwealth otherwise provides, the
Parliament of the State of Queensland, if that State be an Original
State, may make laws dividing the State into divisions and determining
the number of senators to be chosen for each division, and in the
absence of such provision the State shall be one electorate.

Until the Parliament otherwise provides there shall be six senators
for each Original State. The Parliament may make laws increasing or
diminishing the number of senators for each State, but so that equal
representation of the several Original States shall be maintained and
that no Original State shall have less than six senators. {** Note:
number of senators for each State increased to 10 by the Representation
Act 1948-49, S.4 **}

 The senators shall be chosen for a term of six years, and the names
of the senators chosen for each State shall be certified by the
Government to the Governor-General.

8. The qualification of electors of senators shall be in each State
that which is prescribed by this Constitution, or by the Parliament,
as the qualification for electors of members of the House of
Representatives; but in the choosing of senators each elector shall
vote only once.

 9. The Parliament of the Commonwealth may make laws prescribing the
method of choosing senators, but so that the method shall be uniform for
all the States. Subject to any such law, the Parliament of each State
may make laws prescribing the method of choosing the senators for
that State.
 The Parliament of a State may make laws for determining the times
and places of elections of senators for the State.

 10. Until the Parliament otherwise provides, but subject to this
constitution, the laws in force in each State, for the time being,
relating to elections for the more numerous House of the Parliament
of the State shall, as nearly as practicable, apply to elections of
senators for the State.

 11. The Senate may proceed to despatch of business, notwithstanding
the failure of any State to provide for its representation in the
Senate.

 12. The Governor of any State may cause writs to be issued for
elections of senators for the State. In case of the dissolution of
the Senate the writs shall be issued within ten days from the
proclamation of such dissolution.

 13. As soon as may be after the Senate first meets, and after each
first meeting of the Senate following a dissolution thereof, the
Senate shall divide the senators chosen for each State into two
classes, as nearly equal in number as practicable; and the places of
the senators of the first class shall become vacant at the expiration
of three years, and the places of those of the second class at the
expiration of six years, from the beginning of their term of service'
and afterwards the places of senators shall be vacant at the expiration
of six years from the beginning of their term of service.

 The election to fill vacant places shall be made within one year
before the places are to become vacant.

 For the purpose of this section the term of service of a senator
shall be taken to begin on the first day of July following the day of
his election, except in the cases of the first election and of the
election next after any dissolution of the Senate, when it shall be
taken to begin on the first day of July preceding the day of his
election.

 14. Whenever the number of senators for a State is increased or
diminished, the Parliament of the Commonwealth may make such provision
for the vacating of the places of senators for the State as it deems
necessary to maintain regularity in the rotation.

 15. If the place of a senator becomes vacant before the expiration
of his term of service, the Houses of Parliament of the State for
which he was chosen shall, sitting and voting together, choose a
person to hold the place until the expiration of the term, or until
the election of a successor as herein-after provided, whichever first
happens. But if the Houses of Parliament of the State are not in
session at the time when the vacancy is notified, the Governor of
the State, with the advice of the Executive Council thereof, may
appoint a person to hold the place until the expiration of fourteen
days after the beginning of the next session of the Parliament of the
State, or until the election of a  successor, whichever first happens.

 At the next general election of members of the House of
Representatives, or at the next election of senators for the State,
whichever first happens, a successor shall, if the term has not then
expired, be chosen to hold the place from the date of his election
until the expiration of the term.

 The name of any senator so chosen or appointed shall be certified
by the Governor of the State to the Governor-General.

 16. The qualification of a senator shall be the same as those of a
member of the House of Representatives.

 17. The Senate shall, before proceeding to the despatch of any other
business, choose a senator to be to President of the Senate; and as often
as the office of President becomes vacant the Senate shall again choose a
senator to be the President.
 The President shall cease to hold his office if he ceases to be a
senator. He may be removed from office by a vote of the Senate, or he may
resign his office or his seat by writing addressed to the Governor-General.

 18. Before or during any absence of the President, the Senate may choose
a senator to perform his duties in his absence.

 19. A senator may by writing addressed to the President, or to the
Governor-General if there is no President or if the President is absent
from the Commonwealth, resign his place, which thereupon shall become
vacant.

 20. The place of a senator shall become vacant if for two consecutive
months of any session of the Parliament he, without the permission of
the Senate, fails to attend the Senate.

 21. Whenever a vacancy happens in the Senate, the President, or if
there is no President or if the President is absent from the
Commonwealth the Governor-General, shall notify the same to the
Governor of the State in the representation of which the vacancy
has happened.

 22. Until the Parliament otherwise provides, the presence of at
least one-third of the whole number of the senators shall be necessary
to constitute a meeting of the Senate for the exercise of its powers.

 23. Questions arising in the Senate shall be determined by a majority
of votes, and each senator shall have one vote. The President shall in
all cases be entitled to a vote; and when the votes are equal the
question shall pass in the negative.

                            Part III The House of Representatives

 24. The House of Representatives shall be composed of members directly
chosen by the people of the Commonwealth, and the number of such members
shall be, as nearly as practicable, twice the number of senators.
 The number of members chosen in the several States shall be in
proportion to the respective members of their people, and shall, until
the Parliament otherwise provides, be determined, whenever necessary,
in the following manner:-
 (i.) A quota shall be ascertained by dividing the number of the people
of the Commonwealth, as shown by the latest statistics of the
Commonwealth, by twice the number of senators:
 (ii.) The number of members to be chosen in each State shall be
determined by dividing the number of people of the State, as shown by the
latest statistics of the Commonwealth, by the quota; and if on such
division there is a remainder greater than one-half of the quota, one
more member shall be chosen in the State.
 But notwithstanding anything in this section, five members at least
shall be chosen in each Original State.

 25. For the purposes of the last section, if by the law of any
State all persons of any race are disqualified from voting at elections
for the more numerous House of the Parliament of the State, then, in
reckoning the number of the people of the State or of the Commonwealth,
persons of the race resident in  that State shall not be counted.

 26. Notwithstanding anything in section twenty-four, the number of
members tobe chosen in each State at the first election shall be as
follows:-
       New South Wales         ..      ..      ..  twenty-three;
       Victoria        ..      ..      ..      ..  twenty;
       Queensland      ..      ..      ..      ..  eight;
       South Australia ..      ..      ..      ..  six;
       Tasmania        ..      ..      ..      ..  five;
Provided that if Western Australia is an Original State, the numbers
shall be as follows:-
       New South Wales         ..      ..      ..  twenty-six;
       Victoria        ..      ..      ..      ..  twenty-three;
       Queensland      ..      ..      ..      ..  nine;
       South Australia         ..      ..      ..  seven;
       Western Australia       ..      ..      ..  five;
       Tasmania        ..      ..      ..      ..  five.

 27. Subject to this Constitution, the Parliament may make laws for
increasing or diminishing the number of the members of the House of
Representatives.

 28. Every House of Representatives shall continue for three years
from the first meeting of the House, and no longer, but may be soon
dissolved by the Governor-General.

 29. Until the Parliament of the Commonwealth otherwise provides,
the Parliament of any State may make laws for determining the divisions
in each State for which members of the House of Representatives may be
chosen, and the number of members to be chosen for each division. A
division shall not be formed out of parts of different States.
 In the absence of other provision each State shall be one electorate.

 30.Until the Parliament otherwise provides, the qualification of
electors of members of the House of Representatives shall be in each
State that which is prescribed by the law of the State as the
qualification of electors of the more numerous House of Parliament of
the State; but in the choosing of members each elector shall vote
only once.

 31. Until the parliament otherwise provides, but subject to this
Constitution, the laws in force in each State for the time being relating
to elections for the more numerous House of the Parliament of the State
shall, as nearly as practicable, apply to elections in the State of
members of the House of Representatives.

 32. The Governer-General in Council may cause writs to be issued for
general elections of members of the House of Representatives.
 After the first general election, the writs shall be issued withing
ten days from the expiry of a House of Representatives or from the
proclamation of a dissolution thereof.

 33. Whenever a vacancy happens in the House of Representatives, the
Speaker shall issue his writ for the election of a new member, or if
there is no Speaker or if he is absent from the Commonwealth for
Governor-General in Council may  issue the writ.

 34. Until the Parliament otherwise provides, the qualifications of a
member of the House of Representatives shall be as follows:-
 (i.)  He must be of the full age of twenty-one years, and must be an
elector entitled to vote at the election of members of the House of
Representatives, or a person qualifies to become such elector, and must
have been for three years at the least a resident within the limits of
the Commonwealth as existing at the time when he was chosen:
 (ii.) He must be a subject of the Queen, either natural-born or for at
least five years naturalized under a law of the United Kingdom, or of a
Colony which has become or becomes a State, or of the Commonwealth, or of
a State.

 35. The House of Representatives shall, before proceeding to the despatch
of any other business, choose a member to be the Speaker of the House, and
as often as the office of Speaker becomes vacant the House shall again
choose a member to be the Speaker.
 The Speaker shall cease to hold his office if he ceases to be a member.
He may be removed from office by a vote of the House, or he may resign his
office or his seat by writing addressed to the Governor-General.

 36. Before or during any absence of the Speaker, the House of
Representatives may choose a member to perform his duties in his absence.

 37. A member may by writing addressed to the Speaker, or to the Governor-
General if there is no Speaker or if the Speaker is absent from the
Commonwealth, resign his place, which there-upon shall become vacant.
 38. The place of a member shall become vacant if for two consecutive months of
any session of the Parliament he, without the permission of the House, fails to
attend the House.
 39. Until the Parliament otherwise provides, the presence of at least one-
third of the whole number of the members of the House of Representatives shall
be necessary to constitute a meeting of the House for the exercise of it's
powers.
 40. Questions arising in the House of Representatives shall be determined by a
majority of votes other than that of the Speaker. The Speaker shall not vote
unless the numbers are equal, and then he shall have a casting vote.

                                         Part IV Both Houses of the Parliament

 41. No adult person who has or acquires a right to vote at elections for the
more numerous House of the Parliament of a State shall, while the right
continues, be prevented by any law of the Commonwealth from voting at elections
for either House of the Parliament of the Commonwealth.
 42. Every senator and every member of the House of Representatives shall
before taking his seat make and subscribe before the Governor-General, or some
person authorised by him, an oath or affirmation of allegiance in the form set
forth in the schedule to this Constitution.
 43. A member of either House of Parliament shall be incapable of being chosen
or of sitting as a member of the other House.
 44. Any person who-
 (i.)   Is under any acknowledgement of allegiance, obedience, or adherence to
        a foreign power, or is a subject or a citizen or entitled to the rights
        & priveleges of a subject or citizen of a foreign power: or
 (ii.)  Is attained of treason, or has been convicted and is under sentence, or
        subject to be sentenced, for any offence punishable under the law of
        the Commonwealth or of a State by imprisonment for one year or longer:
        or
 (iii.) Is an undischarged bankrupt or insolvent: or
 (iv.)  Holds any office of profit under the Crown, or any pension payable
        during the pleasure of the Crown out of any of the revenues of the
        Commonwealth: or
 (v.)   Has any direct or indirect pecuniary interest in any agreement with the
        Public Service of the Commonwealth otherwise than as a member and in
        common with the other members of an incorporated company consisting of
        more than twenty-five persons:
shall be incapable of being chosen or of sitting as a senator or a member of the
House of Representatives.
 But sub-section iv. does not apply to the office of any of the Queen's
Ministers of State for the Commonwealth, or of any of the Queen's Ministers for
a State, or to the receipt of pay, half pay, or a pension, by any person as an
officer or member of the Queen's navy or army, or to the receipt of pay as an
officer or member of the naval or military forces of the Commonwealth by any
person whose services are not wholly employed by the Commonwealth.
 45. If a senator or member of the House of Representatives-
 (i.)   Becomes subject to any of the disabilities mentioned in the last
        preceding section: or
 (ii.)  Takes the benefit, whether by assignment, composition, or otherwise, of
        any law relating to bankrupt or insolvent debtors: or
 (iii.) Directly or indirectly takes or agrees to take any fee or honorarium
        for services rendered to the Commonwealth, or for services rendered in
        the Parliament to any person or State:
his place shall thereupon become vacant.
 46. Until the Parliament otherwise provides, any person declared by this
Constitution to be incapable of sitting as a senator or as a member of the House
of Representatives shall, for every day on which he so sits, be liable to pay
the sum of one hundred pounds to any person who sues for it in any court of
competent jurisdiction.
 47. Until the Parliament otherwise provides, any question respecting the
qualification of a senator or member of the House or Representatives, or
respecting a vacancy in either House of the Parliament, and any question of a
disputed election to either House, shall be determined by the House in which the
question arises.
 48. Until the Parliament otherwise provides, each senator and each member of
the House of Representatives shall receive an allowance of four hundred pounds a
year, to be reckoned from the day on which he takes his seat.
 49. The powers, priveleges, and immunities of the Senate and of the House of
Representatives, and of the members and the committees of each House, shall be
such as are declared by the Parliament, and until declared shall be those of the
Commons House of Parliament of the United Kingdom, and of its members and
committees, at the establishment of the Commonwealth.
 50. Each House of the Parliament may make rules and orders with respect to-
 (i.)  The mode in which its powers, priveleges, and immunities may be exercised
       and upheld:
 (ii.) The order and conduct of its business and proceedings either separately
       or jointly with the other House.

                                               Part V Powers of the Parliament

 51. The Parliament shall, subject to this Constitution, have power to make
laws for the peace, order, and good government of the Commonwealth with respect
to:-
 (i.)       Trade and commerce with other countries, and among the States:
 (ii.)      Taxation; but so as not to discriminate between States or parts of
            States:
 (iii.)     Bounties on the production or export of goods, but so that such
            bounties shall be uniform throughout the Commonwealth:
 (iv.)      Borrowing money on the public credit of the Commonwealth:
 (v.)       Postal, telegraphic, telephonic, and other like services:
 (vi.)      The naval and military defence of the Commonwealth and of the
            several States, and the control of the forces to execute and
            maintain the laws of the Commonwealth.
 (vii.)     Lighthouses, lightships, beacons and buoys:
 (viii.)    Astronomical and metereological observations:
 (ix.)      Quarantine:
 (x.)       Fisheries in Australian waters beyond territorial limits:
 (xi.)      Census and statistics:
 (xii.)     Currency, coinage, and legal tender:
 (xiii.)    Banking, other than State banking; also State banking extending
            beyond the limits of the State concerned, the incorporation of
            banks, and the issue of paper money:
 (xiv.)     Insurance, other than State insurance; also State insurance
            extending beyond the limits of the State concerned:
 (xv.)      Weights and measures:
 (xvi.)     Bills of exchanging and promissory notes:
 (xvii.)    Bankruptcy and insolvency:
 (xviii.)   Copyrights, patents of inventions and designs, and trade marks:
 (xix.)     Naturalization and aliens:
 (xx.)      Foreign corporations, and trading or financial corporations formed
            within the limits of the Commonwealth:
 (xxi.)     Marriage:
 (xxii.)    Divorce and matrimonial causes; and in relation thereto, parental
            rights, and the custody and guardianship of infants:
 (xxiii.)   Invalid and old-age pensions:
 (xxiiiA.)  The provision of maternity allowances, widows' pensions, child
            endowment, unemployment, pharmaceutical, sickness and hospital
            benefits, medical and dental services (but not so as to authorize
            any form of civil conscription), benefits to students and family
            allowances:
 (xxiv.)    The service and execution throughout the Commonwealth of the civil
            and criminal process and the judgements of the courts of the
            States:
 (xxv.)     The recognition throughout the Commonwealth of the laws, the
            public Acts and records, and the judicial proceedings of the
            States:
 (xxvi.)    The people of any race, for whom it is deemed necessary to make
            special laws:
 (xxvii.)   Immigration and emigration:
 (xxviii.)  The influx of criminals:
 (xxix.)    External Affairs:
 (xxx.)     The relations of the Commonwealth with the islands of the Pacific:
 (xxxi.)    The acquisition of property on just terms from any State or person
            for any purpose in respect of which the Parliament has power to
            make laws:
 (xxxii.)   The control of railways with respect to transport for the naval and
            military purposes of the Commonwealth:
 (xxxiii.)  The acquisition, with the consent of a State, of any railways of
            the State on terms arranged between the Commonwealth and the State:
 (xxxiv.)   Railway construction and extension in any State with the consent of
            that State:
 (xxxv.)    Conciliation and arbitration for the prevention and settlement of
            industrial disputes extending beyond the limits of any one State:
 (xxxvi.)   Matters in respect of which this Constitution makes provision until
            the Parliament otherwise provides:
 (xxxvii.)  Matters referred to the Parliament of the Commonwealth by the
            Parliament or Parliaments of any State or States, but so that the
            law shall extend only to States by whose Parliaments the matter is
            referred, or which afterwards adopt the law:
 (xxxviii.) The exercise within the Commonwealth, at the request or with the
            concurrence of the Parliaments of all the States directly
            concerned, of any power which can at the establishment of this
            Constitution be exercised only by the Parliament of the United
            Kingdom or by the Federal Council of Australasia:
 (xxxix.)   Matters incidental to the execution of any power vested by this
            Constitution in the Parliament or in either House thereof, or in
            the Government of the Commonwealth, or in the Federal Judicature,
            or in any department or officer of the Commonwealth.
 52. The Parliament shall, subject to this Constitution, have exclusive
power to make laws for the peace, order, and good government of the
Commonwealth with respect to-
 (i.)   The seat of government of the Commonwealth, and all places acquired by
        the Commonwealth for public purposes:
 (ii.)  Matters relating to any department of the public service the control
        of which is by this Constitution transferred to the Executive
        Government or the Commonwealth:
 (iii.) Other matters declared by this Constitution to be within the
        exclusive power of the Parliament.
 53. Proposed laws appropriating revenue or moneys, or imposing taxation, shall
not originate in the Senate. But a proposed law shall not be taken to
appropriate revenue or moneys, or to impose taxation, by reason only of its
containing provisions for the imposition or appropriation of fines or other
pecuniary penalties, or for the demand or payment or appropriation of fees for
licences, or fees for services under the proposed law.
 The Senate may not amend proposed laws imposing taxation, or proposed laws
appropriating revenue or moneys for the ordinary annual services of the
Government.
 The Senate may not amend any proposed law so as to increase nay proposed
charge or burden on the people.
 The Senate may at any stage return to the House of Representatives any
proposed law which the Senate may not amend, requesting, by message, the
omission or amendment of any items or provisions therein. And the House of
Representatives may, if it thinks fit, make any of such omissions or amendments,
with or without modifications.
 Except as provided in this section, the Senate shall have equal power with the
House of Representatives in respect of all proposed laws.
 54. The proposed law which appropriates revenue or moneys for the ordinary
annual services of the Government shall deal only with such appropriation.
 55. Laws imposing taxation shall deal only with the imposition of taxation,
and any provision therein dealing with any other matter shall be of no effect.
 Laws imposing taxation except laws imposing duties of customs or of excise,
shall deal with one subject of taxation only; but laws imposing duties of
customs shall deal with duties of customs only, and laws imposing duties of
excise shall deal with duties of excise only.
 56. A vote, resolution, or proposed law for the appropriation of revenue or
moneys shall not be passed unless the purpose of the appropriation has in the
same session been recommended by message of the Governor-General to the House
in which the proposal originated.
 57. If the House of representatives passes any proposed law, and the Senate
rejects or fails to pass it, or passes it with amendments to which the House of
Representatives will not agree, and if after an interval of three months the
House of Representatives, in the same or the next session, again passes the
proposed law with or without any amendments which have been made, suggested, or
agreed to by the Senate, and the Senate rejects or fails to pass it, or passes it
with amendments to which the House of Representatives will not agree, the
Governor-General may dissolve the Senate and the House of Representatives
simultaneously. But such dissolution shall not take place within six months
before the date of the expiry of the House of Representatives by effluxion of
time.
 If after such dissolution the House of Representatives again passes the
proposed law, with or without any amendments which have been made, suggested, or
agreed to by the Senate, and the Senate rejects or fails to pass it, or passes
it with amendments to which the House of Representatives will not agree, the
Governor-General may convene a joint sitting of the members of the Senate and of
the House of Representatives.
 The members present at the joint sitting may deliberate and shall vote
together upon the proposed law as last proposed by the House of Representatives,
and upon amendments, if any, which have been made therein by one House and not
agreed to by the other, and any such amendments which are affirmed by an
absolute majority of the total number of the members of the Senate and House of
Representatives shall be taken to have been carried, and if the proposed law,
with the amendments, if any, so carried is affirmed by an absolute majority of
the total number of the members of the Senate and House of Representatives, it
shall be taken to have been duly passed by Houses of the Parliament, and shall
be presented to the Governor-General for the Queen's assent.
 58. When a proposed law passed by both Houses of the Parliament is presented
to the Governor-General for the Queen's assent, he shall declare, according to
his discretion, but subject to this Constitution, that he assents in the Queen's
name, or that he withholds assent, or that he reserves the law for the Queen's
pleasure.
 The Governor-General may return to the house in which it originated any
proposed law so presented to him, and may transmit therewith any amendments
which he may recommend, and the Houses may deal with the recommendation.
 59. The Queen may disallow any law within one year from the Governor-General's
assent, and such disallowance on being made known by the Governor-General by
speech or message to each of the Houses of the Parliament, or by Proclamation,
shall annul the law from the day when the disallowance is so made known.
 60. A proposed law reserved for the Queen's pleasure shall not have any force
unless and until within two years from the day on which it was presented to the
Governor-General for the Queen's assent the Governor-General makes known, by
speech or message to each of the Houses of the Parliament, or by Proclamation,
that it has received the Queen's assent.
Chapter II  The Executive Government

 61. The executive power of the Commonwealth is vested in the Queen and is
exercisable by the Governor-General as the Queen's representative, and extends
to the execution and maintenance of this Constitution, and of the laws of the
Commonwealth.
 62. There shall be a Federal Executive Council to advise the Governor-
General in the government of the Commonwealth, and the members of the Council
shall be chosen and summoned by the Governor-General and sworn as Executive
Councillors, and shall hold office during his pleasure.
 63. The provisions of this Constitution referring to the Governor-General in
Council shall be construed as referring to the Governor-General acting with
the advice of the Federal Executive Council.
 64. The Governor-General may appoint officers to administer such departments
of State of the Commonwealth as the Governor-General in Council may establish.
 Such officers shall hold office during he pleasure of the Governor-General.
They shall be members of the Federal Executive Council, and shall be the
Queen's Ministers of State for the Commonwealth.
 After the first general election no Minister of State shall hold office for
a longer period than three months unless he is or becomes a senator or a
member of the House of Representatives.
 65. Until the Parliament otherwise provides, the Ministers of the State
shall not exceed seven in number, and shall hold such offices as the
Parliament prescribes, or, in the absence of provision, as the Governor-
General directs.
 66. There shall be payable to the Queen, out of the Consolidated Revenue
Fund of the Commonwealth, for the salaries of the Ministers of State, an
annual sum which, until the Parliament otherwise provides, shall not exceed
twelve thousand pounds a year.
 67. Until the Parliament otherwise provides, the appointment and removal of
all other officers of the Executive Government of the Commonwealth shall be
vested in the Governor-General in Council, unless the appointment is delegated
by the Governor-General in Council or by a law of the Commonwealth to some
other authority.
 68. The command in chief of the naval and military forces of the
Commonwealth is vested in the Governor-General as the Queen's representative.
 69. On a date or dates to be proclaimed by the Governor-General after the
establishment of the Commonwealth the following departments of the public
service in each State shall become transferred to the Commonwealth:-
    Posts, telegraphs, and telephones:
    Naval and military defence:
    Lighthouses, lightships, beacons, and buoys:
    Quarantine.
 But the departments of customs and of excise in each State shall become
transferred to the Commonwealth on its establishment.
 70. In respect of matters which, under this Constitution, pass to the
Executive Government of the Commonwealth, all powers and functions which at
the establishment of the Commonwealth are vested in the Governor of a Colony,
or in the Governor of a Colony with the advice of his Executive Council, or in
any authority of a Colony, shall vest in the Governor-General, or in the
Governor-General in Council, or in the authority exercising similar powers
under the Commonwealth, as the case requires.

Chapter III  The Judicature

 71. The judicial power of the Commonwealth shall be vested in a Federal
Supreme Court, to be called the High Court of Australia, and in such other
federal courts as the Parliament creates, and in such other courts as it
invests with federal jurisdiction. The High Court shall consist of a Chief
Justice, and so many other Justices, not less than two, as the Parliament
prescribes.
 72. The Justices of the High Court and of the other courts created by the
Parliament-
 (i.)   Shall be appointed by the Governor-General in Council:
 (ii.)  Shall not be removed except by the Governor-General in Council, on an
        address from both Houses of the Parliament in the same session, praying
        for such removal on the ground of proved misbehaviour or incapacity:
 (iii.) Shall receive such remuneration as the Parliament may fix; but the
        remuneration shall not be diminished during their continuance in
        office.
 The appointment of a Justice of the High Court shall be for a term expiring
upon his attaining the age of seventy years, and a person shall not be
appointed as a Justice of the High Court if he has attained that age.
 The appointment of a Justice of a court created by the Parliament shall be
for a term expiring upon his attaining the age that is, at the time of his
appointment, the maximum age for Justices of that court and a person shall not
be appointed as a Justice of such a court if he has attained the age that is
for the time being the maximum age for Justices of that court.
 Subject to this section, the maximum age for Justices of any court created
by the Parliament is seventy years.
 The Parliament may make a law fixing an age that is less than seventy years
as the maximum age for Justices of a court created by the Parliament and may
at any time repeal or amend such a law, but any such repeal or amendment does
not affect the term of office of a Justice under an appointment made before
the repeal or amendment.
 A Justice of the High Court or of a court created by the Parliament may
resign his office by writing under his hand delivered to the Governor-General.
 Nothing in the provisions added to this section by the Constitution
Alteration (Retirement of Judges) 1977 affects the continuance of a person in
office as a Justice of a court under an appointment made before the
commencement of those provisions.
 A reference in this section to the appointment of a Justice of the High
Court or of a court created by the Parliament shall be read as including a
reference to the appointment of a person who holds office as a Justice of the
High Court or of a court created by the Parliament to another office of Justice
of the same court having a different status or designation.
 73. The High Court shall have jurisdiction, with such exceptions and subject
to such regulations as the Parliament prescribes, to hear and determine
appeals from all judgements, decrees, orders, and sentences-
 (i.)   Of any Justice or Justices exercising the original jurisdiction of
        the High Court:
 (ii.)  Of any other federal court, or court exercising federal jurisdiction;
        or of the Supreme Court of any State, or of any other court of any
        State from which at the establishment of the Commonwealth an appeal
        lies to the Queen in Council:
 (iii.) Of the Inter-State Commission, but as to questions of law only:
and the judgement of the High Court in all such cases shall be final and
conclusive.
 But no exception or regulation prescribed by the Parliament shall prevent
the High Court from hearing and determining any appeal from the Supreme Court of
a State in any matter in which at the establishment of the Commonwealth an
appeal lies from such Supreme Court to the Queen in Council.
 Until the Parliament otherwise provides, the conditions of and restrictions
on appeals to the Queen in Council from the Supreme Courts of the several
States shall be applicable to appeals from them to the High Court.
 74. No appeal shall be permitted to the Queen in Council from a decision of
the High Court upon any question, howsoever arising, as the the limits inter
se of the Constitutional powers of the Commonwealth and those of any State or
States, or as to the limits inter se of the Constitutional powers of any two
or more States, unless the High Court shall certify that the Question is one
which ought to be determined by Her Majesty in Council.
 The High Court may so certify if satisfied that for any special reason the
certificate should be granted, and thereupon an appeal shall lie to Her
Majesty in Council on the question without further leave.
 Except as provided in this section, this Constitution shall not impair any
right which the Queen may be please to exercise by virtue of Her Royal
prerogative to grant special leave of appeal from the High Court to Her
Majesty in Council. The Parliament may make laws limiting the matters in which
leave may be asked, but proposed laws containing any such limitations shall be
reserved by the Governor-General for Her Majesty's pleasure.
 75. In all matters-
 (i.)   Arising under any treaty:
 (ii.)  Affecting consuls or other representatives of other countries:
 (iii.) In which the Commonwealth, or a person suing or being sued on behalf
        of the Commonwealth, is a party:
 (iv.)  Between States, or between residents of different States, or between
        a State and a resident of another State:
 (v.)   In which a writ of Mandamus or prohibition or an injunction is sought
        against an officer of the Commonwealth:
the High Court shall have original jurisdiction.
 76. The Parliament may make laws conferring original jurisdiction on the
High Court in any matter-
 (i.)   Arising under this Constitution, or involving its interpretation:
 (ii.)  Arising under any laws made by the Parliaments:
 (iii.) Of Admiralty and maritime jurisdiction:
 (iv.)  Relating to the same subject-matter claimed under the laws of
        different States.
 77. With respect to any of the matters mentioned in the last two sections
the Parliament may make laws-
 (i.)   Defining the jurisdiction of any federal court other than the High
        Court:
 (ii.)  Defining the extent to which the jurisdiction of any federal court
        shall be exclusive of that which belongs to or is invested in the
        courts of the States:
 (iii.) Investing any court of a State with federal jurisdiction.
 78. The Parliament may make laws conferring rights to proceed against the
Commonwealth or a State in respect of matters within the limits of the
judicial power.
 79. The federal jurisdiction of any court may be exercised by such number of
judges as the Parliament prescribes.
 80. The trial on indictment of any offence against any law of the
Commonwealth shall be by jury, and every such trial shall be held in the State
where the offence was committed, and if the offence was not committed within
any State the trial shall be held at such place or places as the Parliament
prescribes.

Chapter IV  Finance And Trade

 81. All revenues or moneys raised or received by the Executive Government of
the Commonwealth shall form one Consolidated Revenue Fund, to be appropriated
for the purposes of the Commonwealth in the manner and subject to the charges
and liabilities imposed by this Constitution.
 82. The costs, charges, and expenses incident to the collection, management,
and receipt of the Consolidated Revenue Fund shall form the first charge
thereon; and the revenue of the Commonwealth shall in the first instance be
applied to the payment of the expenditure of the Commonwealth.
 83. No money shall be drawn from the Treasury of the Commonwealth except
under appropriation made by law.
 But until the expiration of one month after the first meeting of the
Parliament the Governor-General in Council may draw from the Treasury and
expend such moneys as may be necessary for the maintenance of any department
transferred to the Commonwealth and for the holding of the first elections for
the Parliament.
 84. When any department of the public service of a State becomes transferred
to the Commonwealth, all officers of the department shall become subject to
the control of the Executive Government of the Commonwealth
 Any such officer who is not retained in the service of the Commonwealth
shall, unless he is appointed to some other office of equal emolument in the
public service of the State, be entitled to receive from the State any
pension, gratuity, or other compensation, payable under the law of the State
on the abolition of his office.
 Any such officer who is retained in the service of the Commonwealth shall
preserve all his existing and accruing rights, and shall be entitled to retire
from office at the time, and on the pension or retiring allowance, which would
be permitted by the law of the State if his service with the Commonwealth were
a continuation of his service with the State. Such pension or retiring
allowance shall be paid to him by the Commonwealth; but the State shall pay to
the Commonwealth a part thereof, to be calculated on the proportion which his
term of service with the State bears to his whole term of service, and for the
purpose of the calculation his salary shall be taken to be that paid to him by
the State at the time of the transfer.
 Any officer who is, at the establishment of the Commonwealth, in the public
service of a State, and who is, by consent of the Governor of the State with
the advice of the Executive Council thereof, transferred to the public service
of the Commonwealth, shall have the same rights as if he had been an officer
of a department transferred to the Commonwealth and were retained in the
service of the Commonwealth.
 85. When any departments of the public service of a State is transferred to
the Commonwealth-
 (i.)   All property of the State of any kind, used exlcusively in connection
        with the department, shall become vested in the Commonwealth; but, in
        the case of the departments controlling customs and excise and bounties,
        for such time only as the Governor-General in Council may declare to be
        necessary:
 (ii.)  The Commonwealth may acquire any property of the State, of any kind
        used, but not exclusively used in connection with the department; the
        value thereof shall, if no agreement can be made, be ascertained in,
        as nearly as may be, the anner in which the value of land, or of an
        interest in land, taken by the State for public purposes is ascertained
        under the law of the State in force at the establishment of the
        Commonwealth:
 (iii.) The Commonwealth shall compensate the State for the value of any
        property passing ot the Commonwealth under this section; if no
        agreement can be made as to the mode of compensation, it shall be
        determined under laws to be made by the Parliament:
 (iv.)  The Commonweatlth shall, at the date of the transfer, assume the
        current obligations of the State in respect of the department
        transferred.
 86. On the establishment of the Commonwealth, the collection and control of
duties of customs and of excise, and the control of the payment of bounties,
shall pass to the Executive Government of the Commonwealth.
 87. During a period of ten years after the establishment of the Commonwealth
and thereafter until the Parliament otherwise provides, of the net revenue of
the Commonwealth from duties of customs and of excise not more than one-fourth
shall be applied annually by the Commonwealth towards its expenditure.
 The balance shall, in accordance with the Constitution, be paid to the
several States, or applied towards the payment of interest on debts of the
several States taken over by the Commonwealth.
 88. Uniform duties of customs shall be imposed within two years after the
establishment of the Commonwealth.
 89. Until the imposition of uniform duties of custom-
 (i.)   The Commonwealth shall credit to each State the revenues collected
        therein by the Commonweatlh.
 (ii.)  The Commonwealth shall debit to each State-
          (a) The expenditure therein of the Commonwealth incurred solely for
              the maintenance or continuance, as at the time of transfer, of
              any department transferred from the State to the Commonwealth;
          (b) The proportion of the State, according to the number of its
              people, in the other expenditure of the Commonwealth.
 (iii.) The Commonwealth shall pay to each State month by month the balance
        (if any) in favour of the State.
 90. On the imposition of uniform duties of customs the power of the
Parliament to impose duties of customs and of excise, and to grant bounties on
the production or export of goods, shall become exclusive.
 On the imposition of uniform duties of customs all laws of the several
States imposing duties of customs or of excise, or offering bounties on the
production or export of goods, shall cease to have effect, but any grant of or
agreement for any such bounty lawfully made by or under the authority of the
Government of any State shall be taken to be good if made before the thirtieth
day of June, One thousand eight hundred and ninety eight, and not otherwise.
 91. Nothing in this Constitution prohibits a State from granting any aid to
or bounty on mining for gold, silver, or other metals, not from granting, with
the consent of both Houses of the Parliament of the Commonwealth expressed by
resolution, any aid to or bounty on the production or export of goods.
 92. On the imposition of uniform duties of customs, trade, commerce, and
intercourse among the States, whether by means of internal carriage or ocean
navigation, shall be absolutely free.
 But notwithstanding anything in this Constitution, goods imported before the
imposition of uniform duties of customs into any State, or into any Colony
which, whilst the goods remain therein, becomes a State, shall, on thence
passing into another State within two years after the imposition of such
duties, be liable to any duty chargeable on the importation of such goods into
the Commonwealth, less any duty paid in respect of the goods on their
importation.
 93. During the first five years after the imposition of uniform duties of
customs, and thereafter until the Parliament otherwise provides-
 (i.)  The duties of customs chargeable on goods imported into a State and
       afterwards passing into another State for consumption, and the duties of
       excise paid on goods produced or manufactured in a State and afterwards
       passing into another State for consumption, shall be taken to have been
       collected not in the former but in the latter State:
 (ii.) Subject to the last subsection, the Commonwealth shall credit revenue,
       debit expenditure, and pay balances to the several States as prescribed
       for the period preceding the imposition of uniform duties of customs.
 94. After five years from the imposition of uniform duties of customs, the
Parliament may provide, on such basis as it deems fair, for the monthly
payment to the several States of all surplus revenue of the Commonwealth.
 95. Notwithstanding anything in this Constitution, the Parliament of the
State of Western Australia, if that State be an Original State, may, during
the first five years after the imposition of uniform duties of customs, impose
duties of customs on goods passing into that State and not originally imported
from beyond the limits of the Commonwealth; and such duties shall be collected
by the Commonwealth.
 But any duty so imposed on any goods shall not exceed during the first of
such years the duty chargeable on the goods under the law of Western Australia
in force at the imposition of uniform duties, and shall not exceed during the
second, third, fourth, and fifth of such years respectively, four-fifths, two-
fifth, and one-fifth of such latter duty, and all duties imposed under this
section shall cease at the expiration of the fifth year after the imposition
of uniform duties.
 If at any time during the five years the duty on any goods under this
section is higher than the duty imposed by the Commonwealth on the importation
of the like goods, then such higher duty shall be collected on the goods when
imported into Western Australia from beyond the limits of the Commonwealth.
 96. During a period of ten years after the establishment of the Commonwealth
and thereafter until the Parliament otherwise provides, the Parliament may
grant financial assistance to any State on such terms and conditions as the
Parliament thinks fit.
 97. Until the Parliament otherwise provides, the laws in force in any Colony
which has become or becomes a State with respect to the receipt of revenue and
the expenditure of money on account of the Government of the Colony, and the
review and audit of such receipt and expenditure, shall apply to the receipt
of revenue and the expenditure of money on account of the Commonwealth in the
State in the same manner as if the Commonwealth, or the Government or an
officer of the Commonwealth were mentioned whenever the Colony, or the
Government or an officer of the Colony, is mentioned.
 98. The power of the Parliament to make laws with respect to trade and
commerce extends to navigation and shipping, and to railways the property of
any State.
 99. The Commonwealth shall not, by any law or regulation of trade, commerce,
or revenue, give preference to one State or any part thereof over another
State or any part thereof.
 100. The Commonwealth shall not, by any law or regulation of trade or
commerce, abridge the right of a State or of the residents therein to the
reasonable use of the waters of rivers for conservation or irrigation.
 101. There shall be an Inter-State Commission, with such powers of
adjudication and administration as the Parliament deems necessary for the
execution and maintenance, within the Commonwealth, of the provisions of this
Constitution relating to trade and commerce, and of all laws made thereunder.
 102. The Parliament may by any law with respect to trade or commerce forbid,
as to railways, any preference or discrimination by any State, or by any
authority constituted under a State, if such preference or discrimination is
undue and unreasonable, or unjust to any State; due regard being had to the
financial responsibilities incurred by any State in connection with the
construction and maintenance of its railways. But no preference or
discrimination shall, within the meaning of this section, be taken to be
undue and unreasonable, or unjust to any State, unless so adjudged by the
Inter-State Commission.
 103. The members of the Inter-State Commission-
 (i.)   Shall be appointed by the Governor-General in Council:
 (ii.)  Shall hold office for seven years, but may be removed within that
        time by the Governor-General in Council, on an address from both Houses
        of the Parliament in the same session praying for such removal on the
        ground of proved misbehaviour or incapacity:
 (iii.) Shall receive such remuneration as the Parliament may fix; but such
        remuneration shall not be diminished during their continuance in
        office.
 104. Nothing in this Constitution shall render unlawful any rate for the
carriage of goods upon a railway, the property of a State, if the rate is
deemed by the Inter-State Commission to be necessary for the development of the
territory of the State, and if the rate applies equally to goods within the
State and to goods passing into the State from other States.
 105. The Parliament may take over from the States their public debts, or a
proportion thereof according to the respective numbers of their people as
shown by the latest statistics of the Commonwealth, and may convert, renew, or
consolidate such debts, or any part thereof; ad the States shall indemnify the
Commonwealth in respect of the debts taken over, and thereafter the interest
payable in respect of the debts shall be deducted and retained from the
portions of the surplus revenue of the Commonwealth payable to the several
States, or if such surplus is insufficient, or if there is no surplus, then
the deficiency or the whole amount shall be paid by the several States.
 105A.-(1) The Commonwealth may make agreements with the States with respect
to the public debts of the States, including-
 (a) the taking over of such debts by the Commonwealth;
 (b) the management of such debts;
 (c) the paying of interest and the provision and management of sinking
     funds in respect of such debts;
 (d) the consolidation, renewal, conversion, and redemption of such debts;
 (e) the indemnification of the Commonwealth by the States in respect of
     debts taken over by the Commonwealth; and
 (f) the borrowing of money by the States or by the Commonwealth, or by the
     Commonwealth for the States.
 (2) The Parliament may make laws for validating any such agreement made
     before the commencement of this section.
 (3) The Parliament may make laws for the carrying out by the parties of any
     such agreement.
 (4) Any such agreement may be varied or rescinded by the parties therein.
 (5) Every such agreement and any such variation thereof shall be binding
     upon the Commonwealth and the States parties thereto notwithstanding
     anything contained in this Constitution or the Constitution of the several
     States or in any law of the Parliament of the Commonwealth or of any
     State.
 (6) The powers conferred by this section shall not be construed as being
     limited in any way by the provision of section one hundred and five of
     this Constitution.

Chapter V  The States

 106. The Constitution of each State of the Commonwealth shall, subject to
this Constitution, continue as at the establishment of the Commonwealth, or as
at the admission of establishment of the State, as the case may be, until
altered in accordance with the Constitution of the State.
 107. Every power of the Parliament of a Colony which has become or becomes a
State, shall, unless it is by this Constitution exclusively vested in the
Parliament of the Commonwealth or withdrawn from the Parliament of the State,
continue as at the establishment of the Commonwealth, or as at the admission
or establishment of the State, as the case may be.
 108. Every law in force in a Colony which has become or becomes a State, and
relating to any matter within the powers of the Parliament of the Commonwealth
shall, subject to this Constitution, continue in force in the State; and,
until provision is made in that behalf by the Parliament of the Commonwealth,
the Parliament of the State shall have such powers of alteration and of repeal
in respect of any such law as the Parliament of the Colony had until the
Colony became a State.
 109. When a law of a State is inconsistent with a law of the Commonwealth, the
latter shall prevail, and the former shall, to the extent of the
inconsistency, be invalid.
 110. The provisions of this Constitution relating to the Governor of a State
extend and apply to the Governor for the time being of the State, or other
chief executive officer or administrator of the government of the State.
 111. The Parliament of a State may surrender any part of the State to the
Commonwealth; and upon such surrender, and the acceptance thereof by the
Commonwealth, such part of the State shall become subject to the exclusive
jurisdiction of the Commonwealth.
 112. After uniform duties of customs have been imposed, a State may levy on
imports, or on goods passing into or out of the State such charges as my be
necessary for executing the inspection laws of the State; but the net produce
of all charges so levied shall be for the use of the Commonwealth; and any
such inspection laws may be annulled by the Parliament of the Commonwealth.
 113. All fermented, distilled, or other intoxicating liquids passing into
any State or remaining therein for use, consumption, sale, or storage, shall
be subject to the laws of the State as if such liquids had been produced in
the State.
 114. A State shall not, without the consent of the Parliament of the
Commonwealth, raise or maintain any naval or military force, or impose any tax
on property of any kind belonging to the Commonwealth, not shall the
Commonwealth impose any tax on property of any kind belonging to a State.
 115. A State shall not coin money, nor make anything but gold and silver
coin a legal tender in payment of debts.
 116. The Commonwealth shall not make any law for establishing any religion,
or for imposing any religious observance, or for prohibiting the free exercise
of any religion, and no religious test shall be required as a qualification
for any office or public trust under the Commonwealth.
 117. A subject of the Queen, resident in any State, shall not be subject to
any other State to any disability or discrimination which would not be equally
applicable to him if he were a subject of the Queen resident in such other
State.
 118. Full faith and credit shall be given, throughout the Commonwealth to
the laws, the public Acts and records, and the judicial proceeding of every
State.
 119. The Commonwealth shall protect every State against the invasion and, on
the application of the Executive Government of the State, against domestic
violence.
 120. Every State shall make provisions for the detention in its prisons of
persons accused or convicted of offences against the laws of the Commonwealth,
and for the punishment of persons convicted of such offences, and the
Parliament of the Commonwealth may make laws to give effects to this
provision.

Chapter VI  New States

 121. The Parliament may admit to the Commonwealth or establish new States,
and may upon such admission or establishment make or impose such terms and
conditions, including the extent of representation in either House of the
Parliament, as it thinks fit.
 122. The Parliament may make laws for the government of any territory
surrendered by any State to and accepted by the Commonwealth, or of any
territory placed by the Queen under the authority of an accepted by the
Commonwealth, and may allow the representation of such territory in either
House of the Parliament to the extent and on the terms which it thinks fit.
 123. The Parliament of the Commonwealth may, with the consent of the
Parliament of a State, and the approval of the majority of the electors of the
State voting upon the question, increase, diminish, or otherwise alter the
limits of the State, upon such terms and conditions as may be agreed on, and
may, with the like consent, make provision respecting the effect and operation
of any increase or diminution or alteration of territory in relation to any
State affected.
 124. A new State may be formed by separation of territory from a State, but
only with the consent of the Parliament thereof, and a new State may be formed
by the union of two or more States or parts of States, but only with the
consent of the Parliaments of the States affected.

Chapter VII  Miscellaneous

 125. The seat of Government of the Commonwealth shall be determined by the
Parliament, and shall be within territory which shall have been granted to or
acquired by the Commonwealth, and shall be vested in and belong to the
Commonwealth, and shall be in the State of New South Wales, and be distant not
less than one hundred miles from Sydney.
 Such territory shall contain an area of not less than one hundred square
miles, and such portion thereof as shall consist of Crown lands shall be
granted to the Commonwealth without any payment therefor.
 The Parliament shall sit at Melbourne until it meet at the seat of
Government.
 126. The Queen may authorize the Governor-General to appoint any person, or
any persons jointly or severally, to be his deputy or deputies within any part
of the Commonwealth, and in that capacity to exercise during the pleasure of
the Governor-General as he thinks fit to assign to such deputy or deputies,
subject to any limitations expressed or directions given by the Queen; but the
appointment of such deputy or deputies shall not affect the exercise by the
Governor-General himself of any power or function.

Chapter VIII  Alteration Of The Constitution

 128. This Constitution shall not be altered except in the following manner:-
 The proposed law for the alteration thereof must be passed by an absolute
majority of each House of the Parliament, and not less than two more more than
six months after its passage through both Houses the proposed law shall be
submitted in each State and Territory to the electors qualified to vote for
the election of members of the House of Representatives.
 But if either House passes any such proposed law by an absolute majority,
and the other House rejects or fails to pass it, or passes it with any
amendments to which the first-mentioned House will not agree, and if after an
interval of three months the first-mentioned House in the same or the next
session again passes the proposed law by an absolute majority with or without
any amendment which has been made or agreed to bu the other House, and such
other House rejects or fails to pass it or passes it with any amendment to
which the first-mentioned House will not agree, the Governor-General may
submit the proposed law as last proposed by the first-mentioned House, and
either with or without any amendments subsequently agreed to by both Houses,
to the electors in each State and Territory qualified to vote for the election
of the House of Representatives.
 When a proposed law is submitted to the electors the vote shall be taken in
such manner as the Parliament prescribes. But until the qualification of
electors of members of the House of Representatives becomes uniform throughout
the Commonwealth, only one-half the electors voting for and against the
proposed law shall be counted in any State in which adult suffrage prevails.
 And if in a majority of the States a majority of the electors voting approve
the proposed law, and if a majority of all the electors voting also approve
the proposed law, it shall be presented to the Governor-General for the
Queen's assent.
 No alteration diminishing the proportionate representation of any State in
either House of the Parliament, or the minimum number of representatives of a
State in the House of Representative, in increasing, diminishing, or otherwise
altering the limits of the State, or in any manner affecting the provisions of
the Constitution in relation thereto, shall become law unless the majority of
the electors voting in that State approve the proposed law.
 In this section "Territory" means any territory referred to in section one
hundred and twenty-two of this Constitution in respect of which there is in
force a law allowing its representation int he House of Representatives.

Schedule

OATH.
       I, A.B., do swear that I will be faithful and bear true allegiance to
   Her Majesty Queen Victoria, Her heirs and successors according to law. SO
   HELP ME GOD!

AFFIRMATION.
       I, A.B., do solemnly and sincerely affirm and declare that I will be
   faithful and bear true allegiance to Her Majesty Queen Victoria, Her heirs
   and successors according to law.

(NOTE - The name of the King or Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain
and Ireland for the time being is to be substituted from time to time.)

OPENSEEDS = Platform for the Biodynamic Consumers Melbourne Victoria Australia

2008-09-24T18:45:00.003+10:00

OPENSEEDS.BLOGSPOT.COM “Open Seeds” Platform for The Biodynamic Consumers, Melbourne, Victoria

Dear Consumer of Organic and Bio-Dynamic Produce,

You can contribute information on this web-log, together we can create the bigger picture:

We, the consumers, can bundle our interest and give many individual spices into the social cake as our expression of interest, and thus make use of it for information.

Where to buy things.
What Organic, Biodynamic, National and so forth standards are in place, respectively are missing?
What new Standards are planned in Australian States and Territories, also in regard to requests to label food adequately.
What Recipes can you recommend?
Where do you like to eat out?
The bees: What is it with them? Are they endangered by pesticides of agriculture, or by their own industrial standards? News from the bees worldwide.
Eating and social behaviour.
Eating and Education How to comfort the senses. How to consume in a balanced way. The slow-food philosophy.

For the OpenSeeds-Biodynamic-Consumers, based in Melbourne, Victoria.

Please contribute with your information and knowledge of your own sources: For the bigger picture.

Yours truly,

Gotthard Killian

Australian Farmers set new Standard for Nanotechnology Control in the Organic sector

30^th May 2008, (Nanowerk News)

Biological Farmers of Australia (BFA) and subsidiary company Australian Certified Organic have released for industry and stake-holder comment a new policy to deal with nano-technology in the organic industry.

The policy, with final endorsement of industry, will be integrated into the Australian Organic Standard and put forward for consideration for inclusion in a base domestic safety-net standard, due to be released by Standards Australia at the end of this year.

BFA Standards Chair, Dr. Andrew Monk says the proposal takes a firm and clear stance on the use and application of nano-technology, which has yet to be proven as safe.

What happens to the Bees?

Is the bee crisis man made, a result of industrial production? Or is it the collateral damage by insecticides, (in connection with GM food,) and electro-smog?Some random headlines show how we are facing major pivotal questions ahead:

No money in honey, say

bee-keepers, Melbourne Herald Sun May 22, 2008

Last flight of the bee? Bees are a barometer of what man is doing to the environment, say

bee-keepers. Empty hives are a harbinger of a looming ecological crisis. Deccan Herald, India- June 10, 2008

Bayer pesticide causes bee deaths in 11,500 colonies in Germany, Thomson Financial News -June 16, 2008

Bayer AG.'s seed treatment Poncho has been linked to bee deaths at 11,500 bee colonies in south-western Germany since May and 700 bee-keepers have filed damage reports, Frank-furter Allgemeine Zeitung reported, citing the state of Baden-Wuerttemberg,Germany.

What can I do for the Needs of us consumers?

Do we understand the big time of the question of quality in our daily food?

The customer – is she or he actually queen, respectively king in the business? And what, if we have to be told again that and how it is to be aware of this our own sovereignty?

Could it be that those who are not entirely capable to be conscious of the importance of being satisfactorily well nourished, physically and spiritually, might possibly not be entirely sovereign?

It may well be, that we can make a couple more decisions in order to find distinction in our strength how we shape our own supply and demand.

Inviting Volunteers to write us their Stories:

Just a couple of ideas, which might be of interest::

“Why is biodynamic important for you?”
“Is there creativity in food?”
“Are we eating enough sunlight?
“The role of sugar, and do we have time for attention?”
“Is there a shift of conscious-ness required for the average consumer. Perfection in natural fruits by use of pesticides - or protection of the whole entire being in nature, and in our social behaviour to each other?”
“Do we need to blaming our own consumer attitude for the social questions?”
“Is there need for a consumer association for the support of the local biodynamic food supply?”