Compost made by humans is a more recent (but still very ancient) process. We know that the Akkadians practiced composting in ancient Mesopotamia, a thousand years before Moses was born.
There are references to composting in the Talmud, in the Old Testament, in ancient Chinese writings and in the Bagavad Vita, the ancient Hindu text written in Sanskrit (the parent language of most modern European languages). Ancient Greeks practiced composting, taking straw from animal stalls and burying it in cultivated fields.
A retired Roman general, Marcus Porcius Cato, who lived from 234 BC to 149 BC, wrote a book titled “De Agri Cultura” (Concerning the Culture of the Fields) in which he described composting.
Although Cato’s descriptions of composting may seem simplistic to us now, for the time it was a revolutionary piece, and influenced farming operations in Europe for hundreds of years after, until the fall of the Roman Empire.
In the tenth and eleventh centuries AD, Arab and Christian writers described the process.
In his book, Five Hundred Pointes of Good Husbandrie (1580), Thomas Tussler wrote:
"If a garden require it, now trench it ye may, one trench not a yard, from another go lay; Which being well filled with muck by and by, to cover with mould, for a season to lie." (Five Hundred Pointes of Good Husbandrie, Thomas Tussler, Dobell Press, 1909)
Shakespeare has Hamlet telling his mother: "Confess yourself to heaven, Repent what's past, avoid what is to come, And do not spread the compost on the weeds To make them ranker." (Hamlet, Act 3, Scene 4, by William Shakespeare, The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, Wordsworth Royal, 1997)
Sir Francis Bacon and Sir Walter Raleigh also mentioned composting.
In the early settlement of North America, both Native Americans and early European settlers used compost methods to increase crop yields. Many farmers used fish and “muck”, turned on a regular basis until the fish disintegrated.
George Washington was the first great proponent of composting in this country. The father of our nation constructed an unusual building to help in the decomposing of organic matter. He also advocated placing manure and other organic materials in pits for “curing.” As he converted his major cash crop from tobacco to wheat, his use of organic compost helped increase crop yield. Interestingly, he wasn't only thinking of himself. In 1788, he wrote this:
“Every improvement in husbandry should be gratefully received and peculiarly fostered in this Country, not only as promoting the interest and lessening the labor of the farmer, but as advancing our respectability in a national point of view; for, in the present state of America, our welfare and prosperity depend upon the cultivation of our lands and turning the produce of them to the best advantage.”
(George Washington: Farmer, Being An Account of His Home LIfe and Agricultural Activities, Paul Leland Haworth, Rindle, 2005)
Washington’s writings include numerous references to the creation of compost, as well as directions to his foreman on how to make the best compost.
Around the beginning of the 20th Century, with the development of artificial fertilizers, the making and use of compost declined, along with widespread knowledge about making it.
However, composting has seen a significant resurgence in recent years.
Modern composters understand a lot more about the nature of decomposition, the roles that fungi, bacteria, earthworms and insects play in the breakdown of organic material that helps enrich the soil and produce beautiful and bountiful gardens.
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