P A Yeomans-Keyline in the Kiewa Valley (Mervyn Barton-Cosmorama) 1984
MERVYN BARTON for G.V. LAWRENCE AND ASSOCIATES KEYLINE TOUR Present: Mervyn Barton, G. Vernon Lawrence, Geoffrey Booth, Ernst Weichel (founder of The Promotion of Organic-Biological Farming eV) from Heiningen, Baden-WĂźrttemberg, West Germany and his German translator. WHAT ARE THE DIFFERENCES IN WORKING A KEYLINE PROPERTY? The first: A changed approach to the soil and its needs. Cultivation becomes directed at increasing its depth and fertility, and thus its productivity. I suppose it could be said that the growth of pasture becomes incidental to the work done, rather than cultivation being carried out to specifically grow pasture or crop. The second: A changed attitude in looking at land - in classifying its shapes and its potentialities, and in always being conscious of its water values. The third: A different appreciation of the value of trees. They begin to assume an all-of-landscape value, for their contribution to permanent fertility and for protection of the land, rather than just for 'shade for the stock'. The fourth: A realization of the weaknesses of a system of land-use that requires additives in the way of fertilizers. The fifth: A hatred of sprays and poisons, which at best are anti-fertility and destructive to soil life, and at worst, a possible threat to the wholesomeness of all food, produced off land so treated. The sixth: You prove over and over, that there is nowhere to practice soil conservation methods on land which is correctly developed. The seventh: You find out that the best way to have healthy stock is to put healthy soil under their feet. Drenches and injections stay mainly in the shops. The eighth: When you have been shown by the water, the simplicities of controlling water on your own land, creek and river works become, in your view, an absolute madness. The ninth: If you are cost conscious, and what farmer cannot be - you cheer yourself just a little on what you don't spend, as per conventional style. The tenth: An overall appreciation of wholeness which is health in abundance, in life in its multitude of forms.
OCR scanned and converted in 2014 to a document by Geoffrey Booth for Keyline Archive. www.youtube.com/channel/UCUPgPJZAlkxt207sxcdp4DQ/about P A Yeomans-Keyline in the Kiewa Valley (13 min) 1981 www.youtube.com/watch?v=qz6vhoOg4Hc Š Mervyn E Barton (Nov 1984). Uploaded with permission.