Passage V

Modern Uses for Old Ways

[1] At first glance, Jane Mt. Pleasant’s garden plots look a total mess. [2] The ground being bumpy with mounds and covered with old leaves. [3] Beans hang on the cornstalks, and squash vines had sprawled everywhere. [4] But this apparent chaos is the subject of scientific research. [5] Mt. Pleasant’s gardens are modeled for those grown by the Iroquois and other Native peoples. [6] The data the gardens are yielding may provide evidence to support the use of old methods to improve modern agriculture. (65)

A Cornell University agronomist and an Iroquois herself, Jane Mt. Pleasant questions some of modern agriculture’s practices, and she has a Ph.D. degree. Many farmers and agronomists believe that the recent boom in crop production in the last few years—fueled by the intensive use of farmland and increased dependence on herbicides and pesticides—have come with hidden costs. Soil erosion and pollution have put our food supply and our health at risk. (69)

The Iroquois method begins with corn being planted at three-foot intervals. Later, soil had been mounded around the young stalks, enhancing drainage and warming the soil. Beans are then planted on the mounds, and squash is planted between the mounds.

Corn, beans, and squash—all of which might be grown in your garden—work as a team. The corn stalks support the bean vines, the nitrogen-fixing roots of the beans enrich the soil, and the squashes’ broad leaves stifle the weeds. After the harvest, the remains of the plants are left to rot, further enriching the soil and reducing the potential for erosion. Mt. Pleasant has found that total crop production in her experimental plots rivals that of high-tech, single-crop farming. Her research is helping farmers make better decisions about planting soil-protecting cover crops.

Perhaps the best endorsement of the Iroquois “three-sisters” system is that it has worked for over four centuries. Mt. Pleasant notes, “It is a balance between production and soil protection.”