to undo the damage. He was not sure how to go about the task
since he knew virtually nothing about farming, but he vowed to
figure it out.
Healing the Land
London began reading everything he could find about farming
techniques. He pored over books, scientific papers, and agricul-
tural journal articles. He also asked for expert advice in letters he
wrote to the agricultural departments of the state of California and
the University of California. As he continued to build his knowl-
edge about farming, he developed a concept of what he believed
would be the ideal farm—one that was sustainable, with farming
methods that enriched the land rather than depleting it. “I adopt-
ed the policy of taking nothing off the ranch,” he wrote in a letter
to a friend, adding that he wanted “to leave the land better for my
having been [there].”
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Finally, London felt ready to start putting to
work all that he had learned from his research.
No matter what he grew on his farm, London eschewed the
use of chemicals and instead recycled manure from his livestock
for a natural, organic fertilizer. He grew crops on hillsides us-
ing techniques that he had learned in Korea and Japan, where
he served as a war correspondent. Known as terrace farming,
the practice involved cutting out stair-like terraces to create dif-
ferent levels of growing, which prevented water from washing
away the soil. “I had noticed the way the soil was washed down
the hillsides by rains and I determined to prevent that,” London
wrote, “which I did by grading the land, making it over into rolling
contours and abrupt terraces.”
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The innovative farming tech-
niques London implemented proved to be successful and pro-
ductive, with record crop yields—on land that had been deemed
worthless.
Energized by his farming success, London expanded the farm
by purchasing more land. He began making plans for the future,
but his health was poor and continued to grow worse. In 1916
London died at age forty. The farm that he had lovingly nurtured
lived on, and today Beauty Ranch is a historic park that is open
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