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Properties and Management of Soils in the Tropics
The long-awaited second edition of the classic textbook expands on the first edition to include advances made in the
last four decades, bringing the topic completely up-to-date. Written from agronomic and ecological standpoints, the
book reaches beyond soil science to consequential issues such as food security, poverty and health in tropical countries,
climate change, biodiversity, water, and other ecosystem services that soils provide. New chapters in this second
edition include coverage of soil organic carbon and soil biology. The wrap-up chapters integrate the various aspects of
soils in relation to slash-and-burn agriculture, wetland rice, livestock, forestry and agroforestry. The new edition will
again be the go-to textbook for courses on tropical soils, and a reference textbook for soil and agricultural scientists and
development professionals working in the tropics.

Pedro A. Sanchez’s name is almost synonymous with the topic of tropical soil
science. His work has influenced research in agronomy and ecology, and has
changed the way technology and policy are used to increase food production in
environmentally sustainable ways. He is Pre-eminent Research Professor of Trop-
ical Soil Science at the University of Florida. Sanchez spent 50 years alternating
between US universities and research centers of the Consultative Group for Inter-
national Agricultural Research (CGIAR). He is the first soil scientist to receive the
World Food Prize, a MacArthur Fellowship (genius award), and membership of the
US National Academy of Sciences.
“This long-awaited, magnificent new edition of the world’s best-known book on tropical soils could not have arrived at
a better time. Beautifully adorned with abundant color figures, and holistic in its thoroughly updated treatment of
topics ranging from fundamental soil science to agricultural management, this book is a must for anyone interested in
the current and future status of our increasingly fragile tropical environments. Properties and Management of Soils in the
Tropics offers its readers not only an encyclopedic perspective, but also the insight distilled from a lifetime dedicated to
the eradication of global hunger.”
Garrison Sposito,
University of California at Berkeley

“The voluminous data, graphs, and photos synthesized from extensive citations of scientific publications are invaluable
resources for any person seeking information on the diverse environmental conditions within the tropics. The
identification of where and why specific management practices are applicable to different areas within the tropics
serves to guide future research. The reader is also availed of candid observations by an author who has ‘been there and
done that.’”
Stanley W. Buol,
North Carolina State University

“This is a fascinating book which surpasses the classic first edition by being so much more than a book about soils. All
the necessary expert knowledge is there, but it is embedded in an insightful analysis of the wider environmental and
social context. Few people are more convincing than Professor Sanchez about the importance of this truly critical
resource – so often taken for granted – our soil.”
Louise Fresco,
Wageningen University

“Professor Sanchez herein contributes a second edition to his already classic text Properties and Management of Soils of the
Tropics. The update is an even more comprehensive and detailed view of management of soils of the tropics that is
unlikely ever to be matched. The book represents a true classic for practitioners and scholars alike. It depicts a journey
of nearly 50 years of learning experiences with managing soils of the tropics in a variety of production systems. Some
personal experiences are shared in gripping detail. The new edition even improves on the first edition in terms of
quality graphics, photographs, and depictions of the diverse systems detailed. Thank you, Pedro!”
Russell Yost,
University of Hawai`i at Manoa

“I want to congratulate you on what will become a best-seller. You have handled soil science in the most
comprehensive way possible, something that only you – with your international experience and writing ability – could
do.”
Alfredo Scheid Lopes,
Universidade Federal de Lavras, Brazil

“This long-awaited new edition of the ‘classic’ on tropical soils turned into a very comprehensive document, taking the
reader on a long but exciting journey from the pre-Green Revolution era to current multidisciplinary approaches to
rural development in the tropics, while keeping the obvious focus on soil issues. Yet this is presented within a context
of MDGs and other currently debated topics such as conservation agriculture, soil carbon sequestration and organic
agriculture in the tropics. The author does not shy away from taking positions in all of these debates, based on his
unique experience and a large dose of common sense which lifts the impact of this book beyond the purely
disciplinary. Hence, it is obligatory reading for all those involved in agricultural development and will serve as
a solid reference text for students in these or related disciplines.”
Roel Merckx,
Catholic University of Leuven
Properties and Management of Soils
in the Tropics
Second Edition

Pedro A. Sanchez
University of Florida
University Printing House, Cambridge CB2 8BS, United Kingdom
One Liberty Plaza, 20th Floor, New York, NY 10006, USA
477 Williamstown Road, Port Melbourne, VIC 3207, Australia
314–321, 3rd Floor, Plot 3, Splendor Forum, Jasola District Centre, New Delhi – 110025, India
79 Anson Road, #06–04/06, Singapore 079906

Cambridge University Press is part of the University of Cambridge.

It furthers the University’s mission by disseminating knowledge in the pursuit of
education, learning, and research at the highest international levels of excellence.

www.cambridge.org
Information on this title: www.cambridge.org/9781107176058
DOI: 10.1017/9781316809785
© Pedro A. Sanchez 2019
This publication is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception
and to the provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements,
no reproduction of any part may take place without the written
permission of Cambridge University Press.
First published 2019
Printed and bound in Great Britain by Clays Ltd, Elcograf S.P.A
A catalog record for this publication is available from the British Library.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Sanchez, Pedro A., 1940– author.
Title: Properties and management of soils in the tropics / Pedro A. Sanchez.
Description: Second edition. | Cambridge, United Kingdom ; New York, NY : Cambridge University Press, 2018. |
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2018034215 | ISBN 9781107176058 (hardback : alk. paper)
Subjects: LCSH: Soils–Tropics. | Plant-soil relationships–Tropics. | Soil science. | Agriculture–Tropics.
Classification: LCC S599.9.T76 S26 2018 | DDC 631.4/9–dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018034215
ISBN 978-1-107-17605-8 Hardback
Cambridge University Press has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy
of URLs for external or third-party internet websites referred to in this publication
and does not guarantee that any content on such websites is, or will remain,
accurate or appropriate.
 Dedication

I dedicate this book to the four persons who have been most instrumental in my professional career:
My father Pedro Antonio Sanchez Diaz (1911–2000) who taught me the love of soils and
agriculture while growing up in Cuba.

Dr. Nyle C. Brady (1920–2015) my professor at Cornell who

mentored me as an undergraduate, graduate student and
young scientist, and later provided keen advice to navigate
administrative hurdles when I was Director General of the
International Centre for Research in Agroforestry (ICRAF),
having himself served as Director General of IRRI.
Dr. Stanley W. Buol, professor of soil science at North
Carolina State University, who taught me more about soils
while travelling with him all over the tropics than I learned
during my formal education.

Dr. Cheryl A. Palm, currently professor at the University of

Florida and partner for over a quarter of a century, who
taught me soil biology and ecology, conducted research
together in Africa, Asia and Latin America, and developed
multidisciplinary initiatives. She is my fiercest scientific
critic and a loving and much loved wife. This book would
not exist without her constant support.
 Table of Contents

Foreword page xiii

Preface xv
Acknowledgments xvii

Part I The Tropical Environment 1

1 The Natural Environment of the Tropics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
1.1 The Tropics Defined . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
1.2 Temperature and Solar Radiation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
1.3 Rainfall . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
1.4 Tropical Climates . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
1.5 Vegetation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
1.6 Physiography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
1.7 The Anthropocene . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
1.8 Biodiversity in the Tropics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
1.9 Climate Change . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
1.10 Summary and Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
2 The Human Environment of the Tropics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
2.1 Demographics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
2.2 Key Concepts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
2.3 The Fight Against Hunger and Absolute Poverty . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42
2.4 The Food Versus Population Race . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
2.5 Green Revolutions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46
2.6 Tropical Agroecosystems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53
2.7 Land Use and Land-Use Change . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54
2.8 Intensification and Extensification . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58
2.9 Summary and Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63

Part II Pedology, Physics, Chemistry and Biology 67

3 History of Soil Science in the Tropics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69
3.1 The Laterite Paradigm . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70
3.2 Tropical Soils Are Very Diverse . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71
3.3 Tropical Soil Research: 1970s to 1990s . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72
3.4 The First Soil Management Paradigm . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73
3.5 The Second Soil Management Paradigm . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74
3.6 The Third Soil Management Paradigm . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75
3.7 Soils in a Global Context . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75
3.8 Summary and Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77
4 Soils of the Tropics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82
4.1 Soil Taxonomy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83
4.2 World Reference Base for Soil Resources . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92
4.3 A National Soil Classification System: Cuba . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92
4.4 Main Soils of the Tropics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97
4.5 Soils at the Landscape Scale . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109
4.6 Importance of Soil Diversity to Ecologists and Modelers . . . . . . 115
4.7 Summary and Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115
viii TABLE OF CONTENTS

5 Functional Capability Classification . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 120

5.1 System Structure and Definitions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 120
5.2 Areal Extent of FCC Attributes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 121
5.3 Attributes Related to Soil Mineralogy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123
5.4 Attributes Related to Soil Organic Matter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 126
5.5 Attributes Related to Soil Physical Properties . . . . . . . . . . . . . 127
5.6 Attributes Related to Soil Reaction (pH) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 128
5.7 Regional Differences . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 129
5.8 Interpreting FCC Classes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 130
5.9 Actual and Potential Use of FCC . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 130
5.10 Summary and Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 131
6 Soil Physical Properties . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 134
6.1 Depth of Rooting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 135
6.2 Soil Temperature . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 135
6.3 Soil Structure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 136
6.4 Soil Compaction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 143
6.5 Soil Water . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 146
6.6 Soil Erosion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 151
6.7 Soil and Water Conservation Practices . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 156
6.8 Conservation Agriculture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 162
6.9 Summary and Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 169
7 Water . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 176
7.1 Overall Perspective . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 177
7.2 Metrics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 178
7.3 Rainfed Agriculture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 180
7.4 Irrigated Agriculture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 186
7.5 Irrigation and Carbon . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 192
7.6 Perspectives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 192
7.7 Summary and Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 193

8 Mineralogy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 196
8.1 Basic Concepts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 196
8.2 Paradigm Shifts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 197
8.3 Types of Clay Minerals . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 197
8.4 Mineralogy Families . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 199
8.5 Measurement Issues . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 200
8.6 pH–Charge Relationships . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 202
8.7 Anion Exchange Capacity: An Asset of the Tropics . . . . . . . . . . 206
8.8 Summary and Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 207
9 Soil Acidity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 210
9.1 Causes of Soil Acidity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 211
9.2 Acid Soil Infertility . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 215
9.3 Genetic Differences in Aluminum Tolerance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 218
9.4 Liming . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 221
9.5 Overliming . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 226
9.6 Residual Effects of Liming . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 226
9.7 Subsoil Acidity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 227
9.8 Secondary Acidity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 229
9.9 Advantages of Acid Soils . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 231
9.10 Summary and Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 231

10 Soil Biology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 236

10.1 Definitions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 237
10.2 Soil Biodiversity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 237
 TABLE OF CONTENTS ix

10.3 Ecosystem Functions and Services . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 238

10.4 Comminution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 238
10.5 Decomposition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 239
10.6 Transformation of Nutrient Elements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 242
10.7 Soil Structure Regulation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 242
10.8 The Root Extenders: Mycorrhizae . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 246
10.9 Soil Biodiversity and Land-Use Change . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 250
10.10 Reflections . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 253
10.11 Summary and Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 254
11 Organic Carbon . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 259
11.1 History of SOC Research . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 260
11.2 Tropical Soils and the Global Carbon Cycle . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 260
11.3 SOC in Tropical and Temperate Regions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 263
11.4 Carbon Pools and Fractions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 266
11.5 Carbon Sequestration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 269
11.6 Animal Manures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 278
11.7 Composts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 284
11.8 Biochars . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 284
11.9 Organic Farming . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 289
11.10 Summary and Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 297

Part III Soil Fertility 307

12 Soil Fertility Principles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 309
12.1 The Law of the Minimum . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 311
12.2 Synchrony . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 311
12.3 Nutrient Cycling . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 311
12.4 Nutrient Uptake by Crops and Cycling . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 312
12.5 Determining Fertilizer Needs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 313
12.6 Early Twenty-First-Century Paradigm Shifts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 319
12.7 Summary and Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 322
13 Nitrogen . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 326
13.1 The Nitrogen Cycle . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 327
13.2 Nitrogen Pools and Fractions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 329
13.3 Atmospheric Deposition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 329
13.4 Biological Nitrogen Fixation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 330
13.5 Mineral Fertilizers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 338
13.6 Organic Nitrogen Mineralization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 342
13.7 Nitrogen Fertilizer Reactions in Soils . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 344
13.8 Fluctuations of Inorganic Nitrogen . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 345
13.9 Combining Mineral and Organic Nitrogen Fertilizers . . . . . . 348
13.10 Environmental Consequences . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 351
13.11 Efficiency of Nitrogen Fertilization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 358
13.12 Profitability . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 361
13.13 Summary and Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 362
14 Phosphorus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 370
14.1 The Phosphorus Cycle . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 371
14.2 Total Soil Phosphorus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 374
14.3 Inorganic Phosphorus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 374
14.4 Organic Phosphorus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 378
14.5 Phosphorus Sorption and Release . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 380
14.6 Soil Tests for Available Phosphorus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 387
14.7 Plant Phosphorus Requirements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 387
14.8 Phosphorus Fertilization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 390
x TABLE OF CONTENTS

14.9 Residual Effects and Efficiency of Utilization . . . . . . . . . . . . 401

14.10 Summary and Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 406
15 Sulfur . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 415
15.1 The Sulfur Cycle . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 416
15.2 Sulfur Sorption . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 419
15.3 Crop Requirements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 422
15.4 Nutrition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 422
15.5 Soil Testing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 422
15.6 Sulfur Fertilization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 424
15.7 Summary and Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 426

Part IV Management Systems 431

16 Soils and Slash-and-Burn Agriculture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 433
16.1 Shifting Cultivation and Slash-and-Burn Agriculture . . . . . . . 435
16.2 Forest–Soil Nutrient Cycles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 437
16.3 Land Clearing by Slash and Burn . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 444
16.4 Mechanized Land Clearing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 453
16.5 Crop Yield Declines and Field Abandonment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 458
16.6 Secondary Forest Fallows . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 461
16.7 Alternatives to Slash and Burn . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 464
16.8 Combining Agricultural Intensification with Decreased
Deforestation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 479
16.9 Summary and Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 482

17 Soil Management in Rice Cultivation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 492

17.1 Physical Consequences of Flooding . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 493
17.2 Puddling . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 494
17.3 Chemical and Biological Consequences of Flooding . . . . . . . 497
17.4 Rice Cultivation Systems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 506
17.5 Water . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 511
17.6 Nutrient Management . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 515
17.7 Yield Stagnation: Nitrogen Sequestration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 525
17.8 Environmental Dimensions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 526
17.9 The Way Forward . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 532
17.10 Summary and Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 534
18 Soils and Livestock-Based Tropical Systems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 544
18.1 Tropical Livestock in the Global Context . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 544
18.2 Tropical Pastures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 547
18.3 Nutrient Cycling . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 557
18.4 Tropical Livestock Management Systems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 571
18.5 Pastoralism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 571
18.6 Smallholder Mixed Crop–Livestock Systems . . . . . . . . . . . . . 574
18.7 Extensive Pasture-Based Beef Production . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 578
18.8 Pasture Degradation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 581
18.9 Crop–Pasture Integration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 582
18.10 Livestock and the Environment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 584
18.11 Summary and Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 587

19 Soils and Tropical Tree-Based Systems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 596

19.1 Plantation Forestry . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 597
19.2 Plantation Forestry Species . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 598
19.3 Growth Stages of Tree Plantations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 599
19.4 Hydrology of Tropical Forestry Plantations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 605
19.5 Agroforestry . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 609
 TABLE OF CONTENTS xi

19.6 More People, More Trees . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 610

19.7 Agroforestry Tree Species . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 611
19.8 Classification of Agroforestry Systems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 612
19.9 Simultaneous Agroforestry . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 613
19.10 Sequential Agroforestry: A Different Story . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 622
19.11 Tree Crops . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 632
19.12 Environmental Consequences . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 641
19.13 Summary and Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 643

Index 653
 Foreword
The second edition of the book, Properties and Management of
Soils in the Tropics, by Pedro A. Sanchez, comprehensively
addresses soils of the tropics in relation to their properties,
eco-region, land use, agronomic practices, ecosystem ser-
vices and environmental issues. The second edition, pub-
lished 40 years after the first edition, in 1976, contains
updated data which have been vastly improved in all
aspects: classification, chemical and nutritional properties,
physical and hydrological attributes, biological and elemen-
tal transformations, carbon cycling and climate change, etc.
Yet, the original focus of the book, an agronomic manage-
ment for crop and livestock production, is maintained and
vastly expanded by including the updated information on
ecosystem services and cultural practices such as conserva-
tion agriculture, livestock and agroforestry. Description of
the subject matter is authentic and credible because of the
vast personal experience of Professor Pedro Sanchez in
diverse soils and eco-regions of Asia, South America and
Africa as a scientist, academician and research manager. In
addition to the data presented as graphs and tables, several
key issues are vividly explained by color photographs of
soils, soil profiles, landscape and management systems.
For a career spanning over 50 years, Professor Sanchez
has been an active and a distinguished participant in World
Congresses and other activities of the International Union of
Soil Sciences. He is widely recognized for his scientific con-
tributions to sustainable management of soils of the tropics.
I have personally known his research since the early 1970s
and visited several of his long-term experiments including
those at Yurimaguas in Peru, and the Llanos of Colombia.
Similarly to the first edition, the second edition of the book
will also be widely used by students, researchers, land man-
agers, development organizations, non-governmental organ-
izations and the general public. The knowledge presented
herein will be useful to soil scientists, policymakers, agri-
culturalists and land-use planners.
November 20, 2017
Rattan Lal
President, International Union of Soil Sciences
 Preface
It is not common when the second edition of a book is
published more than four decades after the first one. The
need for a tropical soils book became apparent to me while
teaching an undergraduate course in soil fertility at the
University of the Philippines in the mid 1960s. Students
experienced difficulties in relating to maize–soybean agri-
culture in much younger soils of northern latitudes – so
unlike soils that were growing flooded rice and coconuts in
their country. The first edition, published in 1976, brought
the application of soil science principles to tropical
examples. The book was translated into Spanish in 1981
and Bahasa Indonesia in 1992, and a pirated English edition
was published in the Philippines. The first edition was rated
as one of the top ten core monographs in soil science
in 1994.
Since the 1970s, research on tropical soils has mush-
roomed all over the tropics, conducted by many national
and international institutions, with an increasing number
of them published in peer-reviewed journals and books. The
practical implications of such research formed a major part
of the large increases in food production that the tropics
have experienced in the last decades, as well as a much
better understanding of the ecology of tropical systems.
I was regularly requested to write a second edition by
scientists and practicing agronomists from multiple parts of
the world, but research in Peru, Brazil, and later in Indo-
nesia and Africa, plus managing the World Agroforestry
Center (ICRAF), the United Nations Millennium Hunger Task
Force and the Millennium Villages got in the way of writing.
Nevertheless, I was able to conduct and oversee research,
write review articles, supervise graduate students and post-
doctoral students and collect a large amount of publications
in hard copy and, nowadays, electronically. I was also able to
work and travel in all areas of the tropics – the humid
tropics, subhumid, semiarid and arid tropics, the tropical
highlands and wetlands, in addition to North America and
Europe, and also China.
The first edition was purely agronomic. By joining the
Tropical Soil Biology and Fertility Program in the mid
1980s, and subsequently working with my partner Cheryl
Palm, I learned tropical ecology as applied to soils. This edi-
tion encompasses both agronomy and ecology, addressing the
ecosystem services that soils provide, not only food and
nutrition security but also the regulation of climate, water,
and nutrients, and the preservation of biodiversity. Now that
soils are given more attention by the general public, the book
now reaches out to other disciplines, such as economics,
climate science, policy and plant genetic improvement. One
could call this edition “soils plus.” Like the first one, this
edition requires knowledge of an elemental soil science
course.
With this broader exposure, soil science has become
controversial, with issues like organic farming, use of fertil-
izers, biochar, etc. I have put these controversial issues
through the prism of science, while respecting the values
of their advocates.
Sustainability is a term that is often abused. To me,
sustainability has to have a temporal dimension and to be
trajectory in order to be meaningful. Hence, the emphasis
on soil and plants changes with time.
The book follows the structure of the first edition, but
with different chapters. Part One is introductory, dealing
with the natural and human environment of the tropics in
two chapters. Part Two describes the properties and pro-
cesses of soils in terms of pedology, soil physics, chemistry
and biology in nine more chapters. Part Three focuses on soil
fertility with four chapters, and Part Four the management
of soils in terms of four major systems – slash-and-
burn agriculture, wetland rice, livestock-based systems
and tree-based systems. I was fortunate to do long-term
research on these key systems: slash and burn in Peru,
Brazil, Indonesia, and Cameroon; rice in the Philippines
and Peru; livestock in Colombia, Peru, Brazil and Africa;
and tree-based systems throughout tropical Africa, Latin
America and Southeast Asia.
I have taken a more personal – and less stuffy – tone,
minimizing jargon and also eliminating the spurious accur-
acy of many ways of expressing units, to make the book
more readable to non-scientists, without compromising sci-
ence quality. I have listed all co-authors in the list of refer-
ences, to give credit to all involved in each publication.
Pedro A. Sanchez
Gainesville, Florida
December 2018
 Acknowledgments
I wish to acknowledge the help of many individuals who have
aided in the preparation of this book. To my colleagues
around the world, I am grateful for their incisive questions
and criticisms of the concepts and examples presented. For
reviewing the various chapters, I am indebted to Miguel
Ayarza, Stanley Buol, Eduardo Caires, Achim Dobermann,
Peter Grace, Peter Groffman, Upmanu Lall, JK Ladha,
Johannes Lehman, Alfredo Lopes, Jerry Melillo, Roel Merckx,
Meine van Noordwijk, Generose Nziguheba, Keith Paustian,
Cheryl Palm, Shelby Riskin, Robert Scholes, Mike Swift, Ray-
mond Weil and Russell Yost. When I had specific questions
I reached out to a large number of colleagues by phone or
email and have credited their advice as personal communi-
cations. I wrote every word in this book and take responsi-
bility for any errors.
I am very grateful to my support staff, which allowed me
to focus on the writing. Mary Pasquince, Roseline Remans
and Clare Sullivan helped search the literature and supplied
me with pdfs; Philip Fitzgerald made the graphs and photos
presentable; Raffaela Kozar copy-edited; Maria Ortiz com-
piled materials sent to the publisher, all of them in most
effective and professional ways.
I am also grateful for the financial support provided by
the University of California’s Kearney Foundation of Soil
Science, managed by Garrison Sposito, and the Bill and
Melinda Gates Foundation’s Special Initiative grant to the
Earth Institute at Columbia University, managed by Melanie
Walker. Both included specific support for writing this
book. To Jeffrey Sachs and Steve Cohen, my supervisors at
Columbia University, and to Jack Payne and Ramesh Reddy
at the University of Florida, I appreciate their support and
encouragement to finish this task.
Part I
The Tropical Environment
 Chapter 1

The Natural Environment of the Tropics

Fig. 1.1 The western hemisphere tropics. Heavy lines show

the Tropic of Cancer (23.5
N) and the Tropic of Capricorn
(23.5
S). Source: NOAA Environmental Visualization Lab
(NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information 2016)

The purpose of this chapter is to provide a framework of the
biophysical environment of the tropics. There have been
major changes in emphasis since the first edition was pub-
lished 40 years ago. At that time, I looked at the tropical
environment almost exclusively in terms of increasing food
production to feed a rapidly growing population. While
doing my doctoral research in the Philippines in the late
1960s I never heard the terms climate change, biodiversity,
or ecosystem services while working at the University of the
Philippines at Los Baños, the International Rice Research
Institute (IRRI) and Cornell University. Things have changed
for the better. Soil science in the tropics has broadened to
encompass tropical ecology as well as tropical agronomy.
1.1 The Tropics Defined
The geographic definition of the tropics includes that part of
the world located between 23
280 north and south of the
equator, that is between the tropic of Cancer and the tropic
of Capricorn (Fig. 1.1). Because the tilt of the Earth’s axis has
the same angle, these latitudes are the limit of the Sun’s
4 THE NATURAL ENVIRONMENT OF THE TROPICS

apparent migration to the north or south of the zenith. The

Table 1.1 Mean monthly air temperatures at sea level
tropics are the only part of the world where the Sun passes
in January and July at different latitudes (
C).
directly overhead, receiving more energy than the temper-
ate and boreal regions. Latitude January July Mean annual
The tropics comprise 38 percent of the Earth’s land sur-

face (approximately 5 billion hectares) and half of the 20 N 22 28 26


world’s population, about 3.6 billion people in 2013 15 N 24 28 26
(according to the FAOSTAT statistics database [fao.org/fao- 10
N 26 27 26
stat]). A total of 124 countries and territories lie wholly or

mostly in the tropics. They include most of the “developing”
5 N 26 24 26
countries except those in the Middle East, North Africa, the 0 26 25 26
former Soviet Union, China, Mongolia, North Korea, Paki- 5
S 26 25 26
stan, Afghanistan, Bhutan and Nepal.

10 S 26 24 25
The literature is full of attempts to quantify precisely the


tropical versus extra-tropical parts of the world. The concept 15 S 26 23 24
used in this book is the strictly geographical one, which 20
S 25 20 23
includes the cold tropical highlands as well as the hot low-
lands. Like any quantitative geographical definition, it loses
meaning at the boundaries because changes are gradual. Travelling in Kenya from hot and humid Mombasa at sea
The tabular data presented in this book follow the latitu- level, through the eternal spring climate of Nairobi (1550 m),
dinal definition but are based on entire countries. Thus, and to the top of Mount Kenya with glaciers (5200 m) illus-
parts of northern India, northern Bangladesh, northern trates this point, as these locations all lie within 3
from the
Mexico, southern Brazil, southern Australia and southern equator. The main point to remember about temperatures
South Africa outside of the tropics are included, whereas in the tropics is their relative constancy rather than any
parts of southern China and the Arabian Peninsula within absolute value.
the tropics are excluded. The low but constant temperatures of the tropical high-
lands constitute one reason why certain temperate crops that
require winter chilling for high yields and quality, such as
1.2 Temperature and Solar pears, perform poorly in these areas. In addition, it takes
longer to grow crops. For example, it takes 5 months to grow
Radiation a crop of maize in temperate North Carolina and about the
same time in the lowlands of Colombia, but in Bogotá, at an
1.2.1 Temperature altitude of 2800 m, maize requires 11 months to mature.
The reason for choosing the latitudinal definition is its ease During the growing season in the temperate region, tempera-
of quantification in terms of temperature. The tropics can be tures are higher than in the tropical highlands.
defined as that part of the world where the mean monthly Tropical climates are also different from Mediterranean
surface air temperature variation is 6
C or less between the climates, which are characterized by hot, dry summers and
average of the three warmest and the three coldest months cool, wet winters, with temperature variations higher than
(Table 1.1). The daily variation is generally within this range. in the tropics. Typical Mediterranean crops like red-wine
This definition includes the tropical highlands, the dif- grapes and olives do not do well in the tropics. I have yet
ference being their lower overall temperatures. Mean air to find an excellent red wine produced in the tropics. The
temperatures generally decrease by 0.6
C for every 100 m best are from the Mediterranean climates of California,
increase in elevation in the tropics. Local variation in topog- Italy, southern France, the Cape region of South Africa,
raphy, rainfall, wind direction, and other factors alters this Chile and Argentina.
relationship. The least temperature variation occurs within 6
of the
People unfamiliar with tropical regions generally con- equator. As latitude increases, diurnal and seasonal air
sider them to be oppressively hot and humid. Although this temperature variations also increase, reaching maximum
condition certainly exists, it is as broad a generalization as values in the desert areas near the tropic of Cancer. The
considering the temperate region to be oppressively cold and widest temperature variation is found in inland areas with
dry. I have experienced more intense hot and humid condi- the least rainfall, close to the tropic of Cancer, such as
tions in Washington, DC during the summer than in the Tomboctou, Mali.
heart of the Amazon Basin, where one can almost always Soil temperatures in the tropics, as defined in the Soil
count on cool night breezes. Taxonomy system, fall in the “iso” temperature regimes,
Near the equator, tropical climates are hot; averaging that is, those with “less than 6
C difference between the
26
C at low elevations, pleasantly cool at 1000–2000 meters, average soil temperature of June, July and August and the
and positively frigid at elevations above 3000 meters. average soil temperature of December, January and
 1.2 TEMPERATURE AND SOLAR RADIATION 5

Table 1.2 Soil temperature regimes as defined by the Soil Taxonomy system and their corresponding equivalents in terms of
mean annual air temperature and elevation at the equator.

Regime Soil temperature (
C)a Mean annual air temperature (
C) Elevation (m)
Isohyperthermic > 22 > 20 0–900
Isothermic 15–22 13–20 900–2000
Isomesic 8–15 6–13 2000–3200
Isofrigid <8 <6 > 3200
a
In all cases the difference between mean soil temperature is < 6 ºC between the three warmest and the three coldest months.

Table 1.3 Mean monthly soil temperature and daily water. Any excess heat is reradiated to the atmosphere. This
variation in Jakarta, Indonesia (Mohr et al. is the reason why one cannot fry an egg even on the hottest
1972). soil, whereas it is possible to do so on asphalt because it has
higher heat capacity.
Soil Highest Lowest Daily
depth month month variation
(cm) (
C) (
C) (
C) 1.2.2 Solar Radiation
The tropics receive more solar energy that is available for
Air 26.6 22.5 6.9 photosynthesis than the temperate and boreal regions.
3 29.9 28.3 5.2 Because of the spherical shape of the Earth’s atmosphere
the Sun’s rays strike almost at right angles near the equator
5 29.9 28.7 5.0
but at increasingly acute angles towards the poles. This
10 29.9 28.9 3.1 concentrates heat in the tropics. Also, as latitude increases,
15 30.0 28.7 1.5 the Sun’s rays have to pass through a thicker atmosphere
and lose more energy through absorption, reflection and
30 30.0 28.5 0.3
scattering (Osborne 2000). From 56 to 59 percent of the
60 30.8 28.5 0.05 Sun’s radiation at the rim of the atmosphere reaches the
90 29.8 28.7 0.05 Earth’s surface in the tropics; about 46 percent at 40
lati-
tude (New York City); and only 33 percent at 60
latitude
110 29.7 28.8 0.04
(Stockholm) (Landsberg 1961).
The average annual solar radiation in the tropics
February at 50 cm depth or to a dense, lithic or paralithic (20.3 MJ/m2 per day) is twice that of the temperate region,
contact” (Soil Survey Staff 1999, 2014). Soil temperatures and about 2.5 times that of the boreal region (Landsberg
can be estimated from air-temperature records by adding 2 1961, Reading et al. 1995). The annual solar radiation is


C to mean annual air temperatures in the lowland tropics lowest in the humid tropics (about 15 MJ/m2 per day) due
(Murtha and Williams 1986). Table 1.2 presents the soil to high cloud cover, and highest (25 MJ/m2 per day) in
temperature regimes as defined by the Soil Taxonomy tropical deserts (Reading et al. 1995). In areas with even
system along with their corresponding approximate equiva- rainfall distribution, such as rainforests or deserts, there is
lents of mean annual air temperature at the soil surface and little seasonality in solar radiation.
elevation at the equator, using a change of 6
C for each In areas with distinct rainy and dry seasons, cloudiness
1000 m increase in elevation. causes considerable seasonality. Table 1.4 shows some
The above definition excludes soil temperature variation examples, with the tropical ones related to irrigated rice-
in the topsoil. This is illustrated in Table 1.3, where the growing areas. In Los Baños, the Philippines, the higher
monthly air and soil temperature variations are shown for solar radiation during the dry season has a positive impact
a soil in Indonesia. Very high soil temperatures have been on irrigated rice yields and nitrogen fertilizer response.
registered on the surface of bare soils during dry periods. Rainy-season irrigated rice yields are almost identical in
Mohr et al. (1972) reported a record of 86
C at the surface of Yurimaguas, Peru and Los Baños, when solar radiation is
a bare soil in Congo. At a depth of 10 cm, the same bare soil relatively low, due primarily to cloudiness.
had a nearly normal temperature of 30
C. At the same site, The highest crop yields in the tropics are in arid, irri-
the surface soil temperature was 34
C under grassland and gated valleys where solar radiation is very high. This is
25
C under forest. Unless exposed, soil temperatures even shown for Lambayeque, Peru, where some of the highest
at the surface do not seriously exceed air temperatures. experimental rice yields have been recorded. The situation is
This buffering is due partly to the relatively low heat similar in other arid, irrigated areas in Mexico, India, Mali
capacity of soils, about one-fifth of the heat capacity of and elsewhere.
6 THE NATURAL ENVIRONMENT OF THE TROPICS
Table 1.4 Average daily solar radiation reaching the Earth’s surface during a 4-month growing season at different latitudes,
all at low elevations.
Location
Yurimaguas, Peru (humid tropics, Amazon Basin)
Lambayeque, Peru (tropical desert, irrigated)
Los Baños, Philippines (rainy season, subhumid tropics, irrigated)
Los Baños, Philippines (dry season, subhumid tropics, irrigated)
Ithaca, New York (summer, humid temperate)
In the temperate region, the annual solar radiation
reaches high levels during the summer months because of
longer days, as shown for Ithaca, New York in Table 1.4. The
breadbaskets of the temperate region therefore receive more
solar radiation during their cropping season than most trop-
ical rainy seasons, giving these temperate regions the advan-
tage on a per-crop basis. But most humid and many subhumid
tropical areas can produce more than one crop per year.
1.2.3 Photoperiod
Days in the tropics are shorter throughout the year than days
during the growing season in temperate regions. Day length
changes during the year, ranging from almost zero at the
equator to 2 hours and 50 minutes at 23.5
latitude. The
variation in day length in the temperate region is much
wider. Tropical plants are considered “short-day” plants,
but many are very sensitive to changes in photoperiod. Some
cultivars, for example, are so photoperiod sensitive that a 10-
minute change in day length prevents flowering. This is why
it is not feasible to transport “long-day” crop cultivars from
the temperate region to the tropics where the days are short.
Such plants would produce low yields.
1.3 Rainfall
Rainfall distribution – not annual rainfall – is the most
important climatic parameter for plant growth in the
tropics (Fig. 1.2), and it is the main criterion used to classify
tropical climates. The seasons in the tropics are rainy or dry,
not cold or hot. As a carryover of temperate influence, the
term “summer” is often synonymous to dry season and
“winter” to rainy season in many tropical countries.
Rainfall in the tropics is driven by complex circulation
patterns and weather disturbances. The main pattern is the
movement of the Intertropical Convergence Zone and the
main disturbances are the El Niño Southern Oscillation and
tropical cyclones.
1.3.1 Intertropical Convergence Zone
The concentration of radiant heat above the equator warms
the air, which rises as it expands. When the warm air rises, it
Months Latitude Solar radiation
(MJ/m2 per day)
September–December 6
S 14.2


September–December 6 S 20.2
September–December 14
N 14.3


February–May 14 N 17.5


June–September 42 N 18.5
Fig. 1.2 Rainfall distribution is the most critical biophysical
parameter in the tropics. Localized wet-season rains in
Planaltina, Brazil.
cools, and since cold air holds less water, rain falls. The
resulting drier air spreads poleward and falls again at about
30
N and S, creating high atmospheric pressures, where
many of the deserts are. The Coriolis force caused by the
Earth’s rotation deflects the winds, becoming northeasterly
in the northern hemisphere and southeasterly in the south-
ern hemisphere in the tropics. These two “trade winds” mix
in an equatorial low-pressure trough known as the Intertro-
pical Convergence Zone. The march of this low-pressure
trough causes the rainy seasons. The periods of heaviest rain
follow the apparent north–south migration of the Sun in the
tropics (Figs. 1.3 and 1.4). Over much of the globe the Inter-
tropical Convergence Zone position is influenced by the
ocean, so there is a lag from the time when the Sun is directly
overhead (Mark Cane, personal communication, 2016).
The Intertropical Convergence Zone moves northwards
from the equator during the northern-hemisphere summer
(June–August) and southwards from the equator during
the southern-hemisphere summer (November–January)
following the apparent migration of the Sun. It is approxi-
mately over the Equator during the summer and winter
solstices (21 June and 21 December) and at the tropics during
 1.3 RAINFALL 7

Fig. 1.3 The Intertropical Convergence Zone over the Pacific Ocean and Latin America as it moves north towards the equator. Images
were taken May 19, 2013, about 1 month before the northern-hemisphere summer solstice (21 June), the longest day of the year in the
northern hemisphere. Source: NOAA Environmental Visualization Lab (NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information 2016)

Fig. 1.4 The Intertropical Convergence Zone at the tropics of Capricorn and Cancer. Left image shows the zone on November 24,
2010, having crossed the equator and approaching the tropic of Capricorn, which it will reach 3 weeks after, on the summer solstice (21
December), the longest day in the southern hemisphere. Right image, taken May 17, 2016, shows the return northwards of the
Intertropical Convergence Zone, approaching the tropic of Cancer on 21 June. Source: NOAA Environmental Visualization Lab (NOAA
National Centers for Environmental Information 2016)
8 THE NATURAL ENVIRONMENT OF THE TROPICS

N
J F M A M J J A S O N D 1.3.3 El Niño Southern Oscillation
The El Niño Southern Oscillation (sometimes abbreviated to
15° ENSO) is an irregular low-frequency oscillation between a
warm (El Niño) and a cold (La Niña) stage in the tropical
10° Pacific Ocean (Cane 2005). The normal tropical eastern
E Pacific high pressure is associated with southerly winds.

SUN
URS

5° The winds create strong coastal upwelling and drive the cold

ZEN
L CO

Humboldt Current northwards, resulting in coastal deserts

Latitude

ITH
in Peru and Chile. Starting at about 6
S the southeasterly
ITHA

0°

AL
trade winds normally move the cold waters westwards. Sur-
Z EN

CO
face water is gradually warmed under the tropical Sun as it

URS
SUN

5°
crosses the equatorial Pacific Ocean, creating a pool of very

10°
15°
S Ocean around Indonesia becomes 30 cm higher than the
J F M A M J J A S O
Month
Rainy
season
Fig. 1.5 The march of rainy and dry seasons in the tropics (De
Martonne 1957).
the equinoxes (21 March and 21 September). Although such
global generalizations are of limited local value, they correlate
well with the timing and length of dry seasons, including the
bimodal pattern of two dry seasons and two rainy seasons
within 5
of the equator (Fig. 1.5). These equatorial regions
receive periods of maximum rainfall when the Intertropical
Convergence Zone crosses the equator.
1.3.2 Monsoons
Monsoon is the Arabic word for season and it’s used in the
context of change in the direction of winds. Monsoons are
an actual manifestation of the movement of the Intertropi-
cal Convergence Zone northward in India (Gadgil 2003).
Their consequences extend beyond the tropics, to 35
N on
the Indian subcontinent. Here land masses heat more rap-
idly than the Indian Ocean during the hotter months, draw-
ing humid air from it. A similar situation takes place in
West Africa and in northern Australia (Osborne 2000). The
variability of monsoon rains under the Intertropical Conver-
gence Zone is a critical feature of the Indian subcontinent,
affecting hundreds of millions of people. The East African
coast is also affected by the Indian monsoon. The kazkazi
north to northeasterly winds provide rains during the hot
season from October to May, while the kusai, the cooler and
stronger winds from the southern Indian Ocean, take
place during the dry season. It is important to remember
that monsoon wind and rainfall changes are produced by
the Intertropical Convergence Zone, not by a separate
phenomenon.
An idealized diagram of the march of the seasons in
tropical regions appears in Fig. 1.5.
E
warm water in the western equatorial Pacific that produces
low atmospheric pressures and high rainfall as it reaches
equatorial Southeast Asia. The western equatorial Pacific
N D
eastern Pacific Ocean.
Dry When the trade winds collapse this mountain of water
season
spreads east, bringing warmer sea surface temperatures and
rains to the coastal desert around Christmas time. Peruvian
fishermen of the nineteenth century called these events “El
Niño” (for baby Jesus).
El Niño affects the entire tropics and beyond (Fig. 1.6).
The main disturbances are droughts in Southeast Asia and
Australia, the weakening of the monsoon rain-bearing
winds on the Indian subcontinent, droughts in southern
Africa (south of and including Malawi), and droughts in
the Sahel and in parts of Central America, the Caribbean,
and the northern Amazon. Wetter and warmer than normal
weather takes place in East Africa, parts of Central Asia,
across the southern half of the United States from California
to Georgia, and in parts of the US Midwest and the La Plata
basin of South America. Forest fires in Alberta, Canada are
affected by El Niño, and two recent winter Olympics were
too warm for snow to fall during El Niño years (Mark Cane,
personal communication, 2016). There seems to be less hur-
ricane activity in the Atlantic during El Niño years.
The larger the increase in seawater temperature under
the Intertropical Convergence Zone, the more intense the El
Niño events are, but the global impacts also depend on the
timing of the El Niño with respect to the seasonal pattern of
sea-surface-temperature changes in the tropical Pacific and
whatever opposing or reinforcing effects the rest of the
climate system imposes. Nevertheless, there will be more
intense rainfall during El Niño events because there will be
more available moisture (Mark Cane, personal
communication, 2016).
La Niña events produce colder sea surface temperatures
and less rainfall. The effects are also felt widely as the
opposite of El Niños.
I experienced my first El Niño in 1971 when living in
Chiclayo, a coastal desert city of Peru, while working on
irrigated rice. What a terrible thing rain is in a desert that
normally gets none! Adobe houses melted and irrigation and
sewage systems were disrupted, spreading mud and filth
all over.
 1.3 RAINFALL 9

Wet Dry

Dry
Nov. to following March
Wet Dry
Jan. to April Dec. to March
July to following April Jan. to April
Wet Nov. to
June to Sept. following April
Dry Dry June to
following March April to
July to Sept. Jan. to
July to Dec. June
April

Wet Wet Wet Jan. to May

Oct. to following Jan. Oct. to Dec.
June to following Jan. June to following April
Dry
Dry
July to following March
Sept. to following March

Wet
Dry June to Sept. Wet
July to Nov. Sept. to
Nov. to following March
following Jan.
July to following Jan.

Fig. 1.6 The main consequences of El Niño events across the world. Source: International Research Institute for Climate and Society,
Columbia University

My second El Niño was in 1992, this time in Africa, when
many agroforestry experiments were wiped out by drought
in Malawi, Zambia and Zimbabwe, while floods disrupted
crops and infrastructure in Kenya. Similar “oscillations” are
now beginning to be recognized in other oceans, but not to
the magnitude of El Niño. In effect, most of the world is
affected by El Niño. Because of this global effect, climatolo-
gists assert that “the tropics rule the world’s climate” (Cane
and Evans 2000).
1.3.4 Moisture Availability Index
As indicated before, rainfall distribution, rather than the
total amount, is the most important climatic parameter for
tropical plant growth. The number of consecutive months
when soil moisture is limiting plant growth is used to dif-
ferentiate tropical climates for agriculture as well as delin-
eate natural systems. A dry month is traditionally and
arbitrarily defined as one with less than 100 mm of rainfall.
A more detailed definition used by the Food and Agricul-
ture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) Agroecologi-
cal Zones project is that of the growing period, defined as
the number of days during the year where the average
precipitation exceeds half the potential evapotranspiration
plus the days required to evaporate 100 mm of stored soil
moisture (FAO 1981).
Reliance on average values has led to disastrous results.
One of most notorious examples of such was the British
Groundnut Scheme in Tanzania during the late 1940s (Wood
1950). The area had an average rainfall of about 700 mm
during the rainy season, which is sufficient in quantity and
length to grow peanuts. On this basis, several thousand
hectares were planted to peanuts. They received 250 mm
of rain during the first year and 300 mm the second,
resulting in massive crop failures costing about 100 million
dollars (in 1950 dollars).
Given the high variability, it is better to use a probability
statement in rainfall data. An example of weekly rainfall
probabilities is presented in Fig. 1.7 for Muguga, Kenya.
Rainfall probabilities have been used to develop the Mois-
ture Availability Index (MAI) concept (Hargreaves 1977). MAI
is the ratio of the monthly dependable precipitation (75%
probability level) divided by the potential evapotranspira-
tion, in effect predicting the intensity of drought stress.
MAI values > 1.00 predict no stress; from 0.67 to 1.00, slight
probability; from 0.67 to 0.33, moderate; and < 0.33, highly
probable drought stress.
The dry season is then defined as consecutive months
with MAI values lower than 0.33, which reflects a high
probability of serious drought stress to crops. Whenever
more than 20 years of rainfall records are available this
procedure, or a similar one, should be used in favor of
10 THE NATURAL ENVIRONMENT OF THE TROPICS

average rainfall values. The MAI concept has been used 1999). Roughly, this corresponds to depths of 10–30 cm for
effectively in Latin America (Cochrane et al. 1985). fine loamy, silty and clayey soils, 20–60 cm for coarse loamy
soils, and 30–90 cm for sandy soils. The term “dry” refers to
1.3.5 Rainfall Intensity soil moisture tensions of at least –1.5 MPa (megapascals, or
Rainfall intensity (mm H2O/hour) is also variable, largely 15 atmospheres), that is, at or above the wilting point of
depending on whether the rains are advective or convective.
Advective rains are caused by air masses moving inland
from the ocean or up a mountain range, causing drizzle, Table 1.5 Simplified definitions of soil moisture
fog, high humidity and low-intensity rains for several days. regimes in the Soil Taxonomy system as
I have endured this several times in the Amazon as well as in applied to the tropics (“iso” temperature
New York State. Most tropical rainfall, however, is convect- regimes), with subdivisions by Armand van
ive (Kellman and Tackaberry 1997). Convective rains, caused Wambeke. Adapted from Soil Survey Staff
by localized warming and rising air, develop into localized (1999), van Wambeke (1981, 1982, 1987),
thunderstorms, which cause high-intensity rainfall for short van Wambeke and Newhall (1985) and
periods. Such intense rains may result in direct crop damage personal observations.
and runoff, even in flat areas. It has been estimated in
Surinam that 80 percent of a 10 mm/hour rain is retained Soil Consecutive months per year
by the soil, whereas only 32 percent is retained during a 50 moisture when control section is dry
mm/hour rain (Mohr et al. 1972). regime
Udic <3
1.3.6 Soil Moisture
Many attempts have been made to classify rainfall quantita-
tively in tropical climates. Since all of these are based on Ustic: 3–9
rather arbitrary assumptions and since our interest in rain-
Typic tropustic 3–6
fall lies in its role as a source of soil moisture to plants, the
soil moisture terminology of the Soil Taxonomy system (Soil Aridic 6–9
Survey Staff 1999, 2014) is used in this text. tropustic
The soil moisture regime is defined according to
Table 1.5, based on the moisture control section. The mois- Aridic >9
ture control section is defined as that part of the soil
between the following two depths: (1) the upper boundary
is the depth to which a dry soil will be moistened by 2.5 cm Aquic Evidence of chemical reduction due to
of water in 24 hours and (2) the lower boundary is that waterlogging
reached by 7.5 cm of water in 48 hours (Soil Survey Staff

Fig. 1.7 Confidence limits of expected rainfall in Muguga, Kenya. Source: Lawes (1969)
Another random document with
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makes fun. “Well, well!” says Jurgen, “but you are a little old
fashioned, with all these equivocal mummeries” (157). Being
“skeptical” (165) he denies that “death is going to end all for him”
(171). And so Cocaigne “does not satisfy him” (172), he expresses
his discontent at length (163–170) until Anaitis, in wrath, calls him
“irreverent” (167), and that leads to their parting.
Surely that is a moral ending! Jurgen leaves Anaitis, his heart and
mind not going along with the beliefs and practices of a goddess who
enjoys every “far-fetched frolic of heathenry”, and who goes forth into
the world to tempt people like St. Simeon Stylites and the hermits of
the Thebaid (176). If it is unlawful to say that in print, then we must
suppress Flaubert’s “Temptation of St. Anthony”, and we should
certainly never permit “Tannhäuser” or “Thais” to be sung at the
Metropolitan.
Then what survives all of this? What indeed but the words of one
of the goddess’ friends, the Master Philologist, who says: “The
Jewish mob spoke louder than He Whom they crucified. But the
Word endures” (182). Jurgen, in short, tires of this place, a place
where “it appears that their notion of felicity is to dwell eternally in a
glorified brothel” (187).
He is now looking for Helen of Troy. Of course it is not criminal to
think about her, since otherwise the second part of Faust should not
be allowed in print, nor should Tennyson’s “Dream of Fair Women”.
So it is lawful for Jurgen to look for her, and he does look. But on his
way comes another episode.
In the domain of Leuke (192) he meets a hamadryad named
Chloris. Leuke is the land of conventionality where nobody ever does
anything except what he has been accustomed to do, and would
never dream of doing a thing which nobody ever heard of doing
(203–204). Consequently the wisest person among them is the god
Silenus, the god of drunkenness, and he is always drunk in order to
escape the conventional (208–9). That of course is not right, but the
indictment is not drawn under the Volstead Law. Jurgen stops among
these people and marries a little hamadryad, who is all that a wife
should be (215) and who puts up a lunch for him when he goes for a
walk (215). So conventional is Leuke, be it noted, that even a stroll is
out of keeping. In this country of conventionality the people have
never taken a holiday, nobody ever having heard of such a thing
(206). It is the Utopia of the Podsnaps of Dickens’ time, of the
Rotarians of our own. But his life in this happy place, where nothing
out of the ordinary ought in nature’s course to happen, does not last
long. War is threatened by the Philistines.
Be it observed, from what has already been said, that the
Philistines and the people of Leuke were made by the same creator,
the power that made things as they are, and consequently it does
not much matter who will win, because all it will amount to is that
“dullness will conquer dullness” (209). Yet in the matter of dullness
the balance is with the Philistines. Fire is their means of sacrifice, not
because of the glow, but because it ends in ashes, and the gray of
ashes is their favorite color (230). They are Realists (231) and they
believe that there is no art except it “teach something” (241). Their
high priests claim to have read every book ever written, and
denounce those who doubt the assertion (244). Knowing everything,
believing in nothing that is not practical, they have a summary way of
dealing with those who presume to disagree. All such recalcitrants
are sent to Hell, “relegated to Limbo” (242).
Against the people of Leuke, the ordinary conventionalists, came
these Philistines, the militant Realists. Naturally the Philistines
conquered, and the people of Leuke were condemned to death.
Jurgen’s wife, the little hamadryad whose life was bound up with that
of her tutelary tree (215) perished with its felling. The Philistine
Queen took a fancy to Jurgen, but he, “coming of morbid ancestry”
(247) declined to abide in Philistia; and so they sent him to the limbo
which they call Hell (250).
A better fate befalls the allied city of Pseudopolis. There live those
of the Grecian spirit, of that spirit of Hellenism which, according to
Matthew Arnold, wars always with the genius of Philistia. There
abides Helen of Troy. Her Jurgen sees (224–9) the occasion being
much the same as that which is pictured in Keats’ “St. Agnes Eve”.
These people the Philistines could not slay, for “when the Philistines
shouted in their triumph, Achilles and all they who served him rose
from the ground like gleaming clouds and passed above the heads
of the Philistines, deriding them” (231). But Jurgen and the people of
ordinary conventionality perished, and thus our next view of Jurgen
finds him in Hell.
The Hell to which he has gone is the Hell of his forefathers, being
in truth but a monument to their egotism. They built it “out of the
pride which led them to believe that what they did was of sufficient
importance to merit punishment” (253). There Jurgen sees his father
standing calmly in the midst of an especially tall flame, and very well
satisfied with it, because of his confidence that he is important
enough to deserve a special place in Hell. Therefore he is angry
when the attendant devil does not sufficiently tend his furnace (254,
260–7).
It is not obscene, at least at common law, to speak lightly of Hell. If
it were otherwise a great many books would be condemned. Every
lawyer knows what was said about Lord Hatherley, when he, sitting
in the Privy Council, held that the calvinistic idea of Hell was not part
of the religion of the Church of England. It was said that Lord
Hatherley had dismissed Hell with costs and had deprived thousands
of their hope of everlasting damnation. Nor is it obscene to represent
that there are people whose sense of personal importance rules
even in death, people who think that their sins are greater than the
sins of anybody else, not because of their quality as sins but
because of the persons who commit them. And, pausing yet further
at this point, let us suggest that if it is lewd to make fun of Philistia,
then all of Matthew Arnold’s books should be burned by the
hangman; and certainly Whistler’s book, “The Gentle Art of Making
Enemies”, should never have been allowed in public print. Indeed it
was Arnold, the father-in-law of a late most respectable member of
this Bar, who invented the term Philistines as used in the present
connection. Mr. Cabell has simply put in another form the protest that
can be made against this point of view. At least it is open to protest.
Of course, we may not be able to agree with all of Mr. Cabell’s
classifications as to what pertains to Philistia. Many of us are citizens
of that country without knowing it. But it is not obscene or lewd for
some one else to call us Philistines because of the views we may
happen to hold dear. Legally we cannot object; practically we
conserve our energies by not doing so. Like the famous Bishop
Bonner of Queen Mary’s time, we may do well to laugh at the
caricatures which the heretics make of us.
With this in mind we might get enjoyment out of Jurgen’s
observations as to the real issue between Heaven and Hell. The war
between them is not as Milton saw it. Rather, the war is between
autocracy and democracy; and Hell is fighting to make the universe
safe for democracy (287). Everybody knew how Satan came to be
the chief magistrate of Hell, he was elected to that office, and he has
continued in office so long simply because elections are inadvisable
in war time (278–9). And while Hell used vigorous methods against
dissenters, that was only because of necessary war time legislation
(278–9). But Heaven was indisputably an autocracy, because
nobody knew how God derived his power. He had been there
through the ages, and He proposed to have no successor (286).
Such, then, was the issue. Of its outcome, the shrewd Jurgen was
inclined to favor Heaven, because of its superior military efficiency
(287). And so, although Jurgen’s friends in Hell try to dissuade him
(288), although he has married in Hell a vampire who is quite
conventional, and life there is conventional also—“Hurry”, says his
wife, “for we are spending the evening with the Asmodeuses” (277)
—Jurgen leaves Hell and visits Heaven.
At that moment the mood of the author changes. Jurgen ascends
to Heaven leaving irreverence behind, and the pictures now
uncovered are of different tone and motive. The first person whom
he sees is a little boy who was once Jurgen himself. When Jurgen
meets God he says, “Once very long ago I had faith in you”; to which
the reply is, “No, for that boy is here with me as you yourself have
seen, and today there is nothing remaining of him anywhere in the
man that is Jurgen” (297).[7] Heaven contains children, mothers and
grandmothers. Logic cannot lead one to it, because logic does not
exist there. Therefore, children, mothers and grandmothers can
ascend to Heaven where people like Jurgen cannot. Taking Heaven
as an illusion, Jurgen finds none of his own illusions there, and
hence he must “return to such illusions as are congenial, for one
must believe in something” (306). And yet he has stood motionless
for thirty-seven days in that place, “forgetful of everything save that
the God of his grandmother was love” (306–7). Nobody else, he is
told, has willingly turned away so soon, and it is supposed that this is
due to some evil wrought in the Nessus shirt he was wearing, the
like of which was never seen in Heaven (307). And finally this
wayfarer, this man of modern philosophy, says that he turned away
from Heaven because he seeks for justice and he cannot find it in
the eyes of God, “but only love and such forgiveness as troubled
him” (307). To which archangels reply that because of that very fact
he should rejoice (307).
If that is obscene, then “The Little Flowers” of St. Francis D’Assisi
should at once be suppressed by Mr. Sumner. If it is lewd to teach
that none of us would go to Heaven if we had justice done us,
Christianity once more should betake itself to the catacombs.
We are let down from these heights by way of an interview
between Jurgen and St. Peter. The Saint has something to say about
prohibition (311–313) with which, theoretically speaking, many might
disagree. But as the defendants are not indicted under the
prohibition laws, it is needless to go into this discussion. The Saint
also represents Heaven as pacifistic (312–313); but Mr. Cabell wrote
after the Armistice, and pacifism is not, legally speaking, obscene or
lewd, whatever else it undoubtedly is.
The travels of Jurgen now draw near to their end, the rest of the
book simply rounding out the ideas suggested. Returning to earth,
he meets once more the earth goddess Sereda, and the pith of their
talk is the conclusion, not that “there is no meaning in anything”,—
that, both agree, nobody really could face,—but that the lower god,
Koshchei, who made things as they are, “is in turn the butt of some
larger jest, * * * that all of us take part in a moving and a shifting
and a reasoned use of things * * * a using such as we do not
comprehend and are not fit to comprehend” (317). The quest of
Jurgen ends, fitly enough, with a return to this lower power (329),
this power that made things as they are, but is controlled, however
rebellious, by a higher force beyond him (333).
 We then have a return, in pageant form, of the women with whom,
in this year of pilgrimage just ended (319), Jurgen has foregathered.
First there is Guenevere (335) who is now ready to be his wife,
Arthur being gone into Avalon and Lancelot being turned monk
(335); Anaitis follows (340), then Helen of Troy (345). But all of them
he refuses. “For I am transmuted by time’s handling. I have become
the lackey of prudence and half measures” (348). Then appears to
him his wife (350) who disposes of Koshchei “casually, for she
believed him to be merely Satan” (353). After ordering Jurgen to be
sure to be home in time for supper and to stop on the way to get a
half pound of butter, she passes out “neither as flame nor mist, but
as the voice of judgment” (355). Jurgen follows her (356), but on the
way he sees Dorothy, Dorothy as she is and not as she had lived in
either memory or imagination (364). He arrives home recollecting
that he had forgotten to do the errand his wife told him to perform,
but reflecting that after all things were just about as well with him as
could be. He has his wife, he has his business, and the god of things
as they are has probably dealt with him very justly. “And probably his
methods are everything they should be; certainly I cannot go so far
as to say that they are wrong; but still at the same time—Then
Jurgen sighed and entered his snug home” (368).
Doubtless we have erred in many ways in our interpretation of the
book under attack: we are quite sure that we have not done it justice.
After all, it must speak for itself, for everyone has his own reading of
whatsoever comes to his notice. But of one thing we are sure, that it
fills the test of literature as distinct from pornography; that it has a
theme, sustains a thought, criticises life. It attempts, among other
things, to show the futility of escaping from conventionality by way of
seeking sin, for sin itself has its conventions. It pictures sin in this
spirit, and in doing so it perforce speaks of sin. But it must be judged
as a whole, not by a sentence here, or even by a page there (Halsey
v. N. Y. Society, 234 N. Y. 1). And, as decided in the case just cited,
a publication can be lawful even if it should happen to contain
indecent passages.
6—The passages, to which reference
has been made in the complaint
originally filed in Special Sessions,
are not indecent.
We submit that, having in mind the context, there is nothing in
“Jurgen” which is indecent. A man studiously on the alert for the
indecent can put his finger on certain words in the book; but the very
meaning of these words is decent if we will but read them in the
connection to which they are meant to refer. And other things that
are said, so far from being indecent, are things lawfully to be said,
unless the body of our literature should perish from the earth.
All of this is illustrated by the bill of particulars which Mr. Sumner,
one of the prosecutors in this case, furnished when he filed a
complaint in the Special Sessions. Mr. Sumner there enumerates the
pages containing, as he thinks, lewd and obscene matter. We shall
now deal with the particulars thus furnished.
What is there to complain of on pages 59, 88, 99, 114, 134–5,
275? Pages 88 and 99 require no discussion. On pages 134–5
Guenevere takes leave of Jurgen, that is all. On page 59 occurs
“temptress”, which is not obscene. On page 114 the ghost of Smoit
tells Jurgen that he is his grandfather, instead of the putative
ancestor whom Jurgen had always accepted. But if this is lewd, then
we must stop the sale of such books as Thackeray’s “Henry
Esmond”. On page 275 Jurgen stops his vampire wife from sucking
his blood through biting his chest. Burne-Jones’ painting “The
Vampire”, is familiar,—even to those of us who never frequent
galleries at home or abroad,—through Kipling’s famous poem.
But as perhaps it is not suitable thus to summarize the particulars
which Mr. Sumner was at such pains to gather, we will take the other
pages which he mentions and deal with them seriatim.
Pages 57–8—Jurgen’s conversation with Dorothy in the garden. A
kiss is not indecent. Temptation came, but it was dispelled.
Page 61—Reference to “the bed” is made—But for whom? The
bride. A bridal bed is not obscene or lewd. Vide wedding march in
“Lohengrin”, and the relative chapters in Scott’s “The Bride of
Lammermuir”.
Page 63—“Had wondered if he were really the first man for whom
she had put a deceit upon her husband”, etc. If this is obscene, then
nearly all current fiction is, to say nothing of the classics, ancient or
modern.
Page 64—Jurgen counts up his conquests. But so did Don Juan.
“The end of all is death”—but so said Villon—“Ou sont les nieges
d’antan?”
Page 67—Speaks simply of a kiss. Whether long or short, a kiss is
not lewd.
Page 80—Jurgen is talking about Guenevere to her father—“I can
get justice done me anywhere, in all the bed chambers of the world.”
If this is lewd, then we should abolish Ophelia’s mad song in Hamlet.
Anyhow, Jurgen goes on to say (same page) “I only meant in a
manner of speaking, sir.”
Pages 84–6—Jurgen tells Yolande she must reward him by candle
light, etc. This contains no description of any offensive act. There is
nothing explicit.
Page 89—Guenevere’s father suspects that she was not entirely
chaste while in the giant’s cavern. Has literature, ancient or modern,
never previously exposed a father’s doubt of his daughter’s chastity?
Did no one ever study the Greek tragedies?
Page 90—The King wonders whether “a thing like this is
happening” in his city in many places, and Jurgen says that it
probably is. Sinclair Lewis has similar speculations in “Babbitt”. The
references to a “breakage” refer to infractions of moral law.
 Page 92—The King says that, if Jurgen has had improper relations
with Guenevere, he should lie like a gentleman. Where is the
obscenity? Has not that phrase become time-worn, in literature and
conversation, since the late eighties?
Page 98—Jurgen looks forward “to more intimate converse” with
the lady. Entirely compatible with just what it says. The dreadful word
“liaison” also is used. But the late war has brought it into such use
—“liaison officer”; “liaison between the Y. M. C. A. and the chaplains’
corps”, etc.—that the word now has Anglice the extensive meaning
that the French always allowed it.
Pages 100, 102, 104–8—These deal with Jurgen’s affair with
Guenevere. If read as a whole, bearing in mind the outstanding
point, that Guenevere’s characteristic was “her innocence, combined
with a certain moral obtuseness” (108) there is nothing lewd or
obscene in this any more than in Hardy’s “Tess of the D’Urbervilles”.
Reference may be made to page 102, where Jurgen had his answer
to the question, what sort of service did women most cordially
appreciate. He believed they did not really desire to be served as
(103) a symbol of Heaven’s perfection, as (336) half goddess, half
bric-a-brac. But this opinion was not suitable for a mixed audience in
Glathion, where people believed otherwise (104–108). They are not
said to have done anything but kiss and talk. The reasons for their
talking in privacy are logical. If any improprieties took place the text
nowhere alludes to them. Compare the first part of Goethe’s “Faust,”
Scott’s “The Heart of Midlothian,” George Eliot’s “Adam Bede” and
“Middlemarch,” or Stevenson’s “Weir of Hermiston,” for precisely
similar seductions.
Page 120—Jurgen gets into the bedroom of the Bishop. “His
eminence was not alone, but as both occupants of the apartment
were asleep, Jurgen saw nothing unepiscopal”.—If we are to be
literal, then let us observe that this passage does not say (a) that the
other was a female; (b) that they were in bed together. Sterne’s
“Sentimental Journey” has passages much more explicit.
Page 144—Jurgen talks concerning Guenevere and Lancelot.
Tennyson, in verse, discoursed of the same thing.
 Pages 161–8—Deal with Jurgen’s matrimonial quarrels with
Anaitis, who, for all she is a nature myth and believes in symbolism,
is quarrelsome. She does not like Jurgen to “talk so flippantly about
her religion” (165) and regrets his dislike of his “in-laws”, such as
Apis, the well-known Egyptian god, who “will go about in public
wearing a bull’s head”. What is lewd or obscene here? Surely not the
terms “sacti-sodhana” and “muntrus”. They may look obscene
because they are in an unfamiliar language, but in that language,
Sanscrit, counsel are informed, they refer to religious rites of the
Brahmins, who are not commonly rated as lewd.
Pages 170–1—Shows that nature myths last only as long as the
philologists let them, hence they are Epicureans. But Jurgen, being a
doubter, is not sure that death ends all. Is there anything Lewd or
obscene in this quaint turning of the tables on the materialists?
Pages 174–7—Continues the matrimonial life of Jurgen and
Anaitis, ending with the conviction, forced on him, that the ruling
spirit of this land of hers is nothing else but Cybele, the Roman
goddess of earth, or Æsred, or Sereda, as she is variously called.
And so he became convinced “that all such employment was a
peculiarly unimaginative pursuit of happiness” (177). Surely a good
moral lesson, if anything.
Page 186—Simply a symbolic way of telling us that “Time begets
nothing”. He sleeps in Atlantis, while Briareus watches. Life is a
ceaseless round, history is a ceaseless round, of old things. It is a
commonplace of Greek mythology that Chronos, [Time] was
mutilated by his son Zeus.
Pages 186, 321, 154—Carry reference to the fact that there are
such things as eunuchs. If it is wrong to refer to eunuchs, then most
literature, not only of the East, but referring to it, should be
expunged. St. Philip’s first convert was an eunuch (Acts VIII, 26–40).
In “Innocents Abroad” Mark Twain gives the story of the revenge
which Heloise’s uncle caused to be taken upon Abelard.
Page 211—Refers to the priests of Cybele. If they were eunuchs,
that would not be, as said above, an obscene fact. But they were not
eunuchs, as it happened. The priests of Cybele were madmen: that
is, they had been deprived of their wits, and had thus “parted with
possessions which Jurgen valued”. Above all things the practical-
minded Jurgen valued sanity. See Tooke’s “Pantheon,” p. 172: “The
Priests of Cybele were named Galli, from a river of Phrygia. Such
was the nature of the water of this river, that whoever drank of it
immediately grew mad. The Galli, as often as they sacrificed,
furiously cut and slashed their arms with knives; and thence all
furious and mad people were called Galantes.”
Pages 196–200, 203, 206–7, 124–8, 148–150—References to
objects:—
(a) Jurgen’s staff (196–200, 203). The answer to this, like the
answer to the insinuations about the lance in chapter 22 (vide supra)
is that it was a staff, and nothing else (see p. 95).
(b) Harpocrates, “who held an astonishing object” (206–7). This is
attacked along with the reference to the People of the Fields, who
practise eudæmonism. Jurgen sees the People of the Fields, “who
dwell between the forest and the city of Pseudopolis” (204). These
people “did one and all what they had always done” (204) whereas,
“whoever heard of the People of the Wood doing anything useful?”
So Jurgen, after being informed that the People of the Field never
take a holiday (206) decides to see what the People of the Wood do
about it (206). He finds them practicing eudæmonism outdoors
instead of indoors. Eudæmonism: “The type of utilitarian ethical
theory that makes the pursuit, enjoyment and production of
happiness the supreme end in moral conduct.”—Funk & Wagnalls’
Dictionary. This was of course the creed of Cocaigne—“Eat, drink,
and be merry, for tomorrow we die.” The point here is that satyrs do
not go indoors, for the reason that for a satyr to go indoors is
unheard of. If it is indecent to mention a satyr, then not only should
Keats and Swinburne be destroyed, but Elizabeth Barrett Browning
should be reprimanded for writing that poem “A Musical Instrument”,
which is all about “The Great God Pan”, chief of Satyrs. As to
Harpocrates, we refer to Tooke’s “Pantheon of the Heathen Gods”,—
a most respectable authority. It is there said (p. 352): “The Egyptians
worshipped Harpocrates as the god of Silence * * * They
consecrated the tree persea to him; because the fruit was like a
heart * * * He was painted with a finger upon his lips, thereby
commanding silence.” It is, therefore, probably the persea fruit which
Harpocrates is carrying, and the astonishment of Jurgen at seeing
the human heart thus publicly displayed is equally nature and good
allegory. The custom that led to stiffness was of course Harpocrates’
custom of not speaking to or answering the remarks of others.
(c) Jurgen’s sword (124–8, 148–150). Mention is made of Jurgen’s
sword. But, like the staff and the lance (vide supra) all that need be
said is that it really is a sword, Caliburn. The book tells just where
and how he got it (72, 76).
(d) The doorknocker on the entrance to Cocaigne (150). These
were simply the nude figures of Adam and Eve. Jurgen, being
conventional, and yet seeking sin, is embarrassed at the nude, and
thinks it is indecent; so he talks about it.
Pages 196–200, 203—Jurgen’s meeting, and marriage, with
Chloris, the Hamadryad. There is nothing in this does not bear
comparison with the “Endymion” of Keats, or the Chorus from
Swinburne’s “Atalanta in Calydon”. As to the marriage, see two
books in common publication:—Flaubert’s “Temptation of St.
Anthony,” Modern Library, p. 226: “These are the deities of marriage.
They await the coming of the bride. Domiduca should lead her in,—
Virgo unfasten her girdle,—Subigo place her in the bed,—and
Praema open her arms, and whisper sweet words into her ear.”
Tooke’s “Pantheon of the Heathen Gods, Adapted for the Use of
Students of Every Age and of Either Sex,” p. 281: “Jugatinus joined
the man and the woman together in the yoke of matrimony.
Domiducus guided the bride into the bridegroom’s house * * *
Priapus, or Mutinus was also reckoned one of the nuptial gods,
because in his lap the bride was commanded to sit.”
Pages 271–2, 286—The marriage with the vampire goes no
further than passages in Sterne’s Sentimental Journey and the
novels of Fielding. The conversation of the vampire leaves things
unsaid rather than said. There is no reason for taking in a wrong
sense the reference to the sceptre.
 Pages 236–9, 241–2. Jurgen’s conversation with the Queen of
Philistia is nothing but a take-off on the mediæval—occasionally
modern—belief in the magic of numbers. See Baring-Gould’s
“Curious Myths of the Middle Ages,” Appendix E, p. 651:
“Pythagoras taught that each number had its own peculiar character,
virtue and properties. The unit, or the monad, he says, is the
principle and the end of all; it is this sublime knot which binds
together the chain of causes; it is the symbol of identity, of existence,
of conservation, and of general harmony * * * The number Two,
or the dyad, the origin of contrasts, is the symbol of diversity, or
inequality, of division, and of separation. Two is accordingly an evil
principle, characterizing disorder and confusion * * * Three, or
the triad, is the number containing the most sublime mysteries, for
everything is composed of three substances * * * Nine, or the
ennead, being the multiple of Three, should be regarded as sacred.
Finally, Ten, or the decad, is the measure of all, since it contains all
the numeric relations and harmonies.” “Eight (p. 652) is the number
of the Beatitudes.”
Pages 340–3—contain nothing but a statement of the fact that
Venus, as a cult, has her followers and her temples,—nothing that
poets of times past have not told us again and again. The temples
existed, and are mentioned freely in all books of classical mythology.
We are almost at the end of Mr. Sumner’s particulars; but there
are two that deserve notice.
He finds obscenity on pages 228–9. There we find Jurgen
standing at the bed of the sleeping Helen, but leaving her untouched,
because he wants to retain his “unreasonable dreams”. If this is
obscenity, then indeed Keats wrote in lewdest mood the “Eve of St.
Agnes”.
And Mr. Sumner finds obscenity on page 142. What do we find
there? We find Jurgen kneeling before a crucifix!
And there let us leave the case.
7—In conclusion.
No book, no matter by whom it is written, should be read without
an appreciation of the motive of its writing. It is the embarrassment of
a case such as this, that the very fact of an indictment, the notoriety
attending it, makes it difficult to sit down to the reading with the
frame of mind that is present when we take a book from a library
shelf. However one may attempt to resist it, there is always present a
certain feeling, if somebody has said that the book is indecent. That
suggestion can influence minds, even the most philosophical. In Lord
Haldane’s most recent book, “The Philosophy of Humanism” (p. 75),
he quotes from the memoirs of the great German philosopher, Hegel,
as illustrating how suggestion can lead to conceptions:—
“In my youth I remember hearing a city magistrate
complain that book writers were going too far, and
trying to rout out Christianity altogether. Some one, it
appeared, had written a defense of suicide. It was
horrible, too horrible! On further inquiry it turned out
that the book in question was ‘The Sorrows of
Werther’.”
The last resort against this influence of suggestion is now made.
The book is submitted to this court for judicial scrutiny, guided by the
tests of the law.
Dated October 16, 1922.
Respectfully submitted,
Goodbody, Danforth & Glenn,
Attorneys for Defendants,
27 Cedar Street,
New York City.
Garrard Glenn
(42 Broadway),
William U. Goodbody,
William L. Glenn,
of Counsel.
DECISION OF JUDGE CHARLES C. NOTT
IN PEOPLE VS. HOLT, McBRIDE
& CO., ET AL
People
vs.
Holt, McBride & Co. et al.
The defendants herein, at the close of the People’s case, have
moved for a direction of acquittal and the dismissal of the indictment
on the ground that the book “Jurgen” on the possession of which the
indictment is based, is not an “obscene, lewd, lascivious, filthy,
indecent or disgusting book” within the meaning and intent of section
1141 of the Penal Law, for the alleged violation of which the
indictment has been found.
I have read and examined the book carefully. It is by Mr. James
Branch Cabell, an author of repute and distinction. From the literary
point of view its style may fairly be called brilliant. It is based on the
mediæval legends of Jurgen and is a highly imaginative and fantastic
tale, depicting the adventures of one who has been restored to his
first youth but who, being attended by a shadow in the guise of the
shadow of his old self, retains the experience and cynicism of age
which frustrates a perfect fulfillment of his desire for renewed youth.
The adventures consist in wanderings through mediæval and
mythological countries and a sojourn in Hell and Heaven. He
encounters beings of mediæval folk-lore and from classical
Mythology. The most that can be said against the book is that certain
passages therein may be considered suggestive in a veiled and
subtle way of immorality, but such suggestions are delicately
conveyed and the whole atmosphere of the story is of such an unreal
and supernatural nature that even these suggestions are free from
the evils accompanying suggestiveness in more realistic works. In
fact, it is doubtful if the book could be read or understood at all by
more than a very limited number of readers.
In my opinion the book is one of unusual literary merit and
contains nothing “obscene, lewd, lascivious, filthy, indecent or
disgusting” within the meaning of the statute and the decisions of the
courts of this state in similar cases. (See Halsey v. New York Society,
234 N. Y. 1; People v. Brainard, 192 App. Div. 116; St. Hubert Guild
v. Quinn, 64 Misc. 336.)
The motion, therefore, is granted and the jury is advised to acquit
the defendants.
STATUTES RELATING TO THE PUBLICATION,
SALE, ETC., OF OBSCENE
LITERATURE
 NEW YORK STATUTES
Penal Law—Sections 1141 and 1143
Sec. 1141. Obscene prints and articles. 1. A person who sells,
lends, gives away or shows, or offers to sell, lend, give away, or
show, or has in his possession with intent to sell, lend or give away,
or to show, or advertises in any manner, or who otherwise offers for
loan, gift, sale or distribution, any obscene, lewd, lascivious, filthy,
indecent or disgusting book, magazine, pamphlet, newspaper, story
paper, writing, paper, picture, drawing, photograph, figure or image,
or any written or printed matter of an indecent character; or any
article or instrument of indecent or immoral use, or purporting to be
for indecent or immoral use or purpose, or who designs, copies,
draws, photographs, prints, utters, publishes, or in any manner
manufactures, or prepares any such book, picture, drawing,
magazine, pamphlet, newspaper, story paper, writing, paper, figure,
image, matter, article or thing, or who writes, prints, publishes, or
utters, or causes to be written, printed, published, or uttered, any
advertisement or notice of any kind, giving information, directly or
indirectly, stating, or purporting so to do, where, how, of whom, or by
what means any, or what purports to be any, obscene, lewd,
lascivious, filthy, disgusting or indecent book, picture, writing, paper,
figure, image, matter, article or thing, named in this section can be
purchased, obtained or had or who has in his possession, any slot
machine or other mechanical contrivance with moving pictures of
nude or partly denuded female figures which pictures are lewd,
obscene, indecent or immoral, or other lewd, obscene, indecent or
immoral drawing, image, article or object, or who shows, advertises
or exhibits the same, or causes the same to be shown, advertised, or
exhibited, or who buys, owns or holds any such machine with the
intent to show, advertise or in any manner exhibit the same; or who,
2. Prints, utters, publishes, sells, lends, gives away or shows, or
has in his possession with intent to sell, lend, give away or show, or
otherwise offers for sale, loan, gift or distribution, any book,
pamphlet, magazine, newspaper or other printed paper devoted to
the publication, and principally made up of criminal news, police