[PDF]Permaculture: Another Kind of Garden-The Methods of Jean Pain

fD0 **d. PfitN & 7thEdition




THE METHODS OF JEAN PAIN

OR

'0A/O7t/ee HfNP Of CifiiZX>eN"



CONTENTS :

2. - The end of big forest fires

3. - A new source of HUMUS

4. - Cultivation without watering

5. - The FUNDAMENTAL food of the soil

6. - Industrialization of brushwood composting

7. - Production of ENERGY ( hot air, hot water) and uses : heating,
domestic uses, etc.

8. - A small CHIPPER... with big capabilities

9. - BRUSHWOOD GAZ, the ENERGY of TOMORROW

10. - The JEAN PAIN plan for thicket clearance and rational use of the
residual forest biomass.




Reafforestation will be
the mark and work of
the authentic civilization

Jean PAIN.
(1928-1981)



Knight of the Order of Agriculture



THE METHODS OF JEAN PAIN

or

* mmm* mnp or gakpgn "

Translated from the French
« LES METHODES JEAN PAIN »
ou

« UN AUTRE JARDIN »
by Ann Pellaton, B.A. (Hons.)

NOW IS OUR LAST CHANCE



This work is also published in French (original version),
Dutch, Spanish and German.




LETTER - PREFACE
by HENRI STEHLE



Laureate of the Institute, Doctor-Engineer, formerly Director of Research at
the National Institute of Agronomical Research (NIAR)

to M. and Mme. Jean PAIN, Templiers Estate

Domaine des Templiers



-

■



Dear Friends,

The problems in the minds of Man called SAPIENS or
TECHNOLOGICUS in this atomic age, even on the clear, sun-soaked
shores of our Mediterranean, the source of civilisation, are complex,
numerous, varied and acute. Many are a long way from finding a
satisfactory answer to them.

Here, through your manuscript, Madame Ida Pain, we can both read,
like a watermark, the wording of the questions, and at the same time find
there, either dotted or lightly sketched in, the answer which Jean has tried
to provide, a personal, original answer, and one which expresses but one
desire, to serve and be ready to help.

Do we not hear theses questions daily on our Mediterranean coast,
and especially here in Provence, a region which has the reputation of
being well-balanced and harmonious, and yet where today the effects of a
new-style materialism are being felt very acutely ?

Are we to let the garrigue and forests of Provence be destroyed by
fire and the Mistral's blast, when the moral, material and above all physical
benefits they afford in this over-industrialized world are of vital importance
to Man, that destroyer of space and at the same time seeker of open
spaces of which he himself is the greatest destroyer?

Will the race for humus, this « organic gold rush» as it were,
eventually come to a halt before we reach the tragic irremediable point of
exhaustion which looms there on the horizon, now that mineral fertilizers,
synthetic manures, pesticides and weed-killers have completely taken
over, killing off the tares, certainly, but ail too often the wheat and Man as
well?

In our present social phase, where the search for pleasure has
become a national institution and in which recourse to drugs or a new
community way of life are both ways of expressing the boredom and
disappointment of young people faced with the mistakes of their elders,
you had the idea, as did the idealists around you, of bridging the gap that
separates two successive generations, of returning to nature and
searching for an Environment which really corresponds to an improvement
in the « quality » rather than in the « standard » of living, and you




wondered, judiciously, if the forest, the garden and the family unit did not,
in fact, provide the three keys that could open up the doors on to a future
of rediscovered equilibrium, peace, labour, fresh air and a return to
Nature? .

You set « Burnt Land » against « Green Belt », with its synthetic,
renovating, protective and life-giving effect, even when it appears to be
disorganized, as when the leaves fall..., but leaves can be shoveled up
and turned back into precious humus, creating a new point of departure
and regeneration in the heart of a living, constantly fertile soil.

Protecting the forest as you do, you are careful, when cutting down
the sometimes dense, prickly and impenetrable thickets in the aromatic
maquis, not to forget that this vegetation is also the home of numerous
species of avifauna and of a host of organisms, which, from bacteria,
micorrhize and the small earth worm right up to the larger animals, whose
reputation is as bad as it is false, form the biological cycle and alimentary
chains and maintain the equilibrium indispensable for life.

You felt all this even before demonstrating it, just as that British poet,
Thomson, inspired and moved by a feeling through which poetry has often
been the prophet of science, cried out, « Don't cut a flower or you may set
a star off course. » He too had felt that life, even in its most elementary
plant form, is linked together by chains, from which vibrations, waves and
light are not excluded, going as far as the spaces between the stars,
whereas the materialists, as far removed from poets as scientists are, find
there only ponderable and... valuable... substances and corpuscles.

Here on this Tempi ier Estate, where, from the land of snows and
lakes of your native Helvetia, you came to live nine years ago and which
you loved immediately, the breath of the occupants, agriculturists, monks
and knights of several centuries ago has passed over you. You have
studied their history, felt the passions they felt, tried to discover their
mysteries and their spiritual treasure. You have not found money (you are
a disinterested man and money does not preoccupy you) but you have
found their treasure which is the source of satisfactions, their ethic of a
happy environment, achieved by living a simple life, one of observation,
reflection, experimentation and usefulness, seeking for good, trying to
improve and to contribute to the human race. Their search for the silvan-
cultural-pastoral equilibrium in diversified Nature has helped you to
safeguard and use the products of Nature judiciously for Man's benefit,
taking care never to disturb the biological balances, but, on the contrary,
to protect them.

The picture you have formed in your minds of these illustrious
predecessors, whose famous sculptured stone cross and chapel are
present there before you day after day, keeping their memory alive, is
certainly not the same image as the one that the host of historians or
novelists who have described them have in their minds. Polyvalent,



warriors, bankers, (the king's own) builders, hoarders, monks; this is how
they appear through the pages of the abundant literature which has been
written about them. But you, who refuse to be a writer, you have met
them, on this very Estate which it is your job to «guard» and you Ideal to
« safeguard », on the land of the artist and protector of Nature, of which
Man, you have not forgotten, is one of the elements. It was in the calm,
vivifying forest, an ideal place for reflection, in the garden, this « abode ot
God », whose blessings they praised in low Latin from their very origin, in
the pastures, among your goats, all the way through the sylvan-cultural-
pastoral cycle (their sylva, ager and saltus that you met these peasants
of the Temple. Their Cistercian tra-dition has shown us the way towards
modern phytosociology and agronomy in our present-day scientific world
which is researching causes and organisations which were already
preoccupying Olivier de Serres in « Mesnage des Champs ».

Your approach has been the opposite to the one which is usually
practiced. Engineers, agronomists, scientists, botanists... foresters,
teachers and writers progress from study to application, from theory to
practical, from professional training to employment. But you have
asserted that you are not a man of letters, « of writings », as your wife
says, and you also deny that you are a scientist... And yet I know how
many works on agronomy, pedology and phytosociology you have read
and studied, to the extent that the names of Bretignieres, Demolon,
Burgevin, Kunholzt-Lordat and other great masters of agronomy and
ecology, are all well-known to you, as are the methods of Indore for
making artificial humus and those of the researchworkers of India.

But our friend Jean is self-taught, with all that that implies ot
freedom, introspection and desire for learning, having first of all made
observations and asked himself questions. The course of his personal
and family life and of his professional and intellectual life has thus been
profoundly and favourably modified. Time has taken on another
dimension, and through observing Nature, Jean now sees the
Environment through different eyes from those which used to see the big
towns where he used to live; this Provencal countryside, with its aromatic
plants and heady perfumes has penetrated his family life, and he has
been motivated by but one idea, that which Noah Gordon recently, in «
Doctors » had the father writing to his son, « Always do as little ill as
possible, try to create or achieve something which, had it not been for
you, could not have existed. » This is just what Jean, with the help of his
wife, has tried to do, the best possible good, the creation of something
new.

In this text, which has been written by his daily witness and
collaborator of every minute, including the « report », one will see how
well he has succeeded. He has gone about it in no ordinary way but his
classroom has been the garigue, the forest, the garden and the meadow.
First of all he has observed, pondered, experimented, read the great
book of Nature, following the example, though unconsciously, of the



Templiers and the Cistercians, and then, but only then, has he sought
the explanations in science, sometimes in European science,
sometimes in that of the New World or of the sages of India.

From the practical application, from the experiments and the
results he has recorded, he has then gone back to examine the causes;
from the practical he has moved to the theory, up from the land and the
forest towards the sky and the light of photosynthesis.

If the path Jean has trodden is not the traditional one, nor the one
which all men tread, who is to complain?

« NOW IS OUR LAST CHANCE ». - it is given us, so that our
youth shall not be driven to drugs, nor incited to violent behaviour, so
that fire and erosion shall not be left to ravage the forests and soils,
animals and men of our Provence-Cote dAzur, and finally so that
anarchic urbanization of the sylva, after the development of a concrete
wall on the bank of the Mare Nostrum, shall not be allowed to continue.
We welcome this book of pictures, advice, experience and techniques
with satisfaction and gratitude, for it is a book written in every day
language and with expressions of love for one's neighbour

If is indeed « ANOTHER KIND OF GARDEN », not the kitchen
garden, the orchard or the flower garden which we have around us or
which has disappeared, but a dream garden, without pollution of any
kind, without disease, without parasites and without depredators; a
garden which has a big yield, even when it does not receive constant
attention such as watering, hoeing, weeding, as is generally necessary
in agriculture. No watering in a dry region - that does sound paradoxical.
And yet, the undeniable truth is there. The organoleptic character of the
vegetables and fruit obtained here prove their superior quality.

Thank you to the author, Ida, and to the one who has realized all
this, the hero of this rural epic: Jean Pain.

H. STEHLE.




THE METHODS OF JEAN PAIN

OR

"0mrmm tctNP of gazpw



The Art of using forest brushwood in silviculture and agriculture in
conjunction with fire-prevention, and to enrich soils in Humus.



To all who sincerely wish to safeguard woodland and encourage
reafforestation.



To all, too, who wish to eat wholesome, perfectly balanced foods



Finally, to the agriculturist who lies dormant in every man, and every
man preoccupied with the energy problems of his time.



FOREWORDS



It all started for Jean Pain one day, many years ago, when a man
arrived at our house and said to him. « Why don't you cultivate the land?
Do some gardening, plant some trees, cultivate the vineyards, grow your
own wheat and make your own bread! »

The man's name was Marcel Bretineau, and he died not long
afterwards, without having been able to tell Jean Pain anything more
about the subject, except that the laws of nature must be respected.

Several years passed, studious, laborious years, during which Jean
Pain became immersed in texts, avidly reading all about forestal and
agricultural science. He conducted multifarious experiments on our land.
Jean Pain was researching.

Since then a great many people have asked him repeatedly to
explain in writing his method for bringing out the best in the soil, and so I
feel that none better than his own life-partner could explain it for him, since
Jean Pain himself is not one for writing.

Not having my husband's erudition in agricultural matters, I shall try
to express myself clearly and simply, my one hope being that all will
understand. I shall therefore avoid the pitfalls of scientific agronomical
terms.



10



ANOTHER KIND OF GARDEN (I find no title more eloquent) will be
one in which any soil at all can be cultivated and any plants grown, a garden
in which no treatment of any kind, preventive or curative, will be applied,
considering as we do that a treated soil or plant is incapable of producing a
sturdy lineage.

« If a plant becomes diseased)), says Jean Pain, « either through
some deficiency or fungus attack, the only person responsible is the
agriculturist, and it will be up to him to "find a perfectly-balanced food for the
soil, to prevent the same thing from recurring.

Palliating the disease by applying some product could cause the line to
be weakened and thus lead to an increasing, persistent unbalance ».

Jean Pain goes on to say, « I don't think there is any global method or
uniform process when it comes to working on the land.

It is the agriculturist who should adapt himself, indeed must adapt
himself, to the land for which he is responsible, this land which is lent to him
and from which he must bring out the best for everyone's benefit, not least
his own, taking into account its character, its personality and its behaviour
according to the climate, the pedology and the geology.

Only one thing should be general, polyvalent and indispensable, and
that is to give or give back HUMUS to the land in any form at all, and to add,
NOW IS OUR LAST CHANCE; economically, Man must take action, nobody
has the right now to burn any kind of organic matter, whether it be
household rubbish, town waste from sawmills and packing factories, or
brushwood obtained from thicket clearance. And yet every year, millions,
yes, millions of tons of brushwood, by-products of the forest, are available
for agriculture; it is very cheap, but incomparably rich ; it provides the only
fertilizer which, as well as being the immediate and perfectly-balanced food
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