There’s an exhibition on soil at the Smithsonian in Washington, DC, entitled “Dig it.” And there’s a kids’ book, “Soil! Get the inside scoop,” courtesy of the Soil Science Society of America. I guess the two things are connected. Anyway, they’re both good ideas, and seem to pay due attention to the agrobiodiversity angle.
Speaking of exhibitions, there’s another interesting one relevant to our theme, this one in London. The organizers of IslamExpo have created a traditional Islamic garden at the centre of that busy showcase.
We hope visitors will take a little time out from the main exhibition to wander into one of the four gardens and perhaps sit a while surrounded by the lush planting, under one of the trees of Paradise (pomegranate, fig, date-palm or olive), collecting thoughts or listening to Qur’an recitation or a story by the winner of the Muslim Writers Award, Aliya Vaughan.
One of my favourite bumper stickers in the whole world read “Soil: don’t treat it like dirt”.
To be honest, I have never understood why Americans call soil, dirt. They seem to be synonymous there. I wonder why.
Come to that, could the equation of soil (a good thing) with dirt (a bad thing) be part f the reason why so many people do indeed treat their soil like dirt?