‘Dirt’ is also the title of a book I picked up recently, which opened my eyes to why soil is so amazing1. First, without it, life on Earth wouldn’t exist. In aeons past, primitive soils were formed by heat-tolerant bacteria. This cooled the earth enough to make it habitable for other organisms. And as soils formed, plants were able to evolve. Soils and plants then worked together to create more soil; and soils became richer as they recycled plant matter into nutrients usable by plants. A simple story, but one that is key to the evolution of life and our presence on Earth. Almost all land-based life needs soil and that life in turn produces soil, which ultimately feeds it. So despite our vast technical ingenuity, we rely on this apparently simple substance for nearly all our food.
Soil: not a four letter word
By Graeme Willis
We talk of ‘soiled’ sheets, of night ‘soil’. 
The American version isn’t much better. They call it ‘dirt’ which recalls grime and smut. It might be one reason why we consistently fail to appreciate how precious and extraordinary soil is. As a consequence, we give poor protection to this fundamental natural asset.
