In Walter de la Mare's short story ‘The Wharf’, a farmer reflects on the paradox of the muck-heap in his yard: ‘A curious thing that what to some seems just filth and waste and nastiness should be the very secret of all that is most precious in the living things of the world… “We farmers couldn't do without it”.’ De la Mare's son Richard, as Faber and Faber's long-term agricultural editor, shared the farmer's belief in the necessity of obeying the Rule of Return of wastes to the soil, and promoted many classics of the organic movement's literary canon. Richard Jones's introduction to this collection of essays reinforces the message that:

Jones's aim is to demonstrate the vitality of various lines of enquiry into manure's social and agricultural significance. Robert Shiel offers a wide-ranging account of ‘the ecology of manure’, stressing, like de la Mare's farmer, that manures must not be regarded as ‘waste’. He reminds us that the art of manuring was a literally vital element of agriculture from Columella until the invention of chemical fertilisers in the nineteenth century.

Several chapters focus on archaeology, with Amy Bogaard looking at Neolithic Europe and Kate Waddington at southern Britain in the late Bronze Age, although Waddington's persistent use of ‘may’, ‘suggests’, ‘appears’, ‘possibly’ and ‘perhaps’ makes the reader wonder whether this indicates judicious academic caution or ambitious speculation. Bogaard and Waddington are concerned with the social conclusions which may be drawn from an archaeological study of manure, whereas Ian Bull and Richard Evershed are strongly technical and scientific, dealing with the application of the ‘biomarker concept’ to soil history. Ben Pears's chapter studies the impact of human cultivation on marginal landscapes, describing how the application of micromorphological techniques throws light on methods of enriching fertility. Other chapters are more broadly cultural. Daniel Varisco and Vanaja Ramprasad look respectively at Arab and Indian agriculture. We see the sophistication of Arab manuring techniques and are reminded of the religious dimension to Indian agriculture and of the success of its approach. Richard Jones, in an essay on medieval manure, similarly emphasises the spiritual/alchemical significance of turning apparently dead, base materials into new life. Hamish Forbes's study of the ‘scatter’ of shards in Mediterranean Greece further drives home the point that manuring is not a natural, but a cultural, practice.

Jones is aware that much is missing: there is nothing on Africa or the Americas, for instance. But he has brought together ample evidence to demonstrate that the apparent ‘filth and waste and nastiness’ of manure is in fact full of value for an understanding of landscape and social history. The book includes an admirably thorough bibliography, is solidly bound, and features an attractive cover photograph by the editor.