Question

Tree Crops: A Permanent Agriculture is written by

• A. Charles C. Harrison
• B. Edgar F. Smith
• C. Josiah H. Penniman
• D. J. Russel Smith

Hint:

Recall the geographer-economist who promoted tree-based farming as an alternative to row crops.

Answer 1

The Correct Option is D

The question names four people and asks which one wrote the classic agroforestry text "Tree Crops: A Permanent Agriculture."

1. Charles C. Harrison: Known as a former provost of the University of Pennsylvania, not as an agricultural author.
2. Edgar F. Smith: A chemist and later provost of the University of Pennsylvania, again not connected with this book.
3. Josiah H. Penniman: Another University of Pennsylvania provost, with no link to this agriculture text either.
4. J. Russel Smith: An American geographer and economist who studied land use and argued that permanent tree crops, such as nuts and fruits, could replace erosion-causing annual crops on unsuitable slopes. He set out this argument in his 1929 book "Tree Crops: A Permanent Agriculture," which became a founding text of modern agroforestry thinking.

The three university-provost names form a distractor set drawn from unrelated academic history, while the real author is the land-use economist still cited in agroforestry courses today.

Let's summarize:

• "Tree Crops: A Permanent Agriculture" (1929) promotes tree-based farming as a lasting alternative to row cropping on erodible land.
• Its author is J. Russell Smith, not any of the university administrators listed as distractors.

So the correct answer is option 4, J. Russell Smith.