Books - the ultimate survival tool

Originally posted by chillpill
I hear a lot about people stockpiling food, water purification tabs, etc. in case SHF.

However important this is - I also think it is exceptionally important to have the right books. We all run to the internet whenever we need to reference something.

I have bought books on farming, brewing, animal husbandry...if this is a long-term situation, then the general public has no knowledge about growing the things it needs. This knowledge has been lost over the last two generations. Many kids dont know where potatoes come from or that bacon comes from pigs...

Has anyone else got any books they would recommend?

One thing I did is download wiki taxi for offline wiki reading,
thou I am not expert on its functionality yet.

Then I downloaded a lot of good books off wiki books,
and a copy of wikipedia that is a little out of date but
manageable in size with no pictures.

I will have a copy on my new laptop drive, and
on multiple SD mem cards.

I have an small inverter and a laptop that will be at my primary
RZ, and if not I think computers will be considered junk if the
grid and the net goes down.

Hard copy I printed the SAS survival handbook, and some
of the military manuals, bought laminated copies of the
edible plants and medicinal plants with pictures.

Originally posted by chillpill
reply to post by Aeons

 

Hi - really interested in the seed collection aspect. Someone pointed out to me that collecting seeds from most plants wont work as they are hybrids and we need 'heirloom' seeds.

This is true, but you can get heirloom or open pollinated seeds
on Ebay real cheap, or a seed kit from places like getseeds.net.

There are other seed places, but getseeds seems to be the
lowest priced, but maybe not the best packaging, but I stuck
mine in a an ammo can anyways.



[edit on 23-7-2009 by Ex_MislTech]

Originally posted by chillpill
reply to post by Aeons

 

Hi - really interested in the seed collection aspect. Someone pointed out to me that collecting seeds from most plants wont work as they are hybrids and we need 'heirloom' seeds.

get a seed catalog from any seed supplier. these catalogs give the growing traits, and tell if a particular vegie is heirloom, or open polinated. Some of these seed catalogs are like a mini encyclopedia, and best of all----they're free.

Another gardening book I would reccomend, is Rodales Organic Encyclopedia. This book has been printed many times over, and never gets old. The info is priceless for a post SHTF world, where there would not be many plant commercial plant nutrients available, and one would have to know how to use available natural products to assist growing food.

I would also suggest going to somewhere like a Goodwill store as a place to search for good how to books at a cheap price.