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The Green, Brown, and Beautiful Story of Compost

George Washington was America's first composter, but the history of amending the soil to grow better crops goes back to prehistory.
By Aaron Sidder
Published September 9, 2016


Compost is a hot commodity these days. A nutrient-rich organic soil amendment, the so-called black gold—named for its dark color—is growing in popularity as Millenials discover the joy of gardening and increasingly embrace sustainable practices. The benefits of compost are many: It recycles organic materials and reduces waste, replenishes depleted soils, and improves soil health . Though it takes different forms, composting can be done in nearly any environment.

In an age of profligate food production and consumption, composting offers a solution for recouping some benefit from massive food waste. For many nouveau gardeners, composting may be a fairly new concept. However, a dive into the history books shows the practice has been around as long as agriculture itself.

Ancient Methods

The application of reclaimed organic material to farmed fields dates to at least the Stone Age. Archaeological evidence from the British Isles suggests that Scots improved their small-scale farms with compost as far back as 12,000 years ago. These early farmers likely plowed and seeded compost heaps in situ; instead of moving compost into fields, they turned the heaps into plots and planted directly in them. From the Stone Age, it took another 10,000 years before someone eventually wrote about compost.

As the first empire to implement a functional bureaucracy, the Akkadians in Mesopotamia kept records by scrawling cuneiform onto clay tablets. Some of these tablets, from King Sargon’s reign around 2300 B.C., are believed to include the earliest written reference to compost. The practice was not limited to Mesopotamia though. Mediterranean farmers in Greece and Italy commonly cycled agricultural “waste” from one farm operation to another, and Chinese farmers regularly fertilized their rice paddies with anaerobic (lacking oxygen) composting techniques. Westerners also recently discovered ancient composting methods in African and Amazonian rainforests (see How Africans Are Saving Their Own Soil). In North America, Native Americans wrapped seeds in fish parts to supplement nutrient availability.

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