In 1922/23
Ernst Stegemann and a group of other farmers went to ask
Rudolf Steiner's advice about the increasing degeneration
they had noticed in seed-strains and in many cultivated
plants. What can be done to check this decline and to
improve the quality of seed and nutrition? That was their
question.
They brought to his attention such salient facts as the
following: Crops of lucerne used commonly to be grown in
the same field for as many as thirty years on end. The
thirty years dwindled to nine, then to seven. Then the
day came when it was considered quite an achievement to
keep this crop growing in the same spot for even four or
five years. Farmers used to be able to seed new crops
year after year from their own rye, wheat, oats and
barley. Now they were finding that they had to resort to
new strains of seed every few years. New strains were
being produced in bewildering pro’fusion, only to
disappear from the scene again in short order.
A second group went to Dr. Steiner in concern at the
increase in animal diseases, with problems of sterility
and the widespread foot-and-mouth disease high on the
list. Among those in this group were the veterinarian Dr.
Joseph Werr, the physician Dr. Eugen Kolisko, and members
of the staff of the newly established Weleda, the
pharmaceutical manufacturing enterprise.
Count Carl von Keyserlingk brought problems from still
another quarter. Then Dr. Wachsmuth and the present
writer went to Dr. Steiner with questions dealing
particularly with the etheric nature of plants, and with
formative forces in general. In reply to a question about
plant diseases, Dr. Steiner told the writer that plants
themselves could never be diseased in a primary sense,
“since they are the products of a healthy etheric
world.” They suffer rather from diseased conditions
in their environment, especially in the soil; the causes
of so-called plant diseases should be sought there. Ernst
Stegemann was given special indications as to the point
of view from which a farmer could approach his task, and
was shown some first steps in the breeding of new plant
types as a first impetus towards the subsequent
establishment of the biological-dynamic movement.
In 1923 Rudolf Steiner described for the first time how
to make the bio-dynamic compost preparations, simply
giving the recipe without any sort of explanation —
just “do this and then that.” Dr. Wachsmuth
and I then proceeded to make the first batch of
preparation 500. This was then buried in the garden of
the “Sonnenhof” in Arlesheim, Switzerland.
The momentous day came in the early summer of 1924 when
this first lot of 500 was dug up again in the presence of
Dr. Steiner, Dr. Wegman, Dr. Wachsmuth, a few other
co-workers and myself. It was a sunny afternoon. We began
digging at the spot where memory, aided by a few
landmarks, prompted us to search. We dug on and on. The
realer will understand that a good deal more sweating was
done over the waste of Dr. Steiner's time than over the
strenuousness of the labour. Finally he became impatient
and turned to leave for a five o'clock appointment at his
studio. The spade grated on the first cowhorn in the very
nick of time.
Dr. Steiner turned back, called for a pail of water, and
proceeded to show us how to apportion the horn's contents
to the water, and the correct way of stirring it. As the
author's walking-stick was the only stirring implement at
hand, it was pressed into service. Rudolf Steiner was
particularly concerned with demonstrating the energetic
stirring, the forming of a funnel or crater, and the
rapid changing of direction to make a whirlpool. Nothing
was said about the possibility of stirring with the hand
or with a birch-whisk. Brief directions followed as to
how the preparation was to be sprayed when the stirring
was finished. Dr. Steiner then indicated with a motion of
his hand over the garden how large an area the available
spray would cover. Such was the momentous occasion
marking the birth-hour of a world-wide agricultural
movement.
What impressed me at the time, and still gives one much
to think about, was how these step-by-step developments
illustrate Dr. Steiner's practical way of working. He
never proceeded from preconceived abstract dogma, but
always dealt with the concrete given facts of the
situation. There was such germinal potency in his
indications that a few sentences or a short paragraph
often sufficed to create the foundation for a farmer's or
scientist's whole life-work; the agricultural course is
full of such instances. A study of his indications can
therefore scarcely be thorough enough. One does not have
to try to puzzle them out, but can simply follow them to
the letter.
Dr. Steiner once said, with an understanding smile, in
another, very grave situation, that there were two types
of people engaged in anthroposophical work: the older
ones, who understood everything, but did nothing with it,
and the younger ones, who understood only partially or
not at all, but immediately put suggestions into
practice. We obviously trod the younger path in the
agricultural movement, which did all its learning in the
hard school of experience. Only now does the total
picture of the new impulse given by Rudolf Steiner to
agriculture stand clearly before us, even though we still
have far to go to exhaust all its possibilities.
Accomplishments to date are merely the first step. Every
day brings new experience and opens new perspectives.
* * *
Shortly before 1924, Count Keyserlingk set to work in
deal earnest to persuade Dr. Steiner to give an
agricultural course. As Dr. Steiner was already
overwhelmed with work, tours and lectures, he put off his
decision from week to week. The undaunted Count then
dispatched his nephew to Dornach, with orders to camp on
Dr. Steiner's doorstep and refuse to leave without a
definite commitment for the course. This was finally
given.
The agricultural course was held from June 7 to 16, 1924,
in the hospitable home of Count and Countess Keyserlingk
at Koberwitz, near Breslau. It was followed by further
consultations and lectures in Breslau, among them the
famous “Address to Youth.” I myself had to
forgo attendance at the course, as Dr. Steiner had asked
me to stay at home to help take care of someone who was
seriously ill. “I'll write and tell you what goes
on at the course,” Dr. Steiner said by way of
solace. He never did get round to writing, no doubt
because of the heavy demands on him; this was understood
and regretfully accepted. On his return to Dornach,
however, there was an opportunity for discussing the
general situation. When I asked him whether the new
methods should be started on an experimental basis, he
replied: “The most important thing is to make the
benefits of our agricultural preparations available to
the largest possible areas over the entire earth, so that
the earth may be healed and the nutritive quality of its
produce improved in every respect. That should be our
first objective. The experiments can come later.”
He obviously thought that the proposed methods should be
applied at once.
This can be understood against the background of a
conversation I had with Dr. Steiner en route from
Stuttgart to Dornach shortly before the agricultural
course was given. He had been speaking of the need for a
deepening of esoteric life, and in this connection
mentioned certain faults typically found in spiritual
movements. I then asked, “How can it happen that
the spiritual impulse, and especially the inner
schooling, for which you are constantly providing
stimulus and guidance bear so little fruit? Why do the
people concerned give so little evidence of spiritual
experience, in spite of all their efforts? Why, worst of
all, is the will for action, for the carrying out of
these spiritual impulses, so weak?” I was
particularly anxious to get an answer to the question as
to how one could build a bridge to active participation
and the carrying out of spiritual intentions without
being pulled off the right path by personal ambition,
illusions and petty jealousies; for, these were the
negative qualities Rudolf Steiner had named as the main
inner hindrances. Then came the thought-provoking and
surprising answer: “This is a problem of nutrition.
Nutrition as it is to-day does not supply the strength
necessary for manifesting the spirit in physical life. A
bridge can no longer be built from thinking to will and
action. Food plants no longer contain the forces people
need for this.”
A nutritional problem which, if solved, would enable the
spirit to become manifest and realise itself in human
beings! With this as a background, one can understand why
Dr. Steiner said that “the benefits of the
bio-dynamic compost preparations should be made available
as quickly as possible to the largest possible areas of
the entire earth, for the earth's healing.”
This puts the Koberwitz agricultural course in proper
perspective as an introduction to understanding
spiritual, cosmic forces and making them effective again
in the plant world.
In discussing ways and means of propagating the methods,
Dr. Steiner said also that the good effects of the
preparations and of the whole method itself were “for
everybody, for all farmers” — in other words,
not intended to be the special privilege of a small,
select group. This needs to be the more emphasised in
view of the fact that admission to the course was limited
to farmers, gardeners and scientists who had both
practical experience and a spiritual’scientific,
anthroposophical background. The latter is essential to
understanding and evaluating what Rudolf Steiner set
forth, but the bio-dynamic method can be applied by any
farmer. It is important to point this out, for later on
many people came to believe that only anthroposophists
can practise the bio-dynamic method. On the other hand,
it is certainly true that a grasp of bio-dynamic
practices gradually opens up a wholly new perspective on
the world, and that the practitioner acquires and applies
a kind of judgment in dealing with biological —
i.e. living — processes and facts which is
different from that of a more materialistic chemical
farmer; he follows nature's dynamic play of forces with a
greater degree of interest and awareness. But it is also
true that there is a considerable difference between mere
application of the method and creative participation in
the work. From the first, actual practice has been
closely bound up with the work of the spiritual centre of
the movement, the Natural Science Section of the
Goetheanum at Dornach. This was to be the source, the
creative, fructifying spiritual element; while the
practical workers brought back their results and their
questions.
The name, “Bio-Dynamic Agricultural Method,”
did not originate with Dr. Steiner, but with the
experimental circle concerned with the practical
application of the new direction of thought.
In the Agricultural Course, which was attended by some
sixty persons, Rudolf Steiner set forth the basic new way
of thinking about the relationship of earth and soil to
the formative forces of the etheric, astral and ego
activity of nature. He pointed out particularly how the
health of soil, plants and animals depends upon bringing
nature into connection again with the cosmic creative,
shaping forces. The practical method he gave for treating
soil, manure and compost, and especially for making the
bio-dynamic compost preparations, was intended above all
to serve the purpose of reanimating the natural forces
which in nature and in modern agriculture were on the
wane. “This must be achieved in actual practice,”
Rudolf Steiner told me. He showed how much it meant to
him to have the School of Spiritual Science going hand in
hand with real-life practicality when he spoke on another
occasion of wanting to have teachers at the School
alternate a few years of teaching (three years was the
period mentioned) with a subsequent period of three years
spent in work outside, so that by this alternation they
would never get out of touch with the conditions and
challenges of real life.
The circle of those who had been inspired by the
agricultural course and were now working both practically
and scientifically at this task kept on growing; one
thinks at once of Guenther Wachsmuth, Count Keyserlingk,
Ernst Stegemann, Erhard Bartsch, Franz Dreidax, Immanuel
Vögele, M. K. Schwarz, Nikolaus Remer, Franz Rulni,
Ernst Jakobi, Otto Eckstein, Hans Heinze, and of many
others who came into the movement with the passing of
time, including Dr. Werr, the first veterinarian. The
bio-dynamic movement developed out of the co-operation of
practical workers with the Natural Science Section of the
Goetheanum. Before long it had spread to Austria,
Switzerland, Italy, England, France, the north-European
countries and the United States. To-day no part of the
world is without active collaborators in this enterprise.
* * *
The bio-dynamic school of thought and a chemically-minded
agricultural thinking confronted one another from
opposite points of the compass at the time the
agricultural course was held. The latter school is based
essentially on the views of Justus von Liebig. It
attributes the fact that plants take up substances from
the soil solely to the so-called “nutrient-need”
of the plant. The one-sided chemical fertiliser theory
that thinks of plant needs in terms of
nitrogen-phosphates-potassium-calcium, originated in this
view, and the theory still dominates orthodox scientific
agricultural thinking to-day. But it does Liebig an
injustice. He himself expressed doubt as to whether the
“N-P-K” theory should be applied to all
soils. Deficiency symptoms were more apparent in soils
poor in humus than in those amply supplied with it. The
following quotation makes one suspect that Liebig was by
no means the hardened materialist that his followers make
him out to be. He wrote: “Inorganic forces breed
only inorganic substances. Through a higher force at work
in living bodies, of which inorganic forces are merely
the servants, substances come into being which are
endowed with vital qualities and totally different from
the crystal.” And further: “The cosmic
conditions necessary for the existence of plants are the
warmth and light of the sun.” Rudolf Steiner gave
the key to these “higher forces at work in living
bodies and to these cosmic conditions.” He solved
Liebig's problem by refusing to stop short at the purely
material aspects of plant-life. He went on, with
characteristic spiritual courage and a complete lack of
bias, to take the next step.
And now an interesting situation developed. Devotees of
the purely materialistic school of thought, who once felt
impelled to reject the progressive thinking advanced by
Rudolf Steiner, have been forced by facts brought to
light during research into soil biology to go at least
one step further. Facts recognised as early as 1924-34 in
bio-dynamic circles — the significance of
soil-life, the earth as a living organism, the role
played by humus, the necessity of maintaining humus under
all circumstances, and of building it up where it is
lacking — all this has become common knowledge.
Recognition of biological, organic laws has now been
added to the earlier realisation of the undeniable
dependence of plants upon soil nutrient-substances. It is
not too mach to say that the biological aspect of the
bio-dynamic method is now generally accepted; the goal
has perhaps even been overshot. But, important as are the
biological factors governing plant inter-relationships,
soil structure, biological pest-control, and the progress
made in understanding the importance of humus, the whole
question of energy sources and Formative forces —
in other words, cosmic aspects of plant-life —
remains unanswered. The biological way of thinking
has been adopted, but with a materialistic bias, whereas
an understanding of the dynamic side, made
possible by Rudolf Steiner's pioneering indications, is
still largely absent.
Since 1924 numerous scientific publications that might be
regarded as a first groping in this direction have
appeared. We refer to studies of growth-regulating
factors, the so-called growth-inducers, enzymes,
hormones, vitamins, trace elements and bio-catalysts. But
this groping remains in the material realm. Science has
progressed to the point where material effects produced
by dilutions as high as 1:1 million, or even 1:100
million, no longer belong to the realm of the fantastic
and incredible. They do not meet with the unbelieving
smile that greeted rules for applying the bio-dynamic
compost preparations, for these—with dilutions
ranging from 1:10 to 1:100 million — are quite
conceivable at the present stage of scientific thinking.
Exploration of the process of photo-synthesis —
i.e. of the building of substance in the cells of living
plants — has opened up problems of the influence of
energy (of the sun, of light, of warmth and of the moon);
in other words, problems of the transformation of cosmic
sources of energy into chemical-material conditions and
energies.
In this connection we quote from the book Principles
of Agriculture, written in 1952 by W. R. Williams, Member of the Academy
of Sciences, U.S.S.R.: “The task of agriculture is
to transform kinetic solar energy, the energy of light,
into the potential energy stored in human food. The light
of the sun is the basic raw material of agricultural
industry.” And further: “Light and warmth are
the essential conditions for plant life, and consequently
also for agriculture. Light is the raw material from
which agricultural products are made, and warmth is the
force which drives the machinery — the green plant.
The provision of both raw material and energy must be
maintained. The dynamic energy of the sun's rays is
transformed by green plants into potential energy in the
material form of organic matter. Thus our first concrete
task is the continuous creation of organic matter,
storing up the potential energy of human life.” And
still further: “We can divide the four fundamental
factors into two groups, according to their source: light
and heat are cosmic factors, water and plant food
terrestrial factors. The former group originates in
interplanetary space...”
Or again: “The cosmic factors — light and
heat — act directly on the plant, whereas the
terrestrial factors act only through an intermediary
(substance).”
We see that the author of this work rates knowledge of
the interworking of cosmic and terrestrial factors as the
first objective of agricultural science, white ranking
organic substance (humus) second on the list of
objectives of agricultural production. This is what was
published in 1952. In 1924 Rudolf Steiner pointed out the
necessity of consciously restoring cosmic forces to
growth processes by both direct and indirect means,
thereby freeing the present conception of plant nature
from a material, purely terrestrial isolation; only
through such restoration would it be possible to
re-energise those healthful and constructive forces
capable of halting degeneration. He said to me,
“Spiritual scientific knowledge must have found its
way into practical life by the middle of the century if
untold damage to the health of man and nature is to be
avoided.”
* * *
Our research work began with the attempt to find reagents
to the etheric forces and to discover ways of
demonstrating their existence. Suggestions were given
which could only later be brought to realisation in the
writer's crystallisation method. Then it was our
intention to proceed to expose the weak points in the
materialistic conception and to refute its findings by
means of its own experimental methods. This meant
applying exact analytical methods in experimentation with
physical substances, and even developing them to a finer
point. We proposed to work quantitatively as well as
qualitatively. During my own years at the university, for
example, it was my regular practice to lay my proposed
course of studies for the new term before Rudolf Steiner
for guidance in the choice of subjects. On one occasion
he urged me to take simultaneously two — no, three
— main subjects, chemistry, physics and botany,
each requiring six hours a day. To the objection that
there were not hours enough in the day for this, he
replied simply, “Oh, you'll manage it somehow.”
Again and again, he steered things in the direction of
practical activity and laboratory work, away from the
merely theoretical.
Suggestions of this kind were constantly in my mind
during the decades of work which arose from them. They
led me not only to work in laboratories, but also to
apply the fundamentals of this new outlook to the
management of agricultural projects, both in a
bio-dynamic and in an economic sense. Dr. Steiner had
insisted on my taking courses and attending lectures in
political economy as well as in science, saying, “One
must work in a businesslike, profit-making way, or it
won't come off.” Economics, commercial history,
industrial science, even mass-psychology and other such
subjects were proposed for study, and when the courses
were completed, Dr. Steiner always wanted a report on
them. On these occasions he not only showed astounding
proficiency in the various special fields, but —
what was more surprising — he seemed quite familiar
with the methods and characteristics of the various
professors. He would say, for example, “Professor X
is an extremely brilliant man, with wide-ranging ideas,
but he is weak in detailed knowledge. Professor Z is a
silver-tongued orator of real elegance. You needn't
believe everything he says, but you must get a thorough
grasp of his method of presentation.”
From these and many other suggestions it was clear what
had to be done to promote the bio-dynamic method. There
was the big group of practising farmers, whose task it
was to carry out the method in their farming enterprises,
to discover the most favourable use of the preparations,
to determine what crop rotations build up rather than
deplete humus, to develop the best methods of plant and
animal breeding. It took years to translate the basic
ideas into actual practice. All this had to be tried out
in the hard school of experience, until the complete
picture of a teachable and learn’able method, which
any farmer could profitably use, was finally evolved.
Problems of soil treatment, crop rotation, manure and
compost handling, time-considerations in the proper rare
and breeding of cattle, fruit-tree management and many
other matters could be worked out only in practice
through the years.
Then there was the problem of coming to grips with
agricultural science. Laboratories and field experiments
had to provide facts and observational material. I was
now able to profit from the technical and
quantitative-chemical education urged upon me by Dr.
Steiner. This was the sphere in which the shortcomings
and weaknesses of the chemical soil-and-nutrient theory
showed up most clearly, and where to-day — after
more than thirty years — one can see possibilities
of building a bridge between recognition of the existence
of cosmic forces and exact science.
The first possibility of breaking through the hardened
layer of current orthodox opinion came through
discoveries that cluster around the concept of the
so-called trace elements. Dr. Steiner had pointed out as
early as 1924 the existence of these finely dispersed
material elements in the atmosphere and elsewhere, and
had stressed the importance of their contribution to
healthy plant development. But it still remained an open
question whether they were absorbed from the soil by
roots or from the atmosphere by leaves and other plant
organs. In the early thirties, spectrum analysis showed
that almost all the trace elements are present in the
atmosphere in a proportion of 10-6 to 10-9. The fact that
trace-elements can be absorbed from the air was
established in experiments with Tillandsia usneodis.
It is now common practice in California and Florida to
supply zinc and other trace elements, not via the roots,
but by spraying the foliage, since leaves absorb these
trace elements even more efficiently.
It was found that one-sided mineral fertilising lowers
the trace-element content of soil and plants, and —
most significantly — that to supply trace-elements
by no means assures their absorption by plants. The
presence (or absence) of zinc in a dilution of 1:100
million decides absolutely whether an orange tree will
bear healthy fruit. But in the period from 1924-1930 the
bio-dynamic preparations were ridiculed “because
plants cannot possibly be influenced by high dilutions.”
Zinc is singled out for mention here not only because
treatment with very high dilutions of this trace element
is especially essential for both the health and the yield
of many plants, but also because it is an element
particularly abundant in mushrooms. A comment by Rudolf
Steiner indicates an interesting connection which can be
fully understood only in the light of the most recent
research. We read in the Agricultural Course: “...
Harmful parasites always consort with growths of the
mushroom type, ... causing certain plant diseases and
doing other still worse forms of damage. ... One should
see to it that meadows are infested with fungi. Then one
can have the interesting experience of finding that where
there is even a small mushroom-infested meadow near a
farm, the fungi, owing to their kinship with the bacteria
and other parasites, keep them away from the farm. It is
often possible, by infesting meadows in this way, to keep
off all sorts of pests.”
Organisms of the fungus type include the so-called fungi
imperfecti and a botanical transition-form, the
family of actinomycetes and streptomycetes, from which
certain antibiotic drugs are derived. I have found that
these organisms play a very special rôle in humus
formation and decay, and that they are abundantly present
in the bio-dynamic manure and compost preparations. The
preparations also contain an abundance of many of the
most important trace elements, such as molybdenum,
cobalt, zinc, and others whose importance has been
experimentally demonstrated.
Now a peculiar situation was found to exist in regard to
soils. Analyses of available plant nutrients showed that
the same soil tested quite differently at different
seasons. Indeed, tests showed not only seasonal but even
daily variations. The same soil sample often disclosed
periodic variations greater than those found in tests of
soils from adjoining fields, one of which was good, the
other poor. Seasonal and daily variations are influenced,
however, by the earth's relative position in the
planetary System; they are, in other words, of cosmic
origin. It has actually been found that the time of day
or the season of the year influences the solubility and
availability of nutrient substances. Numerous phenomena
to be observed in the physiology of plants and animals
(e.g. glandular secretions, hormones) are subject
to such influences. The concentration of oxalic acid in
bryophyllum leaves rises and falls with the time of day
with almost clock-like regularity. Although in this and
many other test cases the nutrients on which the plants
were fed were identical, the increase or decrease in the
plant's substantial content varied very markedly in
response to varying light-rhythms and cycles. Joachim
Schultz, a research worker at the Goetheanum whose life
was most unfortunately cut short, had begun to test Dr.
Steiner's important indication that light activity acts
with growth-stimulating effect in the morning and late
afternoon hours, while at noon and midnight its influence
is growth-inhibiting.
When I inspected Schultz's experiments, I was struck by
the fact that plants grown on the same nutrient solution
had a wholly different substantial composition according
to the light-rhythms operative. This was true of
nitrogen, for example. Plants exposed to light during the
morning and evening hours grew strongly under the
favourable influence of nitrogen activity, whereas if
exposed during the noon hours, they declined and showed
deficiency symptoms. The way was thus opened for
experimental demonstration of the fact that the so-called
“cosmic” activity of light, of warmth, of sun
forces especially, but of other light-sources also,
prevails over the material processes. These cosmic forces
regulate the course of material change. When and in what
direction this takes place, and the extent to which the
total growth and the form of the plant are influenced,
all depend upon the cosmic constellation and the origin
of the forces concerned. Recent research in the field of
photosynthesis has produced findings which can hardly
fall to open the eyes even of materialistic observers to
such processes. Here, too, Rudolf Steiner is shown to
have been a pioneer who paved the way for a new direction
of research. It is impossible in an article of this
length to report on all the phenomena that have already
been noted, for they would more than fill a book. But it
is no longer possible to dismiss the influence of cosmic
forces as “mere superstition” when the
physiological and biochemical inter-relationships of
metabolic functions in soil-life, the rise and fall of
sap in the plant, and especially processes in the
root-sphere are taken into consideration.
* * *
In an earlier view of nature, based partly on old
mystery’tradition and partly on instinctive
clairvoyance — a view originating in the times of
Aristotle and his pupil Theophrastus, and continuing on
to the days of Albertus Magnus and the late mediaeval
“doctrine of signatures” — it was
recognised that relationships exist between certain
cosmic constellations and the various plant species.
These constellations are creative moments under whose
influence species became differentiated and the various
plant forms came into being. When one realises that
cosmic rhythms have such a significant influence on the
physiology of metabolism, of glandular functions, of the
rise and fall of sap and of sap pressure (turgor), only a
small step remains to be taken by conscious future
research to the next realisation, which will achieve an
experimental grasp of these creative constellations. Many
of Rudolf Steiner's collaborators have already
demonstrated the decisive effects of formative forces in
such experiments as, the capillary tests on filter paper
of L. Kolisko and the plant and crystallisation tests of
Pfeiffer, Krüger, Bessenich, Selawry and others.
Rudolf Steiner's suggestions for plant breeding presented
a special task. Research in this field was carried out by
the author and other fellow-workers (Immanuel Vögele,
Erika Riese, Martha Kuenzel and Martin Schmidt), either
in collaboration or in independent work. Proceeding from
the basic concept of creative cosmic constellations, one
can assume that the original creative impetus in every
species of sub-type slowly exhausts itself and ebbs away.
The formative forces of this original impulse is passed
on from plant to plant in hereditary descent by means of
certain organs such as chromosomes. One-sided
quantity-manuring gradually inhibits the activity of the
primary forces, and results in a weakening of the plant.
Seed quality degenerates. This was the initial problem
laid before Rudolf Steiner, and the bio-dynamic movement
came into being as an answer to it.
The task was to reunite the plant, viewed as a system of
forces under the influence of cosmic activities, with
nature as a whole. Rudolf Steiner pointed out that many
plants which had been “violated,” in the
sense of having been estranged from their cosmic origin,
were already so far gone in degeneration that by the end
of the century their propagation would be unreliable.
Wheat and potatoes were among the plant types mentioned,
but other such grains as oats, barley and lucerne belong
to the same picture. Ways were sketched whereby new
strains with strong seed-forces could be bred from
“unexhausted” relatives of the cultivated
plants. This work has begun to have success; the species
of wheat have already been developed. Martin Schmidt
carried on significant researches, not yet published, to
determine the rhythm of seed placement in the ear, and to
show in particular the difference between food plants and
plants grown for seed. According to Rudolf Steiner, there
is a basic difference between the two types, one of which
is sown in autumn, nearer to the winter, and the other
nearer to the summer. Biochemists will eventually be able
to confirm these differences materially in the structure
of protein substances, amino-acids, phosphorlipoids,
enzyme-systems and so on by means of modern
chromatographic methods.
The degeneration of wheat is already an established fact.
Even where the soil is good, the protein content has
declined; in the case of soft red wheat, protein content
has sunk from 13% to 8% in some parts of the United
States. Potato growers know how hard it is to produce
healthy potatoes free from viruses and insects, not to
mention the matter of flavour. Bio-dynamically grown
wheat maintains its high protein level. Promising work in
potato breeding was unfortunately interrupted by the last
war and other disturbances.
Pests are one of the most interesting and instructive
problems, looked at from the bio-dynamic viewpoint. When
the biological balance is upset, degeneration follows;
pests and diseases make their appearance. Nature herself
liquidates weaklings. Pests are therefore to be regarded
as nature's warning that the primary forces have been
dissipated and the balance sinned against. According to
official estimates, American agriculture pays a yearly
bill of five thousand million dollars in crop losses for
disregarding this warning, and another seven hundred and
fifty million dollars on keeping down insect pests.
People are beginning to realise that insect poisons fall
short of solving the problem, especially since the
destruction of some of the insects succeeds only in
producing new, more resistant kinds. It has been
established by the most advanced research (Albrecht of
Missouri) that one-sided fertilising disturbs the
protein-carbohydrates balance in plant cells, to the
detriment of proteins and the layer of wax that coats
plant leaves, and makes the plants “tastier”
to insect depredators. It has been a bitter realisation
that insect poisons merely “preserve” a part
of moribund nature, but do not halt the general trend
towards death. Experienced entomologists, who have
witnessed the failure of chemical pest-control and the
threats to health associated with it, are beginning to
speak out and demand biological controls. But according
to the findings of one of the American experimental
stations, biological controls are feasible only when no
poisons are used and an attempt is made to restore
natural balance. In indications given in the Agriculture
Course, Rudolf Steiner showed that health and resistance
are functions of biological balance, coupled with cosmic
factors. This is further evidence of how far in advance
of its time was this spiritual-scientific, Goethean way
of thought.
The author is thoroughly conscious of the fact that this
exposition touches upon only a small part of the whole
range of questions opened up by Rudolf Steiner's new
agricultural method. He is also aware that other
collaborators would have written quite differently, and
about different aspects of the work. These pages should
therefore be read in accordance with their intention: as
the view from a single window in a house containing many
rooms.
(Contributed
by Dr. Pfeiffer to the German symposium, Wir erlebten
Rudolf Steiner, of which a complete English
translation, “Rudolf Steiner, by his pupils,”
was published as a special number of The Golden Blade,
1958. This translation is used by permission of The
Golden Blade and the Verlag Freies Geistesleben
G.m.b.H., Stuttgart, publishers of the book, Wir
erlebten Rudolf Steiner.)
Notes:
Translated from the Russian by G. V. Jacks,
Director of the Commonwealth Bureau of Soil Science
(London, 1952).