LECTURE V.
Delivered 13th June, 1924.
The
indications given yesterday as to the treatment of manure by
the use of cows' horns were intended, of course, only to show a
method of improving manure. Manuring as such remains, and we
shall speak today of the way in which manure has to be applied
by those who have grasped that all that is living must be kept
within the realm of life. We saw that the etheric life forces
should never be allowed to leave that which is within the
region or sphere of growth. That is why we found it to be so
important to know that the soil, out of which the plant grows
and which surrounds its roots, is itself a kind of continuation
of the living plant-like nature of the earth being.
Moreover, I pointed out yesterday how we can imagine the
transition from the heaped-up mound of earth, inwardly
vitalized by the humus in it to the bark which surrounds the
tree and encloses it. It is only natural, in modern times, when
all understanding has been lost of the great inter-relations in
Nature, that insight into the fact that the life which
embraces soil and plant alike extends into such secretions of
the living realm as appear in the form of manure should also
have been lost. An understanding of how the forces of this all
— embracing life work on in the manure was also bound to
go as time went on. As I said in the discussion yesterday, it
is no part of the methods of Spiritual Science to attempt by
fanatical agitation and turbulence forcibly to interfere with
the achievements in all the different spheres of modern life,
rather it gives full recognition to the advances which have
been made. And only those things should be opposed, If I may
use the word, which rest on completely false assumptions and
are the outcome of the modern materialistic conception of
the world. These achievements, however, must be completed by
the results issuing from a living conception of the world
in the varied spheres of life. I shall therefore not deal with
the different ways of preparing manure — whether
from stable manure, from liquid manure or from compost —
as much has already been said in this connection. Besides
we shall have the opportunity of dealing with this in this
afternoon's discussion. I only wish to assume now that we are
right in saying that in the practice of agriculture we are
bound to exploit the soil, because in distributing the produce
of agriculture far and wide we are actually depriving the earth
and even the air of forces. These forces have to be replaced,
and that is why the manure must be prepared in such a way as to
contain the forces which the impoverished soil needs to become
vitalised again. Now it is precisely on this point that a
number of errors have arisen through a materialistic
conception of the world.
In
the first place a careful study is made nowadays of bacteria,
of micro-organisms. To these is attributed the power of
creating the proper proportions of the different
substances in the manure. Great stress is laid upon the
activity of the bacteria in the manure. Experiments have been
made in inoculating the soil with bacteria. Such experiments
are clever, even logical — but as a rule have no lasting
influence and are of small use. This is because they are based
on assumptions somewhat resembling the following: A large
number of flies are found in a room and because of this the
room is considered dirty. But the truth is that the flies are
there because the room is dirty. Nor will the room ever become
any cleaner by our devising methods of increasing the number of
flies on the supposition that they will eat the dirt, nor
by diminishing their number. Far more will be achieved by a
direct attack upon the dirt than by any such speculative
methods as these. In the same way, when animal excrements are
used as manure, the tiny living beings which appear through the
processes at work in the manure substance can only really be
regarded as a very valuable symptom of certain conditions
which the manure substance is passing through? and therefore
not something which it is important to implant or breed: one
might just as well do the reverse and suppress them. Our
thoughts on these things should weave within the whole
living content of the farm and not be limited to an
atomistic view of these micro-organisms. Now obviously on6
should not make such a statement unless one can show the ways
and means of carrying it out. True, what I have said about the
bacteria has been emphasised in various quarters! but it is
important not only to be able to make a correct
statement, for a negative statement has no value in
practice. One must be able to make positive suggestions. If one
ha3 no positive suggestions to make it is better to refrain
from emphasising the merely negative view, as this only causes
annoyance.
A
second point is this. Under the influence of the materialistic
outlook of modern times, the practice has come into favour of
treating manure with all manner of inorganic compounds or
elements. Experience has shown, however, that this method
produces no lasting results. Nor can it do so, for we must
clearly understand that in attempting to improve the
manure by adding minerals, we vivify only the watery part of
the soil. But to ensure sound growth in a plant, it is not
enough to organise and vivify the water for this does not
distribute any vitality as it trickles through the soil. The
soil must be vitalised directly. This cannot be done with
mineral substances, but only with organic substances which have
been suitably prepared so as to organise and quicken the solid
earth element. This is the contribution of Spiritual Science to
agriculture: to provide knowledge of the way to stimulate life
in manure, either solid or liquid — indeed anything
that can be used in this way — but what we do must remain
within the realm of the living. Spiritual Science always seeks
to gain an insight into the larger connections of life, and
does not pay much regard to the Microscopic view and the
conclusions drawn from it, because this view is not of primary
importance. The observation of the Macroscopic, of the larger
range of Nature's activities — that is the task of
Spiritual Science. But we must first know how to penetrate into
these activities.
In
all agricultural literature, you will find the following
statement, based no doubt upon the experiences which have been
collected. It is said that nitrogen, phosphoric acid, calcium,
potash, chlorine, etc. — even iron, all these are of
great value to soil which is to be used for plants; but silicic
acid, lead, arsenic, mercury, even soda have only value as
so-called stimuli in promoting plant growth. People show by
such statements that they are really working in the dark,
and it is fortunate that — because of their traditional
knowledge — they do not strictly adhere to this
“principle” in their treatment of plants. Indeed,
it cannot be adhered toj for what is the truth of the
matter?
The
truth is that Mother Nature will abandon us without
mercy, if we do not pay proper regard to potash,
limestone or phosphoric acid. We can, however, with
comparative impunity disregard her silicic acid, lead, mercury,
arsenic, etc. The heavens give us the silicic acid, lead,
mercury and arsenic we need; they give them freely whenever the
rain falls. In order, however, to have the right amount of
phosphoric acid, potash and limestone in the soil, it must be
worked upon and manured in the right way. These elements are
not supplied freely by the heavens I Thus by continuous use of
the soil it becomes impoverished, and therefore needs to be
manured. This compensation by way of manure may, and in many
cases, does become too weak in time. When this happens, we rob
the earth and leave it permanently impoverished. We must see to
it that the true Nature-process can take place to the full.
What have been called merely “stimuli” are actually
the most important factors. All round the earth are the very
substances though in highly diluted form which are generally
held to be unnecessary, but which the plants require as
urgently as they do those which come to them from the earth.
Mercury, arsenic and silicic acid are sucked in by the
plants from the earth after these substances have been radiated
into the earth from the universe. Now we, as human beings, can
prevent the soil from thus absorbing from the periphery what
the plants need. By continued, unthinking use of manure,
we can quite well prevent the earth from seeking, out and
absorbing the silicic acid, lead and mercury which come to it
in the finest homeopathic doses from the surrounding universe
and which are required by the plant. The plant needs the help
of these substances in order to build up its carbon structure.
To ensure, therefore, that the plant gets all it needs from the
surrounding universe, we must work on our manure, not only as I
explained yesterday, but with other things as well. It is not
enough to add.to the manure substances which we think it
requires; we must add living forces. For living forces are far
more important to the plant than mere material forces and
substances. Be a soil never so rich in this or that substance,
we should still not promote plant growth if we did not give the
plant by manuring the power to absorb into its body the active
forces contained in the soil. Now when it comes to living
principles, it is not generally known how very powerfully
minute quantities will work. Since Frau Dr. Kolisko's research
work on the activity of “smallest entities” so
brilliantly established as fact what until then had been more
guess-work in homeopathy, we can, I think, regard it as a
scientific fact that it is from the small entities (quantities)
that the radiating forces necessary for the organic world are
released, when these small entitles are used in the appropriate
way. And in manuring we shall not find it at all difficult so
to use the smallest entitles.
We
have seen how we can prepare these “smallest
entities” quite readily within cows' horns, and how
we are able to add to the forces contained in ordinary manure
these other forces which are applied in homeopathic doses. But
we must try out all ways of properly vitalizing the manure, so
that it retains the right amount of nitrogen and other
substances and is thus vivified and enabled to convey the
necessary vitality to the soil.
Today I should like to give indications for the addition
in small doses of certain preparations to the manure (quite
apart from what can be done with the contents of the cows'
horn) to vivify it to such an extent as will enable it to carry
its own vitality into the soil from which the plants
spring,
I
shall mention various things, but wish to emphasise that in
places where the ingredients are difficult to obtain,
substitutes can, if necessary, be found. (There is only one
plant for which there is no substitute, because its properties
are so unique that they are scarcely to be found in any other
species). In the first place, it is necessary to ensure that
the basic substances in the organic world — carbon,
hydrogen, nitrogen and sulphur — are combined in the
right way with other substances in the organism, especially
with potash salts. We must not have regard merely to the
quantity of the potash salts which the plant requires (as is
well known, it is the potash salts which give the plant
organism its scaffolding what it has of solidity and
structure) the main thing is that this potash content shall be
so worked up [Note: This “working-up” is effected
by means of Preparation No. 502.]) that when it comes
within the ambit of what takes place between soil and plant, it
acts properly within the organic process towards that
which constitutes the actual body of the plant, viz. the
albuminous substances. To accomplish this, we proceed as
follows: —
You
take common yarrow (or milfoil) a plant which it is generally
quite easy to obtain. In any place where it does not grow, the
dried plant can be used. This yarrow is a wonderful work of
creation. (The same is true of every plant, but if we compare
yarrow with any other flower, we realise how particularly
wonderful it is). It contains that substance with which, as I
told you, the spirit moistens its fingers when it wishes to
send carbon, nitrogen and other substances to their places in
the organism where these are needed. Yarrow is like the ideal
model which some creator of plants must have had before him
when he had the task of bringing sulphur into its true
relationship with other vegetable substances. One may
say, the spirits of Nature have never brought the distribution
of sulphur to such perfection as in yarrow (milfoil). And if we
know the effects this plant can produce in the animal or
human organism — how with correct biological use, it can
set right all troubles which are caused by any weakness in the
astral body, then we can further trace its particular
nature (Dr. Steiner says “its milfoil-ness”)
throughout the whole process of plant growth in Nature.
Its effect is extremely salutary when growing wild at the edge
of fields planted with cereals, potatoes or any other
cultivated plants. Yarrow should never be extirpated. It
should, of course, not be allowed to spread so as to
become a nuisance — it can never be harmful —
but like some human beings whose mere presence is felt to be
beneficent, so yarrow growing freely has an extraordinarily
beneficial effect on its surroundings.
This is what can be done with milfoil: take the blossoms, the
umbrella-like inflorescence, just as you do when the plant is
intended for medicinal use. They should be plucked as fresh as
possible and allowed to dry for a short time. If you cannot
obtain fresh flowers, then take some that have “been
dried and sprinkle them with some of the liquor strained off
from dried leaves which have been boiled in water. Then take
one or two handfuls of the yarrow blossoms well pressed
together (mark that we remain always within the region of the
living) and place them in a deer's bladder. Tie the bladder up
and hang it in a sunny place, leaving it there throughout the
summer. When autumn comes, take down the bladder and bury it in
the sail but not too deeply, leaving it there throughout the
winter. Thus, during a whole year, the yarrow flowers (there is
no harm in using flowers in which the fruit has begun to set)
in the deer's bladder have been exposed, partly above and
partly below the earth's surface, to the right influences. You
will find that during the winter, they have assumed a very
peculiar consistency and in this condition, they will keep for
as long as you like. You can add some of this substance from
the deer's bladder to a manure heap as big as a house by a
simple distribution (very little work is required) and the
radiation works. However much the substance is scattered
through the heap the radiation is so powerful (and the
materialist who talks about radium will believe in radiation)
that it will work on any sort of manure, whether liquid, solid
or compost. The substance obtained from the yarrow has such a
quickening and refreshing effect upon the manure, that
when it is used in the usual way it does much to restore that'
of which we have robbed the soil. The manure is again given the
possibility of so vivifying the soil that it can once more
absorb the other cosmic substances, the silicon, lead, etc.,
which come to the earth in the finest homeopathic doses. The
Members of the Agricultural Circle should test this out by
experiment. You will see how well it will succeed.
Now
let us put the following question, for we should always act out
of insight and not without it. We have learned the virtues of
the common yarrow. Its content of sulphur in highly homeopathic
distribution, standing in an ideal combination with potash,
works so splendidly from the plant alone that it is able to
radiate its activities over a large area. Then why is there
need for a bladder and that of a deer?
The
reason why we use a deer's bladder is found when we gain
insight into the whole process which is bound up with it. The
deer is an animal which stands in a peculiarly close
relation, not so much to the earth as to that which is of a
cosmic nature in the periphery of the earth; hence its antlers,
whose function I pointed out yesterday. Now the properties of
the yarrow are preserved by means of that process which takes
place between the kidneys and the bladder, and this applies to
both human and animal organisms. This process is itself
dependent upon the nature of
the
substance of the bladder. In the bladder of the deer, however
tenuous its substantiality may be, there are forces which are
connected not, as in the case of cattle, with the animal's
interior, but with cosmic forces; the deer's bladder is almost
a reflected image of the cosmos. And in putting the yarrow into
the bladder, we greatly increase its capacity to combine its
sulphur with the other substances. In the treatment I
have given for yarrow, we have therefore something fundamental
for the improvement of manure. Moreover, we have not gone
outside the region of the living, and have certainly not
entered the realm of inorganic chemistry. That is the
important point.
Let
us take another example. If we wish to enable the manure to
absorb so much life that it can transmit it to the soil on
which the plant is to grow, we must also render the manure
capable of closely binding together all substances
necessary for plant growth: not only potash but also calcium
and its compounds. In yarrow potash forces are predominant. If
we wish to capture calcium as -well, we require a plant which,
though it does not arouse one's enthusiasm to the same extent
as yarrow, nevertheless contains sulphur in homeopathic
distribution. With this sulphur, it attracts the other
substances and blends them into an organic process. I refer to
camomile or chamomilla officinalis. It is not enough to say
that camomile is distinguished by the amount of potash
and calcium it possesses. The yarrow plant develops its
sulphur forces especially in the potash-formative process, and
for this reason it possesses exactly that amount of sulphur
required to “workup” potash. The camomile,
however, “works-up” calcium for the purpose of
excluding certain tendencies towards fruit formation which are
harmful, and in this way, keeps the plant healthy. The camomile
plant has some sulphur in it, but in a different proportion,
because it is calcium that has to be. worked upon. Now, bearing
in mind that Spiritual Science always looks at the large, the
macrocosmic cycles of events and not so much at that which is
microscopic, let us, follow the process undergone by camomile
which has been absorbed by a human or animal organism. For all
the processes which the camomile undergoes there, the
bladder has hardly any importance, while the substance of the
intestinal walls has great importance. If, therefore, we
wish to work with camomile as we did with yarrow the beautiful
delicate little yellow-heads of blossom must be plucked and
treated in the same way as the umbels of the yarrow, but
instead of putting them in a bladder, we must put them in the
intestines of horned cattle. This is quite an amusing
proceeding. Instead of following the customary usage and making
ordinary sausages, we have to make sausages filled with
camomile prepared in the way indicated (for yarrow). Here
again, using only ingredients taken from the realm of the
living world, we have something which only needs to be exposed
to the right natural influences to become of value. In this
case, we have to allow those living forces to work which have
the closest possible kinship to the soil. We must
therefore place these precious little sausages (for they really
are precious) under the ground, not very deeply, in soil which
is as rich as possible in humus, and leave them all through the
winter. For this purpose, we should select places where the
snow will remain lying a fairly long time, and where the sun
will shine upon the snow. This will be the best way of
attracting the cosmic-astral influences to the place where
these precious little sausages lie buried. In Spring, they are
dug up and put aside as before. Their contents are added to the
manure in exactly the same way as was done with the prepared
yarrow. It will be found that manure so treated will have a
more stable nitrogen content than other manure, and it will
also have the property of so vivifying the soil that this will
promote very strongly the growth of plants. Furthermore, the
plants will be more healthy, really healthier, than they would
otherwise be.
I
know well enough that these may appear rather crazy notions,
but you must remember that many things which have at first
seemed to be crazy have been accepted a few years later.
You should have read the Swiss papers and seen the offensive
objections raised when the idea of constructing mountain
railways was first mooted, yet in a very short time the
mountain railways were built and nowadays nobody thinks that
the man who planned them was a fool. It is all a question of
putting aside prejudice.
As
I said before if these two plants are difficult to obtain,
others can be used in their stead, though not with such good
results. The plants can, of course, be used after they have
been dried. There is, however, one plant which it is
difficult.to find a substitute for its good influence upon
manure. It is one which is not very popular, for if we like a
thing we usually want to stroke it: I refer to the stinging
nettle. The stinging nettle is really the greatest of
benefactors to plant growth and can scarcely be replaced by any
other plant. If unobtainable fresh it must be used dried.
It is a regular Jack-of-all-trades. It can do extraordinary
things. It, too, bears that within it, which introduces the
spiritual element everywhere and works with it as I have
explained. Again, in addition to the potash and calcium which
the nettle bears along in its radiating and streaming currents
it also possesses a species of radiating iron forces which as
regards the whole course of Nature, are almost as health
promoting as are the iron forces in our blood. The
stinging nettle does not really deserve to be despised as
it so often is. Indeed, it ought to win everyone's heart, be
cherished by everyone, for in its wonderful inner
workings it plays a similar part in Nature to that played
by the heart in the human organism. The stinging nettle is
really a great boon. In order, therefore, to draw iron from the
soil, it is necessary to plant stinging nettles in it somewhere
where they will do no harm. We should do this because these
plants like iron, they attract it to themselves and thus free
the top layer of soil from it. If we cannot remove the iron as
such, we can at least weaken its effects upon plants in this
way» (If Count Keyserlingk will excuse my making a
personal reference, I would say that the planting of nettles on
this estate would be of particular benefit). I wish to point
out that the mere presence of nettles has a significance for
plant growth in the whole district.
Now
if you wish still further to improve your manure, take some
stinging nettles, allow them to wither a little, press them
together slightly and then place them, not in a bladder nor in
intestines, but directly into the soil, surrounded,
perhaps, by a thin layer of peat dust, so that they will be
separated a little from immediate contact with the soil. Make a
note of where they are placed, so that when you afterwards dig
them out you do not take merely soil. They must be left there
all through one Winter and a Summer, they must lie burled
for a whole year, and then their substance will have become
enormously powerful. If this is then added to the manure in the
manner mentioned before, it will cause it to be inwardly
sensitive. The manure will actually become sensitive, as though
it really had some nous. It will not allow anything to decay in
a wrong way nor give off nitrogen in ä wrong way and so
on. By adding this substance to the manure in a sense we really
give it nous and enable it to make the soil into which it is
mixed intelligent too, so that the soil will behave
individually towards the different plant species growing
in it. This addition of Urtica dioica has the effect of
impregnating the soil with nous.
Modern methods of improving manure, however surprising they may
be in their external effects, are, in the last resort, only
methods for turning out fine-looking agricultural produce
destined merely to fill human stomachs. There will come a time
when it will no longer possess any real nutritive value. We
must not be deceived by large and blown-out products of the
soil. The point is that they should be firm and solid and have
real nutritive value.
Now
it may be that somewhere on our farm, plant diseases
occur. I shall speak of these in a general way. People today
are fond of specialisation and speak of this or that disease.
This is all right from a theoretical-scientific point of view:
one must know how the symptoms of one disease differ from those
of another. But just as in the case of a doctor for human
beings, it is not so useful to describe an illness as it is to
cure it.
It
is possible to describe an illness very accurately, to
know exactly what is going on in the organism in terms of
modern physiology and physiological chemistry, and yet one may
be unable to heal it. Healing is not based on the microscopic
changes in tissues and cells, but on a knowledge of the larger
connections; this must also be our attitude to the plant
nature. And since plant nature is in this respect simpler than
that of the animal or man, so its healing is a more general
process and when sick it can be healed with a kind of
“cure-all” remedy. If this were not so, we should
often be in a fix with regard to plants, as we are with
animals, though not with human beings. For a man can tell us
where he feels pain. Animals and plants cannot; and it is
fortunate that, here the curative process is almost the same
for all plants. A large number of plant diseases (although not
all of them) can really be arrested as soon as they are noticed
by a rational management of our manuring — namely in the
following way:
We
must then add calcium to the soil by means of the manure. But
it will be of no use if the calcium is not applied in a living
condition. If it is to have a healing effect it must remain
within the realm of the living. Ordinary lime or the like is of
no use here. Now we have a plant which is very rich in calcium
— seventy-seven per cent, of its substances is calcium
albeit in very fine distribution. This is the oak and more
especially its bark. In the bark, we have something which is at
an intermediate stage between plant and living earth. You
will remember what I said to you about the kinship between bark
and live earth. For calcium as required in this
connection the calcium structure in the bark of the oak
is almost ideal. Calcium in a living state (not dead,
though even then it has an effect) has the property which I
have already described to you: it restores order where the
etheric body is working too strongly so that the astral element
is prevented from reaching the organic substances. Calcium,
kills (damps down) the forces of the etheric body and so sets
free those of the astral body. This is characteristic of all
limestone. But if it is necessary for an over-powerful etheric
element to be damped down and contracted in a regular way
— not suddenly nor jerkily so that shocks are produced
— but in a steady and orderly fashion, we should use
calcium in the particular form in which it is to be found in
the bark of the oak tree.
For
this purpose, we collect some oak bark just as it comes to
hand« We do not need much« We collect it, chop it up
until it has a crumbly consistency and put the crumbs into the
hollow part of a skull or cranium of any one of our domestic
animals — it is almost immaterial which one we choose.
The skull should be closed up again with bony material and put
into the ground — not very deeply. Then we cover it with
peat moss and direct on to the spot, through a gutter or some
such contrivance, a maximum amount of rainwater. Alternatively,
one might put some rotting plant substance into a wooden tub
into which rainwater could flow and drain off again. This would
produce a sort of plant slime and in this the bony receptacle
with its content of oak-bark crumbs could be buried. It should
be left there through the autumn and the winter, snow water
being just as effective as rainwater. Prepared thus, this
substance contains something which, when it is added to our
manure, endows it with the power — the prophylactic
property — of fighting and arresting harmful plant
disease.
We
have now dealt with four substances to be added to manure. All
this involves a certain amount of work. But if you think it
over, you will see that it involves less work than the
complicated trouble taken in agricultural-chemical
laboratories, and which, moreover, has to be paid for. The
methods I have outlined to you today are more profitable from
the point of view of general economy.
We
still need something, however, which will attract silicic acid
from the cosmic environment in the right way, for we must have
silicic acid in the plant, and in the course of time the soil
loses the power to absorb this very substance. The loss is very
gradual and therefore passes unnoticed. Those who look only at
the microcosmic and do not consider the macrocosmic set little
store by this loss in silicic acid, because they think it has
no importance for plant growth. It is of the utmost
importance, however, although to be aware of this one
must know the following. Such knowledge is, however, no longer
regarded in learned circles as a sign of mental
confusion, as was the case heretofore, for these circles are
themselves already speaking of the transmutation of
elements. Observation of various chemical elements has in this
respect brought the materialistic lion to heel. But there
are certain things constantly going on around us of which
science knows nothing. If people knew something about them it
would be easier for them to accept such things as I have been
expounding. I know very well that the hard-boiled modern
thinker will exclaim: “But you have told us nothing of
how the nitrogen content in the manure is increased.” As
a matter of fact, I have spoken of this all the time, in what I
said about yarrow, camomile and nettles. For in organic
processes there is a secret alchemy. This hidden alchemy will,
for example, transform potash into nitrogen provided only
that the potash is working in the right way and. will do the
same even with lime if the lime is active in the right way.
In
the plant, there are the four elements of which I have spoken.
Besides sulphur there is also hydrogen. I have told you of the
significance of hydrogen. Now there is a mutual relation
between lime and hydrogen, just as there is the well-known
relation between oxygen and nitrogen in the air, and even
according to the purely external standards of analytical
chemistry, this ought to betray the fact that there is a
kinship between the way in which oxygen and nitrogen are
connected in the air and that in which lime and hydrogen are
connected in organic processes. Under the influence of
hydrogen, lime and potash are constantly being changed
into nitrogenous matter, and finally into actual nitrogen. And
the nitrogen which has come into being in this way has a
tremendous value for plant growth? but it must be such as has
been produced in the way I have described.
Silicic acid, as we know, contains silicon and this in its turn
undergoes transmutation in the living organism. It is changed
into a substance which is of exceptional importance but which
is not reckoned by present-day science to be among the
elements. The silicon which we require in order to attract the
cosmic element is transmuted. And now there must take place in
the plant a real interaction between the silicic acid and the
potash — but not the calcium. In order to set up
this interaction we must quicken the soil with manure. We must
therefore find a plant which, by reason of the particular
proportion of potash and silicon in it, is able when added in
homeopathic doses, to give the manure the required power. Such
a plant exists and, once again, it is a plant which
always has a beneficial effect wherever it is found in our
fields. It is the dandelion (Taraxaeum).
The
harmless yellow dandelion does untold good in any area in which
it grows, for it is the mediator between that silicic acid in
minutest distribution in the cosmos and the other silicic acid
actually present in the area in question. The dandelion is
indeed a kind of messenger from heaven; but if it is to become
active in manure, it must be applied in the right way. It must
be exposed to the influences of the earth during winter. But in
order to capture the forces in the environment of the earth,
this plant must be treated in the same way as the other plants
with which we have dealt. Collect some yellow dandelion heads,
let them wither a little, press them together, sew them into
the mesentery of an ox and bury them in the ground for a whole
winter. In the spring, take out the balls (they will keep until
they are wanted), which will then be permeated with cosmic
influences. Here also, as described before, the substance thus
obtained can be added to the manure, which will then give the
soil the ability to attract to itself .out of the atmosphere
and the cosmos as much silicic acid as is required for the
plants. The plants become sensitive to the influences that
surround them and can of themselves attract what they need. For
in order to grow, plants must have a kind of sensibility. Just
as I, as a man, can pass unnoticed before some dull fellow, so
can everything in the soil and above it pass unnoticed before a
dull plant. The — plant does not sense it and cannot make
use of it for its own growth. But let the plant be permeated,
however finely, with silicic acid in the way described, and it
will become sensitive to its surroundings and able to attract
what it needs. It is quite easy, of course, to make the plant
attract what it wants from only a small distance around it. But
naturally this is not good. If the soil is worked upon in the
manner I have described, the plant will be prepared to draw for
its needs upon a very wide area. The plant can then make use
not only of what is in its own field, but also Of that which is
in the soil of the neighbouring meadow or wood. It only needs
to be made inwardly sensitive in this way. So we can bring
about an interplay in Nature, by giving the plants the forces
which can be transmitted to them in this way by the
dandelion.
It
seems to me therefore that it would be worth while trying to
prepare some manure to which these five ingredients Tor
their substitutes) have been added in the manner described. The
manure of the future should be treated not with chemical
trifles, but with common yarrow, with camomile, with
nettle, with oak bark and with dandelion. Such a manure, will
have much of what is actually needed.
As
a final effort before using the prepared manure, take the
blossoms of valerian, Valeriana officinalis, squeeze out the
Juice and dilute it with plenty of warm water (this can be done
at any convenient time and the result put on one side). If this
highly diluted juice of valerian be added to manure, it can
arouse in it a proper behaviour towards phosphorous substances.
With these six ingredients, the most excellent manure can be
obtained from either stable manure, solid or liquid, or
compost.
| Diagram 5 Click image for large view | |
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