LECTURE IV.
Delivered 12th June, 1924.
As
you have seen, the methods of Spiritual Science seek in
agricultural as in other matters for a comprehensive
vision over a wide range, of the character and activity
of spirit in Nature whereas a materialistically inclined
science has entered more and more into small units and
restricted spheres. Even if in agriculture the units concerned
are not always of microscopic order as in some of the other
sciences, yet agriculture usually concerns itself with the
workings within restricted spheres and with what can be
inferred from these limited observations, but the world in
which man and other earthly creatures live can by no means be
judged from a narrow standpoint. To adopt this standpoint as is
done by contemporary science in relation to agriculture is, in
view of the real facts of the case, rather like attempting to
gain knowledge of the whole being of man by observing his
little finger and the tip of his ear, and trying to reconstruct
the whole from these two features. We must oppose to this
— and never was the task more necessary than today
— a real science which will go out in search of the wide
range of cosmic relationships. How greatly the scientific ideas
current today or, at any rate, a few years ago, stand in need
of correction, can be seen from the absurdities which not so
very long ago prevailed in the matter of human nutrition.
Everything was very scientific — it was all
scientifically proved and no objection could be taken to any of
the facts adduced. It was taken as scientifically proved
that a man weighing from 70 to 75 kilograms required about 120
grammes of protein a day. This was regarded as
scientifically established. Today no man of science would give
credence to such a proposition. Everyone knows nowadays that
120 grammes of protein are not only not necessary but would
actually be harmful, and that man is at his healthiest when he
is taking about 50 grammes a day. In this case, science has
corrected itself. It is known today that if too much albumen or
protein is consumed, it produces poisonous by-products in
the intestines. If we examine not only the particular periods
in the man's life when albumen is administered to him but his
life as a whole, It will be found that the hardening of the
arteries (arterio-sclerosis) which takes place in old age
can be attributed primarily to the poisonous effects of
overdoses of albumen. Scientific investigations of man, for
example, often go wrong because they only take account of the
moment. A normal human life lasts longer than ten years
and the harmful effects of the seemingly beneficial causes
which they seek to promote often do not emerge for a long time.
Spiritual Science is less likely to fall into such an error. It
is true, I do not wish to echo the facile criticism so often
levelled at science today on account of such rectifications as
I have just exemplified. I can see quite well that this
rectification was necessary. But on the other hand, it is
equally facile to fall upon Spiritual Science when it seeks to
enter practical life, because it is obliged to lay stress upon
the larger connections of life, and because its eyes are
open to those more attenuated forces and substances which play
into the spiritual, and not merely to the coarser forces and
substances of matter.
This applies in every respect to agriculture and
particularly to the question of manuring. Now the very
phrases used by scientists in dealing with this question show
how little they understand of the significance of manure in the
economy of Nature. A phrase very often used is: “The
manure contains the nourishment for the plant.” I
mentioned the subject of nutrition earlier just to show you how
science has of late been obliged to review its own position on
the subject of human nutrition. Science had to correct its own
errors because it started with an erroneous view of the
nutrition of anything living.
The
old view was, if I may express myself quite freely
— I hope you will not be offended — that the most
important thing about nutrition was what one ate every
day. It is quite true that what one eats is important, but the
greater part of it is not there for the purpose of being taken
into the body and deposited there as substance. This greater
part has to give over to the body the forces which it contains
in itself and thus stimulate the body into activity. The
greater part of what is taken up as substance in this way is
eliminated again from the body. What matters, therefore, is not
whether a certain weight of matter in certain proportions
undergoes digestion, but whether we are able to take up in the
right way, with the food we eat, the active forces therein. For
we need these active forces when we walk or work, or even more
when we use our arms. On the other hand, that which the body
needs in order to fill up, to enrich itself, as it were, with
substance (the substance being continually discarded and
renewed during the course of every seven or eight years) is
absorbed for the most part through the sense-organs, the skin
and the breathing in a highly-attenuated state and only becomes
densified in the organism. The body absorbs it from the
atmosphere, densifies and hardens it, so that for
instance it can be cut off as hair and nails. The schematic
formulation: “Food taken in, passage through the body,
wearing away of the nails, peeling of the skin,
etc.” is quite wrong. It should run: “Breathing,
highly-rarefied absorption through the sense-organs (even
through the eyes), passage through the organism,
excretion.” What is absorbed through the digestion on the
other hand becomes important because its “inner
mobility” (Regsamkeit) is set free, just as when fuel is
burned. It introduces into the body those forces which open the
way for the will to act in the body.
Now
it really makes one despair when, in face of this truth, which
is the simple outcome of spiritual investigation, one
sees the attitude adopted by modern science which maintains
precisely the opposite view. One is tempted to despair
because it makes one see how difficult it is to find any
meeting-ground whatsoever with modern science on all the most
important subjects. Yet such an understanding will have
to come, otherwise where its views were applied to practical
life science would simply lead us into a blind alley. For
science is unable to understand certain things even when they
are under its very nose. I am not speaking of the experimental
side of science. What science says here is, as a rule, true.
The experiments have a definite value, it is the theorising
about them which is bad. And it is unfortunately on these
theories that suggestions for practical application are based.
All this makes one realise the difficulty of finding a
meeting-ground. However, an understanding will have to be
reached and in the most practical spheres of life, among which
we must reckon Agriculture.
If
these things are to be rightly handled, it is necessary to gain
insight into the mode of activity of substances, and forces,
the dynamic and of the spiritual too in every part of
agriculture. A child who does not know what a comb is for will
bite into it or otherwise misuse it. In the same way, we shall
make quite a wrong use of things if we do not understand their
essential being and their specific functions.
To
make the matter clearer, let us take the case of a tree. A tree
is different from an ordinary annual plant which remains at the
merely herbaceous stage. It surrounds itself with rind and
bark, etc. What then is the fundamental nature of the
tree as opposed to that of an annual plant? In order to answer
this question, let us compare the tree to a mound of soil which
has been piled up and is exceptionally rich in humus, i.e.
which contains an exceptionally large quantity of more or
less decomposed vegetable matter, and includes perhaps some
decomposing animal matter as well
(See Diagram No.7).
Diagrams
for Lecture II
Let
us assume that this is the mound of soil, rich in humus, and I
will make in it a crater-like depression; and let us take this
(indicated in the second part of the drawing) as the tree, the
more or less solid part being outside, while inside grows that
which goes to build up the tree as a whole. It may strike you
as strange that I should place these two things side by side,
but they are more closely related than you may perhaps think.
The reason is that soil such as I have described, soil
containing plenty of humus, i.e. substances in course of
decomposition, bears etheric life within it. And this is the
point. When soil is so constituted as to have etheric life
within it, it is on its way to becoming the outside covering of
the plant, but does not in fact develop so far as to become
bark. Now imagine (although, of course, this does not happen in
Nature) that such a mound of soil, with its humus content has,
by means of its etheric life, raised itself to a higher form of
development and wrapped itself round the plant. For if any part
of the earth is raised above the general level, if the outer
separates itself from the inner, then that which is raised
above the normal level will show a definite tendency to life, a
distinct tendency to be penetrated with etheric life. This is
why, if you want to make inorganic soil more-fertile by mixing
it with humus-like substance or with any sort of
decomposing refuse, you will find it easier to do so
successfully if the soil is heaped up into mounds. For then the
soil itself will have the tendency to become inwardly alive and
plant-like. The same process takes place in the formation of a
tree. The soil bulges upwards, as it were, and surrounds
the plant with its own etheric life. Why do I say this? The
reason is that I wish to waken your consciousness to the
fact that there is an intimate kinship between what is enclosed
within the contours of the plant and that which comprises the
soil round the plant. It is untrue that the life of the plant
stops short at its outer sphere. The actual life is continued,
particularly from the roots, into the soil and in many cases,
there is no sharp boundary between the life within the plant
and that in its immediate environment. In order to have a
fundamental understanding of a soil which is manured or
similarly treated, one must know that manuring consists in a
vivifying of the soil so that the plant may not be planted in
dead soil. A plant will more easily develop from its own
vitality what is necessary for fruit formation if it is planted
in something already alive. Fundamentally all plant
growth is slightly parasitic in character; it grows like a
parasite on the living earth. And it must be so. In many parts
of the earth we cannot rely on Nature herself to supply a
sufficient quantity of waste organic matter to enable the soil
adequately to revivify itself by decomposition of such matter.
In those places, therefore, we must assist the growth of plants
with manure. This necessity, however, arises least of all in
districts containing so-called “black soil,” for
here Nature herself has seen to it that the soil is
sufficiently alive.
You
will see from all this what is really happening; but there is
something further which must “be understood. One must
learn — and this may not always be pleasant — to
enter into a personal relationship with everything that comes
within the sphere of Agriculture, and particularly with the
work connected with manure and manuring. The job may seem to be
an unpleasant one, but you cannot do without this
personal relationship. Why? Well, if you consider the
nature of any living being, you will find the reason. Every
living being always has an inner and an outer aide. The inner
side is inside some kind of skin, the outer side is outside
that skin. Let us begin with the inner side.
The
inner side of every living thing has. not only streams of force
which go outwards in the direction shown by these lines
(see Diagram 8)
but it also has streams of force which go inwards
from the skin, which are pressed back. Now an organism is
surrounded on the outside by streams of all kinds of forces.
There is something which expresses very exactly although in a
“personal” way the relationship which must be
established by the organism between its inner and outer
side. All the forces working inside the skin, all that
stimulates and maintains life, must — pardon the phrase
— inwardly smell, must have an inward stench. Taken as a
whole, life itself consists in this that what is generally
diffused as a scent is instead held together so that the scent
is kept inside and does not stream outwards too strongly. An
organism must therefore allow as little as possible of
its scent-producing life to escape outwards through its skin.
Indeed, one might say that the healthier an organism, the more
it will smell inwardly and the less it will smell outwardly. A
living organism and particularly the plant organism (apart from
the flower) is designed not to give out scent but to take it
in. And if we consider the beneficial influences on a meadow
full of fragrant aromatic flowers, we shall begin to notice how
living things mutually support one another in Nature. This
fragrance of flowers which is diffused and which is something
different from the odour of mere life, issues from sources of
which we shall become aware later, and it acts on the plants
from outside. One must enter into a personal, living relation
to all these things, only then are we really one with
Nature.
Now
the main thing to understand is that manuring and the like must
consist not only in conveying a certain degree of
aliveness to the soil, but also in enabling the nitrogen to
spread through it, in such a way that with its help the life is
carried along certain lines of force as I showed yesterday. In
manuring, therefore, we must bring sufficient nitrogen
into the soil to enable the life to be borne into the organic
structure of the soil which is to bear the plant. This is the
task, but it must be carried out exactly and properly.
Now
here is a very significant hint: when purely mineral matter is
used for manure, it never reaches the earth element, but at
best only the water element in the soil. You can produce with
mineral manures an effect in the watery part of the earth, but
you will not achieve a vivification of the earth element
itself. Plants, therefore, which are under the influence
of any sort of mineral manure will exhibit a type of growth
which betrays that it comes from water which has been
activated, not from the solid element which has been vivified.
The best way to approach these things will be to take the most
unassuming and often despised kind of manure, viz. compost.
Here we have a means of vivifying the soil. We include in
compost all kinds of neglected refuse from farm or garden, mown
grass, fallen leaves, and the like, nay, even to the
remains of dead beasts, etc. These things should by no
means be despised, for they retain something not only of the.
etheric but even of the astral elements. And that is
important. In a compost heap, all contained in it is
actually pervaded not only by living and etheric but also
by astral elements. These are present to a lesser degree in
solid or liquid animal manure, but they are more stable, more
settled — especially the astral element only we must make
use of this stable or settled character in the right way. The
action of the astral element upon nitrogen is hindered wherever
the etheric element is too ebullient. A too powerful sprouting
of the etheric life hampers the astral element in the compost
heap from doing its work. Now there is in Nature a substance
which I have already mentioned from varied angles which is
extremely useful in this respect, and that is the chalky or
limestone element. If, therefore, some of this —
preferably in the form of quicklime — is introduced into
the compost heap, we get the following special result: without
causing the astral element to “volatilise” as it
were too much, the etheric element is taken up by the
quick-lime and the oxygen is absorbed as well. In this way, the
astral element is brought to a Wonderful activity. This
leads to a very definite result: in manuring the soil with
compost, we are giving over to it something which has the
tendency to carry the astral element directly into the solid
element without the detour through the etheric element.
In this way, therefore, the earthly element is thoroughly
“astralised” and thereby becomes penetrated with
nitrogen. This result, indeed, very much resembles a certain
process in the human organism — a plant-like process
— so plant-like in fact that it does not proceed to
fruit formation, but stops at the stage of leaf and stem
formation. What we give over to the soil in the compost has its
parallel in that process which brings about in the food we eat
that “mobility” of which I spoke before (see Page
24). We bring about a similar activity in the soil when we
treat it in the manner described. Soil prepared in this way
will be especially suitable for producing plants which, when
they are eaten by animals, will continue to bring about a
similar activity in their organisms. In other words, we shall
do well to manure our meadows and pasture lands with this
compost, and if we carry through the process carefully,
with strict regard for the other proceedings and ingredients,
we shall succeed in obtaining good fodder, which, when mown and
dried, preserves its quality. I should like to remind you that
to take the right steps, one must look into the nature of the
whole process, and finding the right thing to do in any
particular case will, of course, depend to a great extent upon
having the right feeling. This feeling, however, develops, when
we look into the whole nature of this compost process. For
instance, if the compost heap is left alone the astral
element in it will begin to spread in all directions. It
will then be a question of developing the right personal
relation to the heap in order to find out how it can be
made to retain its smell within it. This can easily be done by
putting down a thin layer of the compost material and covering
it with peat moss, then adding another layer and so on. In this
way, we hold together that which would otherwise
“volatilise” itself as smell. Nitrogen, indeed, is
a substance which in all its modifications is eager to spread
out into all directions. And now it is held back. By this I
wish to indicate how necessary it is to treat the whole
“agricultural-individuality” in the light of the
conviction that etheric life and even the astral principle must
everywhere be poured out over it to make our work
effective.
Now
following this trend, we can take a further step. Have you ever
wondered why it is that cows have horns, while certain other
animals have antlers? It is a very important question. Yet what
science has to say about it is quite one-sided and based on
externals. Let us consider why cows have horns. I said
that the forces within a living organism need not always be
directed outwards, but can also be directed inwards. Now
imagine an organic entity possessing these two sets of forces,
but which is unformed and lumpish in build. The result would be
an irregular, ungainly being. We should have curious-looking
cows if this were the case. They would all be lumpish and
unformed, with rudimentary limbs as at an early embryonic
stage. But this is not how a cow is constructed. A cow has
horns and hoofs. Now what happens at the points where horns and
hoofs grow? At these points an area is formed from which the
organic formative forces are reflected inwards in a
particularly powerful way. There is no communication with
the outside as in the case of the skin or hair; the horny
substance blocks the way for these forces to the outside. This
is why the growth of horns and claws has such a bearing upon
the whole form of the animal.
Things are quite different in the case of antlers. Here the
streams of forces are not led back into the organism, but
certain of them are guided for a short distance out of the
organism! there must be valves, as it were, through which the
streams localised in the antlers (we can speak of streams of
force, just as we can speak of streams of air or liquid) can be
discharged. A stag is beautiful because it stands in intense
communication with its environment by reason of its
sending outwards streams of certain of its forces; by this it
lives within its environment and takes up from it
everything which works organically in its nerves and
senses. Hence the nervous nature of the stag. In a certain
respect, all animals which have antlers are suffused with a
gentle nervousness. This is clearly to be seen in their
eyes.
The
cow has horns in order to reflect inwards the astral and
etheric formative forces, which then penetrate right into the
metabolic system so that increased activity in the digestive
organism arises by reason of this radiation from horns
and hoofs. If one wants to understand Foot-and-Mouth disease,
i.e. the retro-action from the periphery to the digestive
tract, one must know of this connection. Our remedy for
Foot-and-Mouth disease is based on the recognition of this. In
the horn, therefore, we have something which by its inherent
nature is fitted to reflect the living etheric and astral
streams into the inner life organs. The horn is something which
radiates etheric life and even the astral element. Indeed, if
you were able to enter into the cow's belly, you would smell
the current of etheric-astral life which streams inwards from
the horns: and the same thing is true of the hoofs.
Now
this gives us a hint as to the measures we may recommend for
increasing the effectiveness of ordinary stable manure. What is
ordinary stable manure really? It is foodstuff which the animal
has taken in and which up to a certain point has been
assimilated by its organism, thereby stirring into activity
certain dynamic forces in the organism. Its main use has not
been to increase the amount of substance in the organism, for
after having had its effect, it is excreted. It has become
permeated with astral and etheric elements. The astral element
has filled it with nitrogen-bearing forces and the etheric
element with oxygen-bearing forces. The substance which emerges
as dung is permeated with these forces. Imagine now: we take
this substance and pass it into the soil in some form or other
(the details will be dealt with later). Thus, we add to the
soil an etheric-astral element whose proper place is in the
belly of the animal, where it produces forces of a plant-like
nature. For the forces which we produce in our digestive
tract are of a plant-like nature. We should be extremely
thankful that we get such a residue as dung, for it carries
etheric and astral forces from the interior of the
organism out into the open. These forces remain with it,
and it is for us to keep them there. In this way, the dung will
act in a life-giving and also astralising way on the soil, not
only on the water element in it, but especially on the solid
(earthly) element. It has the power to overcome what is
inorganic in the earthly element. Now what is passed over to
the soil will necessarily, of course, lose the form it
originally had when taken in as food, for it has to go through
an inner organic process in the metabolic system. There
it enters upon a phase of decomposition and dissolution. But it
is at its best just at the point where it begins to dissolve
through the workings of its own astral and etheric
elements. It is then that the parasites, the
micro-organisms make their appearance. They find a good
feeding-ground in which to develop. This is why the theory
arose that these parasites are themselves responsible for the
virtues in the manure. But they are only indications of
the condition of the manure. If we think that by inoculating
the manure with these bacteria we shall radically improve its
quality, we are making a complete mistake. Externally there may
seem at first to be an improvement, but in reality, there is
none. I shall deal with this point later. For the moment, let
us continue with the matter in hand.
Let
us put manure just as it comes to hand into a cow-horn,
pressing it full, and bury it at a certain depth — say
1½ to 2½ feet deep according to the soil, which
should not be too sandy or clayey. We can choose any spot where
the soil is in good heart. Now by thus burying it with its
filling of manure, we preserve in the horn that function which
it would normally exercise in the cow's body, that is the
reflecting of the life-giving and astral elements. Through the
fact of its being surrounded with earth, all the currents
of etheric and astral forces stream into its interior. These
forces attract all the astral and etheric elements from the
surrounding soil, and the manure contained in the horn
becomes inwardly quickened with these forces in the
course of the winter season when the earth itself is most
alive. ®or the earth is most inwardly alive during the
winter. All these living forces are preserved in the manure and
thus there is a highly concentrated, life-giving manuring force
in the contents of the horn. Then (in spring) the horn can be
dug up and its contents removed. Those of you who were present
at Dornach when last we made this experiment will
remember that you were able to convince yourselves of the
fact that when the manure was removed it was completely
odourless. It was quite striking. The manure no longer smelt at
all, though naturally it began to do so a little when it was
mixed with water. This shows that all its odour had been
concentrated and worked up within it. You have here a
tremendous astral and etheric power which you can utilise by
taking the content of the cow horn after its period of
hibernation and diluting it with water which perhaps
should be slightly warmed. As regards quantities and dilution,
I have ascertained by repeated observation that an area of
about 1500 square yards (near one-third of an acre) can be
served with the contents of such a cow horn, diluted in about
half a bucket full of water. The whole of the contents of the
horn must be thoroughly united with the water. You must begin
to stir it briskly round the edge of the bucket, until a crater
is formed, in the middle reaching almost down to the bottom. At
this point, suddenly reverse the movement thus causing the
liquid to swirl round in the opposite direction. If you do this
for an hour, the ingredients will become thoroughly
mixed. You must remember what a really small amount of
work is entailed in this. Besides I can very well imagine that
some of the less occupied members of a farming community would
derive particular pleasure from stirring manure, at any rate to
begin with. It would be splendid work for the son or daughter
of the house, for it is a very agreeable experience to
find that a faint scent develops from what is at first
completely odourless. It is extremely beneficial for a man thus
to establish a relationship with the work he is doing, instead
of studying Mature in a large way as it were with the help of a
Baedeker.
The
next thing to do is to spray the mixture over tilled land so
that it can get thoroughly into the soil. Small areas can be
treated with an ordinary syringe, larger areas will naturally
call for the employment of specially constructed machines. But
once we have learned to combine this kind of “spiritual
dung” with ordinary manure it will be found that very
great fertility will be produced. In particular, it will be
found that these things are capable of still further
development, for in addition to the measures I have gust
indicated, we can proceed as follows:
Again, we take a cow-horn and fill it in the same way, not with
manure this time, but with quartz or flint or even orthoclase
or feldspar that has been ground to powder and mixed with water
so as to form a thin paste. Then instead of leaving the horn in
the ground throughout the winter, we leave it there over the
summer, take it out in late autumn and keep it till the
following spring. Its contents, which have been exposed to the.
summer-life of the earth, are then emptied out and treated in
the same way as has been described in connection with the dry
manure, except that much smaller quantities are required.
Thus, a pinch of the contents of the horn about the size of a
pea or even of a pin's head can be diluted in a bucket of
water; the main thing is that it must be stirred for an hour,
as before. And if you use this mixture for spraying the
plants (not pouring it on to them but finely sprinkling it) you
will see, particularly in the case of vegetables and the like,
that this has the effect of supplementing and reinforcing that
which works out of the soil through the cow horn manure. And
if, as would not be amiss, the practice was extended to whole
fields — it would be easy enough to devise machines which
would sprinkle the liquid over whole fields — then you
would see how the cow-horn manure was pressing up from below,
the other drawing from above, neither too weakly nor too
strongly. And this could have a wonderful effect, particularly
on cereals.
Now
these things are derived from a wider range of experience than
those which result from the point “of view which would
seek to construct a whole human being theoretically from
his little finger. Let us not underrate the results obtained.
For to tell the truth what is generally meant by making a
farm productive is to make it as paying a proposition as
possible. Nothing else matters very much. Unconsciously at any
rate the farmer is always pleased when by some method or other
he has achieved big results — big potatoes, outsizes,
something inflated and swollen. His research goes no further
than this. And yet this is not what matters most. What matters
most is that the food which is put before man should be that
which is most beneficial to him. You may grow the most splendid
looking fruit in field or orchard, but it may only fill a man's
stomach and not really benefit his inner organic
existence. Modern science simply has not found the way to
supply man with the food which will support the life of his
organism.
You
will see that what Spiritual Science has to say on the subject
is very different, for it has for its background the whole
economy of Nature. The principles are drawn from out of the
whole. That is why the particular indications have a
decisive bearing upon the whole. If farming is practised in
this way, it cannot but result in giving the best both to man
and beast. Indeed, as everywhere in Spiritual Science, the
study of man is the starting-point; man is taken as the basis.
Thus, practical hints can be given as to how man may best
sustain his human nature. This is what distinguishes our way of
looking at things from those usual to-day.
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