The Rudolf Steiner Archive

The following is a record of indications given verbally by Dr. Steiner to individuals in answer to questions and with reference to particular problems and local conditions. (Several of these were given prior to the Agriculture Course of June, 1924.)

Readers should remember that they are quoted from memory, are fragmentary and not necessarily of universal application.

The following indication was given by Dr. Steiner at the Guldesmühle Mill in Dischingen during a conversation about the more or less harmful influences of artificial mineral manures. Dr. Steiner said that in view of the increase in yield which was generally required, they might perhaps not be able to forego the use of such manures. But the harmful influence, for human beings and for animals alike, would not fail to ensue. Some of these influences would not appear in full till generations after. At any rate it was necessary to discover and apply remedial measures in good time. Such, for example, were the leaves of fruit-trees, and it was therefore good to plant fruit-trees on the fields.

A second indication by Dr. Steiner concerned the use of horn manure. This had been manufactured at the Guldesmühle Mill, and it was further developed at Einsingen. In answer to a direct question as to the value of horn manure, Dr. Steiner replied that mixed with ordinary stable manure, horn manure was among the very best. Subsequently we asked Dr. Steiner whether roasted or unroasted horn-meal was better. (At Einsingen we do not roast it, whereas as a general rule the horn-shavings, etc., are first subjected to a very rigorous drying process. The advantage is that they are more easily ground down after this process. On the other hand, the roasting involved a loss of about 15 per cent, consisting mainly of water). Dr. Steiner answered to the effect that unroasted horn-meal was better on account of the higher hydrogen content. For the right influence of the manure, the hydrogen content was in fact far more important even than the nitrogen, though modern science had not yet awakened to the real importance of the hydrogen content for plant growth.

—Communicated by Dr. Rudolf Maier.

Report of a Conversation Between Dr. Steiner and Dr. Streicher

Dr. Streicher: Another matter we are concerned with here is one that was brought very near to me in my youth. I grew up in the country, and was much concerned with the problem of manures for plant-life generally. The present position—the prevalent opinion on these matters—seems to me highly detrimental. The prevailing notions about manures have not gone far beyond what was inaugurated by Liebig, who wanted to instil mineral substances into the soil—nitrogen, phosphoric acid and potassium, for instance. The artificial manure industry in its present stage produces nitrogen bound to very strong acids—hydrochloric and sulphuric. Agriculture is faced with a new danger, which has even now become reality to some extent. Artificial manures are brought into the soil, regardless of the way the plants receive them. These artificials give rise to an acid reaction in the soil, and in a dry summer the results are disastrous.

Dr. Steiner: The fact is, the only really sound manure is cattle manure. The first principle is to take one's start from this. It is the really healthy manure. At the same time, a healthy nitrogen content must be brought about in the soil by discovering some principle, by virtue of which the soil will be thoroughly worked-through by earth-worms and similar creatures. I do not think we have yet gone so far as to be able to tell quite fully what this is.

Then it will also be essential to find the necessary weeds—in a word, the necessary neighbour-plants. As I said yesterday to Herr St—, who is now devoting himself to Agriculture, it is important, for example, to plant sainfoin on the rye- and wheat fields, at least along the edges. This influence decidedly exists. You should investigate scientifically how important it is to plant horseradish along the edge of your potato fields, to have a sprinkling of cornflowers in your corn fields, and to exterminate the poppy.

These things should be considered in connection with the manuring question as a whole. Otherwise you are reduced to the most abstract principles, where for example you get acids formed in the soil, and you then ask: “How can I counteract them?” and on these lines, in course of time, you absolutely kill the soil for plant growth. You make it deaf.

Dr. Streicher: The farmers too have a feeling that the soil is extracted and impoverished by the use of artificial manures.

Dr. Steiner: It is not at all a bad expression; it makes the soil deaf. On the other hand, one must not fall into the extreme of using plant-manure. It must be admitted that plant-manure is not favourable to plant-growth. In point of fact, the only ideal manure is cattle-manure—not plant-manure. Everything follows on this basic principle. Also you must be clear that very much depends on the neighbouring plants, notably leguminosae—sainfoin especially. With herbaceous plants you should also take care as far as possible to plant them in a dry soil, whereas with cereals a moist soil is needed.

Moreover, strange as it may sound to the chemist and biologist of to-day, your human and personal relation to the seed-corn is undoubtedly important. If you examine it thoroughly, you will find it makes a difference to the thriving of the corn, whether the sower simply takes the seed-corn out of a sack and throws it down roughly, or whether he has the habit of shaking it a little in his hand and throwing it gently, sprinkling it on the ground. These differences are of importance in relation to the manuring problem.

It would be good for you to discuss these matters with farmers, who cannot but be interested in them. They have no little experience, only their experiences are eclipsed nowadays. Modern agriculture has such experience no longer. Altogether I should advise you think it will serve you well—to use old peasant-calendars in connection with manuring problems. They contain very curious instructions, some of which you will indeed bc able to formulate in chemical terms.

Dr. Streicher: It is difficult for the modern farmer, especially just now. Last year the stock of cattle was much reduced by illness; and it has very largely been reduced by lack of fodder.

Dr. Steiner: Scientists will have to summon up courage to point out the main detrimental causes. The undue praise of stable feeding in recent times is undoubtedly connected with the prevalent tuberculosis among cattle. For all I know, the animals may be able to give more milk for a short time, or what not; but their state of health deteriorates through generation after generation. It should go without saying.

Even the manure which the peasant-woman—basket on back and shovel in hand—gleans from the meadows, is undoubtedly better than the manure you get by stable-feeding. Also the animals ought not to have to absorb the breath of the neighbouring animal while they are feeding; that is undoubtedly harmful.

Go out on to the pastures and you will see, they keep a certain distance apart. Look at the pastures for once, and you will find that of their own accord the beasts take their stand at a considerable distance from one another. The animal cannot abide the breath of the neighbouring animal while it is feeding. And, after all, how easily it occurs that an animal gets an abrasion, and if the breath of the neighbouring beast comes into this, it will undoubtedly be a cause of disease.

Dr. Streicher: Perhaps I may point out certain prevailing tendencies in outer science—in the use of artificial manures and synthetic materials? Having succeeded in the synthetic fabrification of nitrogen products, they are now boasting the discovery of the synthesis of protein. They find it tedious to have to go via the plants in gaining protein. There is already a movement on foot to short circuit this “roundabout way” of the plant, and to feed the animals on synthetic nitrogen manure directly.

It may sound strange, but scientists have made investigations on these lines. They set great store by the synthetic urea which is added as a concentrated foodstuff to the ordinary hay, as cattle fodder. It has also been tried on sheep. The idea is that certain bacteria live in the paunch of the animal, and that these bacteria will disintegrate the urea and transform it into albumen or protein. I think the danger is very real. If these experiments are continued—if it becomes habitual among farmers to give urea and other synthetic foods—the present symptoms of deterioration in our stock will go from bad to worse.

Dr. Steiner: True results can never follow from experiments conducted in this way. In the sphere of vitality—if I may so express it—there is always the law of inertia. That is to say, it may not appear in the present generation or in the next, but it will in the third. The vitalising influence goes on beyond the first few generations. If you restrict your investigations to the present and do not extend them over several generations, you get a completely false picture. Then, when you do observe the next generation but one, you turn your attention to quite other causes than the real ones, namely, the feeding of the grandparent beasts. Vitality cannot be broken down at once. It is surely broken, but only in succeeding generations.

Dr. Streicher: In studying this question last year, I came upon a piece of work that gained publicity in England during the war—I mean the researches of the English botanist, Bottomley. Bottomley discovered that there are certain plants which cannot absorb mineral manure directly. If you make a solution of nutritive salts, certain plants cannot live in it for long. On the other hand, he observed that if a certain bacterial life was brought about in the soil, substances were thereby formed which he could not quite get hold of chemically. He puts them side by side with the “Vitamins” of the biologists. Adding these substances in imponderable quantities to the nutritive salt solution, he finds that the plants unfold a quite extraordinary life. The substances he thus produces he describes as “auxines”—life-kindling substances. During the war, when England was obliged to till the soil for the growth of cereals, this “Humogen”—as it was named by Bottomley—was produced in large quantities and added to the earth. In certain cases it had an extraordinary effect; in other cases the effect was absent.

Dr. Steiner: Which plants received this blessing?

Dr. Streicher: It is not said.

Dr. Steiner: Food-plants?

Dr. Streicher: In the growth of cereals. ...

Dr. Steiner: If it is done with food-plants, the people who consume them will suffer no great harm, but their children may very well be born with hydrocephalus. From the whole process it is evident that the development of the plant has been hypertrophied. When such plants are used for nourishment, the result is a malformation of the nervous life in the next generation. This is the fundamental fact: certain effects in the life-process only show themselves in the next generation, or even only in the next but one. So far must the investigations be extended.

Dr. Streicher: One could mention in the same connection the experiments initiated by a Freiburg scientist. He made organic mercury salts and manured the vegetable gardens with them during the war. Growth was remarkably enhanced by this “mercury manuring.” People even began to hope that the whole question of plant-growth would rapidly be solved; that vegetables would be produced in a very short time. These vegetables too showed a hypertrophied growth.

Dr. Steiner: You would have to investigate whether the children of those who consume them do not grow up impotent. These things must all be examined, for in this sphere you simply cannot make your experiments within narrow limits. The vital process goes on in time, and only in the course of time does it degenerate in its inherent forces.

Further Indications by Dr. Steiner Relating to Agriculture

Dr. Steiner gave the following answers to questions by Herr Stegemann:—

In preparing the ground for oats, one should take care that the soil is dry. So, too, for potatoes and root-crops. Wheat and rye on the other hand should be sown in a moist soil.

As border-plants for cereals, Dr. Steiner indicated dead-nettle and sainfoin. They should be planted four to five metres apart. Horse-radish might be good as a border-plant for roots and potatoes. It need only be planted at the four corners of the plot. It must be eradicated every year.

Concerning animal pests, Dr. Steiner remarked that as new cultivated plants were evolved, they would increasingly disappear.

Against wire-worm, Dr. Steiner gave the following method: Expose rain-water to the waning moon for a fortnight, and then pour the water over the places where the worm occurs. One should take enough water to moisten the soil through to the level where the worm abides.

To counteract the deterioration of the potato, Dr. Steiner said the seed-potato should be cut into pieces until every little piece has only a single eye. The same process should be repeated in the following year.

In answer to questions by Count Carl von Keyserlingk, Dr. Steiner gave the following indications (communicated by Count Adalbert Keyserlingk):

To counteract smut, a ring of stinging-nettles should be planted round the fields. On the same occasion, Dr. Steiner remarked that it is good to put the manure-heaps on the field until the time when the manure is needed. For an orchardry on a rather moist and boggy soil, Dr. Steiner recommended “Kali magnesia.”

When walking through the flower gardens at Whitsun, 1924, Dr. Steiner remarked as he looked at the flowers: “They none of them seem to feel quite happy here; there is too much iron in the soil.” When he came to the roses, which were not flowering well, and did not look at all healthy (mildew), Dr. Steiner advised that very finely divided lead be given to the soil.

When it was pointed out that an enormous number of cow horns would surely be needed for the Koberwitz estate—an area of 18,500 acres—Dr. Steiner gave the astonishing reply that once it was all in working order, probably no more than 150 cow-horns would be needed for this land.

To a question by Count Wolfgang von Keyserlingk on the use of sainfoin, Dr. Steiner answered that about 2 lb. of sainfoin seed should be included with the seed-corn per three-fifths acre.

Question: In Dornach and Arlesheim we suffer from an awful plague of slugs. They eat up all the foliage.

To counteract them, Dr. Steiner advised the following remedy: Sprinkle out a 3-in-1,000 dilution of pine-cone seeds. The answer is to be understood as follows: The soluble content of the seeds (which must presumably be extracted by pressure) should be dissolved in water to a dilution of 3-in-1,000, and this should then be sprinkled over the beds affected. Dr. Steiner said we should begin by making this experiment. It would be very interesting if parallel experiments were made at other places.

Once when we were going round the Dornach and Arlesheim plantations, Dr. Steiner advised the following method of strengthening preparation “500” for the meadow-land—for the land where fruit-trees were standing. Take a few fruits and a handful of leaves of the kind of fruit in question; make a decoction of these with a litre of water, and add this fruit-decoction to the bucket in which the content of the horn is being stirred.
To strengthen sick and feeble fruit-trees, a circular trench about a hand's-breadth deep may be dug around the tree in a circumference approximately corresponding to the crown of the tree. Into this trench pour larger quantities of the stirred-up preparation “500.”

For the silica preparation “501,” Dr. Steiner said it would even suffice to mingle and knead up a piece of quartz of the size of a bean with soil from the land which is afterwards to be sprinkled, and put this mixture into the horn. This would already contain sufficient silica-radiation if a little of it was dissolved and stirred.

As border plants for vegetable gardens, sainfoin, dandelion and horse-radish were mentioned.

To a question about plant-diseases, Dr. Steiner answered: Properly speaking, there can be no such thing as sick plants, for the etheric is always healthy. If disturbances occur in spite of this, it is a sign that something is wrong with the environment of the plant, especially the soil. To strengthen trees that are growing old, he said we might try the effect of putting fresh earth around their roots—earth taken from the neighbourhood of the roots of sloe (Prunus spinosa) and birch.

To make the destruction of weeds more effective, the root-stock and seed of the weed may be burned.

Communicated by Ehrenfried Pfeiffer.

Some years before the War, Dr. Steiner said, in answer to a question about the use of night-soil: It should not bc used at all, because the cycle from man to plant and back again to man is too short. (The question referred to gardening.) The proper cycle is from man to plant, from plant to animal, from animal to plant; then only from the plant again to man.

Dr. Steiner repeatedly and expressly rejected the use of peat for the improvement of the soil, whether as manure or as a would-be improvement of the physical properties of the soil. Humus and humus again should be given to the soil in every conceivable form—as compost, leaf-mould, etc.

Communicated by Frl. Gertrud Michels.

To a question on the use of mineral manure (compare page 70 of the Course), Dr. Steiner answered: If obliged to use mineral manure, one should always mix it first with dung or liquid manure. Dr. Steiner strongly rejected the use of lavatory fluid. It should not even be emptied out on to fresh compost—“not even if the compost-earth will only be needed after four years. Even then, things are contained in it which are not good.”

Communicated by Frau A. Ganz.

Under trees that suffer from woolly aphis (Eriosoma lanigerum), a ring of nasturtiums should be planted.

Communicated by Franz Lippert.

(Rudolf Steiner, in his opening address to the audience of this lecture course which took place on the large farming estate Schloss Koberwitz in Silesia (Germany), sends his thanks to all who have co-operated in creating the occasion of these agricultural lectures and talks. He especially thanks Count and Countess Keyserlingk for their hospitality. He then continues: – )

I am quite convinced that everyone here will be perfectly satisfied with the hospitality that has been provided. Whether you will be equally satisfied with the course of lectures itself is a question which is perhaps open to dispute, although we shall do our best, during the discussions which will take place later, to reach accord on what has been said. For you must remember, that though in many quarters there has been an ardent desire for such a course of lectures, it is the first time that I have undertaken such a task from within the heart of Anthroposophical striving.

A course of this kind naturally makes many demands, for it will show us to what an extent the interests of Agriculture are bound up with those of the widest circles of human existence and that there is scarcely a single sphere of life which has not some relation to Agriculture. Prom some viewpoint or another all the various interests of life are contained in Agriculture. Here we shall naturally only touch upon the central portion of the subject itself. But this necessity will lead us to detours which are inevitable, because everything which is said will have Anthroposophy itself as a basis. I would in particular ask you to forgive me if in the introductory lecture to-day there is much that seems so divergent from our subject that many of you will not immediately see what bearing it has upon specifically agricultural problems. But what we shall say to-day of things which may seem remote will nevertheless be the basis of our work.

The cultural life of modern times has had particular and serious effects upon Agriculture. It has had economic consequences, the destructive character of which few people to-day have the slightest idea. And it was in order to defeat these tendencies that certain economic enterprises were attempted from within the Anthroposophical Movement. This work was undertaken by industrialists and business men, but they did not achieve all the aims they had set themselves, simply because at the present time there are too many opposing forces to allow of this attempt being really understood. The individual is helpless in the midst of these existing hostile powers, and the inner kernel and essential aims of these economic strivings which originated in the Anthroposophical Movement have therefore never really come under discussion.

What were the practical questions at issue? I will explain them, taking Agriculture as an example in order to deal with the matter in concrete rather than in abstract and general terms. There are to-day a great many books and lectures on so-called Economics. These contain chapters on Agriculture; the authors try to deal with this subject on the basis or economics. Sow in connection with Agriculture this whole business, books and lectures oh economics is manifest nonsense. This nonsense is, however, very widespread to-day. Everyone should be able to see that Agriculture and its place in the social order can only be discussed when one starts from a knowledge of what is entailed in the growing of turnips, potatoes and corn. Without this it is useless to discuss the principles of Economics involved. These things must be unravelled on the basis of the actual facts, they cannot be established on vague theoretical assumptions.

If you say this to those who have listened to a number of their university colleagues talking about Economics in relation to Agriculture, it will strike them as completely absurd, because they regard the subject as already established. But this is not the case. Judgment in agricultural matters must come from practical knowledge of field and forest and of the breeding of animals. There can be no fruitful vision in Agriculture or in anything else so long as people do not realise that this hovering over the subject from the point of view of Economics is mere talk and nothing more; one must go back to the practical foundations in every department of life. You can say of a turnip that it has such and such a colour and consists of such and such constituents. But that is not to understand the turnip—not by a long way, nor, above all does it take into account the living relation of the turnip to the soil, to the season at which it ripens, and many other important matters.

Let me make this clear by an illustration taken from another sphere. If you observe the needle of a compass you discover that one end always approximately points to the North, the other to the South. But you seek the cause for this not in the magnetic needle itself but in the earth as a whole, at one end of which is what is called the Magnetic North, at the other end is the Magnetic South Pole. To try and discover from the magnetic needle itself why it should so obstinately turn in one direction would be absurd. For its constant maintenance of direction can only be understood in relation to the whole earth. Yet what in the case of the magnetic needle is clearly absurd, is regarded by many people as sense when it comes to other things. The turnip is regarded as growing only within the narrow confines of its immediate earthly surroundings, but this becomes impossible if one comes to the point that its growth may be dependent upon innumerable factors which are not present on earth at all but in its cosmic surroundings. And thus in practical life many things are explained and ordered to-day as though we had to do only with the narrow isolated phenomenon, and not with activities and influences coming from the whole Universe. The various departments of modern life have suffered very gravely through this, and would have suffered still more had not people continued to rely upon a certain instinct in these matters in spite of all the advances of modern science.

To turn to a completely different sphere, it has always been a source of satisfaction to me that people who, following their doctor's orders, weigh every morsel of the food they eat—so many ounces of meat, so many ounces of cabbage (some people even have scales on the table beside their plates)—it is always a source of satisfaction to me, when the unfortunate individual still feels hungry, so long as he has not had enough, and thus proves that instinct is still present in him. In the same way, instinct was at the root of all the work of man in this realm before there was a science of the subject, and its indications were often very sure ones. The old calendars with their versified rules of practice that one still finds among peasants are often surprisingly wise and expressive. And it is quite possible for a man with sure instincts to avoid superstition in these matters. For along with very profound sayings concerning the sowing and reaping of grain we get occasional sayings directed against extravagances, for example “If the cock crows on the dunghill it will either rain or stay as it is” (Kräht der Hahn auf dem Mist, so regnet es, oder bleibt wie es ist) Instinctive wisdom is always sufficiently armed with a sense of humour to be on its guard against superstition. Speaking from the Anthroposophical point of view, what we have to do is not so much to return to the old instincts as, through a deeper spiritual insight, to discover things which can be supplied ever less and less by the instincts as they have become uncertain.

This task demands that in studying the life of plants, of animals and of the earth itself, we should extend our views to the whole cosmos. For while it is quite right to reject a trivial connection between rain and the phases of the Moon, yet on the other hand the following has happened, I have told the story already on other occasions. In Leipsic, there were two professors, one of them. Gustav Theodor Fechner, a man gifted with keen insight in spiritual matters, claimed that from external observations which he had made, the existence of a connection between periods of rain and the course of the Moon around the earth was not a mere superstitious belief. He had come to this view through statistical evidence. But his colleague, the famous Professor Schleiden, denied the contention on theoretical grounds. These two University professors were both married, and Fechner, who had a certain sense of humour, said; “Let our wives decide which of us is right.” Now it so happened that in those days at Leipsic, water was scarce and had to be fetched from a distance. So, it was the custom in order to have sufficient for washing day, to collect rain which ran from the houses in pitchers and barrels. Frau Professor Schleiden did this, and so did her neighbour, Frau Professor Fechner. But there was not room for them both to set out their pitchers and barrels in the courtyard at the same time. So, Professor Fechner said: “If my honoured colleague is right and the time of the month does not matter, then Frau Professor Schleiden can put out her pitchers at the time when according to my reading of the lunar phase there will be less rain, and my wife will put out hers during the period when my calculations tell me there will be more rain. If my theory is all nonsense, Frau Professor Schleiden will no doubt gladly fall in with this arrangement.” But lo and behold! Frau Professor Schleiden would do nothing of the sort and preferred to go by Professor Fechner's statement rather than by that of her husband.

And so it often happens. Science may be right, but practice cannot be ruled by the “Tightness” of science. But to speak more seriously. This example has only been introduced in order to show that we must look a little further than we are accustomed to look nowadays when we are considering that which alone makes it possible for man to live on this planet—I mean Agriculture. I cannot say whether what I am going to say out of Anthroposophy will be satisfactory to us in every respect, but I shall try to bring before you what Anthroposophy can contribute to Agriculture.

I will now begin to draw your attention to some facts within our earthly existence which have an important bearing upon Agriculture. We are accustomed nowadays to lay the chief stress upon the physico-chemical constituents of any substance. Now I propose to start from an examination not of the physico-chemical constituents, but of something which lies behind them and is of very special importance to the life of the plant on the one hand, and of the animal on the other. Human life, and to a certain extent the life of animals as well has become emancipated to a large extent from world-workings outside them. The nearer we come to man, the more strongly marked is this emancipation. In both human and animal life, we find manifestations which seem to be entirely independent of extra-terrestrial influences or even of the atmospheric influences surrounding the earth. Hot only does this seem so, but it actually is the case in regard to many things in life. True, we know that certain atmospheric changes will accentuate the pain attending certain illnesses. What is less well known is that certain illnesses, and certain other life phenomena imitate in their rhythms the course of certain processes in Nature, but do not coincide with those of these natural processes their beginnings and endings. We need only recall one of the most important phenomena, female menstruation, which in its rhythmic character is an imitation of the monthly changes of the Moon, yet the beginnings and endings of the two phenomena do not coincide. There are many more intimate manifestations—both in the male and the female organisms, which imitate the rhythms of Nature. For example, a closer study of the periodicity of sun-spots would bring us to a better understanding of much that happens in the social life. But these things are not noticed, because the social phenomenon which corresponds to the periodic change of the spots on the sun, does not begin and end when they do, but has become emancipated from them. The periodicity and rhythm are the same but there is no coincidence in time. It is easy enough to dismiss as nonsense the statement that human life is a microcosm which imitates the macrocosm. If for instance one refers to certain illnesses having a period of fever which lasts seven days, it could be objected that whenever the corresponding external phenomena occurred in Nature, the fever ought to appear and run a parallel course; but the fever does not do this! Nevertheless, it is true that the fever retains the inner rhythm even if its beginning and end do not coincide with those of the external event. This emancipation from cosmic events is almost complete in the case of man: it is less complete in the animal; while plant-life is to a high degree immersed in the general Cosmic life of Nature and also in its earthly surrounding. For this reason, we shall never acquire any real understanding of plant-life unless we realise that everything on earth is only a reflection of what takes place in the cosmos. This reflection is hidden in the case of man because he has emancipated himself. He carries within him only the inner rhythm. But the connection is still there in the highest degree in plants, and it is to this that I wish to direct your attention in this introductory talk.

In the immediate vicinity of the earth, we have the Moon and the other planets. The old instinctive science which reckoned the Sun, as one of the planets had one of the following sequence: Moon, Mercury, Venus, Sun, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn. Now, without going any further into the astronomical aspect of the subject, I wish to point to the relation which exists between planetary life and life on the earth. If we consider life on the earth in general the first thing we have to take into account is the very important part played by the what I might call the life of the siliceous substance in the world. You will find this siliceous substance in the very beautiful mineral quartz enclosed in prismatic and pyramidal forms. Quartz is siliceous substance combined with oxygen; remove the oxygen mentally, and you have the so-called silicon. This silicon is regarded by modern chemistry as one of the elements (oxygen, etc.) and when united with oxygen may be regarded as a chemical substance. But we must not forget that this silicon which lives in the mineral quartz makes up from 27% to 28% of the crust of the earth, i.e. a higher percentage than that of any other substance on earth, except for oxygen, which amounts to 47% to 48%. Now silicon, in the form in which it appears in such stony substances as quartz, does not at first seem to possess very much importance if we consider only the material of the soil of the earth with its plant growth. Quartz is not soluble in water—the water trickles through it. It thus seems to have no connection with the ordinary commonplace view of “conditions of life.” But if you take the Equisetum (horsetail) you will find that it consists of 90% of silicon (the same substance of which quartz consists) in very fine distribution through its form. This shows the enormous importance which this substance, silicon, must have. It forms nearly one half of everything on the earth. And vet so completely has its importance been overlooked that its use has been neglected even where it can have the most beneficent results. Silicon forms an essential constituent of many remedies used in Anthroposophical therapy. A whole series of diseases is treated either internally or by baths, with this substance, the reason being that what appears in the form of abnormal conditions of the sense organs, (it only appears there, it does not really lie there) the internal sense organs, as cause of pain, is strangely accessible to the influence of silicon. And in general silicon plays the greatest conceivable part in what has been called by the old-fashioned name of the “household of Nature,” for it is present not only in quartz and other stones, but in a highly-refined state in the atmosphere. Indeed, it is present everywhere. One half of the earth at our disposal consists of silicon. What then is the function of this substance?

To answer this question let us assume that our earth contained only half of the quantity of silicon which it actually does possess. We should then have plants in more or less pyramidal form: the blooms would be atrophied, and indeed all plants would assume generally the shape of the cacti which strikes us as so abnormal. The cereals would look grotesque; their stems would grow thick and fleshy towards the base, but the ears would be emaciated and without grain.

So much for silicon. On the other hand, in every part of the earth, although not in such abundance as is silicon, we find lime and their allied substances, (limestone, potash and sodium). If these were present in smaller proportions we should have plants whose stems were only narrow and twisted, we should have only creepers. There would be blooms of course, but they would be useless and yield nothing of any food value. It is only through the balance of these two formative forces—as embodied in these two substances, silicon and limestone—that plant life can flourish in the form in which we know it to-day.

Now everything siliceous contains forces that come, not from the earth, but from the so-called distant planets Mars, Jupiter and Saturn—the planets beyond the Sun. These planets work indirectly upon plant-life through silicon and allied substances. But the planets near the Earth namely, Moon, Mercury and Venus, send out forces into the plant-life and animal life on earth through the medium of the limestone and kindred substances. Thus, of any cultivated field it may be said that the forces of both silicon and limestone are at work in it. The silicon mediates the influences of Mars, Jupiter and Saturn, the limestone those of Moon, Venus and Mercury.

Now let us turn to the plants themselves. There are two things to notice about all plants. The first is that the plant world as a whole and every single species have the power to perpetuate their kind and develop the force of reproduction, etc. The second is that the plant as a member of a relatively low order of Nature serves as nourishment for members of higher orders. These two fundamental tendencies seem at first to have little to do with one another. For if we only look at the passing on of the step from parent plant to offspring and so on, it is a matter of indifference to the formative forces of Nature whether or not the plant is used for food. The two interests (i.e. of Nature and Man) are completely different, and yet the forces of Nature act in such a way that the inherent powers of reproduction and growth and of producing generation after generation of plants, are active m the cosmic influences exercised upon the earth by the Moon, Venus and Mercury through the mediation of limestone.

If we consider plants which are not used for food, which do nothing but reproduce themselves, we focus our interest in the cosmic forces of Venus, Mercury and Moon, related to reproduction. But in the case of plants which are eminently suitable for food because their substances have become perfected to the point of forming food-stuffs, for human and animal consumption, it is the planets Mars, Jupiter and Saturn that are working through the medium of silicon. Silicon opens up the being of the plant to the expanses of the Universe, it awakens the plant's senses, so that it absorbs the formative forces bestowed by the distant planets, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn. From the sphere of Moon, Venus and Mercury on the other hand, the plant absorbs only that which makes it capable of reproducing itself. Now this seems at first to be just an interesting theory. But every insight taken from a wider horizon leads us quite naturally from theory to practice.

If then certain forces coming from the Moon, Venus and Mercury enter the Earth and become effective in plant-life, the question arises: What will promote and what will restrain the activity of these forces? For instance, in what way can the activities of Moon or Saturn be modified in their influence on plants? If we observe the course of the year, we shall find that on some days there is rain and on others none. All that the modern physicist observes is the fact that on rainy days more water falls on the Earth than on dry days! Water moreover is to him something abstract consisting of oxygen, hydrogen, and nothing more. If water is decomposed by electrolysis it is split into two substances, each of which acts in its own way. But this tells us nothing about water. There is much more hidden in water than appears in the chemical properties of hydrogen and oxygen. Water by its very nature is eminently fitted to bear along with it the forces coming from the Moon on to the Earth. So, it comes about that it is water which distributes the lunar forces throughout the earthly realm. There is a certain kind of relation between the Moon and the water on the Earth. Let us suppose that after a rainy spell there is a full Moon. Now the forces coming from the Moon when it is full causes something tremendous to happen on Earth. They shoot right into the whole growing forces of the vegetable kingdom. They cannot do so if there has not been a rainy spell beforehand. We must always realise the importance of sowing seed after rainy days followed by the full Moon, and we should never work at random (true, something will always come up). The question: How to connect our seed-sowing with rain and full Moon has definite practical importance, because the forces that come from the full Moon work powerfully and abundantly on certain plants after rain, but only weakly and sparingly after a spell of sunny weather. The old adages of husbandry contained such knowledge. People recalled the adage that told them what to do. These adages or saws are looked upon nowadays as superstition and scientists are not yet sufficiently interested to work out a real science of the matter.

Furthermore, around the Earth we find the atmosphere. In addition to consisting of air, the atmosphere has the property of being sometimes warm and sometimes cold. At times, there is certain accumulation of heat which, if the tension becomes too great, may discharge itself in a thunderstorm. Now what can we say about warmth? Spiritual observation shows that while water has no relation to silicon, warmth is so powerfully related to it that it enhances the activity of the forces working through silicon, namely, the forces coming from Saturn, Jupiter and Mars. These forces coming from Saturn, Jupiter and Mars have to be valued on quite a different scale from that adopted in the case of Moon. Venus and Mercury, for it must be remembered that Saturn takes thirty years to go around the Sun, while the Moon takes only about thirty or twenty-eight days to pass through all its phases. Thus, Saturn is only visible for fifteen years, and consequently stands in quite another relation to the growth of plants compared with the Moon. As a matter of fact, Saturn is not only active when it is shining down on the Earth, it is also active when its rays have to pass from below, as it were, through the Earth.

Now as Saturn takes thirty years to revolve around the Sun we find that at certain times it shines directly on one spot on the Earth, and that it can work upon this spot by going right through the Earth. (See Drawing No. 1). The strength with which the Saturn forces influence plant-life on Earth always depends upon the warmth-condition of the air. If the air is cold they cannot reach the plants, if the air is warm they can. How then can we see their influence at work in the plant? We see it not in the annuals but in the perennials; not in those plants which grow up and die in the course of one year leaving only their seed behind them, but in those which are perennial. It is the latter whose growth Saturn promotes with the help of the warmth forces of the Earth. The effect of these forces working through the mediation of warmth, is to be seen, for instance, m the bark or cortex of trees and in everything that makes the plant a perennial. When the lives of plants are limited to the short span of a single year, it is because of the relation in which, those plants stand to the planets with short periods of revolution. On the other hand, that which emancipates itself from the fleeting process and is made permanent in the formation of bark around the growing trees is connected with the planetary forces working through the mediation of warmth and cold, and the periods of revolution in these cases are long. Thirty years in the case of Saturn, twelve in the case of Jupiter. Again, it is well for anyone who wants to plant an oak tree to know something of the periodicity or Mars, for an oak tree planted during the appropriate period of Mars will thrive much better than one planted unthinkingly, at any moment that happens to be convenient. Or, if you have a plantation of conifers, where the Saturn forces play so great a part, it will make all the difference if the trees are planted when Saturn is in the so-called ascending period rather than at another time. Anyone who has insight into these matters can tell quite accurately in the case of plants that are doing well or badly whether or not they have been tended with a right understanding of their relation to planetary forces. For what is not always obvious to the external eye is revealed to more intimate observation.

To take an example: If we burn wood taken from a tree which has been planted without an understanding of the cosmic rhythms we do not get such a healthy heat as from wood taken from a tree which has been planted with right understanding. It is precisely on the little matters of everyday life that these things play so great a part and that the importance of such differences are revealed. But people live their lives almost unthinkingly. They do not take the trouble to consider such details and everything goes on like a machine. If you pull the right trigger, the machine works, and the materialistically-minded imagine that the whole of Nature works on the same principle. And yet regarding Nature so and working upon her in this way brings us face to face with certain stupendous results in practice. Why, for instance, is it impossible to-day to obtain such fine potatoes as I remember eating in my youth? It is impossible to find such potatoes even in the districts in which they used to be grown. (It is really so! I have tested them everywhere!) The nutritive forces of certain foods have actually declined over a passage of time. The last decade shows this quite distinctly. The reason is that we no longer understand the intimate forces at work in the whole cosmos. These must be sought for once again, and sought for along such lines as I have indicated to-day by way of introduction. I have merely touched upon certain questions which extend far beyond the horizon of contemporary vision. We shall not only continue this consideration, but shall search more deeply for a means of applying it to practical life.

In these first lectures, we shall bring together, from the field of knowledge of conditions which go to promote a healthy Agriculture, those which are necessary in order to enable us to reach certain practical conclusions which are to be realised in immediate application and which can only have significance when being so applied. To do so we have to enquire at the very outset how the products of Agriculture come into being and what is their connection with the Universe as a whole. Now a farm or agricultural estate comes to full expression as a ‘farm’ in the best sense of the word if it can be regarded as being a kind of separate individuality, a self-contained individuality. This is the condition to which every agricultural estate or farm should approach as near as possible, although it cannot be completely attained. In other words, everything that is needed to bring forth agricultural products should be supplied by the farm itself, which includes, of course, the necessary cattle and live-stock.

Anything brought in from outside, such as manure and the like, ought under ideal conditions of Agriculture, to be regarded rather as medicine for use in the case of sickness. A sound farm should be able to bring forth from itself everything that it needs. We shall see later why this is quite the natural thing. As long as we neglect the inner nature and essence of things and regard them only from their outer material aspect, so long will it be legitimate to ask: Does it really matter whether cow-manure is taken from the neighbouring farm or from one's own steading? Although it may be impossible to carry it out strictly it is important to hold before one the ideal of a self-contained farm. You will find some justification for this statement if you consider first the earth from which our farm arises and secondly the factors which work in upon the earth from the Universe. It is usual to speak of these factors in very abstract terms. People are aware, it is true, that the light and warmth of the sun, and all the meteorological phenomena connected with these, have a particular bearing upon the type of vegetation produced in a given area. But modern views can give no further details, nor throw any further light on the matter because they do not penetrate into the underlying facts. Let us therefore start from the standpoint which embraces the fact that the basis of all Agriculture is the soil of the earth.

This soil—I will indicate it schematically by this straight line (see Drawing No. 2) is generally looked upon as being something purely mineral into which at the best organic substance has entered either because humus has been formed or manure has been introduced. The idea that the soil not only contains added organic substance but also has itself a plant—like nature—and even contains an astral activity: such an idea has never been considered, still less conceded. And if we go a step further and consider how this inner life of the soil in the delicate balancing of its distribution is quite different in Summer from what it is in Winter, we come to subjects which are of enormous importance in practical life but to which no attention is paid to-day. If you start by considering the soil, then you must bear in mind the fact that it is a kind of organ within that organism which manifests itself wherever the growth of Nature appears. The earth surface is really an organ, an organ which, if you care to. you may compare with the human diaphragm. “We may put the matter broadly in this way (it is not quite exact but will give the right idea): Above the diaphragm there are in man certain organs, the head in particular, and the processes of breathing and circulation which work up into the head. Under the diaphragm are other organs. Now if we compare the earth surface with the human diaphragm we must say: The individuality represented by our farm, having the earth surface for its diaphragm has its head under the earth, while we and all the animals live in its belly. Above the surface of the earth, is really what may be regarded as the bowels of what I will now call the “agricultural-individuality.” On a farm, we are walking about inside the belly of the farm, and the plants grow upwards within this belly. Thus, we are dealing with an individuality which is standing on its head, and which is only rightly looked at if so understood, especially as regards its relation to Man. In relation to animals, the situation, as we shall see later on, is slightly different.

Now why do I say that the “agricultural-individuality” stands on its head?

I do so because the air, vapours and warmth, which are in the immediate neighbourhood of the soil and from which both man and the plants derive air, moisture and warmth—all this corresponds to the abdominal organs in the human body. On the other hand, everything that takes place within the earth, under the soil, affects the general growth of plants in the same way as our head affects our organism—especially in childhood, but also throughout the whole of our life. Thus, there is a constant and very living interplay of supra-terrestrial and sub-terrestrial activities.—The forces at work above the earth are immediately dependent upon what we will regard for the time being as localised on the planets. Moon, Mercury and Venus. These planets in strengthening and modifying the effects of the Sun exercise their influence on all that is above the earth surface, while the more distant planets lying outside the earth's path round the Sun strengthen and modify the effects of the solar influences which penetrate upwards through the earth. Thus, the growth of plants is affected by the distant heavens in so far as it takes place underground, and by the nearer heavens in so far as it takes place above ground; and the influences upon vegetable growth coming from the expanses of the Cosmos do not shine directly down upon the earth, but are first absorbed by the earth which then causes them to radiate upwards. What come from beneath as good or bad vegetable growth are really the cosmic influences which are reflected from below; whereas in the air and water above the earth the Cosmos exercises its power directly. The direct cosmic in-streaming is stored up beneath the earth's surface, and from there it works back. The inherent qualities of the soil affecting the growth of plants are dependent upon these stored up influences. (Later we shall consider the case of the animals). The soil still retains in it the effects of influences dependent upon the most remote parts of the Cosmos, which need to be considered in connection with the Earth. These effects are found in what we know generally as sand and rock; the substances which do not absorb water, which are ordinarily supposed to contain no nutritive elements whatsoever and which nevertheless play a very important part in the promotion of growth. These minerals are entirely dependent upon the activities of forces coming from the remotest parts of the Cosmos, and, improbable as it may appear, it is primarily through the medium of siliceous sand that it comes about that soil contains and radiates upwards what may be called its elements of life-ether and chemical activity (chemical ether). The inner life of the soil and the formation of its particular chemical properties depend entirely upon the constitution of its sandy parts, and what the plant roots experience within the soil is determined by the amount of Cosmic life and Cosmic Chemistry which the Earth has absorbed through the mediation of its stony substance (which of course, may lie at some depth below the earth surface). Anyone, therefore, who has to concern himself with the growth of plants should be quite clear as to the geological structure of the ground from which the plants are to grow, and further should bear in mind in all cases that those plants whose roots are for us of primary importance cannot do without silicon in the soil, even though thi3 may lie well below. We should be thankful that silicon makes up 47% to 48% of the Earth, either in the form of silicon (silicic acid) or in other' compounds. Such supplies as we need are therefore always present.

Now the effects which have been brought about in the root through silicon must be borne upwards through the plant. It must stream upwards and there must be a constant interaction between the cosmic forces that have entered into the plant through silicon and those that are active above—forgive me—m the “belly” and that supply the “head” below with what it requires. True the “head” must be provided for out of the Cosmos, but this process must interact with that which takes place above ground in the “belly.” The forces coming in from the Cosmos and being caught up underground must be able to flow upwards again, and the substance which brings this about is clay. Clay is the mediator through which the cosmic activity in the soil is enabled to work from below upwards. In actual practice this will give us the key to the handling of both clay soil and sandy soil according to the particular which we may wish to cultivate. But we must first know what is actually happening. How clay is to be described and how treated in order to make it fertile are important but secondary considerations. The first and foremost thing to know about clay is that it promotes the cosmic upward flow.

However, this cosmic upward flow is not enough by itself. There must also be present the opposite, which I would call the earthly or terrestrial element streaming downwards. All that undergoes a kind of external digestion in the “belly” (the processes above the surface throughout Summer and Winter are indeed a kind of digestion in relation in the growth of plants I) has to be drawn down into the earth. All forces produced by the action of water and air above the Earth and also the substances in delicate homeopathic distribution called from there are drawn down into the earth by lime presented in it in greater or smaller proportions. The lime content of the soil and the distribution of lime in homeopathic dilution above the surface—these are the factors which have the task of leading the terrestrial (“belly” Ed.) forces down into the soil.

These things will take on a very different aspect in future when we shall have a real science concerning them, and not only the scientific guesswork of to-day: it will be possible then to give exact information. We shall then know that there is a great, an immense difference between the warmth that exists above the surface of the Earth and which stands within the sphere of the influence of the Sun, Venus. Mercury and Moon, and the. warmth which makes itself felt within the earth and which stands under the influence of Mars, Jupiter and Saturn. These two kinds of warmth which we may call the “blossom and leaf warmth” and the “root-warmth” respectively, are completely different from one another—so much so, indeed, that we can describe the warmth above the Earth as a “dead” warmth, the warmth below the Earth's surface a “living” warmth. The warmth below the surface, especially during Winter, contains an inner vital principle. If we human beings had to experience in ourselves this living warmth which works within the soil, we should all become immensely stupid, because in order that we may be intelligent beings, dead warmth has to be supplied to our bodies. But at the moment when the limestone and other substances enable warmth to be drawn into the soil and to change from outer into inner warmth, it passes over into a condition of gentle aliveness. It is recognised to-day that there is a difference between the air which is above the Earth and that which is below the surface, but the difference between warmth above the Earth and that below the surface has been overlooked. It is generally known that the air under the Earth contains more carbonic acid, while that above the Earth contains more oxygen; but the reason for this is not known. It is that the air, as it is drawn into the earth, is penetrated by a gentle aliveness. This is true both of warmth and of air. They both receive a tiny spark of life as they pass into the earth. It is different in the case of water and of the solid earth element itself. Both of these have less life inside the Earth than they have when above its surface. They become “more dead,” they lose something of their life they had outside. But it is precisely this circumstance which exposes them to the influences of the most distant cosmic forces. The mineral substances have to free themselves from the forces which are working immediately above the surface of the Earth if they wish to be accessible to these far away cosmic forces. In our epoch, this emancipation from the processes in the immediate neighbourhood takes place in the period of the time between the 15th January and 15th February, i.e. in Winter. The time will come when these indications will be acknowledged as exact data. It is at this period of the Winter that within the Earth the formative forces of crystallisation reach their full development in the mineral substances. In these days of mid-winter, it is a peculiar feature of the interior or the Earth that it becomes less dependent upon its mineral masses and falls under the influence of the crystallising forces of the cosmic expanses.

Now consider what happens. Towards the end of January, the mineral substances of the Earth have a greater “longing” than at any other time to reach crystal purity in the economy of Nature; and the deeper one goes, the greater one finds this “longing” to be. The plants, absorbed in their own life in the Earth, are less open at this time than at any other to the influence of the mineral substances. But for a time before and for a time after this period, (but especially before when the minerals are preparing to perfect their crystal shape and purity) they are of utmost importance to the growth of plants. It is then that they throw out forces which are of extreme importance to plant growth. Thus, some time in November and December there .is a point of time when the mineral forces at work under the Earth are particularly propitious to the growth of plants. The question therefore arises: How can this best be utilised for the growth of plants? Someday it will become evident that by utilising this knowledge we are able to guide the growth of plants. I will say this now: That m the case of a soil which does not of itself promote the required upward movement of forces which ought to work upwards in the Winter period, it is well to add clay in a proper proportion. (I shall indicate this proportion later on). In this way, we enable the soil to carry those forces, upwards to make it effective in the realm of plant growth above the Earth; before the forces of the minerals have reached their maximum effects for themselves, which will not be until January or February period. (These forces show themselves outwardly—for those who can read their story—in snow crystals.) It may be noted that the power of these forces becomes stronger and stronger the deeper we go into the interior of the Earth.

In this way, what seems to most people recondite can give us insight of the greatest positive value and practical help, where we should otherwise be working at random. Indeed, we must realise clearly that the cultivated ground together with what lies under the surface of the Earth forms an individuality living also within the element of time, (i.e. living through the four seasons,) and that the life of the Earth still is particularly strong during Winter, whereas in Summer it undergoes a kind of death.

Now with regard to the cultivation of the soil there is a point of great importance which must be thoroughly understood. It is a point I have often dealt with among Anthroposophists. It is that we know the conditions under which the forces of the cosmic spaces can work upon the earthly realm. Let us begin with seed formation. The seed which gives rise to the embryo of the plant is generally regarded as a molecular structure of exceptional complexity, and science lays great stress upon this interpretation. The molecules, it is said, have a certain structure, in simple molecules it is simple, in complicated molecules it becomes more and more complex, until we come to the extreme complexity of the albuminous or protein molecule. People stand in wonder and astonishment at the enormous complexity of the structure supposed to exist in the seed.

They do so because they reason as follows. The albumen (or protein) molecule, they say, must be of enormous complexity, for the organism in succeeding plants arises from it. This organism is enormously complex, and since its structure was determined by the embryonic conditions of the seed, the latter's microscopic or ultra-microscopic content must also have a structure of enormous complexity. Well, it is complex indeed in the beginning. As the earthly albumen is formed, its molecular structure is driven to the utmost complexity; but this alone would never give rise to a new organism. For the organism arising from the seed does not proceed by a mere continuation in the offspring of what was present in the parent plant or animal. What happens is that when the embryonic structure has reached its highest stage of complexity in the earth domain it falls to pieces and becomes a “little chaos,” it breaks up and dissolves, one might say, into “world-dust.” And when this little chaos of world-dust is there, the whole surrounding Cosmos begins to work upon it. to stamp it with its own image and to build up in it a structure conditioned by the forces of the Universe working in upon it from every side (see Drawing No. 3). Thus, the seed becomes an image of the Cosmos. Every time this happens, and seed formation is carried through to the point or chaos, the new organism is^: built up from the seed-chaos by the activity of the cosmos. The parent organism has only the tendency to bring the seed into such cosmic position that through its affinity with this cosmic position the cosmic forces will act in the proper directions so that, e.g., a dandelion will give rise to another dandelion and not a berberis.

But the new thing that is built up is always the image of some cosmic constellation. It is built up out of the cosmos. And if in the Earth we would make effective the forces of the cosmos, we must drive the earthly elements into the state of greatest possible chaos. This has to be the case whenever we want the cosmos to act upon our Earth. In the case of plant-growth this is in a certain sense provided for by Nature herself. But just because every new organism is built up by the Cosmos it is necessary that the cosmic principles must be allowed freedom to work in the organisms until the seed-formation is completed.

If, for example, we plant the seed of a given plant in the earth, the seed contains the impress of the whole Cosmos from a particular cosmic direction, which means that it came under the influence of a particular constellation and received its particular form. At the moment when the seed is placed in the soil it is strongly worked upon by the terrestrial (“belly” Ed.) forces, and it is filled with the longing to deny the cosmic forces, in order that it may spread and grow in all directions. For the forces above the surface of the Earth do not want the plant to retain this cosmic form. The seed had to be driven to the point of chaos; but now that the plant is sprouting it is necessary to oppose the terrestrial to the cosmic forces which live as the form of the plant inside the seed. For the cosmic forces must be opposed and balanced, as it were, by the terrestrial forces. We must help the plant to become more akin to the Earth in its growth. This can only be done by introducing into the plant some form of living earthly matter which has not yet reached the state of chaos and seed formation, life which has been held up in a plant before the seeds have been formed. For this purpose, a rich humus formation comes to man's assistance m those districts that are fortunate enough to possess it. Man can hardly find any artificial substitute for the fertility given to the soil by Nature through humus. What causes the formation of humus? It arises from the absorption of remnants of living plants into the whole process of Nature. These remnants have not yet reached the state of chaos, and respect the cosmic forces, as it were. If humus is used for the growth of plants the terrestrial forces are held fast within them. The cosmic forces then work only in the upward stream that terminates in seed-formation. While the terrestrial forces work in the development of flowers, leaf and so on, the cosmos only radiates its influence into all this.

Let us suppose that we have before us a plant growing up out of its own root. At the top end of the stem comes the grain of seed, while the leaves and blossoms spread out sideways. Now, in the leaf and the blossom the terrestrial element is working in giving shape and filling it with matter; the reason why a leaf grows or a grain swells, and takes up the substance inside it is to “be found in the terrestrial forces which we lead to the plant and which have not yet reached the point of chaos. The seed, however, whose forces work upwards through the stem—vertically—not rotating around it (as in the formation of leaves Ed.) radiates the cosmic forces into leaves and blossoms. One can actually see this. We have only to look at the green leaves of a plant. In their shape, in the substances filling them and in their green colour, the leaves bear the terrestrial element. But they would not be green if they had not within them the cosmic force of the Sun. And now look at the coloured blossoms. In these the cosmic force of the Sun is not working alone but is supported by the distant planets, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn. If we regard the growth and development of plants from this point of view, we shall see the redness of the rose as the force of Mars, the yellow of the sunflower- (so-called only because of its shape) as the force of Jupiter. It should be called the Jupiter flower, for it is the force of Jupiter that reinforces the solar force and brings forth the white and yellow colours in the flowers. The blue of the chickweed or chicory flower is the effect of Saturn reinforcing the effect of the Sun. Thus, we can see Mars in the red-coloured flower. Jupiter in the yellow, Saturn in the blue, while in the green colour of the leaf we see the Sun itself. But the same powers which appear as colour in the flower are also at work especially strongly in the root. Here once more the forces living in the distant planets are active within the soil. If we pull a plant out of the ground we may see that in the roots there is cosmic force, in the blossom mostly the terrestrial element. and only in the finest shading by the colour the cosmic element can be seen. The terrestrial forces on the other hand if living actively in the root cause the root to push out into form. For the form of the plant is determined by factors arising in the realm of earth. It is the terrestrial forces that causes the form to spread. When the root develops and divides, it is due to the terrestrial forces working downwards just as the cosmic forces (in the case of the colour) work upwards. Single roots are therefore cosmic roots, whereas forked roots are due to the terrestrial forces working down into the soil, just as in colour the cosmic forces work upwards into the flowers. And the cosmic force of the Sun stands between the two. The Sun force works principally in the green leaves, in the interaction between blossom and root, and in all that is between the two. Thus, the Sun element really belongs to what we have called the diaphragm provided by the surface of the earth: whereas the cosmic element belongs to the interior of the earth and works its way up into the upper part of the plant. The terrestrial element above the earth works downwards and is drawn into the plant with the help of the limestone. Plants which draw down the terrestrial element into their roots through the lime are those whose roots divide in all directions such as all herbs used for fodder, (but not turnips) and such as the sainfoin. Thus, it should be possible, looking at the form of a plant and the colour of the flowers, to tell how much cosmic forces and how much terrestrial forces are at work in it. Now let us assume that we find some means of holding back the cosmic forces within the plant. These forces will then be prevented from manifesting it by pushing up into flowers but will live out their life in the region of the stem of the plant. Now wherein do these cosmic forces reside in the plant? They reside in the silicon. Take the Equisetum. It has this very property of attracting silicon and permeating itself with it. It is 90% silicon. Thus, in this plant the cosmic element is present to a tremendous extent. It does not manifest itself in flowers, but in the growth of the lower part of the plant.

Now, let us take the opposite case. Let us suppose that we want to hold back these forces which work upwards from the root through the stem into the leaves and store them up in the region of the root. This possibility is no longer fully open to. us in the present epoch of our earth, since the genera and species of plants have been so firmly established. Formerly, in ancient epochs when men could easily transform one plant into another, this possibility had to come greatly into consideration. Today we consider it only from the point of view of finding out the condition favourable to a given plant. How can we then set about preventing these forces from pushing upwards into blossom and fruit? How can we in addition hold back the development of stem and leaf within the formation of the root? We must place such a plant on sandy soil. For silicon or flint holds back the cosmic forces and even gathers them. Now the potato plant is one in which the growth of leaf and stem is held back. The potato is a root-stock. The forces that form leaf and stem are held fast in the potato itself. The potato is not a root but a stem which has been held back. Potatoes must therefore be planted on sandy soil; this is the only way of holding back the cosmic forces in them.

The A B C of everything concerning the growth of the plant consists, therefore, m knowing what in any particular plant is of cosmic origin, and what is due to terrestrial forces. How can we make a soil more inclined to condense, as it were, the cosmic forces to retain them in root and leaf? How can we thin them out so that they can be sucked upwards into the blossoms and colour them and even into the fruit, and permeate them with a delicate taste? For the delicate taste in an apricot or plum is, like the colour of a flower, both being due to the cosmic forces which have worked their way upward through the plant. In the apple, you are literally eating Jupiter, in the plum you are eating Saturn. If modern man were faced with the necessity of producing the innumerable species and varieties of fruit-bearing plants from the much smaller number of original plants existing in primordial times, he would not get very far. And we may be thankful that the great majority of our existing fruit trees were brought into existence when mankind still possessed an ancient instinctive wisdom of how to produce new varieties out of the primitive species which then existed. Nowadays these things are done “by trial and error. People do not enter into the process with knowledge. And yet a rational method is the fundamental condition for any possible advance in Agriculture. What our friend Stegemann said in this connection was particularly apposite. He drew attention to the fact that agricultural products are deteriorating in quality. Now you may or may not agree with what I am going to say, but this deterioration is, I claim, connected as is the transformation of the human soul, with the declining of the Cosmic Kali-Yuga during the last few decades and the decades that are to come. For we are also in the presence of a complete inner transformation of Nature. All that we have inherited and been handed down in the way of natural talents, inherited knowledge, nature and of traditional medical remedies is beginning to lose its significance. We shall have to acquire new knowledge if we want to penetrate the natural connection of these things. Humanity has no other alternative before it today than either to learn again about the whole web of natural and cosmic connections, or to let both Nature and humanity degenerate and die out. As in the past, it is imperative that our knowledge should penetrate into the actual structure of Nature.

For example, man knows more or less what happens to air inside the Earth_? but he hardly knows anything of what happens to light inside the Earth. He does not know that silicon, the cosmic mineral» takes up light into the Earth and there makes it active, whereas humus, the substance closely allied to terrestrial life does not take up light and make it active in the earth but produces a lightless activity there. But these are things which will have to become understood and known.

Now, to go further: In any given region of the Earth there is not only a particular vegetation but also certain animals live there. For reasons which will appear later on, we need not consider human beings for the moment. It is one peculiar fact, and I should be glad to see this put to experimental test as I am quite sure that such a test would confirm it. This fact is that the right quantity of cows, horses and other live-stock on a farm will supply just the necessary amount of manure for the farm to restore to it what has been discharged into “chaos.” Moreover, the right proportion of horses, cows and pigs will yield the right proportions in the mixture of manures. This is because the animals eat the right proportion of the plant substances yielded by the soil, and because in the course of their organic processes they produce as much manure as is needed to be given back to the soil. And. though it cannot be strictly carried out. I would say that manure of any kind introduced from outside can only be regarded as a curative substance for a farm that has become diseased. A farm is only healthy if it can supply itself from the manure yielded by its own animals. This of course entails the development of a real knowledge of how many animals of a given sort are necessary for a given farm. But this will be found out as soon as some knowledge returns to us of the inner forces in Nature. To what I said about the “belly” being above the Earth and the “head” being under the Earth, belongs an understanding of the animal organism. For the animal organism is connected with the whole economy of Nature. With respect to form and colour structure and consistency of its substance it is under the influence of the planets. Working backwards from the snout the influences are as follows. Saturn, Jupiter and Mars affect the region extending from the snout to the heart, the heart is worked upon by the Sun, while the region extending from behind the heart to the tail comes under the influences of Venus, Mercury and Moon. (See Drawing No. 5).

Those who are interested in these things should try to examine the forms of animals from this point of view. For a development of knowledge along these lines would be of enormous importance. Go to a museum, for example, and examine the skeleton of any mammal. In doing so, bear in mind the principle that the structure and build of the head is primarily the result of the direct radiation of the Sun streaming into the mouth. Then you will 3ee that the structure of the head and of the adjoining parts depends upon the way in which the animal exposes itself to the Sun. A lion exposes itself quite differently from a horse: the reason for these differences will be examined later on. Thus, the front part of an animal and the structure of its head are directly connected with the Sun's radiation. Now the light of the Sun also reaches the Earth indirectly, by being reflected from the Moon. This too has to be taken into account. The sunlight that is reflected from the Moon is quite ineffectual when it falls on the head of an animal. (These things apply especially to embryonic life). The light* reflected from the Moon produces its greatest effect when falling upon the hind parts of the animal. Look at the formation of the skeleton of an animal's hind parts and the peculiar polarity in which it stands to the formation of the head. You should develop a feeling for this contrast in form between the animal's hind quarters and its head, and especially for the insertion of the hind limbs and the rear and the intestinal tract. This contrast between the front and the hindmost parts of the animal is the contrast between Sun and Moon. If you go further you will find that the influence of. the Sun stops just short of the heart; that Mars, Jupiter and Saturn are acting in the formation of the blood and the head;' and that, from the heart backwards the activity of the Moon is reinforced by that of Mercury and Venus. Thus, if we imagine ourselves to have picked up the animal, turned it round and set it upside down with its head in the earth we shall have the position invisibly taken by the “Agricultural-individuality.” The consideration of this formation of the animal enables us to see a relation between the manure produced by the animal and the needs of the earth in which the plants grow which serve as food for the animal. For you will remember that the cosmic forces which act in a plant are guided upwards through it from inside the earth. If, therefore, a plant is particularly rich in these cosmic forces, and an animal eats it, then the manure which this animal excretes will be particularly well-suited to the soil on which the plant grows. Thus, if we learn to grasp the forms of things we shall see in what sense an agricultural unit, or farm, is a “self-contained individuality” (or as we have called it an “agricultural-individuality”) only we have to include within it the necessary live-stock.

The earthly and cosmic forces of which I have spoken work in the processes of Agriculture through the substances of the Earth. And we shall only be able to pass on to the difficult practical applications during the next few days if we occupy ourselves rather more closely with the question of how these forces work through the Earth's substances. But first we must make a digression and enquire into the activity of Nature in general.

One of the most important questions that can be raised in discussing production in the sphere of Agriculture is that concerning the significance and influence of nitrogen. But this question concerning the fundamental nature of the action of nitrogen is at present in a state of the greatest confusion. When one observes nitrogen today in the ordinary way one is only looking at the last offshoots, as it were, of its activities, its most superficial manifestations. We overlook the natural interconnections within which nitrogen is at work; nor indeed can -we help so doing if we remain enclosed within one section of Nature. To gain a proper insight into these connections we must bring within our survey the whole realm of Nature, and concern ourselves with the activity of nitrogen in the Universe. Indeed—and this will emerge clearly from my exposition—while nitrogen as such does not play the primary part in plant-life, it is nevertheless supremely necessary for us to know what this part is, if we wish to understand plant-life.

In its activities in Nature nitrogen has, one might say, four sister-substances which we must learn to know if we wish to understand the functions and significance of nitrogen in the so-called economy of Nature. These four sister-substances are the four substances which in albumen (protein), both animal and vegetable, combine with nitrogen in a way which is still a mystery for present-day science. The four sister-substances are carbon, oxygen, hydrogen and sulphur. If we wish to understand the full significance of albumen, it is not enough to mention the ingredients hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen and carbon: we must also bring in sulphur, that substance the activities of which are of such profound importance for albumen. For it is sulphur which acts within the albumen as the mediator between the spiritual formative element diffused •; throughout -the Universe and the physical element. Indeed, if we want to follow the path taken by the spirit in the material world, we shall have to look for the activity of sulphur. Even if this activity is not so visible as those of other substances it is still of the utmost importance because spirit works its way into physical nature by means of sulphur: sulphur is actually the bearer of spirit. The ancient name “sulphur” is connected with the word “phosphor,” (which means bearer of light) because in the old days men saw spirit spreading out through space in the out-streaming m the light or the Sun. Hence, they called the substances which are linked up with the working of light into matter, like sulphur and phosphorus, the “light bearers.” And once we have realised how fine (delicate) is the activity of sulphur in the economy of nature we shall more easily understand its fundamental nature when we consider the four sister-substances—carbon. hydrogen, nitrogen and oxygen, and the part they play in the workings of the Universe. The modern chemist knows very little about these substances. He knows what they look like in a laboratory, but is ignorant of their inner significance for cosmic activities as a whole. The knowledge which modern chemistry has of these substances is not much greater than the knowledge we might have of a man whose external appearance we had noticed as he passed us in the street, and of whom we had perhaps taken a snapshot, whom we call to mind with the help of the snap-shot. For what science does with these substances is little more than to take snap-shots of them, and the books and lectures of to-day about them contain little more than this. We must learn to know the deeper essence of these substances.

Let us therefore start with carbon. The bearing which these things have upon plants will soon be made clear. Carbon, like so many beings in modern times, has fallen from a very aristocratic position to one that is extremely plebeian. All that people see in carbon nowadays is something with which to heat their ovens (coal) or something with which to write graphite. Its aristocratic nature still survives in one of its modifications, the diamond. But it is hardly of very great value to us today, in this form, because we cannot buy it. Thus, what we know of carbon is very little in comparison with the enormous importance which this substance possesses in the Universe. And yet, until a relatively recent date, a few hundred years ago, this black-fellow.—let us call him so—was regarded as worthy to bear the noble name of “Philosopher's Stone.”

A great deal of nonsense has been spoken about what was really meant by this name. For when the old Alchemists and their kind spoke of the Philosopher's Stone they meant carbon in whatever form it occurs. And they only kept their name secret because if they had not done so, all and sundry would have found themselves in possession of the Philosopher's Stone. For it was simply carbon. But why should it have been carbon?

A -view held in former days will supply us with the answer, which we must come to know again. If we disregard the crumbled form to which certain processes in nature have reduced carbon (as in coal and graphite) and grasp it in its vital activity in the course of serving the bodies of men and animals and as it builds up the body of the plant from its own inherent possibilities, the amorphous and formless substance which we generally think of as carbon will appear as the final outcome, the mere corpse of what carbon really is in the economy of Nature. Carbon is really the bearer of all formative processes in Nature. It is the great sculptor of form, whether we are dealing with the plant whose form persists for a certain time or with the ever-changing form of the animal organism. It bears within it not only its black substantiality, but, in full activity and inner mobility it bears within it the formative cosmic prototypes, the great world-imaginations from which living form m Nature must proceed. A hidden sculptor is at work in carbon, and in building up the most diverse forms in Nature, this hidden sculptor makes use of sulphur. If, therefore, we regard the activities of carbon in Nature in the right way, we shall see that the cosmic spirit which is active as a sculptor “moistens” itself, as it were, with sulphur, and with the help of carbon builds up the relatively permanent plant form and also the human form which is dissolved at the moment it is created. For what makes the human body human, and not plant-like, is precisely the fact that at each moment, through the elimination of carbon, the form it has taken on can be immediately destroyed and replaced by another, the carbon being united to oxygen and exhaled as carbon-dioxide. As carbon would make our bodies firm and stiff like a palm tree, the breathing process wrenches it out of its stiffness, unites it with oxygen and drives it outwards. Thus, we gain a mobility which as human beings we must have. In plants, however (and even in annuals) carbon is held fast within a fixed form.

There is an old saying that “Blood is a very special fluid.” We are right in saying that the human ego pulsates in the blood, and manifests itself physically in doing so; or speaking more strictly it is along the tracks provided by the carbon, in its weaving and working, and forming and unforming of itself that the spiritual principle m man, called the ego, moves within the blood, moistening itself with sulphur. And just as the human ego, the essential spirit of man, lives in carbon, so also does the world-ego live (through the mediation of sulphur) in that substance that is eyer forming and unforming itself—carbon. The fact is that in the early stages of the Earth's development it was carbon alone which was deposited or precipitated. It was not until later that, for example, lime came into existence, supplying man with the foundation for the creation of a more solid bony structure. In order that the organism which lives in the carbon might be moved about, man and the higher animals provided a supporting structure in the skeleton which is made of lime. In this way, by making mobile the carbon form within him, man raises himself from the merely immobile mineral lime formation which the' earth possesses and which he incorporates in order to have solid earth-matter within his body. The bony lime structure represents the solid earth within the human body.

Let me put it in this way: Underlying every living being there is a scaffolding of carbon, more or less either relatively permanent or continually fluctuating, in the tracks of which the spiritual principle moves through the world. Let us make a schematic drawing of this so that you can see the matter quite clearly before you. (Drawing No. 6) Here is such a scaffolding which the spirit builds up somehow or other with the help of sulphur. Here we have either the continuously changing carbon which moves in the sulphur in highly diluted form, or else we have, as in the plants? a more or less solidified carbon structure which is united with other ingredients. Now as I have often pointed out, a human or any other living being must be penetrated by an etheric element which is the actual bearer of life. The carbon structure of a living being must therefore be penetrated by an etheric element which will either remain stationary about the timbers of this scaffolding or retain a certain mobility. But the main thing is that the etheric element is in both cases distributed along the scaffolding.

This etheric element could not abide our physical earth world, if it remained alone. It would slide through instead of gripping what it has to grip in the physical earthly world, if it were without a physical bearer. (For it is a peculiarity of earth conditions that the spiritual must always have physical bearers. The materialists regard the physical bearer only, and overlook the spiritual. To an extent, they are right, because it is indeed the physical bearer which is first met with. But they overlook the fact that it is the spiritual which makes necessary everywhere the existence of a physical bearer). The physical Dearer of the spiritual which works in the etheric element (we may say that the lowest level of the spiritual works in the etheric); this physical bearer which is permeated by the etheric element, and “moistened” as it were with sulphur, introduces into physical existence not the form, not the structure, but a continuous mobility and vitality. This physical carrier which, with the help of sulphur, brings the vital activities out of the universal ether into the body is oxygen.

Thus, the part which I have coloured green in my sketch can be regarded, from the physical point of view, as oxygen, and also as the brooding_? vibrating etheric element which permeates it. It is in the track of oxygen that the etheric element moves with the help of sulphur.

It is this that gives meaning to the breathing process. When we breathe, we take in oxygen. When the present-day materialist talks of oxygen all he means is the stuff in his test-tube when he has decomposed water through electrolysis. But in oxygen there lives the lowest order of the supersensible, the etheric element; it lives there when it is not killed, as e.g. in the air around us. In the atmosphere around us the living principle in the oxygen has “been killed in order that it may not cause us to faint. Whenever too great a degree of life enters into us, we faint. For any excess of the ordinary growing forces within us, if it appears where it should not be, will cause us to faint or worse. If therefore we were surrounded by an atmosphere which contained living oxygen, we should reel about as though completely stunned by it. The oxygen around us has to be killed. And yet oxygen is from its birth the bearer of life, of the etheric element. It becomes the bearer of life as soon as it leaves the sphere in which it has the task of providing a surrounding for our human external senses. Once it has entered into us through breathing, it comes alive again. The oxygen which circulates inside us' is not the same as that which surrounds us externally. In us it is living oxygen, just as it also becomes living oxygen immediately it penetrates into the soil, although in this case the life m it is lower in degree than it is in our bodies. The oxygen under the earth is not the same as the oxygen above the earth. It is very difficult to come to any understanding with physicists and chemists on this subject, for according to the methods they employ the oxygen must always be separated with its connection with the soil. The oxygen they are dealing with is dead, nor can it be anything else. But every science which limits itself to the physical is liable to this error. It can only understand dead corpses. In reality oxygen is the bearer of the living ether and this living ether takes hold of the oxygen through the mediation of sulphur.

We now have pointed out two extreme polarities: On the one hand the scaffolding of carbon within which the human ego—the highest form of the spiritual given to us here on earth, displays its forces or with the case of plants the world-spiritual which is active in them. On the other hand, we have the human process of breathing, represented in man by the living oxygen which carries the ether. And beneath it we have the scaffolding of carbon which in man permits of his movement. These two polarities must be brought together. The oxygen must be enabled to move along the paths marked out for it by the scaffolding; it must move along every track that may be marked out for it by the carbon, by tne spirit of carbon; and throughout Nature the oxygen bearing the etheric life must find the way to the carbon bearing the spiritual principle. How does it do this? What here acts as the mediator?

The mediator is nitrogen. Nitrogen directs the life into the form which is embodied into the carbon. Wherever nitrogen occurs its function is to mediate between life and the spiritual element which has first been incorporated in the carbon substance. It supplies the bridge between oxygen and carbon—whether it be the animal and vegetable kingdoms, or in the soil. That spirituality which with the help of the sulphur busies itself within the nitrogen is the same as we usually refer to as astral. This spirituality, which also forms the human astral body, is active in the earth's surroundings from which it works in the life of plants, animals and so on. Thus, spiritually speaking we find the astral element or principle placed in between oxygen and carbon; but the astral element uses nitrogen for the purpose of revealing itself in the physical -world. Wherever there is nitrogen there the astral spreads forth in activity. The etheric life-element would float about in every direction like clouds and ignore the framework provided by the carbon were it not for the powerful attraction which this framework possesses for nitrogen; wherever the lines and paths have been laid down in the carbon, there nitrogen drags the oxygen along; or more strictly speaking, the astral in the nitrogen drags the etheric element along these paths. Nitrogen is the great “dragger” of the living principle towards the spiritual. Nitrogen is therefore essential to the soul of man, since the soul is the mediator between life, i.e. without consciousness and spirit. There is, indeed, something very wonderful about nitrogen. If we trace its path as it goes through the human organism, we find a complete double of the human being. Such a “nitrogen man” actually exists. If we could separate it from the physical we should have the most beautiful ghost imaginable, for it copies in exact detail the solid shape of man. On the other hand, nitrogen flows straight back into life.

Now we have an insight into the breathing process. When he breathes, man takes in oxygen, i.e. etheric life. Then comes the internal nitrogen, and drags the, oxygen along to wherever there is carbon, i.e. to wherever there is weaving and changing form. The nitrogen brings the oxygen along with it in order that the latter may hold on the carbon and set it free. The nitrogen is thus the mediator whereby carbon becomes carbon-dioxide and as such is breathed out. Only a small part, really of our surroundings consists of nitrogen, the bearer of astral-spirituality. It is of immense importance to us to have oxygen in our immediate surroundings, both by day and by night. We pay less respect to the nitrogen around us in the air which we breathe because we think we have less need of it, and yet nitrogen stands in a spiritual relation to us.

The following experiment might be made: One could enclose a man in a gas-chamber containing a given volume of air, and then remove a small quantity of nitrogen, so that the air would be slightly poorer in nitrogen than it normally is. If this experiment could be carefully carried out it would convince you that the necessary quantity of nitrogen is at once restored, not from outside, but from inside the man's body. Man has to give up some of his own supply of nitrogen in order to restore the quantitative condition to which the nitrogen is “accustomed.” As human beings, it is necessary that we should maintain the right quantitative relation between our whole inner being and the nitrogen around us; the right quantity of nitrogen outside us is never allowed to become less. For the merely vegetative life of man a less quantity than the normal will do. because we do not need nitrogen for the purpose of breaming. But it would not be adequate to the part it plays spiritually; for that the normal quantity of nitrogen is necessary.

This shows you how strongly nitrogen plays into the spiritual and will give you some idea of how necessary this substance is to the life of the plants. The plant growing on the ground has at first only its physical body and etheric body but no astral body; but the astral element must surround it on all sides. The plant would not flower if it were not touched from outside by the astral element. It does not take in the astral element as do men and the animals but it needs to be touched by it from outside. The astral element is everywhere, and nitrogen, the bearer of the astral, is everywhere; it hovers in the air as a dead element, but the moment it enters into the soil it comes to life again. Just as oxygen comes to life when drawn into the soil, so does nitrogen. This nitrogen in the earth not only comes to life but becomes something which has a very special importance for Agriculture because—paradoxical as it may seem to a mind distorted by materialism—it not only comes to life but becomes sensitive inside the earth. It literally becomes the carrier of a mysterious sensitiveness which is poured out over the whole life of the earth. Nitrogen is that which senses whether the right quantity or water is present in any given soil and experiences sympathy; when water is deficient it experiences antipathy. It experiences sympathy when for any given soil the right sort of plants are present, and so on. Thus, nitrogen pours out over everything a living web of sensitive lire. Above all nitrogen knows all those secrets of which we know nothing in an ordinary way, of the planets Saturn, Sun, Moon and so on, and their influences upon the form and life of plants, of which I told you yesterday, and in the preceding lectures. Nitrogen that is everywhere abroad, knows these secrets very well. It is not at all -unconscious of what emanates from the stars and becomes active in the life of plants and of the earth. Nitrogen is the mediator which senses just as in the human nerves and senses system, it also mediates sensation. Nitrogen is in fact the bearer of sensation. Thus, if we look upon nitrogen, moving about everywhere like fluctuating sensations, we shall see into the intimacies of the life in Nature. Thus, we shall come to the conclusion that in the handling of nitrogen something is done which is of enormous importance for the life of plants. We shall study this further in the subsequent lectures.

In the meantime, there is, however, one thing more to be considered. There is a living co-operation of the spiritual principle which has taken shape within the carbonic framework with the astral principle working within nitrogen, which permeates that framework with lire and sensations, that is, stirs up a living agility in the oxygen. But in the earthly sphere this co-operation is brought about by yet another element, which links up the physical world with the expanses of the cosmos. For the earth cannot wander about the Universe as a solid entity cut off from the rest of the Universe. If the earth did this it would be in the same position as a man who lived on a farm, but wished to remain independent of everything that grew in the fields around him. No reasonable man would do that. What to-day is growing in the fields around us tomorrow will be in human stomachs, and later will return to the soil in some form or another. We human beings cannot isolate ourselves from our environment. We are bound up with it and belong to it as much as my little finger belongs to me. There must be a continuous interchange of substances, and this applies also to the relation between earth with all its creatures and the surrounding Cosmos. All that is living on earth in physical shape must be able to find its way back into the Cosmos where it will be in a way purified and refined. This leads us to the following picture. (Drawing No. 6)

We have in the first place the carbon framework (which I have coloured blue in the drawing), then the etheric oxygenous life-element (coloured green) and then, proceeding from the oxygen and enabled by nitrogen to follow the various lines and paths within the framework, we have the astral element which forms the bridge between carbon and oxygen. I could indicate everywhere here how the nitrogen drags into the blue lines which I have indicated schematically with the green lines. But the whole of the very delicate structure which is formed in the living being must be able to disappear again. It is not the spirit which disappears, but that which the spirit has built up in the carbon and into which it has drawn the etheric life borne in the oxygen. It must disappear not only from the earth, but dissipate into the Cosmos. This is done by forming a substance which is allied as closely as possible to the physical, and yet is allied as closely as possible to the spiritual; This substance is hydrogen. Although hydrogen is itself the most attenuated form of the physical substance, it goes still further and dissipates physical matter which, borne by sulphur, floats away into that cosmic region in which matter is no longer distinguishable. One may say then: Spirit has first become physical and lives in the body at once in its astral form and reflecting itself as ego. There it lives physically as spirit transformed into something physical. After a time, the spirit begins to feel ill at ease. It wishes to get rid of its physical form. Moistening itself once again with sulphur it feels the need of yet another element by means of which it can yield up any kind of individual structure and give itself over to the cosmic region of formless chaos where there is no longer any determinate organisation. This element, which is so closely allied both to the physical and to the spiritual, is hydrogen. Hydrogen carries away all that the astral principle Has taken up as form and life, carries it out into the expanses of the Cosmos, so that it can be taken up again from thence (by earthly substance) as I have already described. Hydrogen in fact dissolves everything.

Thus, we have these 5 substances which are the immediate representatives of all that works and weaves in the realm of the living and also in the realm of the seemingly dead, which in fact is only transiently so: Sulphur, Carbon, Hydrogen, Oxygen and Nitrogen, each of these substances is inwardly related to its own particular order of spiritual entity. They are therefore something quite different from which our modern chemistry refers to by the same names. Our chemistry speaks only of the corpses of these substances, not of the actual substances themselves. These we must learn to know as something living and sentient, and, curiously enough, hydrogen, which seems the least dense of the five and has the smallest atomic weight, is the least spiritual among them.

Now consider: What are we actually doing -when we meditate? (I am compelled to add this to ensure that these things do not remain among the mists of spirituality). The Oriental has meditated in his own way. “We in Middle and Western Europe meditate in ours. Meditation as we ought to practise it only slightly touches the breathing process; our soul is living and weaving in concentration and meditation. But all these spiritual exercises have a bodily counterpart, however subtle and intimate. In meditation, the regular rhythm of breathing, which is so closely connected with man's life, undergoes a definite if subtle change. When we meditate we always retain a little more carbon-dioxide in us than in the ordinary everyday consciousness. We do not. as in ordinary life, thrust out the whole bulk of carbon-dioxide into the atmosphere where nitrogen is everywhere around us. We hold some of it back.

Now consider: If you knock your head against something hard, like a table, you become conscious only of your own pain. But if you gently stroke the surface of the table, then you will become conscious of the table. The same thing happens in meditation. It gradually develops an awareness of the nitrogen all around you. That is the real process in meditation. Everything becomes an object of knowledge, including the life of the nitrogen around us. For nitrogen is a very learned fellow. He teaches us about the doings of Mercury. Venus, etc. because he knows, or rather senses them. All these things rest upon perfectly real processes. And as I shall show in greater detail, it is at this point that the spiritual working in the soul activity, begins to have a bearing upon Agriculture. This interaction between the soul-spiritual element and that which is around us is what has particularly interested our dear friend Stegemann. For, indeed, if a man has to do with Agriculture it is a good thing if he is able to meditate, for in this way he will make himself receptive to the manifestations of nitrogen. If one does become receptive in this way, one begins to practise Agriculture in quite a different way and spirit. One suddenly gets all kinds of new ideas; they simply come, and one then has many secrets in large estates and smaller farms.

I do not wish to repeat what I said an hour ago, but I can describe it in another way. Take the case ox a peasant who walks through his fields. The scientist regards him as unlearned and stupid. But this is not so, simply because—forgive me but I speak the truth—simply because instinctively a peasant is given to meditation. He ponders much throughout the long winter nights. He acquires a kind of spiritual knowledge, as it were, only he cannot express it.. He walks through his fields and suddenly he knows something; later he tries it out. At any rate this is what I found over and over again in my youth when I lived among peasant folk. The mere intellect will not be enough, it does not lead us deep enough. For after all Nature's life and weaving is so fine and delicate that the net of intellectual concepts—and this is where science has erred of recent years—has too large a mesh to catch it.

Now all these substances of which I have spoken, Sulphur, Carbon, Nitrogen, Hydrogen are united in albumen. This will enable us to see more clearly into the nature of seed formation. Whenever carbon, hydrogen and nitrogen are present in leaf, blossom, calyx or root they are always united to other substances in some form or other. They are dependent upon these other substances. There are only two ways in which they can become independent. One is when the hydrogen carries all individual substances out into the expanses of the Cosmos and dissolves them into the general chaos; and the other is when the hydrogen drives the basic element of the protein (for albumen) into the seed formation and there makes them independent of each other so that they become receptive of the influences of the Cosmos. In the tiny seed, there is chaos, and in the wide periphery of the Cosmos there is another chaos, and whenever the chaos at the periphery works upon the chaos within the seed, new life comes into being.

Now look how these so-called substances, which are really bearers of spirit, work in the realm of Nature. Again, we may say that the oxygen and nitrogen inside man's body behave themselves, in an ordinary way, for within man's body they manifest their normal qualities. Ordinary science ignores it, because the process is hidden. But the ultimate products of carbon and hydrogen cannot behave in so normal a fashion as do oxygen and nitrogen. Let us take carbon first. When the carbon, active in the plant realm enters the realms of animals and man, it must become mobile—at least transiently. And in order to build up the fixed shape of the organism it must attach itself to an underlying framework. This is provided on the one hand by our deeply laid skeleton consisting of limestone, and on the other hand by the siliceous-element which we always carry in our bodies; so that both in man and in the animals carbon to a certain extent masks its own formative force. It climbs up. as it were, along the lines of formative forces of limestone and silicon. Limestone endows it with the earthly formative power, silicon with the cosmic. In man and the animals carbon does not, as it were, claim sole authority for itself, but adheres to what is formed by lime and silicon.

But lime and silicon are also the basis of the growth of plants. We must therefore learn to know the activities of carbon in the breathing, digestive and circulatory processes of man in relation to his bony and siliceous structure—as though we could, as it were, creep into the body and see how the formative force of carbon in the circulation radiates into the limestone and silicon. And we must unfold this same kind of vision when we look upon a piece of ground covered with flowers having limestone and silicon beneath them. Into man we cannot creep; but here at any rate we can see what is going on. Here we can develop the necessary knowledge. We can see how the oxygen element is caught up by the nitrogen element and carried down into the carbon element, but only in so far as the latter adheres to the lime and silicon structure. We can even say that carbon is only the mediator. Or we can say that what lives in the environment is kindled to life in oxygen and must be carried into the earth by means of nitrogen, where it can follow the form provided by the limestone and silicon. Those who have any sensitiveness for these things can observe this process at work most wonderfully in all papilionaceous plants (Leguminosae), that is, m all the plants which in Agriculture may be called collectors of nitrogen, and whose special function it is to attract nitrogen and hand it on to what lies below them. For down in the earth under those leguminosae there is something that thirsts for nitrogen as the lungs of man thirst for oxygen—and that is lime. It is ä necessity for the lime under the earth that it should breathe in nitrogen just as the human lungs need oxygen. And in the papilionaceous plants a process takes place similar to that which is carried out. By the epitheliumfissue in our lungs lining the bronchial tubes. There is a kind of in-breathing which leads nitrogen down. And these are the only plants that do this. All other plants are closer to exhalation. Thus, the whole organism of the plant-world is divided into two when we look at the nitrogen-breathing. All papilionacae are, as it were., the air passages. Other plants represent the other organs in which breaching goes in a more secret way and whose real task is to fulfil some function. We must learn to look upon each species of plant as placed within a great whole, the organism of the plant-world, just as each human organ is placed within the whole human organism. We must come to regard the different plants as part of a great whole, then we shall see the immense importance of these Papilionacae. True, science knows something of this already, but it is necessary that we should gam knowledge of them from these spiritual foundations, otherwise there is a danger, as tradition fades more and more during the decades, that we shall stray into false paths in applying scientific knowledge. We can see how these papilionacae actually function. They have all the characteristics of keeping their fruit process which in other plants tends to be higher up in the region of their leaves. They all want to bear fruit before they have flowered. The reason is that these plants develop the process allied to nitrogen far nearer to the earth {they actually carry nitrogen down into the soil) than do the other plants, which unfold this process at a greater distance from the surface of the earth. These plants have also the tendency to colour their leaves, not with the ordinary green, hut with a rather darker shade. The actual fruit, moreover, undergoes a kind of atrophy, the seed remains capable of germinating for a short time only and then becomes barren. Indeed, these plants are so organised as to bring to special perfection what the plant-world receives from Winter and not from Summer. They have, therefore, a tendency to wait for Winter. They want to wait with what they are developing for the Winter. Their growth is delayed when they have a sufficient supply of what they need, namely, nitrogen from the air which they can convey below in their own manner. In this way one can get insight into the becoming and living which goes in and above the soil.

If in addition you take into account the fact that lime has a wonderful relationship with the world of human desires, you will see how alive and organic the whole thing becomes. In its elemental form as calcium, lime is never at rest; it seeks and experiences itself; it tries to become quick-lime, i.e. to unite with oxygen. But even then, it is not content; it longs to absorb the whole range of metallic acids, even including bitumen, which is not really a mineral. Hidden in the earth, lime develops the longing to attract everything to itself. It develops in the soil what is almost a desire-nature. It is possible, if one has the right feeling in these matters, to sense the difference between it and other substances, lime fairly sucks one dry. One feels that it has a thoroughly greedy nature and that wherever it is, it seeks to draw to itself also the plant-element. For indeed everything that limestone wants lives in plants, and it must continually turn away from the lime. What does this? It is done by the supremely aristocratic element which asks for nothing but relies upon itself. For there is such an aristocratic substance. It is silicon. People are mistaken in thinking that silicon is only present where it shows its firm rock-like outline. Silicon is distributed everywhere in homeopathic doses. It is at rest and makes no claim on anything else. Lime lays claim to everything, silicon to nothing. Silicon thus resembles our sense-organs which do not perceive themselves but which perceive the external world. Silicon is the general external sense-organ of the earth_? lime the representing general which desires; clay mediates between the two. Clay is slightly closer to silicon, and yet it acts as a mediator with lime. Now one should understand this in order to acquire a knowledge supported by feeling. One should feel about lime that it is a fellow fall of desires, who wants to grab things for himself; and about silicon that it is a very superior aristocrat who becomes what the lime has grabbed, carries it up into the atmosphere, and develops the plant-forms. There dwells the silicon, either entrenched m his moated castle, as in the horse-tail (equisetum), or distributed everywhere in fine homeopathic doses, where he endeavours to take away what the lime has attached. Once again, we realise that we are in the presence of an extremely subtle process of Nature.

Carbon is the really formative element in all plants; it builds up the framework. But in the course of the earth's development its task has been rendered more difficult. Carbon could give form to all plants as long as there was water below it. Then everything would have grown. But since a certain period, lime has been formed underneath, and lime disturbs the work, and because the opposition of the limestone had to be overcome, carbon allies itself to silicon and both together, in combination with clay, they once again start on their formative work.

How, in the midst of all this, does the life of a plant go on? Below is the limestone trying to seize it with its tentacles, above is the silicon which wants to make it as long and thin as the tenuous water-plants. But in the midst of them is carbon which creates the actual plant-forms and brings order into everything. And just as our astral body brings about a balance between our ego and etheric body, so nitrogen works in between, as the astral element.

This is what we must learn to understand—how nitrogen manages things between lime, clay and silicon, and also between what the lime is always longing for below, and what silicon seeks always to radiate upwards. In this way the practical question arises: What is the correct way of introducing nitrogen into the plant-world? This is the question which will occupy us tomorrow and which will lead us over to deal with the different methods of manuring the ground.

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).

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.

Discussion

QUESTION: Should the dilution be continued in arithmetical progression?

ANSWER: Certain experiments must be made in this connection. The probability is that as the area increases, larger quantities of water and proportionately fewer cow-horns will be required. So that with a comparatively small number of the latter it is possible to fertilise large areas. We had twenty-five cow-horns and these served for a fairly large garden. We took one horn to half a bucket of water. Then we began again with a whole bucket to two horns. For the remaining area, which was somewhat larger we took seven horns to seven buckets.

QUESTION: In stirring the manure for large areas can one use a mechanical stirrer or is this not permitted?

ANSWER: Here, of course, it is a question either of adhering strictly to stirring by hand_? or else of gradually slipping into all kinds of substitutes. There is no doubt that stirring by hand is something quite different from mechanical stirring. Prom a mechanistic point of view this would not be conceded, but just consider all the delicate movements, even the sensations that are imparted by the hand, and ask yourselves whether this could be conveyed into the mixture by a mere machine. Not many people believe in this difference, and yet it has been noted in medicine. Believe me, it is not—immaterial whether a medical remedy has been prepared by hand or not. Man imparts something to the things he handles and works upon. I hold this to be particularly true of the Ritter remedies with which some of you are acquainted. As you know, some people are loud in their praises of these remedies while others declare that they have no particular effect. They certainly do produce an effect, but I am firmly convinced that if these medicines were marketed generally in the usual way they would lose something essential from their effect, because it matters very much that the doctor should be in possession of them and hand them directly to the patient. When the act of giving the medicine takes place within this limited circle, the doctor brings to it a certain enthusiasm. Now, you will tell me that enthusiasm carries no weight. True it cannot be weighed. But it vibrates into the remedy. Light acts strongly upon these remedies. Why should not enthusiasm work upon them? The Ritter remedies are particularly powerful in this way. Enthusiasm can do wonders. If. however, the thing is done merely then the effect will gradually wear off. This is the difference “between what emanates from the human hand (and a very great deal emanates from the human hand) and what comes out of a machine. Besides, one could come to find so much enjoyment in stirring this cow horn mixture that after a time one would cease to think about machines for mixing. It should come to be a light and pleasant job for a Sunday afternoon instead of dessert and if you have invited plenty of friends you will get the most splendid results.

QUESTION: The distribution of half a bucket of water over an area of a third of an acre will surely be a little difficult. If the number of cow-horns is increased, the difficulty of handling will be increased not in the same ratio but at a greater rate. This will make the distribution more difficult. Is it permitted to add more water or should the ratio of half a bucket to each cow-horn be retained? Must you take half a bucketful for an area of a third of an acre?

ANSWER: It is possible to do this. But then I think the method of stirring would have to be changed. After stirring one cow-horn in half a bucket of water, you can dilute the mixture with more water, but then you must stir again. I think, however, it would be better to calculate how much less than one cow-hornful is needed for half a bucket of water. The great thing is that the ingredients should be thoroughly mixed, and for this it is not enough simply to pour the mixture into more water. If the mixture is still thick and has not been thoroughly stirred into the water, no real interpenetration can take place. In the case you mention I think it would be better to mix the half bucket of water with less than one cow-hornful.

QUESTION: If the liquid still contains solid parts, could it be strained so as to be more readily distributed with a spray?

ANSWER: I do not think that will be found to be necessary. If properly stirred the mixture will be more or less milky and there will be no need to trouble about the presence in it of any solid particle. It can easily be sprayed. Plain cow manure is the best but I do not /' think one need bother to strain it. The chances are that solid particles that may be present will do no harm and may even do good, since as the result of the concentration and subsequent dilution what works is not the substance itself, but its dynamic radiation. You need not fear that because of a solid particle in the mixture your potato plants will bear long halms with nothing on them.

QUESTION: I was only thinking about the use of the spraying apparatus.

ANSWER: Yes, it can be strained. It will do no harm. One could contrive a filter on the spray.

QUESTION: Should the substance taken from the horn be weighed in order to get at the right proportion? Is the bucket you speak of a Swiss pail [i.e. approximately 9 litres—2 gallons.]) or a litre measure?

ANSWER: I took a Swiss milking-pail. The whole experiment was carried out with just whatever one had before one at the moment. It should now be worked out in relation to weights and measures.

QUESTION: Can the horns be used several times, or must they always come from freshly slaughtered animals?

ANSWER: We did not put this to the test, but my impression is that they could be used three or four times in succession, but that after that they would not work so well. It-is just possible that under certain circumstances if the horns, after being used for three or four years, were placed for a time in a cow-stable they might serve for another year. But I do not know, however, how many cow-horns one may have at one's disposal on a farm, so I can make no definite pronouncement on the question.

QUESTION: Where can one procure the cow-horns? Should they come from districts in Eastern or in Central Europe?

ANSWER: It does not matter where they come from so long as they are fresh and are not taken from the waste dump. The curious fact remains, however, that—paradoxical though it may sound—life on the western part of the globe is quite different from life on the Eastern part. Life in Europe, Africa and Asia is not the same as life in America. It may therefore be that in certain circumstances, the horns of American cattle need different treatment in order to be effective. The mixture made in these horns might have to be somewhat thicker, more condensed. The best of all is to take horns from the district in which one is working. There is a powerful relation between the forces in the horns taken from a district and the other forces at work in this district. The forces of foreign horns might work against the things in the home soil. It must also be borne in mind that cows which supply the horns very often do not originally come from the district in question. But this difficulty can be got over. If the cow has fed on a particular soil for three or four years, i.e. has lived in it, it belongs to that soil unless it originally came from the West.

QUESTION: How old should the horns be? Should they come from an old or from a young animal?

ANSWER: This is a matter which will have to be ^tested, but my impression is that the best horns are those taken from an animal midway between youth and old age.

QUESTION: How big should the horns be?

ANSWER: (Dr. Steiner drew the size on the blackboard.) About 12 to 16 inches, i.e. the usual size in cattle from the Allgäu district.

QUESTION: Does it matter whether the horn is taken from a castrated ox (bullock) or from a male or female animal?

ANSWER: It is highly probable that with an ox's horn the method would not work at all and that with a bull the effect would be relatively weak. That is why I have always spoken of cows' horns and a cow is generally a female!

QUESTION: What is the best time for sowing cereals?

ANSWER: The answer to this question will come out when I come to the sowing of crops. The time of sowing, of course, plays a very important part, and very different results are obtained according as to whether it takes place at a lesser or a greater distance of time from the winter months. If you sow at a short period of time from the winter months you will get crops with great powers of reproduction, if at a longer distance, you will get crops rich in nutritive value.

QUESTION: Can the cow-horn manure be distributed with sand? Has rain any significance in this connection?

ANSWER: One can certainly use sand. We did not try it, but there is no reason against using it. With regard to the effect of rain, this is something which only further research can establish. We may assume,¹ however, that rain produces no change and may even strengthen the effect of the manure. On the other hand, the forces in the preparations are so highly, concentrated that one might easily imagine the impact of a falling rain-drop causing them to be dissipated. The action in question is a very delicate one and all this must be taken into account. There is no objection to spreading the cow-manure with the help of sand.

QUESTION: In storing the cow-horns and their contents, how are harmful influences to be kept away?

ANSWER: As a general rule more harm is done by trying to keep harmful influences away than by leaving them alone. Take for instance the modern craze for disinfecting, which in all spheres has been carried much too far. In the case of our own medical remedies, for example, it was found that if every possibility of their becoming mildewed were to be averted, methods had to be employed which actually reduced the healing power of the remedies. Now I do not pay much regard to these tiny crusts which people consider harmful. They do not do so very much harm. Instead of combating them with methods of drastic cleanliness, it is much better to leave them alone. We used to cover up the horns with pigs' bladders to prevent the earth from getting into them. I do not recommend any special cleaning of the horns. We must, remember that dirt is not always “dirt.” If you cover your face with a fine coating of gold, the gold will be “dirt.” Real dirt on the other hand can sometimes act as a preservative.

QUESTION: Should we take any special measures to strengthen the tendency of the seed to be “driven into chaos?”

ANSWER: One can strengthen it but there is no need to do so, because if seed-formation comes about at all then there is always a maximum of “chaos.” It therefore does not need to be strengthened. Any necessary strengthening must be done to the manure; but it is not necessary for the seed formation. We could, of course, do something by making the soil more siliceous. For it is through silica that the cosmic forces work which have been absorbed into the earth. One could do it in this way, but I do not think that it is necessary.

QUESTION: How large should the areas be on which the experiment is made? Would it be necessary to do something to preserve the cosmic forces until the new plant comes forth?

ANSWER: For these experiments, it is relatively easier to lay down the broad lines to be followed. The actual proportions will have to be worked out in individual cases. In answer to this question I suggest the following experiment. Let us plant two experimental beds with wheat and sainfoin respectively. Then, if silica has been added to the soil, you will be able to observe that the wheat (a plant whose natural and permanent tendency it is to produce seed) is being hampered in its seed formation. In the case of the sainfoin you will also see that the seed formation is either completely suppressed or is retarded. In such “experiments you can always take the effects on the cereal as the basis for comparison with the corresponding effects on sainfoin as representing leguminous plants. In this way, very interesting experiments can be made in seed-formation.

QUESTION: Does it matter how soon the diluted substance is used on the fields?

ANSWER: Indeed it does. The cow-horns can usually be left in the ground till they are wanted, even if this means leaving them all the winter. If, however, they have to be kept on into a part of the summer after they have been there all the winter, we should have to put them into a wooden box padded with peat-moss so as to

retain the strong concentration of the substance. But in no circumstances should any dilution of the preparation be kept in hand. The stirring must take place not very long before it is used.

QUESTION: In dealing with winter crops should one use the horns three months after they have been taken out of the ground?

ANSWER: On the whole, it is best to leave them in the ground until one uses them. If they are to be used in early Autumn, they should be left in the ground till the moment when they are wanted. The. manure will not suffer through this.

QUESTION: Is there no danger that in using a very fine spray the atomising of the liquid will cause the loss of the etheric and astral forces?

ANSWER: By no means. These forces are very closely bound up with tne liquid and in general it may be said that there is less danger of the spiritual escaping from us than the material.

QUESTION: How should the cow-horns containing the mineral preparation be treated when they have been in the ground all through the summer?

ANSWER: It will not hurt them to take them out and keep them wherever you like. So long as they have “summered” in the ground, you can even throw them out in a heap anywhere you like, and even let the sun shine on them. This may even do them good.

QUESTION: Should the horns be buried at the spot which is later on to be manured, or can they be buried all together in any other spot?

ANSWER: It will make so little difference that it is not worth considering. The best way is to choose a spot where the soil is fairly good, i.e. not too mineral in content but having some humus, and bury in one place all the horns that will be needed.

QUESTION: What is your opinion of' the use of machines in farming? Some people say that machines should not be used.

ANSWER: This is a question which cannot be answered from a purely agricultural standpoint. There can be no doubt that in our present social life, conditions being what they are, to ask whether one should use machines is rather out of date. No farmer nowadays can dispense with machines. Of course, not all the activities on a farm are as akin to the most intimate processes of Nature as is the act of stirring which we have been discussing. And just as it would be impossible to obtain this intimate contact by purely mechanical means, so in other matters too Nature sees to it that where machines are unsuitable, one cannot achieve much with them. In seed-formation, for instance, machines cannot help much as this is done by Nature itself. One cannot, of course, do without machines today, but I would point out that in farming there is no need to become “machine mad” and always get the latest machinery. Anyone who does so will probably be far less successful in his farming than if he had gone on using his old machine until it was no longer of any use. These, however, are questions that do not strictly belong only to agriculture.

QUESTION: Can the given quantity of cow horn manure diluted with water be used for half the area for which it was intended?

ANSWER: In that case, you will get a growth which is luxuriant, i.e. the same result which I mentioned before in another connection. In the case of potatoes, for example, the growth would become rank, the stems would spread too far and the tubers would remain small; there would be what are generally known as “rank patches,” if you apply too much of the substance.

QUESTION: What about plants intended for food where a luxuriant growth is wanted, e.g. spinach?

ANSWER: Even in this case I think we should only use the half bucket of water to one cow-horn. We did so for an area which, as it happened, was used as a vegetable garden. This is the optimum. Where larger areas are put under one plant a much smaller proportion (of horn to water) will be required.

QUESTION: Is it immaterial which sort of manure is used, whether from cows, horses or sheep?

ANSWER: For this particular procedure cow-dung is undoubtedly the best. But it is worth enquiring into the question of the use of horse-dung. If one did use horse-dung one would have to wind some hair from the horse's mane around the horns. The horse has no horns, but the force that resides in its mane could be brought into activity in this way.

QUESTION: Should the spraying be carried out before or after the seed is sown?

ANSWER: The right way is to do it before the sowing of the seed. Actually, we are waiting to see what difference it makes, because this year we started rather late and a certain amount was done after the sowing. We shall see, therefore, whether this has any ill-effects. But the obvious thing is to do it before the seed is sown, so as to reach the soil first.

QUESTION: Can the cow-horns used for manure also be used for the mineral preparation?

ANSWER: They can, but not more than three or four times. After that they lose their power.

QUESTION: Does it matter what persons carry out this work, or can it be done by anybody?

ANSWER: That, of course, is a question, though one which will nowadays bring a smile to the lips of many who hear it asked. Let me remind you of the fact that flowers in window-boxes will flourish under the care of some people while with others they wither and die. These are simple facts. These things that are seen to be due to human influence, though they are outwardly inexplicable are yet inwardly clear and transparent. Moreover, they will come about as a result of Meditation—when the human being prepares himself through his meditative life as I explained yesterday. When we meditate we enter into a new relationship with the nitrogen, the substance which contains the “Imaginations.” We enter upon a state in which such things can become operative; upon a state in which we confront quite differently the whole world of plant-growth. Such effects are not so obvious today as they were in the past when these things were recognised. For there were times when people knew that by a certain inner attitude they actually fitted themselves for the care of the growth of plants. Nowadays these delicate and subtle influences are overlooked, the presence of other people disturbs them, as is bound to happen when one is constantly moving about among people who disregard such things. This is why it is so easy to refute their existence. I therefore hesitate to talk freely of such. thing's before a large audience, because they can so easily be refuted on the basis of the present conditions of daily life. A particularly ticklish question was raised in the discussion we had the other day as to whether parasites could be combated in this way, i.e. by methods of mental concentration and the like. There is no doubt that if one sets about it in the right way one can do such things. The period lying between the middle of January and the middle of February is that in which the forces which have been concentrated inside the earth are most powerfully unfolded. If we were to set this period aside as it were as a festal season and undertook these acts of concentration, then we should be able to bring about' such effects. As I said, it is a ticklish question, but a question which does admit of a positive answer. But thi3 activity must be undertaken in harmony with the whole of Nature. One must realise that it makes all the difference whether an exercise of concentration is carried out in mid-winter or in midsummer. We get hints of this in many popular sayings. Among the many things, which, as a young man, I proposed to do in my present incarnation, was the writing of a so-called “Peasant Philosophy,” which would describe the conception the peasants have or all the things that touch their lives. Such a book could have been a very beautiful work, and could have refuted the charge of stupidity often levelled against the peasant. A wonderful and subtle wisdom would have emerged, a sublime philosophy which, even in the words that it has coined, would “bear witness to the most intimate contact with the life of Nature. One is amazed to find how much the peasant knows of what is actually going on in Nature. It is no longer possible today to write such a “Peasant Philosophy”—too much of the real thing has been lost. Forty or fifty years ago this was not so, for in those days there was far more to be learned from the peasantry than from the Universities. Things were different then; one lived with the peasants on the land, and if those who wore broad-brimmed hats, who introduced the present socialistic movement, did come along, they were looked upon as oddities. The younger members of my audience can have no conception of how greatly the world has changed during the last thirty or forty years. So much has been lost of the beautiful folk dialects, and even of the genuine peasant philosophy, which was m a sense a cultural philosophy. Even in the peasants* calendars there were things which one can no longer find in them. Moreover, they looked different; there was something homely about them, I remember one, printed on very poor paper but with the signs of the planets done in colours and with a small sweet stuck on the cover, which the owner could lick before he opened the book. This made the book tasty and of course the people used it after one another.

QUESTION: Where large areas are to be manured should one simply go by one's feelings in judging of the number of cow-horns to be used.

ANSWER: I would not recommend this. In such cases one must use one's common sense. My advice would be this. First go by your feelings, and once you have obtained satisfactory results begin to tabulate them in figures which can then be used by other people. I would also advise anyone who has a natural gift for judging by his feelings to do so. but when talking to other people he should not decry the value of the figures he has tabulated. As a matter of fact all these things should be translated into exact calculations. This is really necessary nowadays. We need cow-horns to carry out this work but not “bull-headed” people to advocate the methods. This is just what may easily bring us up against a certain amount of opposition, and I would therefore advise you in this case to adjust yourselves to current thought.

QUESTION: Can quick-lime be used in a compost heap in the proportions usually prescribed?

ANSWER: The old method will have very good results, but requires the following qualification. In sandy soil one needs rather less quick-lime, in marshy ground rather more because of the formation of oxygen.

QUESTION: What about digging up and turning over the compost heap?

ANSWER: This will certainly do it no harm. But, of course, after doing so you must cover it up again with

a layer of earth. Peat or peat-mould is particularly good as a protection.

QUESTION: What kind of potash is it which can be used during the transition from old methods to the new?

ANSWER: Potash of magnesium (Kali magnesia).

QUESTION: What is the best use which can be made of the manure which is left over after the horns have been filled? Should it be put on the fields in the autumn so as to be there to go through the “winter-experience,” or should it be kept till the spring?

ANSWER: I must make it clear that this method of manuring with cow-horns is not a complete substitute for ordinary manuring. It must be regarded as an extra which enhances the action of the ordinary manure, which continues to be used as before.

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.

Discussion

QUESTION: In speaking of the bladder of a wild deer do you mean that of the male deer (stag)?

ANSWER: Yes, I meant the male deer.

QUESTION: Did you mean the annual or the perennial nettle?

ANSWER: Uritica dioica.

QUESTION: Is it advisable to roof in the manure yard in districts where there is a great deal of rain?

ANSWER: The manure should be able to stand the normal amount of rain. On the other hand, to be completely without rain does it no good, and to be soaked in it is equally harmful. One cannot make any general pronouncement on this matter. On the whole rainwater is good for the manure.

QUESTION: Should one not have roofed-in sheds for manure in order not to lose the liquid manure?

ANSWER: In a certain sense rainwater is necessary to the manure. It might possibly be good to keep the rain off by spreading peat-moss over it. But there is no object in keeping the rain off completely. The manure would only suffer.

QUESTION: Does this method of manuring stimulate the growth of useful plants and of weeds to the same degrees and must special methods be adopted to destroy the weeds?

ANSWER: This question is a very reasonable one. I shall be speaking of weeds and ways of attacking them during the next few days. The method of manuring I have described is favourable to plant growth in general and will not help to remove weeds. But the plants that have benefited by it are better able to resist parasites and pests, being supplied, as it were, with a remedy against them. Weed control has not been covered by what we have been discussing so far. The weed shares in the general growth of plants. We shall have more to say about this later. All these things are so connected that it is not good to take any one of them separately.

QUESTION: What is your view of Captain Krantz's method? By piling up the manure in loose layers and thus causing it to produce its own warmth he has succeeded in making it odourless.

ANSWER: I have purposely abstained from speaking of methods which have been developed on rational lines. I preferred to relate what Spiritual Science can give as an improvement of such methods. The method you mention certainly has a great many advantages. But it is relatively new, it has not been tried for long, and I think one may suspect that it is one of those methods which are a great success at first, but which in the course of time are found to be not so practical as had been expected. At first, while the soil still has its “tradition” so to speak, anything can serve to freshen it up. But if you go on too long, the same thing happens as with medical remedies. Any remedy, even the most unlikely, may help the first time it enters an organism! but after a time it ceases to work. With such a method, also it takes some time before one discovers that it does not work so well as one had originally believed it would. The important thing is the generation of heat in the manure, for the activity thus called into play is highly beneficial to the manure. The loose piling up of the manure may prove a drawback to the method, and—well; I am not convinced that it really loses its smell. If it does it would be a good system. But the method has not been tried out over a period of many years.

QUESTION: Is it not better to store the manure above ground rather than sink it into the earth?

ANSWER: In principle, it is right that the manure heap should be placed as high as possible. But the place chosen should not be too high, because the manure must remain in the appropriate relation to the forces that are under the earth. The manure should not be placed on a hillock; but if it be piled up at the earth-level, that will be the most satisfactory position.

QUESTION: Can the same compost methods be applied to the vine which has suffered so much recently?

ANSWER: It can, with a few modifications. When I come to speak of fruit and vine cultivation I shall mention these. But what I have said today holds good in general as an improvement of any kind of manuring. I shall' deal later on with the special cases of meadow, pasture, or cereals and fruit and vine cultivation.

QUESTION: Should the foundation of the manure heap be paved?

ANSWER: If we go by what we know of the whole structure of the earth and of its relation to manure, we do mischief if we pave the manure area. If we do so we ought really to limit the paving to a: ring outside the manure area, so as to allow for the interaction between the earth and the manure. We spoil the manure if we separate it from the earth.

QUESTION: Does it make any difference whether the soil underneath is 3and or clay? Often people put a ground layer of clay where the manure is to be, so as to make the ground impervious.

ANSWER: It is quite true that different kinds of soil have a definite influence which proceeds from the particular qualities of the soil in question. A sandy soil does not retain water; it is therefore necessary to put some clay with it before laying the manure on it. If, on the other hand, you have a clay soil, you should break it up and strew sand over it. A middle course would be to have alternate layers of sand and clay. Then you have the earth consistency as well as the watery influences. Without this combination of the two kinds of soil the water will percolate away. For the same reason, loose soil should certainly not be used as a foundation for the manure heap as it would have no value for the manure placed over it| in this case it is better to make your own foundation.

QUESTION: With regard to the growing of the remedial plants you have mentioned, is it possible to introduce a plant into a district where it did not previously grow, simply by sowing? In cattle-farming the Greenland Society have generally supposed that yarrow and dandelion were dangerous to cattle and the Society do their best to keep their pasture-land free from them. We are engaged upon this very task at the moment. And the same with the thistle. Should we now sow them round our arable fields but not on our meadows and pasture land?

ANSWER: (Question by Dr. Steiner) Well—in what way did you suppose these plants to be harmful to cattle?

ANSWER: (Count Keyserlingk): Yarrow is said to contain poisonous substances, and dandelion to be unsuitable for cattle food. ,

ANSWER: (Dr. Steiner): This should be watched. In the open field, you will not find an animal eating what is harmful.

COUNT LERCHENFELD: With us the reverse is the case. The dandelion is looked upon &ä an excellent milk-producer.

ANSWER: These views are very often only the prevailing opinions and nothing more. Nobody knows whether they have been tried out. It is possible for there to be

something harmful among the hay, but I believe that in that case the animal would leave the hay untouched. An animal will not eat what is not good for it.

QUESTION: Has not yarrow been largely removed by large doses of lime? It surely requires a moist and acid soil?

ANSWER: If you want to have yarrow growing wild then a very small quantity properly spread out will suffice for a large farm. This is the sort of homeopathic use I meant. If we had a little yarrow growing wild in the garden here there would be enough for the whole estate.

QUESTION: I have noticed that on my meadows the cattle enjoy eating the dandelion shortly before it flowers, but cease taking it once it had begun to flower.

ANSWER: You must remember the following: this is the general rule. You must remember that an animal has an exceptionally fine instinct for what is good for it and may be trusted not to eat dandelions if they will do it harm. There is also another thing to remember. When preparing a product for a particular purpose we often use an ingredient which we would not eat by itself. For example, we use yeast to bake our bread for daily consumption. But no one would dream of eating yeast every day. What can even act as a poison when consumed in large doses can in other circumstances have the most beneficial effects. After all, medicines are usually poisonous. The important thing is the process not the substance. I think we may take it that the view that dandelions are harmful to animals can readily be dismissed. These contradictory opinions are strange. It is a curious thing to hear emphasis being laid upon the harmfulness of the dandelion when at the same time, Count Lerchenfeld talks of it as the best promoter of milk to be found. In districts lying so close to one another, the effects cannot be so very different. One of the two conflicting views must be wrong.

QUESTION: Perhaps the sub-soil is the decisive factor. My statement was based on veterinary observations. Should one then deliberately plant yarrow and dandelion in meadow and pasture land?

ANSWER: Quite a small area is sufficient.

QUESTION: Does it depend upon how long the preparations should be kept with the -manure after they have been taken out of the earth?

ANSWER: Once they are mixed with the manure it is meaningless to ask how long they should be kept with it. But it should all have been done before the manure is spread on the fields.

QUESTION: Should the various manure preparations (in cow-horn, “sausage” etc.) be buried together, or each separately?

ANSWER: A certain importance attaches to this because one preparation should not disturb the other while this reciprocal action is going on. If I were working a small farm, I should look for the most widely separated points on its. boundaries and bury the preparations at the greatest possible distances from each other in order to prevent any one of them disturbing the other. On a large estate, you can quite easily choose suitable sites.

QUESTION: Can the earth above the buried preparations be allowed to grow anything?

ANSWER: The earth can do what it likes. As a matter of fact, it is quite a good thing for something, even cultivated plants, to be grown on the covering earth.

ANSWER: I recommend the following procedure:” where the manure heap is a large one, bore a hole about ten inches deep into it and place the preparation inside it so that the manure closes around it. The exact measurement does not matter. The important thing is that the preparation should be completely shut in by the manure. The whole thing depends upon radiation (see Diag. 20). If this is the manure heap and this is a little of the preparation, then the radiations go so. If it is too near the surface, it will not be so good. At the surface the streams of force are deflected and take on a particular curve. They do not leave the heap. A depth of 20 inches will do. If it is too near to the surface it will lose a considerable part of the rays of force.

QUESTION: Should the holes be made close together at one place, or should they be evenly spaced around the heap?

ANSWER: It is better to space them out, not to make all the holes in one place. Otherwise the streams of force disturb each other.

QUESTION: Should all the preparations be put into the manure heap at the same time?

ANSWER: When the preparations are being put into a manure heap they can be placed side by side. They do not influence each other, but only the manure as such.

QUESTION: Can the preparations all be put into one hole?

ANSWER: Theoretically it ought to be possible to do this without their disturbing each other. I could not, however, guarantee beforehand that no disturbance would take place. I would therefore suggest that the preparations be placed in proximity to each other but not actually in one hole.

QUESTION: What kind of oak had you in mind?

ANSWER: Quercus robur.

QUESTION: Should the bark used be taken from a living tree or from one that has been cut down?

ANSWER: If possible from a living tree, and even from one in which the resin may be presumed to be still fairly active.

QUESTION: Should the whole of the bark be used?

ANSWER: Actually, only the upper layer, the part which crumbles as one' picks it off.

QUESTION: In burying the manure-preparations should one go no deeper than the cultivated spit or should the cow-horns be buried deeper?

ANSWER: It is best to leave them in the cultivated spit. There is even reason to think that if put into the sub-soil the material would not be so fruitful. It must also be considered that should the cultivated spit extend further down than is usual, that would provide the best possible conditions. Look, therefore, for a place where the cultivated depth is as thick as possible, but remember that below it no useful effect can arise.

QUESTION: In the cultivated spit the preparation would always be exposed to frost. Would this do any harm?

ANSWER: The time when it was exposed to frost would be the time when the earth was exposed through this very frost, to the most powerful cosmic influences.

QUESTION: How does one grind quartz and silica? In a small hand-mill, or in a mortar?

ANSWER: The best method is first to grind it to a fine powder in an iron mortar and you will need too, an iron pestle. In the case of quartz, the process must be continued on a glass surface. For the powder must be very fine, and this is difficult to obtain with quartz.

QUESTION: The experience of farmers shows that when a beast is well fed the substances which were lacking in its body increase. There must therefore be a relation between feeding and the intake of nourishment out of the atmosphere.

ANSWER: Remember what I said. I said: The essential thing about nourishment is that forces should be developed in the body. Whether the animal develops enough forces to enable it to take in and transform the substances in the atmosphere depends upon whether it absorbs its food in the right way. To make a comparison. If you want to put on a close-fitting glove you don't do it by squeezing your fingers into it. You first enlarge the glove with a stretcher. In the same way, we must bring elasticity into those forces which are to take out of the atmosphere what is not produced by food. Through the food, the organism is stretched and thereby enabled to take in more of what it needs from the atmosphere. This may even lead to hypertrophy if too much food is taken in. This has to be paid for by a shortened life span. The middle course must be found between the maximum and minimum.

In the lectures that are to follow, I shall base myself to a great extent on what you have heard me say concerning plant growth and also animal structures. We shall have to attempt to put into aphoristic form some of the Spiritual Scientific conceptions concerning the enemies of agriculture, animal and vegetable, and which are called the diseases of plants. Now these matters can only be studied in concrete cases; they must be dealt with specifically; there is little that can be said in a general way.

I shall begin with examples, which, if they are taken as the starting-point of experiments, may lead on to something further. I shall begin with the subject of weeds or noxious plants. What we have to do is not so much to find a definition for what we mean by weeds, as to discover how to remove from a field such plants as we do not wish to have there. Some of us, perhaps, as a habit from our college days, may be inclined to seek for definitions. I have given way—although without much enthusiasm—to such an inclination and have looked up in various books the definitions given of a weed. I found that most authors say: “A weed is that which grows where it is not wanted;” which does not go very deeply into the essence of the matter. Nor can we very successfully apply such a definition to the essential nature of the weed, for the simple reason that before the tribunal of Nature the weed has just as much right to grow as plants that are useful to us. Clearly, we must approach the matter from a somewhat different angle. We must ask ourselves how in a particular stretch of ground we can get rid of what was not meant by us to grow there, but which nevertheless does so because of the general connections of Nature ruling there.

The answer to this question can only be found by taking account of those things which we have been discussing during the last few days. It was pointed out that we must learn to distinguish those forces which arise in the cosmos but are absorbed by the earth and work upon plant-growth from within the earth. These forces come from Mercury, Venus and Moon and act not directly, but through the mediation of the earth. They must be taken into account if we wish to follow up how

the mother-plant gives rise to a daughter-plant, and so on. On the other hand, we have to consider the forces taken by the plant from the outer-earthly, and brought to it by way of the atmosphere from the outer planets. Broadly speaking, we may say that the forces coming from the nearer planets (see Lectures 2 and 3) are very much influenced by the workings of lime in the soil, while those coming from the distant planets fall under the influence of silicon. And, in fact, workings of silicon, even though they proceed from the earth, act as mediators of the forces coming from Jupiter, Mars and Saturn, but not for those of Moon, Mercury and Venus. People are quite unaccustomed to take these things into account. Ignorance of the cosmic influences, whether they come through the atmosphere around the earth, or whether they come from below through the medium of the earth, has caused great harm. Let-us take a special case to illustrate this. The old instinctive knowledge had disappeared from large areas of the civilised world; the soil was exhausted, and such parts of the old traditions as the peasants had preserved was also worn out. And so the vineyards far and wide were decimated by Phylloxera (or grape-louse). Men were powerless to cope with the Phylloxera that was destroying the vineyards. I could tell you of an agricultural paper that used to be published in Vienna in the eighties. Appeals from all sides were made to the editor to supply some remedy for Phylloxera, but to his despair he knew of none and that at a time when the pestilence was most acute. For the science of today is not able to deal effectively with such evils as these; what is needed is an insight into the connections I have been expounding to you here.

Now I want you to imagine that Diagram No. 9 represents the earth level, where the influences of Venus, Mercury and Moon! I enter into the earth and stream again from below upwards. These are the forces which cause the plant to grow during the season, later produce the seed, and by means of this seed a new plant', a second plant, then yet a third and so on. (I indicate this schematically). All this goes into the power of reproduction and streams on into the succeeding generations. The forces, however, which take the other path, remaining above the earth level, come from the distant planets. I can draw this schematically in this way. These forces cause the plant either to spread into its surroundings or to become fat and juicy, to build matter into itself such as we can use for food because it is produced again and again in a continuous stream.

Take for example the flesh of fruit—an apple or a plum—which we can break off and eat; all this is due to the workings from the distant planets.

From this we are able to see how we must proceed if we are to influence plant-growth in one way or another. We have to take account of these two sets of forces. A large number of plants (and more especially those which we call weeds and which often have powerful healing properties) are particularly subject to the influence of the Moon. All that we know of the Moon in the ordinary way is that the rays of the sun fall upon it and are reflected back to the earth. The moon-rays which we see by taking them up with our eyes and which the Earth receives too are thus reflected sun-rays. And these reflected sun-rays come to the Earth charged with lunar forces; this is so ever since the Moon separated from the Earth. In the cosmos, these very lunar forces have a strengthening effect upon all that is earthly. When the Moon was still united to the Earth, the Earth was much more alive, much more fertile. Its substances were not yet so mineralised within it. But since the Moon has separated from the Earth, it strengthens those forces of the Earth which by themselves are just sufficient to produce growth on earth in such a way that growth is enhanced to reproduction. (When a being grows, it increases in size. Hence the same force is at work which leads to reproduction. But growth does not go so far as to produce another being of the same kind, it is merely that cell grows upon cell, a weaker kind of reproduction: whereas reproduction is an enhanced growth). The Earth can of its own strength be the mediator of this growth only—this weak kind of reproduction; without the Moon, it cannot control the enhanced growth. To achieve reproduction proper, it needs the cosmic forces of the Moon which shine into the Earth sphere and in the case of some plants, also those which come from Mercury and Venus.

As I said before, people look upon the Moon as simply reflecting the rays of the Sun, as transmitting solar light. But that is not the only thing which reaches the Earth. Together with the Moon's rays, the entire cosmos is reflected upon the Earth. (Everything that affects the Moon is reflected. And though this cannot be proved by the usual methods of physics, the whole of the starry heavens is in a sense reflected on to the Earth from the Moon). It is a powerful and strongly organising cosmic force which is poured down from the Moon into the plant and enables it to produce seed, thus enhancing its power to grow to the power to reproduce. But all this can only come about at any particular spot when the Moon is full. When the Moon is new, the area will not enjoy the benefits of lunar influence. During the new Moon, plants can do no more than retain what they took in at the time when the Moon was full. We should reach important enough results if we pursued the custom (known in ancient India and still maintained up to the nineteenth century) of observing the phases of the moon at seed-time and of making use of its effects upon the very earliest stages of germination. But Nature is not so cruel as to punish man for his inattention and discourtesy to the Moon at times of sowing and harvesting. We have a full Moon twelve times a year. This ensures that the influences of the full Moon, i.e., those which promote the formation of fruit, are there in sufficient strength. If something to be grown is placed in the soil at new Moon instead of at full Moon, it will wait until the Moon is again at the full, and, regardless of human error, work in accord with Nature. Thus, men make use of the moon without having the least idea that they are doing so.

But this alone does not help us any further. For, as things are, weeds claim the same rights as useful plants, and we get them all mixed up together because we do not understand the forces that regulate growth. We must try and enter into these forces. We shall then see that the fully developed strength of the Moon promotes the reproductive forces of all living plants, that it creates the force which pushes upwards through the plant from the root right on into the seed as it is being formed in the fruit. Now we shall get the best possible weeds if we allow the Moon to shed its full beneficence upon them, and do nothing to stop its influence. Furthermore, in wet years when the lunar forces are more active than in dry weather, the weeds will increase and multiply. If, however, we take these cosmic forces into our calculations we shall reason as follows:

If we can cut off (apply a tourniquet, as it were) the full influence of the Moon from the weeds, allowing only those influences to reach them which work directly from outside (i.e., non-lunar influences) we shall be able to set a limit to their propagation. For they will then not be able to reproduce themselves. Since, however, we cannot screen off the Moon, we shall have to treat the soil in such a way that it will be disinclined to absorb lunar influences. Moreover, the plants, these weeds, will then develop a certain reluctance to grow in soil that has been treated in this way. This will give us what we want.

We must boldly take the matter in hand. We must not be afraid, and this is how we must proceed. We collect a number of seeds of the particular weed in question, i.e., those parts which contain within themselves the final workings of the force of which I have been speaking. We light a flame—that of a simple wood fire is best—and burn the seeds, carefully collecting the ash, of which we accumulate a relatively small quantity in this way. But in the ashes of these seeds we have literally in concentrated form, the force that is the opposite of the force which was developed under the influence of the Moon. We then sprinkle the pepper-like preparations on our fields—we need not go very carefully to work for the influence spreads over a large area—and we shall see in the second year that there are far fewer of the weeds in question. After four years of this treatment, the weed will have completely disappeared from our field. In this way, the “Effects of smallest Entities,” which has been proved scientifically by the Biological Institute (at Stuttgart), is literally put to fruitful use.

A great many results are to be obtained in this way, as you will find out if you really take account of these influences, which are totally disregarded nowadays. For instance, in order to use the dandelion in the manner I outlined to you yesterday, you can plant a number of them anywhere. But you can at the same time make use of the dandelion seed for the production of this burnt pepper to be scattered on your fields. In this way, you will be able to plant dandelions wherever you like, but you will also ensure that the field that has been treated in this way with dandelion ash will be free of dandelions. All these things were contained in the old instinctive husbandry. In those days, one could put what plants one chose to grow together, because one went about it with a sort of instinctive wisdom. From what I have said, you can see that these things are the starting point of a really practical method. And since to-day the view—I will not call it the prejudice—obtains that everything must be verified, I urge you to put these things to the test. If you carry through the experiments properly, they will verify what I have said. If, however, I myself were working on a farm, I should not wait for proofs but go straight ahead, for I am sure that these things are practicable. I look at it in this way: the truths of Spiritual Science are true in themselves and require no verification from outside or by external methods. (The mistake of all our anthroposophical scientists has been that they adopted external methods of verification. They have done so even within the Anthroposophical Society, where they certainly ought to have known that things can be true in and through themselves. But if one wants to establish any results in public nowadays, one needs external verification: there the compromise is necessary. In actual fact, it is not necessary). For we know things inwardly, i.e., that they are true through their inner nature. For example: Suppose I put fifty persons to work in manufacturing a certain material. Now, if I want three times as much of the material made, I know quite well that I should need a hundred and fifty persons to get the job done. But a subtle person may come along and say: “I do not agree. You will have to put it to the test. You will have to try it out on a given piece of work, putting first one, then two, then three persons on it and establish how much they do.” Now if all three spend all their time chattering, they will do less work than one person. The assumption can turn out to be false, for scientific experiment has shown results that are opposed to the assumption. But the idea is not refuted, although the experiment has “proved” the contrary. To be really exact, the falsifying factors would have to be examined. Then what is inwardly true will also become outwardly established.

We, are able to proceed in a fairly general way as regards the noxious plants in our fields. But we cannot speak so generally when it comes to methods of controlling the noxious animals. I shall take an example which will be particularly characteristic and will enable you to make experiments and see how these things work out. Let us take an old friend of the farmer—the field-mouse. What efforts have not been made to combat this little creature? You can read in agricultural works of the use of preparations made of phosphorus or strychnine and saccharine'. Even the drastic remedy of infecting the field-mouse with typhus has been suggested, to be applied by mixing with mashed potatoes certain bacilli harmful only to rodents, the mixture being distributed as required. These things have been done, or at any rate they have been recommended. In any case, all sorts of rather inhuman methods have been tried in order to get rid of these quite pretty-looking little animals. Even the government has taken a hand in the struggle, because it is not of much use to fight the field-mouse on your own land if your neighbour is not going to follow suit. Otherwise the mice simply come across from the adjacent fields. The government had therefore to be called in, in order to compel everyone to get rid of their field mice by the same method. Governments do not like exceptions. When a government selects a method which it thinks the right one (regardless of whether it is or not) it issues its instructions, and these have to be followed by every farmer. All this is simply proceeding by trial and error and laying down the law from outside. And one always experiences that those who proceed in such a manner are never quite happy about the results, for the mice invariably reappear. It is quite true that no method can be entirely effective on one estate only; it can however be shown to be partially effective on a single estate and then one must rely on human intelligence in inducing one's neighbours to follow the same method. For in the future, men will need to rely to a far greater extent upon reason and common sense than on police or government regulations. That will be a first real step forward in our social life.

Not let us imagine the following. We catch a fairly young field-mouse and skin it. The main thing is to get this skin when Venus is in the sign Scorpio. Those old fellows of the Middle Ages with their instinctive wisdom were not fools after all. They pretended that in passing from the plant to the animal kingdom, we come upon what they called the zodiac, which means “animal circle.” Indeed, if one wants to exercise an influence in the plant kingdom, one can content oneself with the use of planetary forces. But with animals this is not enough. Here the fixed stars have to be taken into account, especially those fixed stars which belong to the signs of the Zodiac. In the plant kingdom, the influence of the Moon is practically sufficient to call forth the powers of reproduction. In the animal kingdom, the Moon's influence must be strengthened by that of Venus. Indeed, in this case the influence of the Moon need not be specially taken into account because the animal kingdom has retained within itself Moon forces (from past epochs, Ed.) and has thus emancipated itself from the actual Moon. In the animal kingdom, lunar forces are at work even when the Moon is not at the full. The animal bears the full Moon within itself and is therefore emancipated from time conditions. There is, however, a dependence as regards the other planetary influences. We have to undertake something quite definite with the skins of the mice in connection with these. The skin must be secured at the time when Venus stands in the sign of Scorpio, then burned and the ash and any residue carefully collected (several skins must be burnt to procure a sufficient quantity of ash). Now because the skins have been burnt when Venus stood in Scorpio, that which is contained in these ashes is the negative power to the power of reproduction in the field-mouse. If, in certain districts, difficulties present themselves, a more homoeopathic method can be adopted to procure this pepper-like substance. If, however, it has been obtained during the high conjunction of Venus and Scorpio it will, when sprinkled on your fields, prove to be a means of keeping field-mice away. No doubt they are cheeky little creatures and are apt to come back again if “pepperless” areas still remain in the neighbourhood. In such areas, the mice will again settle down. But if the method is applied throughout the neighbourhood, it certainly brings about a radical result.

I believe a certain pleasure could be derived from putting such methods into practice. I believe that agriculture would acquire a sort of savour as of a well-seasoned dish. Moreover, we take into account here the workings of the stars without the least concession to superstition. Superstition arises only when an earlier knowledge is no longer understood. We do not revive superstitious beliefs. We must start from insight, but an insight which has been won in a spiritual way and not by physical methods.

This, then, is the way to deal with field-mice and any other pests from among the higher animals. Mice, being rodents, belong to the higher animals. But this method will be of no use in attacking insects, for these come under completely different cosmic influences, as do all the lower animals as compared with the higher. Now I am going .to tread on very thin ice and take an example very near home. I am going to talk about the nematode of the beetroot. The outer signs of this disease are a swelling of root fibres and limpness of the leaves in the morning. Now we must clearly realise the following facts: The leaves, the middle part of the plant which undergo these changes, absorb cosmic influences that come from the surrounding air, whereas the roots absorb the forces which have entered into the earth and are reflected upwards into the plant. What, then, takes place when the nematode occurs? It is this: The process of absorption which should actually reside in the region of the leaves has been pressed downwards and embraces the roots.

Thus, if this (Diagram No. 10) represents the earth level, and this the plant, then in the plant infested with the nematode the forces which should be active above the horizontal line are actually at work below it. What happens is that certain cosmic forces slide down to a deeper level; hence the change in the external appearance of the plant. But this also makes it possible for the parasite to obtain under the soil (which is its proper habitat) those cosmic forces which it must have to sustain it (the nematode is a wire-like worm). Otherwise it would be forced to seek for these forces in the region of the leaves; this, however, it cannot do as the soil is its proper environment. Some, indeed all, living beings can only live within certain limits of existence. Just try to live in an atmosphere 70 degrees above or 70 degrees below zero and you will see what will happen. You are constituted to live in a certain temperature, neither above nor below it. The nematode is in the same position. It cannot live without earth and without the presence of certain cosmic forces brought down into it. Without these two conditions, it would die Out.

Every living being is subject to quite definite conditions. And for the particular beings with which we are dealing, it is important that cosmic forces should enter the earth, forces which would ordinarily display themselves only in the atmosphere around the earth. Actually, the workings of these forces have a four-year rhythm. Now in the case of the nematode, we have something very abnormal. If one enquires into these forces, one finds that they are the same as those at work on the cockchafer grubs; and as those, too, which bestow on the earth the faculty of bringing the seed potato to development. Cockchafer grubs as well as seed potatoes are bred by the same forces, and these forces recur every four years. This four-yearly cycle is what must be taken into account not with regard to the nematode but with regard to the steps we take to combat it.

In this case, the procedure is not to take any particular part of the animal as we did with the field-mouse, but the whole animal must be taken. This insect which attacks the roots of the plant is as a whole a product of cosmic influences, needing the soil only as a medium. Thus, the whole insect must be burnt. That is the best and quickest method. A more thorough way might be to allow it to decay, but then it would be difficult to collect the remains, and practically the same result can be obtained by burning the whole insect. The insect can be collected and kept alive and then burnt at the proper time. The incineration must take place when the Sun is in the constellation of the Bull (i.e., the constellation exactly opposite to that which was mentioned in connection with Venus and the burning of the mice skins). For this insect world is closely related to the forces that are developed as the Sun, on its path through the Zodiac, passes from the sign of the Water-carrier through the Fishes to the Ram and the Twins and on to the Crab. In the sign of the Crab the influence becomes quite weak; it is weak, too, in the sign of the Water-carrier. As the Sun goes through these signs [The signs referred to are: Water-carrier, Goat, Fishes, Scorpion, Scales, Virgin, Leo and Crab, the first and last being the weakest.] it radiates those forces which are connected with the insect world.

We do not realise what a very highly specialised being the Sun is. It is by no means the same when, in the course of the, year or the day, it shines on to the earth from, say, the Bull as it is when it shines from e.g. the Crab. In each case, it is different: so that it is nonsense strictly speaking (though pardonable nonsense) to speak of the Sun in general. One should really speak of the Ram-sun, the Bull-sun, the Crab-sun, the Lion-sun, etc. The Sun is always a different being according to the combined effect of its daily and yearly course, as determined by its position in relation to the vernal point.

If, then, you prepare insect-pepper in the way I have described and scatter it over a field of turnips, the nematodes will gradually, become “faint.” After the fourth year, they will have completely faded away. They cannot live—they shun life if they are to inhabit a soil that has been “peppered” in this way.

Thus, there re-emerges in a remarkable way what used to be called the “Wisdom of the Stars.” Modern astronomy only serves as a means of mathematical orientation, and cannot really be put to any other use. But astronomy was not always like this; the stars once served as a guide for the labours and activities of life on earth. This, science has now been completely lost. But to the extent to which we can develop a new science, we have the possibility of controlling those animals and insects which become a nuisance. It all depends on our capacity to be, as it were, on such intimate terms with the earth that we come to know her capacity for bringing forth plants, especially through the power or lunar and water influences. But the forces in every plant and in every other being carry in themselves the germ of their own destruction. Thus, just as on the one hand water is a promoter of fruitfulness, so on the other hand fire is the destroyer of fruitfulness. It consumes it. And if instead of treating plants with water, which is the usual way of making' them fruitful, you treat them with fire applied in an appropriate manner, then you are performing within the economy of Nature an act of annihilation. This is the point to be borne in mind: a seed develops fruitfulness and spreads it abroad through the Moon-saturated water. It also develops destructive forces through the Moon saturated fire, or, strictly speaking, as we saw in our last example, through cosmically-saturated fire. There is nothing very strange about this: we are reckoning here with enormous forces of expansion and have given exact indications of how time co-operates; for the seminal power is notably active in expanding, and so if it is destroyed, it also works very far afield. The force of expansion is peculiar to the seed. And the burnt substance which because of its appearance we called pepper, also possesses the tendency to spread its power abroad.

There remains for us one more subject to consider: the so-called plant diseases. Actually, this is not the right word to use. The abnormal processes in plants to which it refers are not “diseases” in the same sense as are those illnesses which afflict animals. When we come later on to discuss the animal kingdom, we shall see this difference more clearly. Above all, they are not processes such as take place in a sick human being. For actual disease is not possible without the presence of an astral body. In man and animals, the astral body is connected with the physical body through the etheric body and a certain connection is the normal state. Sometimes, however, the connection between the astral body and the physical body (or one of the physical organs) is closer than would normally be the case; so if the etheric body does not form a proper “cushion” between them, the astral intrudes itself too strongly into the physical body. It is from this that most diseases arise.

Now the plant does not actually possess an astral body of its own. It does not therefore suffer from the specific forms of disease that occur in men and animals. This is the first point. The next point is to ascertain what actually causes the plant to be diseased. Now, from everything I have said on this subject, you will have gathered that the soil immediately surrounding a plant has a definite life of its own. These life forces are there and with them all kinds of forces of growth and tender forces of propagation not strong enough to produce the plant form itself, but still waiting with a certain intensity; and in addition, all the forces working in the soil under the influence of the Moon and mediated through water. Thus, certain important connections emerge.

In the first place, you have the earth, the earth saturated with water. Then you have the moon. The moonbeams, as they stream into the earth, awaken it to a certain degree of life, they arouse “waves” and weavings in the earth's etheric element. The moon can do this more easily when the earth is permeated with water, less easily when the earth is dry. Thus, the water acts only as a mediator. What has to be quickened is the earth itself, the solid mineral element. Water, too, is something mineral. There is no sharp boundary, of course. In any case, we must have lunar influences at work in the earth. Now these lunar influences can become too strong. Indeed, this may happen in a very simple manner. Consider what happens when a very wet spring follows upon a very wet winter. The lunar force enters too strongly into the earth, which thus becomes too much alive.” I will indicate this by red dots. (See Diagram No. 11). Thus, if the red dots were not here, i.e. if the earth were not too. strongly vitalised by the moon, the plants growing upon it would follow the normal development from seed to fruit; there would be just the right amount of lunar force distributed in the earth to work upwards and produce the requisite fruit-seed. But let us suppose that the lunar influence, is too strong—that the earth is too powerfully vitalised—then the forces working upwards become too strong, and what should happen in the seed formation occurs earlier. Through their very intensity, the forces do not proceed far enough to reach the higher parts of the plant, but become active earlier and at a lower level. The lunar influence has the result that there is not sufficient strength for seed formation. The seed receives a certain portion of the decaying life, and this decaying life forms another level above the soil level. This new level is not soil, but the same influences are at work there. The result is that the seed of the plant, the upper part of the plant becomes a kind of soil for other organisms; parasites and fungoid formations appear in it. It is in this way that blights and similar ills make their appearance in the plant. It is through a too strong working of the moon that forces working upward from the earth are prevented from reaching their proper height. The powers of fertilisation and fructification depend entirely upon a normal amount of lunar influence. It is a curious fact that abnormal developments should be caused not by a weakening but by an increase of lunar forces. Speculation might well lead to the opposite conclusion. Looking at it in the right way shows that the matter is as I have presented it. What, then, have we to do? We have to relieve the earth of the excess of lunar forces in it. It is possible to relieve the earth in this way. We shall have to discover something which will rob the water of its power as a mediator and restore to the earth more of its earthiness, so that it does not take up an excess of lunar forces from the water. This is done by making fairly concentrated brew (or tea) of equisetum arvense (horse-tail), diluting it and using it as a liquid manure on the fields for the purpose of fighting blight and similar plant diseases. Here again only small quantities are required; a homeopathic dose is generally sufficient. As you will have realised, this is precisely where one sees how one department of life affects another. If, without indulging in undue speculation, we realise the noteworthy effects produced by equisetum arvense upon the human organism by affecting the function of the kidneys we shall have, as it were, a standard by which to estimate what this plant can achieve when it has been transformed into liquid manure, and we shall realise how extensive its effects may be when even quite a small quantity is sprinkled about without the help of any special instrument. We shall realise that equisetum is a first-rate remedy. Not literally a remedy, since plants cannot really be ill. It is not so much a healing process as a process exactly opposite to that described above.

Thus, if one gains an inside knowledge of the workings of Nature in her different fields, we can actually gain control over the processes of growth; and we shall see later that this also applies to the forces of growth in animals both in normal and abnormal conditions. Thus, we arrive at an actual science. For to experiment and to proceed by trial and error as people do nowadays is not true science; it is merely collecting data and isolated facts. True science does not begin until one has gained control of the forces at work. Now plants and animals and even the parasites in plants cannot be understood by them-, selves. Remember what I said in the first lecture about the magnetic needle and the folly of regarding the fact of its always pointing to the North as being caused by something in the needle itself. No one believes this. We take the earth as a whole and assign to it a magnetic North pole and a magnetic South pole. In the same way, when we want to explain the plant we must bring into question not only plant, animal and human life, but the whole universe. For life comes from the whole of the universe, not only from the earth. Nature is a unity and her forces are at work from all sides. He who can keep his mind open to the manifest working of these forces will understand her. But what does the scientist do today? He takes a little plate, lays a preparation upon it, isolates it very carefully and then watches. Everything that could work upon the substance is shut off. This is called “Microscopic Investigation.” It is really the opposite procedure to that which should be adopted in order to gain understanding of the expanses of the world. Not content with shutting himself up in a room, the scientist actually shuts himself up inside these brass tubes and leaves the whole of Nature outside. Nothing, he maintains, must be kept under observation except the one object in question. In this way, we have yielded more and more ground to the microscope. When, however, we find a way back to the macrocosm, then we shall begin to understand Nature and many other things as well.

I propose to devote the time that remains at our disposal to the consideration of the rearing of live-stock and the cultivation of fruit and vegetables.

Naturally there will not be time to treat the subject at very great length, but in order to obtain a fruitful starting point, we must gain insight into all the factors which come into consideration. We shall do this to-day, and tomorrow we shall pass on to the more practical aspect of the subject.

I shall ask you to-day to join me in the consideration of rather more recondite matters, to follow me into what is nowadays an almost unknown territory, although the instinctive husbandry of the past was thoroughly conversant with it. The beings in Nature—minerals, plants, animals—we will disregard man for the moment—are often regarded as though, they existed in completely separate realms. It is the custom to-day to look at a plant as though it existed by and for itself, and similarly one species of plant is also regarded as being isolated from other plant species. So these things are neatly sorted and fitted into genera and species, as though they were being put into boxes. But things are not like this in Nature. In Nature—nay, in the world—being as a whole, all things are in mutual interaction. One thing is always being affected by another. In these materialistic days, only the more palpable effects of this interaction are noted, such as when one thing is eaten or digested by another, or when the dung of animals is used for the soil. In addition to these, however, finer interactions amongst more delicate forces and substances are continually taking place: through warmth, through the chemical-etheric element which is continually at work in the atmosphere, and through the life-ether. Unless we take account of these more delicate interactions, we shall make no progress, at any rate in certain departments of Agriculture. In particular we must look to those more intimate interactions which take place in Nature when we have to deal with the life together of plant and animal on the farm. We must look with understanding not only upon those animals which undoubtedly stand close to us, such as cattle, horses, sheep, etc., but also, for example, upon the manifold insect world, which during a certain period of the year hovers around the plants. Indeed, we must learn to look with understanding at bird-life too. Humanity to-day is very far from realising how much farming and forestry are affected by the expulsion from certain districts of certain kinds of birds as a result of modern conditions. Here again light can be thrown on the subject by conceptions given by Spiritual Science. Let us therefore extend some of these ideas which have been working upon us and come by their help to a yet wider vision.

A fruit tree—apple, pear or plum—is something completely different in kind from a herbaceous or cereal plant as any kind of tree outwardly is indeed. But, putting aside any preconceived notions, we must find out wherein the peculiarity of the tree lies. Otherwise we shall never understand the function fulfilled by fruits in the economy of Nature. I am speaking, of course, of the fruit that grows on trees. If we look at a tree with understanding we shall find that the only parts of it which can really be reckoned as plant are the tender twigs, the green leaves and their stalks, the blossoms, the fruits. These grow out of the tree just as herbaceous plants grow out of the soil, the tree being in fact “earth” in relation to the parts that grow out of it. It is as though the soil were heaped up—but a somewhat more quickened soil than the ordinary soil in which our herbaceous and cereal plants grow.

If, therefore, we want to understand the nature of a tree, we must observe that it consists of the thick trunk, to which are attached the branches and boughs. On this ground the specifically plant-like parts grow, viz. leaves and blossoms, which are as much rooted in the trunk and branches as cereal and herbaceous plants are rooted in the earth. The question therefore arises: is this plant this plant-like part—which may be regarded as more or less parasitical, really rooted in the tree?

We cannot discover an actual root on the trees. We conclude, therefore, that this plant, which develops its leaves and blossoms and twigs up aloft, must have lost its roots in growing on the tree. But no plant is complete without its root. It must have a root. Where, then, does the actual root of this plant reside?

Now, the root is only invisible for our limited outer vision. In this case one does not see it, but has to understand where it is. What do we mean by this? The following concrete comparison may help. Suppose I planted a large number of herbaceous plants so closely together that their roots were intertwined and grew into each other, forming a completely matted mass or pap of roots. You can well imagine that this pap does not remain chaotic, but that it organises itself into a unity so that the sap-bearing vessels unite with each other. In this organised root-pap, it would not be possible to distinguish where one root finished. and the other began, and a common root-organ would arise (See Diag. No. 12). A thing like that does not, of course, exist in the soil, but such a root-formation is actually present in the The plants that grow on the tree have lost their root, have become relatively separated from it and are only, as it were, etherically connected with it. What I have drawn hypothetic ally is really the layer of cambium (a layer of living cells lying between the last-formed wood and the outer bark) in the tree and we cannot regard the roots of these plants otherwise than as having been replaced by the cambium. From this tissue, which is always forming new cells, these plants unfold themselves just as from the root below an herbaceous plant unfolds above the soil. We can now begin to understand what the tree really is. The tree with its cambium—which is the only cell-producing layer in the tree, is actually heaped-up earth, which has grown upwards into the air element and therefore requires a more interiorised form of life than is present in the ordinary soil which contains the root. Thus, we must regard the tree as a very curious entity, whose function it is to separate the “plants” growing on it (twigs, blossoms, fruit; from their roots; an entity which places between them and their roots a distance which is bridged only by spirit—or more strictly by the Etheric. It is in this way we need to look, with a macro-cosmic understanding, into the facts of growth.

But the matter goes much farther. What results arise from the existence of a tree? That which is around the tree in the air and outer warmth is of a different plant-nature from that which grows up from the soil in the air and warmth and forms the herbaceous plant. It is a plant-world of a different order, possessing a far more intimate relation with the surrounding astral element. Lower down that element is eliminated from the air and warmth in order to make them mineral-like, so that they can be used by man and beast. [See Lecture II. They become “dead” air and warmth.]

It is true, as I have said, that the plant we see rowing upon the ground is surrounded, as with a cloud. v the astral element. But around the tree, the astral element is far denser. So much so, that we may say: Our trees are definitely collectors of astral substance.

Here one might say it is quite easy to reach a higher development and become “esoteric”—I do not mean clairvoyant but clair-sentient as to the sense of smell. One has only to acquire the capacity for distinguishing between the scent of plants growing in the ground, the peculiar smell of orchards, especially in the spring when they are in flower, and the aroma of forests. Then one is able to tell the difference between a plant atmosphere poor in astral elements, such as that of herbaceous plants growing in the soil and an atmosphere such as we sniff with such pleasure when the scent of trees is wafted in our direction. And if you train your sense of smell to distinguish between the scent of soil-grown (herbaceous) plants and the scent of trees, you will have developed “clear-smelling” for the thinner and for the denser forms of the astral element. The countryman, as you see, can very easily acquire this “clear-smelling” though this faculty, common in the old days of instinctive clairvoyance, has been much neglected in recent times.

If, now, we realise the consequences to which this may lead the question will arise: What is happening in that part of the tree which may be regarded as the opposite pole from the “parasitical” plants on the tree which collect this astral element. What is happening through the cambium?

Now. the tree makes the atmosphere far and wide around it richer in astral element. What happens while the “parasite” growth goes on above in the tree? The tree here has a certain inner vitality, a powerful etheric life in it. The cambium tones down this vitality, making it more mineral in nature. “While about the upper part of the tree an enrichment of the astral substance is going on, the cambium causes an impoverishment of the etheric life in the tree. The tree within is deprived of etheric life as compared with the herbaceous plant. In consequence, this produces a change in the root. The root of the tree becomes more mineral, far more mineral than the roots of the herbaceous plants. But by becoming more mineral, the tree-root withdraws some of the etheric life from the soil; it makes the soil around the tree slightly more dead than it would be around a herbaceous plant. This must be fully borne in mind, for these natural processes always have a great significance in the economy of Nature. We must therefore seek to understand the significance of the astral wealth in the atmosphere around the tree and of the etheric poverty in the region of the roots.

If we look around us, we can find the further connection. It is the fully developed insect which lives on and weaves in this enriched astral element which wafts through the trees; whereas the impoverished etheric element beneath, spreading in the soil and throughout the whole tree (for, as I pointed out yesterday in connection with human Karma, a spiritual element always works throughout the whole being) is that which harbours the' larvae or grubs. Thus, if there were no trees on the earth there would be no insects. The insects that flutter around the upper parts of the trees and through the forests depend for their life upon the presence of the trees; and exactly the same thing is true of the grubs.

Here we have yet another indication of the inner connection between all roots and animal life beneath the soil. This is especially evident in the case of the trees. But this same principle which is so striking in the case of the trees is present in a modified form throughout the whole of the vegetable world, for in every plant there lives something that tends to become a tree. In every plant the root and what is around it tends to throw off the etheric life whereas the upper growth strives to attract the astral element more closely to itself. For this reason, there arises in every plant that kinship with the insect world which I have specially characterised in the case of the tree.

This relation, however, to the insect world in fact extends so as to comprise the whole of the animal world. In former times insect grubs, which can only live upon the earth because of the presence of tree roots, transformed themselves into other kinds of animals, similar to larvae and remaining at the larva stage throughout their lives. These animals then emancipated themselves to a certain extent from the tree-root nature and adopted a life which extends also to the root region of herbaceous plants. And now we find the curious fact that certain of these sub-terrestrial animals, though far removed from being larvae, yet have the ability to regulate the amount of etheric life in the soil if this amount becomes excessive. When the soil becomes, as it were, too much alive and the sprouting etheric life too strong, these animals of the soil see to it that this excess is reduced. They are thus wonderful vents which regulate the vitality in the soil.

These lovely creatures, for they are of the greatest value to the earth are no other than the common earthworms. One ought to study the life of earth-worms in relation to the soil, for these wonderful animals allow just that amount of etheric life to remain in the soil as is needed for the growth of plants. Thus, in the soil we have these creatures, earth-worms and their like, distantly resembling larvae. One ought in fact to see to it that certain soils which require it, are supplied with a healthful stock of worms. We should soon see how beneficent such a control over this animal-world in. the soil can be, not only for vegetation but also thereby for the rest of the animal kingdom, as we shall show later.

Now there are certain animals which bear a distant resemblance to the insect world, to that part of it which is fully developed and winged, I mean the birds. It is well known that in the course of the development of the earth something very wonderful took place between the birds and the insects. It is as though, to put it figuratively, the insects had one day said: “We do not feel strong enough to ‘work-up’ the astrality sparkling around the trees, we shall therefore use the ‘desire-to-be-a-tree’ of other plants. We shall flutter around these, and leave largely to you birds the astral life that surrounds the trees.” Thus, there arose in Nature a proper “division of labour” between the birds and the butterflies; and this co-operation in the winged world brought about in a wonderful manner the right distribution of astral life wherever it was required on the surface of the earth. If these winged creatures are removed, the astral life will fail to accomplish its proper function, and this will be noticeable in the stunted condition of the vegetation. The two things are connected; the world of winged animals and all that grows out of the soil into the air. The one is unthinkable without the other. In farming, therefore, we must see to it that birds and insects fly about as they were meant to do; and the farmer should know something about the breeding and rearing of birds and insects. For in Nature—I must repeat this again and again—everything, everything is connected.

These considerations are of the utmost importance for a right understanding of the questions before us and we must therefore hold them very clearly in our minds. The winged world of insects brings about the proper distribution of astrality in the air. The astrality in the air has a mutual relationship with the forest which directs it in the proper way, much as in the human body the blood is directed by certain forces. And this activity of the forest, which is effective over a very wide area, will have to be undertaken by something quite different in a district where there is no forest. Indeed, in districts where woods alternate with arable land and meadows that which grows in the soil comes under quite different laws from those which rule in completely unwooded districts.

There are certain parts of the earth which were obviously wooded areas long before man took a hand. In certain matters, Nature is cleverer than we are. and it may safely be assumed that if a forest grows naturally in a certain district it will have its uses for the neighbouring fields and for the herbaceous and cereal vegetation round about. In such districts one ought therefore to have the intelligence not to uproot the woods but to cultivate them. Ana as the earth is gradually changing through climatic and cosmic influences of all kinds, one should have the courage, when the vegetation becomes poor, not merely to indulge in all sorts of experiments in the fields and for the fields, but to increase the area of woods in the neighbourhood. And when plants run to leaf, lacking the power to produce seed, one should take bites out of the neighbouring woods. The regulation of woods in districts which Nature intended to De wooded is an integral part of agriculture, and must be examined with all its consequences from a spiritual point of view.

Again, the world of grubs and worms may be said to stand in a mutual relationship to the lime, i.e. to the mineral part of the earth; while the world of birds and insects, of all that flies and flutters about, has a similar relationship to the astral element. The relation between the worm and grub world and lime brings about the drawing off of the etheric element, as I explained a few days ago, from a different point of view. This is the function of lime, but it performs this function in cooperation with the world of worms and grubs.

If these ideas are carried out in more detail, they will lead to other things which—and that is why I have expounded them with such confidence—were applied, in the days of instinctive clairvoyance, in the right way. But this instinct has been lost, rooted out by the intelligence, as have been all such instincts. Materialism is to blame for men's having become so clever and intellectual. In the days when they were not intellectual, they were not so clever, but they were far wiser and learned through their feelings how to go about things; and we must learn to act with wisdom once again through Anthroposophy, but this time the wisdom will be conscious. For Anthroposophy is by no means something clever and intellectual—it strives for wisdom. And we must try to draw near to wisdom in all things and not be content merely to learn by rote an abstract jingle of words, such as “Man consists of a physical body, etc.” The main point is that we should introduce this knowledge into everything; then one finds the way to discriminate—especially if one really becomes clairvoyant in the sense that I have explained to you—and to see things in Nature as they really are. We shall discover, for example, that birds can become harmful if they are not in the neighbourhood of a wood of conifers which can turn what they do into something useful. Our vision is then further sharpened and we begin to discern the presence of yet another relationship. It is a very delicate relationship, similar to those I have been dealing with, but which can appear in a more tangible form. All growing things that are neither trees nor small plants, i.e. all shrubs such as the hazel bush have, an intimate relationship with mammals. If, therefore, we wish to improve the mammals on our farm, we shall do well to plant such bush-like growths. The mere presence of the bushes has a beneficent influence, for in Nature all things stand in constant reciprocal relationship.

But let us go a step further. Animals are not so foolish as human beings. They very soon notice the presence of this relationship. They find that they like these shrubs; this liking is inborn in them, and they enjoy eating them. They begin to eat what they need of the shrubs, and this has a wonderfully regulating effect upon the rest of their diet. But this insight into the intimate relations in Nature will also throw light upon the nature of harmful influences. Just as conifer woods stand in intimate relationship to birds and shrubs to mammals_? so do all kinds of fungi stand in a relation similarly intimate to the lower animals, to bacteria and the like, viz. to parasites. Harmful parasites are closely connected with fungi. They develop where fungus-life is dispersed. In this way, there arise plant diseases and other greater ills in plants. If, however, we can contrive to nave not only woods, but also well-watered meadows suitably situated in the neighbourhood of cultivated lands, these will be useful in forming a good breeding ground for fungi. One should see to it that the moist meadows are well-planted with such growths. We then make the following remarkable discovery, that if a meadow, not necessarily very large, but rich in fungi (e.g. mushrooms) is situated near cultivated land then the fungi, because of their kinship with bacteria and other parasites, will keep these creatures away from the farming-land. For mushrooms “hang together” with these little creatures more than do other plants. Thus, in addition to the other methods I have advocated for combating plant pests there is also the possibility of keeping these tiny creatures, these vermin away from cultivated land by converting land in its vicinity into meadows.

It is so important for success in agriculture that the right amount of acreage should be assigned respectively to woods, orchards, shrubberies and meadows with a natural growth of fungi, that one often gets better results-even if one reduces the extent of tilled land accordingly. Generally speaking, to cultivate the whole of the acreage at one's disposal, leaving no room for the other factors of which I have spoken, and to count in consequence upon larger crops is certainly no real economy. The extension of the tilled area is counterbalanced by a lowering in the quality of the produce because the increase in the cultivated area is made at the cost of the other factors. One cannot be engaged in a thing like farming where Nature is the “manager,” without realising the inter-connections and inter—actions which exist between all her processes.

Now let us look at something which will make clear to us the relation of plant to animal and, conversely, of animal to plant. What is an animal in reality, and what is the plant-world? (In the case of plants it is better to speak of the whole of the plant-world). We must look for the relationship between the two because only by this means can we come to understand the feeding of animals. For feeding is only properly done if it is done in accord with the true relationship between plant and animal. What are animals? We examine them, we even dissect them, study their muscles and nerves and admire the forms of their skeleton. But this does not tell us what an animal is in the whole economy of Nature. We shall only get at this if we grasp what it is with which the animal is most intimately connected in its environment.

Now with its system of nerves and senses and with part of its breathing system, the animal “works-up” all that which comes through the air and warmth. The animal does this to the extent that it is a separate being. (See Diag. No. 14). We may make a schematic drawing to indicate this. With regard to everything lying in its periphery, the animal lives with its nerves and sense system and part of its breathing system immediately in air and warmth. The animal has an immediate connection with air and warmth, its bony system being actually formed from the warmth which in particular mediates the influences of the sun and the moon. Its muscular system is formed from the air, which again works as a mediator of the forces of sun and moon. But as regards its relation to earth and water, the animal is not able directly to assimilate. It must first absorb them into its digestive tract and then work on them with what it has itself become through air and warmth; it works upon earth and water with its metabolic system and with a part of its breathing system, which passes over into the metabolic system. The animal must therefore have already come into existence by virtue of air and warmth if it is to be able to “work up” earth and water. This, therefore, is the animal's way of living in the sphere of earth and water. The process of transformation which I have described takes place, of course, by means of forces (dynamically) rather than by means of substances (materially).

Let us now try to answer the question: What is a plant?

The plant stands in an immediate relation to earth and water just as the animal does to air and warmth. The plant, therefore_? through a kind of breathing and through something very distantly resembling a sense system absorbs earth and water in the same direct manner as the animal absorbs air and warmth. Thus, the plant and earth and water live directly together. And now_? of course, you will say: If the plant lives in immediate contact with earth and water as the animal does with air and warmth, then no doubt the plant “works up” air and warmth inside itself just as the animal “works up” earth and water? But this is not the case. We cannot reach spiritual truths merely by analogy. The fact is that whereas the animal absorbs earth and water into itself, the plant actually gives off the air and warmth which it experiences dimly through its connection with the soil.

Thus, air and warmth do not go into the plant, or at any rate do not enter deeply into it; instead of being devoured by the plant, air and warmth are given off by it. And this process of elimination is the important thing. Organically the plant stands in inverse relation to the animal. That which in the animal is important as a process of nutrition becomes in the plant an elimination of air and warmth, and as in that sense we can say that the animal lives by absorbing food, in the same sense does the plant live by giving off air and warmth. And in virtue of that quality it may be said that the plant is virginal. Its character is not to absorb greedily but actually to give out that which the animal takes from the world in order to live. Thus, the plant lives by giving.

In this giving and taking, we can recognise something which played a very important part in the old instinctive knowledge of these matters. “In Nature's economy, the plant gives and the animal takes.” What is contained in this saying garnered from Anthroposophy was once common property in times of instinctive clairvoyance into Nature. Even m later days, much of this knowledge has remained among' those gifted with a peculiar sensitiveness in these matters, and in the works of Goethe you will sometimes come across the phrase: “In Nature everything lives through giving and taking.” Goethe did not fully understand the phrase, but he adopted it from ancient customs and traditions and he felt that it pointed to something in Nature which was true. Those who came after him understood nothing of this, and so did not understand what he meant when he spoke of taking and giving. Goethe also speaks of taking and giving in connection with breathing, in so far as breathing inter-acts with metabolism. He uses the words “taking and giving” in a fashion, semi-clear.

To sum up, I have shown you that in a certain sense the woods, orchards and shrubberies on the earth act as regulators in producing the right kind of plant-growth, and that under the soil grubs and other worm-like creatures act similarly in conjunction with lime. This is how we should envisage the relationship between the cultivation of fields, of fruit and of cattle, and then proceed to put our knowledge into practice. We shall endeavour to do this in the last hour that remains at our disposal, so that our Experimental Circle may work out these things more fully in the future.

In this last lecture, I shall try as far as possible to complete what I have already said, and to bring forward certain practical considerations. In the ensuing discussion, I shall make such additions as may prove necessary.

The practical hints I propose to deal with to-day are not such as can be embodied in general formulae, but need to be greatly modified according to the particular situation and the persons applying them. For this very reason, it is necessary that we should gain Spiritual-Scientific insight into this sphere, which will enable you intelligently to adapt to the individual case the various steps to be taken. I would ask you to consider how little insight there is into that most important matter, the feeding of our farm animals. Merely to indicate new methods of feeding is not sufficient.

How, then, ought our farm animals to be fed? In my opinion, improvement will certainly come if, in the teaching of agriculture, an insight is gained into the essential meaning of feeding as such. This is what I shall try to do today. Completely wrong ideas prevail as to what nutrition signifies both for man and beast. It is not merely the crude process of taking in foodstuffs and after certain changes, of storing these up in the organism, excreting what is not needed. This view carries with it the idea, for instance, that the animal should not be overfed, that its food should be as nourishing as possible and thus the bulk of it be utilised. And if we are of a materialistic turn of mind, we like to distinguish between actual food-stuffs and such substances as promote what is called combustion in the organism. We then build up all sorts of theories and put them into practice, finding, as always, that some work and some do not_? or that they only work for a time, having to be modified in one way or another.

What else indeed could we expect? We speak of processes of combustion in the organism. But no such thing takes place there. The combination of any substance whatever with oxygen in the organism means something quite different from a process of combustion. Combustion is a process which takes place in mineral, inanimate nature, and gust as a living organism is something different from a quartz crystal, so what is called “combustion” in a living organism is not the same as the “dead” process of burning, but something which is living and even sentient. The mere fact of using words in this way has directed our thoughts along certain channels and has done great mischief. To speak of “combustion” in the organism is to speak in a slipshod way. This does not matter if, by instinct or tradition, we still retain a right view of the facts. But if these slip-shod expressions are subjected to an attack of “psychopathia Professoralis,” then clever theories begin to be built upon them. If we depend upon these theories, what we do will be hopelessly wide of the mark, for such theories no longer cover the facts of the case. This is characteristic of our times. We are always doing something which does not fit in with what is going on in Nature. In this matter of nourishment, therefore, it is important to learn with what we are really dealing.

Let us recall what I said yesterday about the plant as having a physical and etheric body and being more or less surrounded from above by the astral element. The plant does not reach the astral element but is surrounded by it. If the plant enters into a special relation with the astral element, as in the case or the formation of edible fruits, a kind of food is produced which will strengthen the astral element in the animal and human organism. If one can look into this process, the very “habitus” of a plant and so on reveals whether or not it is capable of promoting some process in the animal organism. But we must also consider the opposite pole. Here something of great importance takes place. I have touched on this before, but now that the general principles of nutrition are being established, I must emphasise it still more definitely.

Since we are dealing with feeding, let us start from the animal. In the animal, the threefold organism is not so sharply defined as it is in man. The animal has a system of nerve and senses and a metabolic and limb system. These are clearly divided, the one from the other. But in many animals the limits of intermediate rhythmic system are indefinite; both nerves and senses system and metabolic system trespass upon the limits of the rhythmic system. We should therefore choose other terms when we speak of animals. In man one is quite right in speaking of a three-fold organism: but in the case of animals one ought to speak of the nerve and senses system as being localised primarily in the head, and of the metabolic and limb system as being in the hind quarters and limbs but at the same time diffused throughout the whole body. In the middle of the body the metabolism becomes more rhythmical as does also the nervous system, and there both flow into one another. The rhythmic system has a less independent existence in the animal. Rather the opposite poles become indistinct as they merge into one another. (Drawing 15.) We should therefore speak of the animal organism as being twofold, the extremes interpenetrating at the middle. In this way, the animal organization arises.

Mow all the substances contained in the head system—I am speaking of animals, but the same is true of man—are of earthly matter. Even in the embryo, earthly matter is led into the head system. The embryo must be so organised that its head receives its matter from the earth. In the head, therefore, we have earthly matter. But the substances which we bear in the metabolic and limb, organisation, those which permeate our intestines, our limbs, our muscles and bones, etc., these substances do not come from the earth, but from what has been absorbed from the air and warmth above the earth. It is cosmic substantiality. This is important. “When you see an animal's claw, you must not think of it as having been formed by the food which the animal has eaten and which has gone to the claw and been deposited there. This is not the case. It is cosmic matter taken up through the senses and the breathing. What the animal eats serves only to stimulate its powers of movement so that the cosmic matter can be driven into the metabolic and limb organisation, can be driven into the claw and similarly distributed, throughout the whole organism.

With forces (as opposed to substances) it is the other way around. Because the senses are centred in the head and take in impressions from the cosmos, the forces in the head are cosmic in nature. To understand what happens in the metabolic and limb organisation, you need only think of walking, which means that the limbs are permeated with earthly gravity: the forces are earthly ones. Thus, the limb system contains cosmic substances permeated by earthly forces.

It is extremely important that the cow or the ox, if used for working, should be fed so as to absorb the greatest possible amount of cosmic substance and that the rood which enters its stomach should produce the necessary strength to lead this cosmic substance into its limbs, muscles and “bones. It is equally important to realise that the (earthly) substances in the head have to be drawn from the food which has been worked upon in the stomach and is led into the head. In this sense, the head relies upon the stomach in a way in which the big toe does not, and we must realise quite clearly that the head can only work upon this nourishment which comes to it from the metabolism, if it can at the same time draw in sufficient cosmic forces. If, therefore, animals instead of being left in stuffy stables where no cosmic forces can reach them, are led into meadows and given every opportunity of entering into relation with their environment through the perceptions of their senses, then we may see results such as appear in the following examples.

Imagine an animal standing in a dark and stuffy stable before its manger, the contents of which have been measured out by human “wisdom”„ Unless its diet is varied, as it only can be out-of-doors, this animal will show a very great contrast to one which seeks out its food with its sense of smell, guided by this organ in its search for cosmic forces, seeking and finding its nourishment by itself and developing its whole activity in doing so. An animal that is red from a manger will not show immediately how devoid it is of cosmic forces, for it has inherited a certain amount of them. But it will breed descendants to whom these cosmic forces are no longer transmitted. Such an animal will become weak, beginning from the head, i.e. it will not be able to nourish its body because it cannot take in the necessary cosmic substances which should come in. This will show you that it is not enough simply to say: “This kind of fodder for one case, that for another.” Bather one must have a clear idea of the value for the animal's whole organisation that such and such methods of feeding have.

But we must go a step further. What is actually contained in the head? Earthly substance. If you take out the brain, the noblest part of an animal, you will have before you a piece of earthly substance. The human brain also contains earthly substance. But in both the forces are cosmic. What is the human brain for? It serves as a support for the ego. The animal, let it be remembered, has as yet no ego; its brain is only on the way to ego-formation. In man, it goes on and on to the complete forming of the ego. How then did the animal's brain come into existence? Let us look at the whole organic process. All that which eventually manifests in the brain as earthly matter has simply been “excreted,” (deposited), from tne organic process. Earthly matter has been excreted in order to serve as a base for the ego. Now the process of the working-up of the food in the digestive tract and metabolic and limb system produces a certain quantity of earthly matter which is able to enter into the head and to be finally deposited as earthly-matter in the brain. But a portion of the food stuff is eliminated in the intestine before it reaches the brain. This part cannot be further transformed and is deposited in the intestine for ultimate excretion.

We come here upon a parallel which will strike you as being very paradoxical but which must not be overlooked if we wish to understand the animal and human organisations. What is brain matter? It is simply the contents of the intestines brought to the last stage of completion. Incomplete (premature) brain-excretion passes out through the intestines. The contents of the intestines are in their processes closely akin to the contents of the brain. One could put it somewhat grotesquely by saying that that which spreads itself out in the brain is a highly-advanced dung-heap. And yet the statement is essentially correct. By a peculiar organic process, dung is transformed into the noble matter of the brain, there to become the foundation for the development of the ego. in man the greatest possible quantity of intestinal dung is transformed into cerebral excrement because man bears his ego on the earth. In animals, the quantity is less. Hence there remain more forces in the intestinal excrement of an animal which we can use for manuring. In animal manure, there is therefore more of the potential ego element, since the animal itself does not reach ego-hood. For this reason, animal dung and human dung are completely different. Animal dung still contains ego-potentiality. In manuring a plant, we bring this ego-potentiality into contact with the plant's root. Let us draw the plant in its entirety (Diagram 16). Down here you have the root? up there the unfolding leaves and blossoms. And just as above, in the leaves and blossoms, the astral element is acquired from contact with the air, so the ego-potentiality develops below in the root through contact with the manure.

The farm is truly an organism. The astral element is developed above, and the presence of orchard and forest assists in collecting it. If animals feed in the right way on the things that grow above the earth, then they will develop the right ego-potentiality in the manure they produce, and this ego-potentiality, working on the plant from the root, will cause it to grow upwards from the root in the right way according to the forces of gravity. It is a wonderful interplay, but in order to understand it one must proceed step by step.

From this you can see that a farm is a kind of individuality, and that both animals and plants should be retained within this mutual interplay. If, therefore, instead of using the manure supplied by the animals belonging to the farm, we sell off these animals and obtain manure from Chili, we are in a sense doing harm to Nature. In doing this we trespass the bounds of that which is a closed circuit, of that which should be self-sufficient. Of course, things must be ordered in such a way that the circuit really is self-contained. One need only have on the farm as many animals and of such kinds as will supply sufficient and appropriate manures. And one must also see to it that the animals have such plants to eat as they like and seek instinctively.

At this point experiments tend to become complicated because every case is different. But the main thing is to know the directions which the experiments should take. Practical rules will be found, but they should all proceed from the principle that a farm should be, as far as possible, self-contained. I say as far as possible because Spiritual Science takes a practical not a fanatical view of things. Under our present economic order this cannot be fully attained; but the ideal is one which we should make every effort to reach.

On this basis, then, we can find concrete instances of the relation between the organism formed by the livestock and the plant or “fodder organism.” Let us first consider this relation on broad general lines.

To begin with the root. The root generally develops in the soil and through the manure it becomes permeated with ego-potentiality which it absorbs. This absorption is determined and aided if the root can find in the right quantities salts in the soil around it. Let us assume that we are considering the nature of these roots merely from the point of view of the foregoing reflections. Then we shall suggest that roots are the food which, when it is absorbed into the human organism, will find its way most easily to the head by way of the digestive process. We shall therefore provide a diet of roots where we require to give the head material substances to enable the cosmic forces which work through the head to exercise their plastic activity. Mow imagine someone saying to himself: “I must give roots to this animal which requires earthly substance in its head in order to stimulate its sense-connections with its environment, i.e. with the cosmic environment.” Does not this immediately suggest the calf and the carrot? A calf eating carrots portrays this whole process. The moment something like this is put forward and you know how things really are and their true connections, you will know immediately what is to be done. It is simply a matter of realising how this mutual process arises.

But let us proceed to the next stage. Once the calf has eaten the carrot, once the substance really has been introduced into the head, the converse process must be able to begin, i.e. the head, on its part_? must begin to work with forces of volition, thus begetting within the organism forces which can be worked into it. It is not enough for the “carrot dung” to be deposited in the head; from what is deposited and in the course of disintegration, streams of force must come which will enter the rest of the organism. In short, there must be a second food substance which will enable one part of the body which has already been fed (in this case the head) to work in the right way on the rest of the organism.

Well, I have given the animal the carrot fodder. And now I want the animal's body to be permeated with the forces which are developed from the head. For this, as a second fodder, we need a plant with a spindly structure, the seed of which will have gathered into itself these “spindly” forces. We immediately think of flaxseed (linseed) or something similar. If you feed young cattle on carrots and linseed—or carrots and fresh hay (which is equally suitable)—this will bring into full operation the forces already latent in the animals. We should therefore try to give young cattle food which promotes, on the one hand, the forces of ego-potentiality, and, on the other, the complementary streams of astral force working from above downwards. For the latter purpose, those plants are especially suitable which have long, spindly stems and as such have been turned into hay. (Diagram 17.) Just as we have looked into this concrete case_? so we must approach Agriculture as a whole: of every single thing, we must know what happens to it when it passes either from the animal into the soil, or from the plant into the animal.

Let us pursue the subject yet further. Let us take the case of an animal' which should become particularly strong in the middle region (where the head or nervous organisation tends to develop in the direction of breathing and the metabolic organisation tends to have a rhythmic character). Which animals have to be strong in this particular region? They are the milch animals. The secretion of milk shows that the animal in question is strong in this region. The point to observe here is that the right co-operation should take place between the current going from the head backwards (mainly a streaming of forces) and the current going from the animal's hindquarters forward (mainly a streaming of substance). If these two currents co-operate and intermingle in the right way, the result will be an abundant supply of rich milk. For good milk contains substances prepared in the metabolic system and which, without having entered into the sexual system, have become akin to it. It.is a sexual process within the metabolic system. Milk is simply a sexual secretion on another level. It is a substance, which, on its way to becoming sexual secretion, is penetrated and transformed by the forces working from the head. The whole process can be seen quite clearly.

Now for processes which should arise in this way, we must choose a diet which will work less powerfully towards the head than do roots which contain ego-potentiality; neither may the diet, since it is to be connected with the sexual system, contain too much of the astral element, i.e. of that which goes towards the blossom and fruit of the plant. In short, if we wish to find a diet that will produce milk, we must choose the part of the plant which lies between blossom and root, i.e. the green and leafy part. (Diagram 18.) If we wish to bring about an increase in the milk supply of. an animal whose milk production we have reason to believe could be increased we shall certainly reach the desired end if we proceed as follows:

Suppose I have a cow and feed it with green fodder. I take plants in which the process of fruit-formation has been developed within the process of leaf-formation. Such, for example, are the pod-bearing or leguminous plants and especially the clovers. In clover, the would-be fruit develops as leaf and foliage. A cow that is fed in this way will perhaps not show much result of it; but when the cow comes to calve, the calf will grow into a cow that yields good milk. The effects of reformed foddering usually need a generation in which to show themselves.

There is however one point to be borne in mind. As we know, modern doctors go on using certain traditional remedies without knowing why they do so, except that the remedies have continued to prove effectual. The same thing happens in farming. People go on using traditional methods without knowing why they do so, and m addition to this they make experiments and tests, try to ascertain exactly the quantity of food that should be given for fattening cattle, milch cows, etc. But here again we have what always arises in haphazard experimenting. You know what happens when you have a sore throat and go and see your friends. They will all offer you some cure or other and in half-an-hour you will have collected a whole chemist's shop. If you were to take all these remedies, they would cancel each other out, and certainly ruin your stomach, and your sore throat would not be any better. Because of the circumstances, something which ought to be quite simple has been made extremely complicated. Something similar to this happens when one experiments with fodder for cattle. For it means, does it not, that one is using a food which suits the case 'in one particular but is ineffective in another direction. Then a second food is added to the first and finally one has a mixture of foods, each of which has a special significance for young cattle perhaps or for fattening stock. But the whole thing has become so complicated that one loses one's grasp of it all, because one loses sight of the interplay of forces involved. Or perhaps the different ingredients cancel each other in their effects. This is what often happens and especially with the modern college-trained student-farmer. Such a person looks things up in a book or tries to remember what he may have learned somewhere; “Young cattle must be fed in this way, and cattle for fattening in that.” But this does not help, because the fodder recommended by the book may well conflict with the fodder one i-s already giving.

The proper way to proceed is to start from the basis of thought which I have mentioned and which simplifies cattle-feeding so that it may be taken in at a glance. I really mean at a glance, as we saw in the case of the carrots and linseed. We can easily survey this. Think how one can then stand livingly in the midst of the farm, acting consciously and with deliberation. This knowledge leads not to a complication but to a simplification of methods of feeding. Much that has been discovered by experiment is right, but it is unsystematic and inexact. Or rather it has the sort of exactness which is really inexact because things are muddled up and cannot be seen through. Whereas what I have recommended is simple and its effects can be followed up into the animal organism.

Suppose now that we wish to consider the flowering and fruiting part of the plant. And we must go further, and observe what is fruit-like in the rest of the plant. This recalls a feature of plant-life that always delighted Goethe, namely the fact that the plant has throughout its whole body the tendency towards what is normally specialised at certain parts. With most plants, we take the seed which has formed from the blossom and place it in the earth in order to produce more plants. But we do not do this in the case of the potato. Here we use the eyes of the tubers. This is the fruiting part of the potato plant, but like many processes in Nature, it is not carried out to the end. We can, however, heighten its activity by a procedure which bears an external resemblance to combustion. For instance, if you “cossette” (chop up into thin straws) roots or tubers and dry the “cossettes” for fodder, the stuff will be enormously strengthened in its activity and brought a stage nearer to the fruit stage if you spread it out in the sun and allow it to steam a little.

Practices like this are based upon a deep and wonderful instinct. We can ask: how did men first come to cook their food? Men began to cook their food because they gradually discovered that what develops during fruit formation is mainly due to processes akin to cooking, viz. burning, warming, drying and evaporating. All these processes tend to make the fruit and seed and indirectly the other parts of the plant, especially the higher parts, more fitted to develop the forces that are necessary to the metabolic and limb system in the animal. Even uncooked the blossom and fruit of a plant work on the animal's metabolic and digestive system and primarily through the forces they develop, not through their substance«, For it is the forces of the earth which are needed by the metabolic and limb system, and in the measure in which it needs them, it must receive them. Take the case of the animals which pasture on steep mountain sides. Unlike those in the plains, they climb about under difficult conditions owing to the fact that the ground is not level. There is all the difference for those animals between level and slanting ground. They require food that will develop those forces in limb and muscle which are energised by the will. Otherwise they would not be good for either labour, milking or fattening. It is therefore important that they should eat plenty of those aromatic mountain plants in which blossom and fruit have undergone an additional treatment by the sun, resembling a process of natural cooking.

But similar results can be achieved and strength given to muscle and limb by artificial methods—roasting and boiling, etc. Flower and fruit are most suitable for this, especially of those plants which from the beginning develop towards fruiting and do not waste their time, as it were, in growing foliage. People should take careful note of these things, especially those who are on the dangerous slope that leads to laziness and inertia. An instance of this is the man who wants to be a mystic-. “But how,” he asks, “can I become a mystic if I am working with my hands all day? I ought to be completely at rest and not be constantly stirred to activity by something outside or inside me. If I no longer waste my forces by fussing about all day, I shall become a real mystic. I must therefore order my diet in such a way as to become a mystic.” And he goes in for a diet of raw food and ceases to cook for himself. But the matter is not so easy as all this. For a man of weak physical constitution who takes to a diet of raw food when he is already on the downward path that leads to mysticism, will naturally accelerate the process; he will become more and more “mystical”—that is more and more inert', (and what happens here to a man can be applied to the animal and can teach us how to stir it to greater) activity). But the opposite may also occur. We may have the case of a man of strong constitution who nevertheless has developed the queer idea of becoming a mystic. In this case his own inherent forces and those absorbed through the raw food will continue to develop and to work in him, and the diet may not do him much harm. And if, by this means, he stirs up the forces which generally remain below and produce gout and rheumatism if; he stirs these up, and transforms them, then his raw diet will make mm stronger. There are two sides to every question. No general rule can be laid down, but we must know how these principles work in individual cases. The advantage of vegetarianism is that it calls forth out of the organism forces which were lying fallow and which produce gout, rheumatism, diabetes, etc. where only vegetable food is taken, these forces serve to make it ripe for human assimilation* But where animal food is consumed, these same forces are deposited in the organism and remain unused, or rather they begin to work from out of, themselves, depositing the products of metabolism in various parts of the body, or, as in diabetes, they lay claim for their own use to substances which should remain spread out over all the organs. We only understand these matters when we look more deeply.

This brings us to the question of the fattening of animals. Here we must say we should regard the animal as a kind of sack to be filled as full as possible with cosmic substance. A fat pig is really a most heavenly animal'. Its fat body, apart from its system of nerves-and-senses, is made up entirely of cosmic, not of earthly substance. The pig needs the food which it enjoys so much in order to fill itself with cosmic substance, which it absorbs on all sides and then distributes throughout its body. It must take in this substance which has to be drawn from the cosmos, and distribute it. And the same is true of all fattened animals. lou will find that animals will fatten best on the part of the plant which tends towards fruit-formation, and has been heightened in its activity by cooking or steaming. Or, if you give them something which has in it an enhanced fruit-process, for instance turnip, which belongs to a species in which this process has been enhanced and which has become larger through long cultivation. In general, the best kind of food for fattening cattle is that which will at least help to distribute the cosmic substance, i.e. the part of the plant which tends to fruit-formation—and which has in addition received the proper treatment. These conditions are in the main fulfilled by certain kinds of oil cakes and the like. But we must also see to it that the animal's head is not entirely neglected and that in this fattening treatment a certain amount of earthly substance is introduced there. The fodder just mentioned needs to be complemented by something for the head, though a smaller quantity, as the head does not require so much. In fattening an animal, we should therefore add a small quantity of roots.

Now there is a substance which as substance has no particular function in the organism. In general, one can say that roots have a function in connection with the head, blossoms in connection with the metabolic and limb system, and leaf and stem in connection with the rhythmic system within the human organism. There is, now, a substance that can aid the whole animal organism, because it is related to all its members. This substance is salt. And as of all the ingredients in the food of both man and animals, salt is the least in quantity, we can see it is not how much we take which matters, but what we take. Even small quantities of substance will fulfil their purpose if they are of the right kind.

This brings us to a very important point and one on which I should like to see very accurate experiments made. These could be extended to the observation of human beings who use the article of food I am now going to deal with. As you know, the introduction of the tomato as a food is of comparatively recent date. It is very popular as a food and also extremely valuable as an object of study. One can learn a very great deal both from growing tomatoes and from eating them. Those who give the matter some thought—and there are some such nowadays—are of the opinion and rightly so, that the consumption of the tomato by man is of great significance. And it can well be extended to the animal; it would be quite possible to accustom animals to tomatoes. It is, in fact, of great significance for all that in the body which—while in the organism.—tends to fall out of the organism and to form an organisation of its own« We have the statement made by an American that in some circumstances the use of tomatoes can act as a dietetic means of correcting an unhealthy tendency of the liver. The liver is the most independent organ in the human organism, and diseases of the liver (and especially those of the animal liver) can in general be combated by a diet of tomatoes. Once again, we are gaining insight into the connection between plant and animal. Anyone suffering from cancer, I say this in parenthesis, i.e. from a disease which tends to make one organ in the body independent from the rest, ought at once to be forbidden tomatoes.

Why does the tomato have a special effect upon the parts of the organism which tend to be independent and specialised in their function? This is connected with the conditions which the tomato requires for its own growth. During its growth, the tomato feels happiest in the vicinity of manure which retains the form it had when it separated from the animal. Manure composed of a haphazard collection of all kinds of refuse, not worked upon in any way, will ensure the growing of very fine tomatoes. And if compost heaps could be made of tomato stalks and leaves i.e. of the tomato's own refuse, the result would be quite brilliant. The tomato does not wish to go beyond its own boundaries. It would rather remain within its own strong vitality, it is the most unsocial being in the plant kingdom. It does not wish to admit anything strange to its own nature and especially anything which has already been through the rotting process. And this is connected with the fact that this plant has a special effect on any independent organisation within the animal and human bodies.

In this respect, the tomato bears a certain resemblance to the potato, also a very independent plant in its effects—so much so indeed that after passing very easily through the digestive system, it penetrates into the brain and makes that organ independent even of the workings of the rest of the organs'. And among the factors which have led men and animals to become more materialistic in Europe, we must certainly reckon the excessive consumption of potatoes. The consumption of potatoes should serve only to stimulate the brain and head-system. But it should not go beyond this. These are the things that show in an objective way the intimate connection between agriculture and social life. It is infinitely important that agriculture should be so related to the social life.

I have only indicated these matters on general lines and, for some time to come, these should serve as the foundation for the most varied experiments, such as should lead to most striking results. From this you will be able to understand how the contents of these lectures should be treated. I am thoroughly in agreement with the decision which has been come to by the agriculturalists who have attended this course, namely, that what has been said at these lectures should for the present remain within this circle and be developed by actual experiment and research. This same circle should decide when in their opinion these experiments have been carried sufficiently far for the matter to be made public. A number of persons not directly connected with farming, but whose presence has been permitted through the organisers' tolerance because of their interest in the subject, nave also attended this course. They will, like the character in the well-known opera, be required to put a padlock on their mouths and not; fall into the common Anthroposophical mistake of spreading things as far and wide as possible. For what has so often done us harm is the talk of the individual, dictated not by a desire to convey real information but simply by a desire to repeat what has been heard. It makes all the difference whether these things are said by a farmer or by a layman. Suppose these things are repeated by laymen as an interesting new chapter of Anthroposophical teaching. What will happen? Exactly the same as has happened in the case of other Lecture Cycles. People on all sides, including farmers, will hear it ... But there are different ways of hearing. A farmer hearing these things from another farmer will think at first: “What a pity. The poor fellow has gone crazy.” He will say this the first and even the second time. But when finally a farmer sees something with his own eyes, then it is hardly wise for him to dismiss it as nonsense. But if he has only heard of a new method from people who are not professionally concerned with it but only interested in the subject, then naturally it all comes to nothing and the whole thing will lose its effect: it will be discredited from the start. Therefore, those friends who have been present and are not members of the Agricultural Circle must exercise restraint and not repeat what' they have heard wherever they go, as is so often done in Anthroposophy. This course has been decided on by the Agricultural Circle and the decision announced by our esteemed Count Keyserlingk, and I entirely agree with it.

And now that we have come to the end of this Course, I should like to express my pleasure at your having come to hear what was said, and at the prospect of your taking part in all the developments which will take place in the future. I think you will agree with me when I say that what we have been doing is useful work, and as such possesses a deep inner value.

There are, however, two things to which I would draw your attention. The first is the trouble that has been taken by Count and Countess Keyserlingk and all their household to make this course the success it has been.

This required energy, self-sacrifice, consciousness of the end in view, a sense of Anthroposophical values, a real identification with the cause of Anthroposophy. And this is why the work we have all been engaged upon, a work which will undoubtedly be of service to the whole of humanity, has seemed to take the form of a wonderful festival, for which we give our heartfelt thanks to Count and Countess Keyserlingk.

Discussion

QUESTION: Has liquid manure the same force of ego-organisation as dung?

ANSWER: Of course, liquid manure and dung should be used in union with each other and both should contribute to the same force of organisation of the soil. The connection with the Ego to which I referred holds good particularly for the dung, but does not hold good xn general for the liquid manure. For every Ego, even in the rudimentary form in which it appears in manure, must work in conjunction with some astral element, and the dung would have no astrality unless the liquid manure were there. The liquid is strong is astrality, the dung in ego-force. The manure may be regarded as “grey matter,” while the liquid is the cerebral fluid.

QUESTION: Could we be given the correct astronomical data for those preparations which must be burnt?

ANSWER: (by Dr. Vreede): The exact data cannot be supplied at present. There are calculations still required which cannot be made at the moment. In general, the period for burning the insects is from the beginning of February on into August. With regard to the destruction of field-mice, the period this year (1924)—it shifts from year to year—would be from the second half of November to the first half of December.

DR. STEINER: The principles laid down (in 1912) for the Anthroposophical Calendar ought to be worked out more precisely. Then one could go by it exactly.

QUESTION: In speaking of Full Moon and New Moon do you mean the one day on which the moon is full or new, or does it include the period shortly before and after it?

ANSWER: One reckons the new moon from the moment when the thin sickle (Diagram 22) of the old moon is still there and disappears. Full moon is reckoned from the moment when this other picture appears (again Diagram 22). Both phases cover from twelve to fourteen days.

ANSWER: We shall give the times for making the preparations, but the insects can be kept until then.

QUESTION: Has the burning of the weed seeds to take place in summer, or at any time?

ANSWER: Not too long after they have been gathered

QUESTION: How can this insect-pepper which has “been scattered over the soil' affect the living insects which never come into contact with the soil?

ANSWER: What matters here is not the physical contact but a certain quality coming from this homoeopathic dose. The insect has its own kind of sensitiveness, and it will flee from what has been scattered over the ground without having to come in contact with it. That the insect does not come into direct contact with the earth makes no difference at all.

QUESTION: What is the nature of the harm done by frost in agriculture and in the case of tomatoes in particular? In what sense is frost connected with cosmic forces?

. ANSWER: To have fine and large tomatoes you must keep them warm. They suffer from frost. With regard to frost in general, you must realise what it is t-hat is active in the effects of frost. Frost means that the cosmic influence which is active in the earth has been essentially strengthened. Now this cosmic influence has a normal mean between certain degrees of temperature. When the temperature is at a certain point, this cosmic influence is exactly what the plant requires. If, however, the frost is intense, lasts too long and strikes too deeply, the influence of the heavens upon the earth is too strong and the plant tends to become stalkified and thin throughout and in this attenuated state it falls an easy prey to the frost and is destroyed. Frost which is too intense is therefore extremely harmful to the growth of plants because it is a sign that too much of the heavens has entered into the earth.

QUESTION: Should the burnt remains of Horse-fly be used to treat the bodies of animals, or be scattered over the meadows and pastures?

ANSWER: Scatter it where the animals feed. It is to be regarded as additional to the manure.

QUESTION: What is the best way of combating couch-grass? Is it not very difficult to obtain the seeds?

ANSWER: This difficulty really solves itself. When it grows underground and rampant one can fight it. You need very little seed and you will be able to get this. Why, one can even find four-leaved clover!

QUESTION: Is it permissible to preserve bales of fodder by means of an electric current?

ANSWER: What would be your object in doing this? It is necessary at this point to consider the part played by electricity in Nature. Now it is comforting to note that in America, where people are more observant than they are over here, voices are heard to say that man cannot go on developing in the same way in an atmosphere which is continuously “being pierced “by electrical currents and waves; it has an influence on the whole development of man. Man's inner life will become different if these things are carried further and further. It makes a difference to a district whether it is provided with steam trains or electric trains. The action of steam is more conscious: the action of electricity is extremely unconscious, so that people simply do not know how certain things happen. .

No doubt there is a development going on which must be reckoned with because electricity is being used above the surface of the soil as radiant electricity (wireless) and also as conducted electricity (cables) for transmitting news as quickly as possible from one place to another. The result of this will be that men and women living in the field especially of the radiant electricity can no longer “take in” the news they obtain. The electric radiations used to ensure quick transmissions tend to blot out the capacity for understanding. This can already be observed. People have far more difficulty in taking in what comes to them than they had several decades ago. It is a comfort to find that a glimpse of the truth of this matter is beginning to dawn at least from America.

Whenever anything new appears, it is usually regarded at first as “a remedy.” Then the prophets come in and use the thing. It is strange how, when something new appears, clairvoyant perception is so often brought down to the human level. For instance, a man who had never before thought about it, begins to prophesy wildly regarding the healing power of electricity, and the idea is taken up not merely because electricity is there, but because it is in the fashion. Electricity in the form of radiations is no more a remedy than pricking with small thin needles can be a remedy. It is not the electricity which heals but the shock it produces.

It must not be forgotten, however, that, electricity has a particularly powerful effect upon the higher organisation in living beings, i.e. upon the head in men and animals and upon the root in plants. An animal that eats food that has been preserved through electrification will therefore gradually tend to grow sclerotic. The process will be slow and will not be noticed at first. All that will be noticed, is that in one way or another these animals die too soon. No one will attribute this to the electricity: all sorts of other reasons will be found. I cannot help it, but electricity is the last thing in the world which ought to be introduced into a living being to promote its life! It cannot promote life. Electricity is at one level lower than life, and the higher the level reached “by life, the more it tends to rid itself of electricity; and if you induce the living organism to take repulsive measures when there is nothing to be repelled, the organism becomes nervous and fidgety and gradually sclerotic.

QUESTION: What does Spiritual Science say on the subject of preserving food-stuffs by acidification in general?

ANSWER: If we use salt-like materials at all in this process it does not make much difference whether the salt is added at the moment of eating, or whether it is used in the preparation of the fodder. In the case of fodder that contains too little salt to carry the food stuffs to those parts of the organism where they should work, souring is the right procedure to adopt. Take the case of turnips. These, as we saw, are particularly fitted to work upon the head-organisation. They are, therefore, an excellent food for certain animals, especially for young cattle. If, however, it be noticed that the young animals shed their hair too soon and too much, their fodder should be salted because this means that the food is not being deposited in sufficient quantities in those parts of the organism where it is needed. Salt is tremendously effective in carrying food to the part of the organism where it is needed and will work.

QUESTION: What view does Spiritual Science take on the subject of souring of the leaves of sugar-beet and other green plants?

ANSWER: The great thing here is to find a certain optimum and not go beyond it by adding too much salt, because salt is the part of food which more than any other remains what it is once it is inside the organism. The organism in general, in the case of animals- and even more so of human beings, is so constructed as to submit everything it absorbs to the most varied changes. It is an error to think that the albumen which goes into our stomachs remains the same as it was before we ate it. It must first be changed into a completely lifeless substance and then changed back again by means of the etheric body into specifically human (or in the case of animals specifically animal) albumen.

Everything that enters into an organism must be changed. This applies even to warmth. Suppose that this (see Diagram 23, Part I) is a living organism and this the warmth in the environment. Now assume you have a piece of dead wood (Diagram 23, Part II) which, it is true, comes from a living organism but is already dead. It is likewise surrounded by warmth. Now when the warmth enters into the living organism, it does not simply go a little way in and remain what it is; the organism immediately transforms it into a warmth of its own, and it could not do otherwise. Whereas when the warmth penetrates into the dead wood it remains exactly the same kind of warmth as exists outside in the mineral earth. The moment warmth penetrates into us unchanged as it does into the piece of wood, we catch cold. Nothing that comes into the living organism from outside may remain what it is; it must immediately he changed into something else. This process takes place to the least extent m salt. No great harm, therefore, will he done by using salt for the preserving of food-stuffs so long as you do it carefully and do not put in too much. The mere sense of taste will reject it. If it is necessary for the preservation of food-stuffs this shows that up to a point it is the right process to adopt.

QUESTION: Do you recommend souring fodder without salt?

ANSWER: That is too advanced a process. It is a super-organic process (self-fermentation) and can in certain circumstances be extremely harmful.

QUESTION: Is Spanish Chalk, sometimes used to mitigate the effects of souring, bad for the animals?

ANSWER: Some animals cannot stand it at all; they become ill. Some can. I cannot say at the moment which are those that can stand it. On the whole, it does not do the animals much good and is apt to make them ill.

QUESTION: I suppose that the gastric juice will be dulled by the Spanish chalk?

ANSWER: Yes. The gastric juice becomes useless.

QUESTION: I would like to ask whether the inner attitude with which one sets to work is not of great importance in these matters? There is surely a great difference between sowing seed and scattering what is destined to work destruction. The attitude of mind must count. Does it not have an immensely greater karmic effect to work against insects in this way than to kill them in single instances by mechanical means?

ANSWER: The main thing about an inner attitude is whether it is a good or a bad attitude. What do you mean by “destruction?” Now consider how one must think about these things. In my lecture to-day I pointed out that we can know something and then actually see it before us. We can look at a linseed plant or a carrot and actually see (because we know) the course it takes and the process it undergoes when it enters the body of an animal. If we can really attain to this objective vision and make it a reality, then it is inconceivable

that we should not at the same time be penetrated by certain feelings of piety. And we shall gain the impulse to do this in the service of mankind, in the service of the Universe. The only way in which our state of mind could bring harm would be if we did our work from bad motives. I do not see, therefore, since these methods work on the whole for good, that they can in any way do harm. You seem to think that it would not be so bad just to run after the animal and kill it?

QUESTION: I wanted to know if there was a difference between the two ways of destruction—mechanical and cosmic?

ANSWER: This question raises very complicated issues which can only be understood if we have gained insight -into the wider connections that exist between things. Suppose you draw a fish out of the sea and kill it. Then you have killed something. You have carried out a process on a definite level. But suppose that for some reason or other you take a whole pail full of water containing quantities of fish-spawn, thus destroying a vast amount of life. This is something quite different from killing one fish. The process has been carried out on quite a different level. If something in Nature passes on towards a full-grown fish, it has travelled along a certain path. If you cut the fish off at this point, you cause a certain disorder in Nature. But it is quite a different matter to arrest a process which has not been completed or which has not ended in the blind alley of a fully-grown organism. Your question, therefore, boils down to this: What wrong am I doing in making this pepper? What I destroy with the pepper does not really come into consideration as it moves on another level of existence. All we need ask is: What must I have in order to make this pepper? And in most cases, it turns out that in making it I shall destroy far fewer animals than if I have to collect them in some other way and then kill them. I think that if you look at the question in a practical way and less from an abstract point of view you will find that it is not so very appalling.

QUESTION: Can human faeces be used for manuring, and how should they be treated before use?

ANSWER: They should be used as little as possible. For they achieve very little in the way of manuring and they can do more harm than any other kind of manure. If, however, you want to use them the normal amount that is to be had on a farm or estate will be amply sufficient. If one knows that a given number of human beings are working on an estate, then if the human manure be added to what already comes from the animals on the estate and from other sources, clearly this will make up the maximum that can he used without doing harm. It is the greatest mistake to use human manure in the neighbourhood of large towns, because the amount supplied by a large town would suffice for an estate of gigantic size. No one would have such a crazy notion as to use on a small piece of land the human manure supplied, say by the whole of Berlin. You need only try eating some of the plants that grow in the neighbourhood of big cities. Take asparagus or any other plant which still manages to grow fairly true to its nature and upright, and you will see what happens.

Again, if you use human manure for plants that are eaten by animals, you will have the most harmful results., For then much of what is eaten and goes through the animal's organism remains at the same stage as that at which the asparagus is arrested when it goes through the human organism. In this connection, it is the grossest ignorance which has caused the greatest mischief in this field.

QUESTION: Is there any remedy for red murrain (Erysipelas) in swine?

ANSWER: This is really a veterinary question. I have never gone into the matter, as I have never been asked for advice about it, but I rather think the best thing to do is to rub in a certain dose of antimony. This is a therapeutic question as it deals with a real disease.

QUESTION: Can one combat Wild Radish, which is a bastard species, with these peppers?

ANSWER: The peppers of which I have told you only affect the plants from which they were made. Plants which arise from symbiosis or the crossing of one plant with another cannot therefore be affected by pepper made from one of them.

QUESTION: What are your views on green manuring?

ANSWER: It has its uses, especially in connection with fruit-growing. One cannot generalise on such matters. It should be used if a powerful development of the leafy part of the plant is required. For such a purpose, it can well supplement other manures.

(from the 2nd German Edition, abridged).

NOTE BY EDITOR: The following pages are notes of collective conversations with Dr. Steiner on various occasions.

After the more or less harmful effects of mineral fertilisers had been referred to, Dr. Steiner said on one occasion: In view of the obvious increase in output which people today seem to, think necessary, this kind of fertiliser might perhaps not be dispensed with. But the harmful effects upon man and animal will not fail to ensue. Some of these effects will appear only after several generations have passed. Remedies, therefore, have to be found in time. Such remedies are e.g. the leaves of fruit trees. It can be recommended, therefore, to plant fruit trees around arable land.

In another discussion, Dr. Steiner spoke of the value of horn meal (ground horns and claws of cattle) as a fertiliser. He said that horn meal was one of the very best fertilisers if mixed with farmyard manure. The horn meal should not be sharply baked; the fresh horn meal is better because of its higher content of hydrogen. Hydrogen, Dr. Steiner said, is more important for its effect on the soil even than nitrogen. The Science of today has not yet discovered the importance of hydrogen for plant growth.

(Taken from a conversation between Dr. Steiner and Dr. chem. Streicher)

Dr. Streicher complained that modern agriculture confined itself to replacing in the soil the nitrogen, phosphoric acid and potassium, just as Liebig had suggested decades ago. Great danger arises from the nitrogen being compounded with very strong acids, which cause acidity of the soil and in case of drought in summer may become disastrous.

DR. STEINER: Actually, the only healthy fertilizer is cattle, manure. This should be our starting point. In addition to this a principle has to be found whereby a healthy nitrogen content of the soil may be brought about. I cannot yet tell how this can be done; it ought to be a principle which causes the earthworms and similar animals to “work the soil through.” Besides this, certain weeds have to be discovered which should be planted in the neighbourhood of the field. It is, for example, important to plant sainfoin on rye and wheat fields—at least along the edge. This influence actually exists. You have to test rationally [“rational” is often used by Dr. Steiner in the sense of Goethe, as opposite to mere empiricism.] by experiment the fact that it is good to have horse radish planted along the edge of potato fields, and corn flowers grown among corn and to have the poppies destroyed. It is such things as these which have to be considered in studying the whole problem of fertilizers. Otherwise you arrive at abstract principles and confine yourselves to the mere neutralisation of the acidity of the soil. This would kill step by step the fertility of the soil; it would make it “deaf” (taub).

Neither should one fall into the other extreme and use only plant manure. This is without doubt unfavourable to plant growth. The only ideal fertilizer is cattle manure. Besides this much depends on plant association, e.g. leguminous plants, especially sainfoin. And care should be taken to place all herbaceous plants in a dry soil, whereas cereals need a moist soil.

But importance certainly attaches to the personal human relation of the sower to the seed (paradoxical as this may seem to the modern chemist and biologist). If you observe carefully you will find a different effect produced by the way in which the sower proceeds, whether he simply takes the seed from out of the sack and flings it down, or whether he is accustomed to shake it a little in his hand and to strew it gently on the ground. These differences are of importance for the problem of manuring and it would be good to discuss them with interested farmers for they have experience in the things which are beginning to be lost in modern agriculture. I would advise you to examine old agricultural calendars to find hints on the problem of manuring. They contain ideas which sound strange but which could be formulated in chemical terms.

[DR. STREICHER here mentioned that the critical situation of the farmer has been aggravated by the infectious diseases which decimated the livestock last year, and by the shortage of food.]

DR. STEINER: Scientists should have the courage to point out where the principal harm is done. Stable feeding, which has been unduly praised in late years, has no doubt some connection with cattle tuberculosis as well as with the fact that the yield of milk is increased for a time and so on. The state of health, however, declines of course in the subsequent generations. And it is certain that the dung which the farmer's wife gathers in her basket or collects with a shovel from the meadow is better than the dung produced in stable-feeding.

Moreover, the animal should be prevented from taking in the breath of its neighbour while feeding. This is harmful. In walking across the pastures, you will see that the animals graze at some distance from each other, because they do not want to have the breath of the neighbour near themselves. It may also happen that an animal gets some little sores and if the breath of another animal touches this wound it will undoubtedly be a cause of disease.

[DR. STREICHER indicated that there are tendencies in modern agriculture to feed livestock directly on urea and to avoid the “indirect” way of feeding them on plants; the urea is gained from synthetic nitrogen. People think that the farding bag (rumen) of the cow contains certain bacteria which decompose the urea and builds it up into albumen. If these experiments are adopted in practice by farmers, the deterioration of the livestock may be intensified.]

DR. STEINER: With experiments of this kind no true results can be attained. We have to realise that in the sphere of vitality there is always present the law of inertia, if I might call it so. The effects may not manifest themselves in this or the following, but certainly they will do so in the third generation. The workings of the vital force will meantime veil the result. If such experiments deal only with one generation, you get quite a wrong impression. In the third generation one will have effects which have their cause in the feeding of the grand-parent animals, but science will seek for the causes elsewhere. Vitality cannot be broken down at once, but only in the course of generations.

DR. STREICHER mentioned experiments of the English botanist Bottomley who succeeded in producing in peat moss a certain bacterial life., which results in decomposing the humus substance to other unknown substances, which have a stimulating effect upon plant growth. He calls them `Auximones’ and puts them on the same level as biologists do vitamins.

DR. STEINER: If these substances are used to stimulate the growth of plants destined for human food, no ill results may appear in those who eat this food. But their children will perhaps be born with hydrocephalus. The procedure shows that the plants will become hypertrophied and if they serve as food, the nerve life of the succeeding generations deteriorates. One has to realise that certain effects upon the life process do not manifest themselves until the succeeding or even the third generation. Research has to be extended as far as this.

DR. STREICHER said that experiments of a scientist in Freiburg have shown that organic compounds of quicksilver have an extraordinarily stimulating effect upon vegetable growth« People hope that in this way vegetables can be produced in a very short time. The plants exhibit signs of hypertrophy.

Dr. STEINER: In this case one should find out whether the children of those who consume them become impotent. All this has to be considered. Experiments must not be carried out in too restricted a sphere, because the vital process is something which goes on in “Time,” and only in course of years does it degenerate in its inherent forces.

Further Indications on Agriculture given by Rudolf Steiner.

DR. STEINER in answer to a question by Herr Stegemann.: In sowing oats one should take care that the soil is dry; the same applies to potatoes and root crops. [Wheat and rye on the other hand should be sown in moist soil.] As marginal plants for cereals, Dr. Steiner named deadnettle and sainfoin; they should be planted at a distance of 4½ to 5½ yards. Turnips and potatoes can be surrounded by horseradish; this need only be planted at the four corners of the field and must be removed every year.

Animal pests, Dr. Steiner said, will vanish gradually with the cultivation of new kinds of plants.

To combat wireworms, Dr. Steiner recommended the exposure of rain water to the waning moon for a fortnight. The water must be poured on the places where the wireworms occur and must moisten the ground as deep as the worms go.

In order to prevent the degeneration of the potato, he recommended that seed potatoes be cut into small pieces with one eye only in each. This process should be repeated the following year.

To a question by Count von Keyserlingk: As a remedy against rust, the field can be surrounded with a border of stinging nettles.

Manure heaps should be carried out to the field and remain there until they are wanted.

Dr. Steiner recommended that an orchard on peaty ground be treated with Kali Magnesia.

On looking at the flower garden at Whitsuntide, 1924, Dr. Steiner said: “The flowers do not seem to be quite happy here| there is too much iron in the soil.” On coming to the roses, which were not flowering well and were suffering from mildew, he recommended that very finely distributed lead should be added to the soil.

When he was questioned about the enormous number of cow horns that would surely be necessary for treating the 30,000 acres at Koberwitz, Dr. Steiner gave the astonishing reply that when all measures were fully applied, as few as 150 cow horns would suffice.

When asked about sainfoin, his instructions were to use about 2 lbs. for sowing with one acre of corn.

To combat snails and slugs, Dr. Steiner recommended that a solution of 3-in-100 seed of conifers should be sprayed. This is understood to mean: obtain the sap of these seeds by pressure, dilute it in the proportion of 3:1000 of water and spray this on to the plant beds. Dr. Steiner encouraged such an experiment. Similar experiments should be made elsewhere. On a walk through the fields at Arlesheim and Dornach, Dr. Steiner told those who were with him that to increase the vigour of Preparation 500 for use upon meadows .and fields with fruit trees the following should be done: Take some fruit and a handful of leaves of the fruit trees in question and boil them in ¼ gallon of water so as to form a kind of infusion, then add this “fruit tea” when the content of the cow horn is stirred in the pail.

In order to strengthen diseased and weak fruit trees a 4-irich deep trench can be made around the stem at a distance corresponding to the crown of the tree and into this a considerable quantity of the diluted and stirred cow horn preparation (Nr. 500) can be poured.

Referring to the silica preparation (Nr. 501), Dr. Steiner said that it might even suffice to take a lump of quartz the size of a. bean and knead it with moist soil from the ground on which the preparation later on is to be sprayed; this mixture to be filled into the horn. If little pieces of it are diluted and stirred with water, this will hold sufficient silica-radiation.

Marginal plants for vegetables in the garden: sainfoin, dandelion and horseradish.

Concerning plant diseases, Dr. Steiner said that plants actually cannot be ill because the etheric principle is always healthy. When troubles appear, they show that the environment of the plants, and especially the soil, is out of order. Thus the soil has to be treated, not the plant. As an example, he recommended the strengthening of aged trees by taking fresh soil from the roots of blackthorn (Prunus spinosa) and birch and spreading that around the roots of the trees.

One can make the weed-destroyer (pepper) more effective by burning the root-stock together with the seeds of the weed in question.

(Report by Ehrenfried Pfeiffer)

Some years before the war, when asked about the use of human faeces, Dr. Steiner gave a warning against the use of them because the circle from man to plant and from the (manured) plant back to man is too short. The way should lead from man to plant, from plant to animal, from animal to plant and then back again to man.

Peat moss as a means of soil improvement was more than once rejected by Rudolf Steiner. It is, he said, neither suitable as manure nor for improving the physical condition of the soil. We ought to add humus again' and again in every form instead: as compost, leaf mould, etc.

To a question concerning mineral manure (cf. page 39, 47 of this lecture course) Dr. Steiner replied: If one is compelled to use it, one has always to mix it up with liquid or solid stable manure. The use of liquid matter from the closet he strongly objected to; neither should this be poured on fresh compost “even if the soil is not to be used for four years, it will still contain what is harmful.”

Under trees infested with Woolly Aphis, nasturtium (Tropaeolum) should be planted in a circle.