Translations:Manfred Klett: Von der Agrartechnologie zur Landbaukunst/228/en

An example of how greatly the force of inertia was the enemy of every innovation is shown at the beginning of the nineteenth century by the attempt to introduce the seed drill into the highly developed farming culture of Flanders. This attempt initially failed; the farmers felt instinctively that this suggestion was an intrusion upon the spiritual-moral self-understanding of the farmer, who in measured step and rhythmic swing entrusted the seed to the opened earth and who at the same time gave his blessing to this event in a certain bearing of soul and spirit. How different the designer of the seed drill — coming from outside, from the city — who analytically takes apart the act of sowing into its functions in conceptual abstraction. Out of these he constructs a machine that must fulfil the following functions: to deposit a defined quantity of seed of a defined grain-size at a defined depth in the soil in a defined unit of time, and to cover it with earth.