Translations:Manfred Klett: Von der Agrartechnologie zur Landbaukunst/842/en

Every plant species possesses a general and beyond that a specific capacity for the assimilation of mineral substances. General may mean: the whole spectrum of earthly substances that the plant requires in order to take on an earthly form of appearance; specific, those substances through which the etheric organisation of a plant species, in accordance with its spiritual archetype, is able to give expression to particular properties. These properties configure and individualize themselves according to the measure of the quantitative-qualitative relationship of a particular earthly substance to a qualitative-quantitative constellation of cosmic-etheric formative forces. Such relational nexuses Rudolf Steiner characterises with regard to the properties of the preparation plants (cf. chapter "The Compost or Manure Preparations", p. 360 ff.).