Translations:Manfred Klett: Von der Agrartechnologie zur Landbaukunst/843/en

Thus within the framework of the crop rotation every main crop — and likewise every herb or grass of the companion flora (weeds and weed-grasses) — makes its own specific contribution to the unlocking of minerals through acid action and root exudates, as well as root-active exchange processes, and through the return of these mineral substances to the soil by way of organic residues. Alongside the capacity for fixing atmospheric nitrogen, the legumes possess yet another: namely that of their high mineral-unlocking capacity with regard to calcium, magnesium, phosphorus and boron. According to Paracelsus, there is no plant that does not possess a healing action. This rests on the capacity of the plant's etheric body to concentrate substances of the earth within the plant and to compose them into organic compounds — through which they receive their soil-fertility value, their healing and nutritive value.