Translations:Manfred Klett: Von der Agrartechnologie zur Landbaukunst/963/en

From the conviction that matter alone constitutes the sole reality underlying all phenomena of the world, there developed in agriculture during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries the concept of «mineral fertilization» — and with it the notion of a sum of «nutrients» that the plant requires in order to grow. Behind this theory lies the fateful assumption that life can arise from a sum of inorganic, dead substance-elements, that one could generate and multiply life by means of these. Life, however, arises from life, from life-germs or seed. No matter how exact one's observation, nowhere in nature will one find the slightest indication that life could arise from mineral-dead matter — only the reverse: life falls into death. The concept of manuring, on the other hand, concerns itself with this: that life as such within the growth-processes of the plant, and equally the soul-astral working from without in form-building, is furthered in a manner true to its essential nature. It is not without reason that since ancient times the concept of manure has derived from the significant workings of the excretions of the soul-organization and the life-organization of domestic animals. People spoke of the «old force» of soils so manured. Out of the prevailing materialist inner disposition, one ascribes to organic manures — beyond their many-sided mineral composition and their promotion of microbial soil life — no specific fertilising force.