Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in
Book cover

New Perspectives on the History of Life Sciences and Agriculture pp 183–203Cite as

Artificial or Biological? Nature, Fertilizer, and the German Origins of Organic Agriculture

  • Chapter
  • First Online:

Part of the book series: Archimedes ((ARIM,volume 40))

Abstract

This chapter investigates the origins of organic agriculture in the German life reform movement of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. Aiming to make lifestyles more natural, life reformers paid close attention to food and farming. In the 1870s–1880s, they argued that natural agriculture was a necessary step on the road to freedom and embraced the new artificial fertilizers of German chemistry. By the early twentieth century, in contrast, concern with racial degeneration and agricultural globalization led a new generation to reject artificial fertilizers as unnatural. Working from the proto-ecological view that “humans are only plants in the garden of nature,” life reformers adopted new ideas from German biology to invent an early form of organic agriculture that also served rightwing political goals. As such, the life reform movement became an important site for developing and politicizing the “biological perspective,” a characteristic expression of German thinking about nature.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution.

Chapter
USD   29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD   149.00
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Hardcover Book
USD   199.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Learn about institutional subscriptions

Notes

  1. 1.

    For an international overview, see Lockeretz (2007). Country-specific studies include, for Britain, Conford (2001); Barton (2001); Matless (2001). For the United States, Beeman and Pritchard (2001); and for Japan, Moen (1995). The best overview of the German story is Vogt (2000a).

  2. 2.

    Simons (1911, p. 11).

  3. 3.

    Nyhart (2009, p. 2).

  4. 4.

    Even today, indeed, “biologisch” remains the German word of choice for organics, yet carries its own distinctive meanings accumulated during the complex history sketched below.

  5. 5.

    Assessing the politics of early organic agriculture has been a fraught enterprise, particularly in the German context. Anna Bramwell, for instance, argued that German ecologism expressed a political orientation beyond left and right. See Bramwell (1985, 1989). For important critiques, see Stephens (2001) and Olsen (1990). Other historians simply elide the political history of organic agriculture before the Nazi era. See especially Vogt (2000a). The rightward shift documented here, it is worth noting, was well in line with international developments. For the closely linked British case, see the book by Conford noted above as well as Conford (2005, 2008).

  6. 6.

    Berry (1990, p. 145).

  7. 7.

    Baltzer (1873, pp. 44–45 and 87–88).

  8. 8.

    Baltzer (1903, p. 21). This was a favorite trope of vegetarians, who credited the idea to Alexander von Humboldt.

  9. 9.

    Carey (1860, pp. 315–316). Carey was a major influence on Baltzer. See especially Baltzer, Reform, 7–35.

  10. 10.

    Baltzer (1873, p. 37, 41–45, and 98–101).

  11. 11.

    For an overview, see Zanden (1991).

  12. 12.

    Zanden (1991, p. 232).

  13. 13.

    Baltzer (1873, p. 44).

  14. 14.

    Löbe (1856). This was an annotated translation of Samuel Smith’s Lois Weedon Husbandry (1856), which was in turn a modern adaptation of Jethro Tull’s New Horse-Houghing Husbandry (1731). The cultivation technique promoted by all three writers involved deep ploughing and no animal fertilizer.

  15. 15.

    For a list of commonly used artificial fertilizers, see (1908) Dünger und Düngung. For Liebig’s agricultural chemistry, see Brock (1997, Chap. 6). For Liebig’s discussion, see Liebig (1843, pp. 226–279).

  16. 16.

    Roeder (1872). Roeder’s article appeared in Der Chemische Ackersmann, edited by Adolf Stöckhardt. An agricultural chemist with a global reputation, Stöckhardt used this journal to bring Liebig’s agricultural chemistry to practicing farmers. Brock (1997, p. 169).

  17. 17.

    Baltzer, Reform, 27. Either Baltzer had not read the fine print or did not object to the fact that Roeder, following Liebig’s own recommendations, used factory-generated animal remains in his fertilizer mix.

  18. 18.

    Klein (1889, p. 32). The first edition came out in 1885. Green manures, crop rotation, and the fallow system are all widely used by organic farmers today. Roeder also used green manures. Roeder (1872, p. 76).

  19. 19.

    Uekötter (2011, p. 163).

  20. 20.

    Liebig (1859, pp. 244–245).

  21. 21.

    Carpenter and Kropotkin, for instance, drew on the book in their own utopian writings.

  22. 22.

    Brock (1997); Klein (1889, pp. 32–33).

  23. 23.

    For an excellent overview of mineral fertilizers in this period, see Smil (2001, Chaps. 1–3).

  24. 24.

    First-generation life reformers did, however, occasionally worry that crops fertilized with farmyard dung might be of lower quality and thus damaging to human health. See Hahn (1869, p. 19); Klein (1889, pp. 31–32); Baltzer (1873, p. 44).

  25. 25.

    Hensel (1890, p. iv).

  26. 26.

    Hensel called poor blood composition Blutentmischung, a humoral term later popularized by Heinrich Lahmann, and Dyskrasia, a traditional Hippocratic term. As an antitode to poor blood, Hensel offered a recipe for “Hensel’s tonic,” a mixture with no nitrogen but plenty of iron, sulphur, and calcium. Hensel (1881, p. 86, 120–122, 129, and 180–181). Hensel’s relationship to the life reform movement was unclear. His use of such terms as “macrobiotics” and “poor blood” indicate that he may have belonged to naturopathic circles, but he also criticized vegetarians for being impractical. Hensel (1890, pp. 500–502).

  27. 27.

    Hensel (1890, p. iii, 479, 483, 491, 504, and 509–510).

  28. 28.

    Hensel (1894, pp. 94–95). From the life reform perspective, German chemists had an unhealthy obsession with nitrogen. While nutritional physiologists urged Germans to eat more protein (the only macronutrient containing nitrogen), especially from meat, and agricultural chemists urged Germans to fertilize more with nitrogenous substances, all in the pursuit of national health and fitness, life reformers stood out for vigorously advocating low-protein low-meat diets and low-nitrogen fertilizers, also in pursuit of national health and fitness.

  29. 29.

    Zacharias (1890, p. 298); Wagner (1892, pp. 979–980). For Zacharias as popularizer, see Daum (2002, pp. 401–402). Wagner also directed the Agricultural Research Station in Darmstadt.

  30. 30.

    [1894] Mineraldünger.

  31. 31.

    Uekötter (2011, pp. 146–159).

  32. 32.

    Smil (2001, p. 48).

  33. 33.

    Utermöhlen(1895, p. 3, 13–14, 23, and 33).

  34. 34.

    Sponheimer (1905, pp. 51–57). The Deutsche Landwirtschaftsgesellschaft also had a special committee devoted to studying the prospects for recycling urban waste. Uekötter (2011, p. 163).

  35. 35.

    Lahmann’s model of pathogenesis also followed Hensel’s in its stress on how diet caused good or poor blood composition.

  36. 36.

    Lahmann’s estate was Gut Friedrichsthal. Lienert (2002, p. 45). Lahmann had little hope that agricultural reform would help poor Germans right away, so his books also included detailed recommendations for self-provisioning and civic action. He urged city dwellers to go out on weekends and holidays to gather wild greens in meadows and open fields. Chicory, dandelion, sorrel, borage, mustard, and even the young leaves of stinging nettles, he noted, were high in minerals and free to all. Since fresh fruits were harder to acquire, he called for social pressure to encourage civic authorities to plant public orchards. Lahmann (1892, pp. 154–155 and 158–159).

  37. 37.

    Bebel (1900, pp. 355–356, 390–392).

  38. 38.

    Vogt names both Bauernfeind and Gustav Simons as pioneers of ecological agriculture, but does not explore their political valence. Vogt (2000a, pp. 64–65).

  39. 39.

    Bauernfeind (1912, p. 8, 27, and 39). Bauernfeind claimed not to use anything but ground stone fertilizer on his plants. Bauernfeind (1908, p. 8). Simons, in contrast, did admit to using animal manure.

  40. 40.

    Simons (1904, p. 20 and 159). Elsewhere, he declined to foreswear the artificial fertilizer Chile nitrate wholly, but worried that overuse harmed crop quality. Simons (1911, p. 25).

  41. 41.

    Hunt (1974, p. 316).

  42. 42.

    Chile nitrate delivered nitrogen at 30 times the concentration of animal manure. Smil (2001, p. 46 and 48).

  43. 43.

    Simons, Die deutsche Volksernährung, 96.

  44. 44.

    Uekötter (2011, pp. 183–214). Vogt (2000, pp. 31–36). Smil (2001, Chaps. 4–5). In English, see also Uekötter (2006); and Vogt (2007).

  45. 45.

    Scholarly attention has focused on the biodynamic methods associated with Rudolf Steiner and a small group of anthroposophical farmers. The best overview is Vogt (2000a, Chap. 4). For opposing views on the relation of this group to the Nazi regime, see Vogt (2000b); Treitel (2009); and Staudenmaier (2010, pp. 226–252). Perhaps the more interesting question concerns the politics of these groups before 1933. Less studied but no less revealing were other pioneers of organic agriculture, including Wilhelm Büsselberg , Leberecht Migge , Walter Rudolph, and Friedrich Schöll . With the exception of Rudolph, whose politics are unclear, all of these figures were political radicals. Migge was an anarchist, while Büsselberg and Schöll were Könemann’s fellow travelers in völkisch circles.

  46. 46.

    [1959] Ewald Könemann 60 Jahre.

  47. 47.

    Könemann (1939, pp. 1–2).

  48. 48.

    Löhnis (1906). See also Löhnis (1913, p. 377); Francé (1913, pp. 92–93). Könemann refers to Löhnis and Francé in several places. See, e.g., Könemann (1939, p. 35 and 42). For agricultural bacteriology, see Uekötter (2011, pp. 214–225); and Vogt (2000a, pp. 39–44).

  49. 49.

    Uekötter (2011, p. 216). In 1903, Francé helped found the Kosmos Gesellschaft, a major popular scientific association, and several of the volumes that he wrote for its press, the Franckh’sche Verlagshandlung in Stuttgart, became best sellers. Daum (2002, pp. 184–188); Roth (2000, p. 62).

  50. 50.

    For Francé, as an early apostle of biotechnology, see Bud (1993, pp. 62–63). For Francé’s impact on forest ecology, see Wilson (2012, pp. 190–194).

  51. 51.

    Francé (1913, p. 5).

  52. 52.

    Francé (1922, p. 27 and 39). Könemann reprinted some of these “slides” in his 1939 book. See, e.g., Könemann (1939), plate between pages 32 and 33.

  53. 53.

    Roth (2000, pp. 59–60).

  54. 54.

    Francé (1922, p. 27, 39, 67, and 70).

  55. 55.

    Könemann (1939, p. 98).

  56. 56.

    Könemann (1939, pp. 235–236 and plate 14).

  57. 57.

    Könemann (1939, pp. 186–188, 235–236, 264–265, and 285–286). For his extended discussion of fertilizers, see 171–251. For his model self-composting toilet, see plate 14 between pp. 216 and 217. Note that Könemann's ideal was farming without animals and animal manure, but in practice biological agriculture did use animal manure and prescribed treating farm animals with “comraderly attention” (p. 165).

  58. 58.

    Francé (1920, p. 276).

  59. 59.

    Könemann (1939, p. 59 and 87).

  60. 60.

    Francé (1922, pp. 47–48).

  61. 61.

    Francé (1920, p. 269, 276–280).

  62. 62.

    For example, he substituted the supposedly more Germanic “f” for the “v” of conventional German usage. Viehloser Ackerbau ( agriculture without animals) thus became fiehloser Ackerbau. Könemann (1925). The Nazi regime also considered adopting this orthography a few years later. See Birken-Bertsch and Markner (2000).

  63. 63.

    Könemann (1933, p. 9 and 32).

  64. 64.

    Bodenständig was popularized by Alwin Seifert , a landscape architect and cultural conservative closely tied to the Nazi regime. For Seifert and his use of the term, see Rollins (1995, p. 503). As for Lebensraum, this concept has a long and checkered history. In the Nazi context, it connoted creating living space for Germans through the conquest and racial reconstruction of Eastern Europe. It is important to note, however, that the term carried other meanings before and after the Third Reich. For its coinage by the geographer Friedrich Ratzel, see Smith (1980). For Darré’s use of the term, see Gerhard (2005). For the repurposing of this term by West German nature conservationists in the 1950s, see Chaney (2008, p. 117).

References

  • 1894. Mineraldünger. Anlage zu den Stenographischen Berichten über die Verhandlungen des Hauses der Abgeordneten, vol. I, 67–68. Berlin: W. Moser.

    Google Scholar 

  • 1908. Dünger und Düngung. Meyers Grosses Konversations-Lexikon, vol. 5, 6th ed., 277–280. Leipzig: Bibliographisches Institut.

    Google Scholar 

  • 1959. Ewald Könemann 60 Jahre. Organischer Landbau 5: 97.

    Google Scholar 

  • Baltzer, Eduard. 1873. Ideen zur socialen Reform. Nordhausen: Ferd. Förstemann.

    Google Scholar 

  • Baltzer, Eduard. 1903. Die Reform der Volkswirtschaft vom Standpunkte der natürlichen Lebensweise. Leipzig: H. Hartung & Sohn.

    Google Scholar 

  • Barton, Gregory. 2001. Sir Albert Howard and the forestry roots of the organic farming movement. Agricultural History 75:168–187.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bauernfeind, E. Heinrich. 1908. Natur- und Kunstdüngung. Lorch: Karl Rohm.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bauernfeind, E. Heinrich. 1912. Die Vorteile der Aschen-, Mineral-, Steinmehl- oder Naturdüngung und die Nachteile der jetzt üblichen Mist- und Kunstdüngung. Weidenbach-Triesdorf: Selbstverlag.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bebel, August. 1900. Die Frau und der Sozialismus. Stuttgart: Dietz.

    Google Scholar 

  • Beeman, Randall S., and James A. Pritchard. 2001. A green and permanent land: Ecology and agriculture in the twentieth century. Lawrence: University of Kansas Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Berry, Wendell. 1990. What are people for? New York: North Point Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Birken-Bertsch, Hanno, and Reinhard Markner. 2000. Rechtschreibreform und Nationalsozialismus: Ein Kapitel aus der politischen Geschichte der deutschen Sprache. Göttingen: Wallstein Verlag.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bramwell, Anna. 1985. Blood and soil: Richard Walther Darré and Hitler’s ‘Green Party’. Abbotsbrook: The Kensal House.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bramwell, Anna. 1989. Ecology in the twentieth century: A history. New Haven: Yale University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Brock, William H. 1997. Justus von Liebig: The chemical gatekeeper. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bud, Robert. 1993. The uses of life: A history of biotechnology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Carey, H.C. 1860. Principles of social science, vol. III. Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott.

    Google Scholar 

  • Chaney, Sandra. 2008. Nature of the miracle years: Conservation in West Germany 1945–1975. New York: Berghahn Books.

    Google Scholar 

  • Conford, Philip. 2001. The origins of the organic movement. Edinburgh: Floris Books.

    Google Scholar 

  • Conford, Philip. 2005. Organic society: Agriculture and radical politics in the career of Gerard Wallop, Ninth Earl of Portsmouth. Agricultural History Review 53:78–96.

    Google Scholar 

  • Conford, Philip. 2008. Saturated with biological metaphors: Professor John Macmurray and the politics of the organic movement. Contemporary British History 22:317–334.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Daum, Andreas. 2002. Wissenschaftspopularisierung im 19. Jahrhundert: Bürgerliche Kultur, naturwissenschaftliche Bildung und die deutsche Öffentlichkeit 1848–1914. Munich: R. Oldenbourg.

    Google Scholar 

  • Francé, R. H. 1913. Das Edaphon: Untersuchungen zur Oekologie der bodenbewohnenden Mikroorganismen. Munich: Deutsche mikrologische Gesellschaft.

    Google Scholar 

  • Francé, R. H. 1920. Die Gewalten der Erde: Eine Geschichte der Entfaltung des Lebens. Berlin: Ullstein.

    Google Scholar 

  • Francé, R. H. 1922. Das Leben im Ackerboden. Stuttgart: Kosmos, Gesellschaft der Naturfreunde.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gerhard, Gesine. 2005. Breeding pigs and people for the Third Reich: Richard Walther Darré's agrarian ideology. In How green were the Nazis? Nature, environment, and nation in the Third Reich, ed. Franz-Josef Brüggemeier, Mark Cioc, and Thomas Zeller, 129–146. Athens: Ohio University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hahn, Theodor, ed. 1869. Der Vegetarianismus, seine wissenschaftliche Begründung und seine Bedeutung für das leibliche, geistige und sittliche Wohl des Einzelnen, wie der gesammten Menschheit. Ein Beitrag zur Lösung der socialen Frage. Berlin: Theobald Grieben.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hensel, Julius. 1881. Neue Makrobiotik, oder die Kunst Seuchen zu verhüten und zu heilen. Stuttgart: Selbstverlag.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hensel, Julius. 1890. Das Leben: Seine Grundlagen und die Mittel zu seiner Erhaltung physikalisch erläutert zum praktischen Nutzen für Ackerbau, Forstwirthschaft, Heilkunde und allgemeine Wohlfahrt. Philadelphia: Boericke & Tafel.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hensel, Julius. 1894. Bread from stones: A new rational system of land fertilization and physical regeneration. Philadelphia: A J Tafel.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hunt, James C. 1974. Peasants, grain tariffs, and meat quotas: Imperial German protectionism reexamined. Central European History 7 (4): 311–331.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Klein, M. L. G. 1889. Die harmonische Lebensweise (Vegetarismus). Die Grundbedingung zur Erlangung von Gesundheit, Wohlstand und moralisch-ästhetischer Gemütsanlage. Berlin: Verlag von Max Breitkreuz.

    Google Scholar 

  • Könemann, Ewald. 1925. Fiehloser Ackerbau-natürliche Bodenbearbeitung. Tao: Monatsblätter für Verinnerlichung und Selbstgestaltung 11:1–20.

    Google Scholar 

  • Könemann, Ewald. 1933. Aufgaben der Kolonisation in Deutschland. Oberellen bei Eisenach: Verlag Bebauet die Erde.

    Google Scholar 

  • Könemann, Ewald. 1939. Biologische Bodenkultur und Düngewirtschaft. Tutzing: E Siebeneicher.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lahmann, Heinrich. 1892. Die diätetische Blutentmischung (Dysämie) als Grundursache aller Krankheiten. Ein Beitrag zur Lehre von der Krankheitsdisposition und Krankheitsverhütung. Ein Buch sowohl für jene, welche gesund machen, als auch für solches die gesund bleiben oder werden wollen. Leipzig: Otto Spamer.

    Google Scholar 

  • Liebig, Justus von. 1843. Die Chemie in ihrer Anwendung auf Agricultur und Physiologie. Braunschweig: Friedrich Vieweg.

    Google Scholar 

  • Liebig, Justus von. 1859. Naturwissenschaftliche Briefe über moderne Landwirtschaft. Leipzig: C F Winter.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lienert, Marina. 2002. Naturheilkundiges Dresden. Dresden: Elbhang-Kurier Verlag.

    Google Scholar 

  • Löbe, William. 1856. Der höchste Ernte-Ertrag. Beschreibung einer neuen und bewährten Culturmethode des Weizens. Leipzig: Otto Spamer.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lockeretz, William, ed. 2007. Organic farming: An international history. Oxfordshire: CAB International.

    Google Scholar 

  • Löhnis, Felix. 1906. Einführung in die Bakteriologie für Landwirte. Leipzig: Hugo Voigt.

    Google Scholar 

  • Löhnis, Felix. 1913. Vorlesungen über landwirtschaftliche Bakteriologie. Berlin: Gebrüder Borntraeger.

    Google Scholar 

  • Matless, David. 2001. Bodies made of grass made of earth made of bodies: Organicism, diet and national health in mid-twentieth-century England. Journal of Historical Geography 27:355–376.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Moen, Darrell. 1995. The emergent culture of the Japanese organic farming movement and its implications for political economy. Ph.D. dissertation, University of Wisconsin.

    Google Scholar 

  • Nyhart, Lynn. 2009. Modern nature: The rise of the biological perspective in German. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Olsen, Jonathan. 1990. Nature and nationalism: Right-wing ecology and the politics of identity in contemporary Germany. New York: St. Martin’s Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Roeder. 1872. Zehn Jahre Mist- und zwanzig, resp. funfzehn Jahre künstliche Düngung. Der chemische Ackersmann. Naturkündliches Zeitblatt für deutsche Landwirthe 18:74–76, 137–147.

    Google Scholar 

  • Rollins, William. 1995. Whose landscape? Technology, Fascism, and enviromentalism on the National Socialist autobahn. Annals of the Association of American Geographers 85:494–520.

    Google Scholar 

  • Roth, René Romain. 2000. Raoul H Francé and the doctrine of life. Bloomington: First Books Library.

    Google Scholar 

  • Simons, Gustav. 1904. Rasse und Ernährung. Kraft und Schönheit 4:156–159.

    Google Scholar 

  • Simons, Gustav. 1911. Bodendüngung, Pflanzenwachstum-Menschengesundheit. Ein Ratgeber für denkende Gartenfreunde. Berlin: Verlag Lebenskunst-Heilkunst.

    Google Scholar 

  • Smil, Vaclav. 2001. Enriching the earth: Fritz Haber, Carl Bosch, and the transformation of world food production. Cambridge: MIT.

    Google Scholar 

  • Smith, W. D. 1980. Friedrich Ratzel and the origins of Lebensraum. German Studies Review 3:51–68.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Sponheimer, J. 1905. Der Vegetarismus eine wirtschaftliche Notwendigkeit. Versuch einer wissenschaftlichen Begründung des Vegetarismus. Berlin: Verlag Lebensreform.

    Google Scholar 

  • Staudenmaier, Peter. 2010. Between Occultism and Fascism: Anthroposophy and the politics of race in Germany and Italy, 1900–1945. Ph.D. dissertation, Cornell University.

    Google Scholar 

  • Stephens, Piers H. G. 2001. Blood not soil: Anna Bramwell and the myth of Hitler's Green Party. Organization and Environment 14:173–187.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Treitel, Corinna. 2009. Nature and the Nazi diet. Food and Foodways 17:139–158.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Uekötter, Frank. 2006. Know your soil: Transitions in farmers’ and scientists’ knowledge in Germany. In Soils and societies: Perspectives from environmental history, ed. J. R. McNeill and Verena Winiwater, 322–340. Strond: White Horse.

    Google Scholar 

  • Uekötter, Frank. 2011. Die Wahrheit ist auf dem Feld: Eine Wissensgeschichte der deutschen Landwirtschaft. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht.

    Google Scholar 

  • Utermöhlen, Karl ed. 1895. Über die Quellen der Fruchtbarkeit. Eine Anleitung zur dauernden Verbesserung unseres Acker- und Garten-Bodens nach dem grundgelegenden Forschungen Justus von Liebigs und Julius Hensels, 2nd ed. Liebau in Schlesien: Verlag von Förster & Wedel (J. Heisig).

    Google Scholar 

  • Vogt, Gunther. 2000a. Entstehung und Entwicklung des ökologischen Landbaus im deutschsprachigen Raum. Bad Dürkheim: Stiftung Ökologie und Landbau.

    Google Scholar 

  • Vogt, Gunther. 2000b. Ökologischer Landbau im Dritten Reich. Zeitschrift für Agrargeschichte 48:161–180.

    Google Scholar 

  • Vogt, Gunther. 2007. The origins of organic farming. In Organic farming: An international history, ed. W. Lockeretz, 9–29. Oxfordshire: CAB International.

    Google Scholar 

  • Wagner, Paul. 1892. Eine Mahnung an die Landwirte. Deutsche Landwirtschaftliche Presse XIX, 979–980. Nov. 26.

    Google Scholar 

  • Wilson, Jeffrey. 2012. The German forest: Nature, identity, and the contestation of a national symbol, 1871–1914. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Zacharias, Otto. 1890. Chemische Schöpfungsgeschichte. Leipziger Zeitung (Wissenschaftliche Beilage) 75:297–298.

    Google Scholar 

  • Zanden, J. L. van. 1991. The first green revolution: The growth of production and productivity in European agriculture 1870–1914. Economic History Review 44 (2): 215–239.

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of History, Washington University in St. Louis, 1 Brookings Drive, Campus Box 1062, 63130, St. Louis, MO, USA

    Corinna Treitel

Authors
  1. Corinna Treitel
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Corinna Treitel .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of History, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, Tennessee, USA

    Denise Phillips

  2. History of Science and Technology, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Maryland, USA

    Sharon Kingsland

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2015 Springer International Publishing Switzerland

About this chapter

Cite this chapter

Treitel, C. (2015). Artificial or Biological? Nature, Fertilizer, and the German Origins of Organic Agriculture. In: Phillips, D., Kingsland, S. (eds) New Perspectives on the History of Life Sciences and Agriculture. Archimedes, vol 40. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-12185-7_10

Download citation

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Search

Navigation