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Hofwyl Model Farm

In the nineteenth century, a combined effect of population pressure and the scientific revolution drove Western Europe to consider a fundamental revolution in agricultural training and practice. A number of prominent European agricultural experts, including the agricultural secretary of Scotland and famous agriculturalist Arthur Young, argued for the creation of institutions dedicated to agricultural experimentation. One attempt to introduce scientific approach to agriculture was the formation of ‘model farms’ across Europe. These farms served as experimental models, in which to develop and experiment with husbandry practices and technology.

One of the most well-reputed and long-lasting model farms was Hofwyl, an estate near the Swiss city of Bern. In 1799, Philipp Emanuel von Fellenberg purchased 250 acres of land and over the next forty years, created five establishments on his model farm, which he named Hofwyl. An agriculturist by trade and a moral reformer at heart, he sought to establish agricultural educational institutions dedicated to both scientific approach to agriculture and reconnecting individuals of all social classes to the land. His two most celebrated schools, the Scientific Educational Institution for the Higher Social Classes (1806) and the Poor School (1810) garnered attention and visitors from all over Europe and the United States.

Through the establishment of an institution dedicated to the discipline of agricultural experimentation, improvement, and innovation, Fellenberg hoped to elevate his students’ minds and improve society in general. He divided his pupils between two aforementioned institutions: the sons of rich gentlemen and affluent landowners, and those of the poor and vagrants. The Scientific Educational Institution for the Higher Social Classes provided rigorous academic and practical training in scientific disciplines deemed useful in agricultural studies, such as mathematics, chemistry, and natural history, while the Poor school sought to instill its less fortunate students with skills and manual training necessary for agricultural operations. The former group followed a rigorous schedule from 5 a.m. to 10 p.m., covering not only the theoretical aspects of studies, but also training in practical gardening and husbandry techniques and immersive work with local peasantry. The elite students were encouraged to undertake self-activities such as student government, and also shouldered the responsibility of experimenting with and maintaining their land plots.

Mockern Experiment Station

Following the footsteps of the Enlightenment rationalism and experimentalism, Germany began to see the rise of agricultural experiment stations, indicating the beginnings of an attempt to merge traditional agronomy with analytical chemistry. In 1840, Justus von Liebig, an influential German chemist and professor at the University of Giessen, published his book Organic Chemistry in its Application to Agriculture and Physiology. Liebig theorized that nitrogen and trace minerals from soil erosion were essential to plant nutrition, and, from this analytical chemistry perspective, simplified agriculture to a series of chemical reactions. While Liebig’s work inspired a generation of analytical agricultural chemists interested in fundamental questions of plant nutrition, founders of early German agricultural experiment stations did not solely seek to pursue questions of soil chemistry, but rather sought to bridge the gap between the two fields of agriculture and chemistry. 

The most well-known and earliest German experimental station, or Landwirtschaftliche Versuchsstationen, established was the Mockern Experiment Station, located near the city of Leipzig. Created on September 28, 1850, the Mockern project was spearheaded by three Saxon men: Julius Adolf Stockhardt, a professor of agricultural chemistry; Wilhelm Crusius, German estate owner interested in scientific agriculture; and Theodor Reuning, the German agricultural minister at the time. Though all three men took interest in Liebig’s scientific approach to soil chemistry, they maintained distinct agricultural and economic focus at Mockern, and rejected a purely laboratory approach to agriculture. Unlike Liebig, Stockhardt sought the integration of chemistry with agriculturists, rather than a specialization of chemists to come in and do the work. As a landowner who employed chemists, Crusius saw the value of chemical agriculture in economic terms to increase profit, while Reuning’s support for Mockern Station represented the beginnings of governmental interest and funding of agricultural experimental stations. 

Under Crusius, the Mockern Station submitted a Letter of Purpose in a government application. It specified that the Mockern Station belonging to the Leipzig Economic Society would devote itself to the advancement of agriculture via scientific investigation, through cooperation between practical farmers and scientific professionals. They listed six main research objectives, summarized below: 

1. Investigation into conditions of plant growth, mainly that of soil, manure, and fertilization. 
2. Analysis of plant fodder and its effects on animal products. 
3. Meteorological observations.
4. Cultivation and valuation of rare plants. 
5. Agricultural technology testing of implements and machines.
6. Research and creation of agricultural metrics, such as relative values of fodder.

Rejection of Virgilian Husbandry: Debate with Stephen Switzer

While supported by a number of powerful patrons, Tull’s revolutionary claims regarding horse-hoeing husbandry and rejection of Virgilian, “Old” husbandry presented in The Horse-Hoeing Husbandry drew fire from a variety of critics as well. One of his most vehement dissenters was Stephen Switzer, a contemporary landscape gardener and leader of the Private Society of Husbandmen and Planters. Following the publication of The Horse-Hoeing Husbandry: Or, An Essay on the Principles of Tillage and Vegetation in 1731, Switzer fiercely attacked Tull in the final two volumes of his own monthly publication, The Practical Husbandman and Planter, in 1734. He not only accused Tull of plagiarizing his technological inventions from others, namely the horse hoe and drill, but also attacked Tull for his criticism of farming techniques found in Virgil’s Georgics and his rejection of traditional, “Virgilian” husbandry.

Throughout the eighteenth century, Georgics, a didactic poem written by the Roman poet Virgil in 37-30 B.C., continued to hold great philosophical and cultural power in Britain, serving not merely as poetry but also manuals of husbandry and even scientific treatises. The sheer number of English translations and editions of Georgics between 1690 to 1820 highlights the cultural significance of Georgics in British society. In the preface to his translation of Georgics, William Benson declares his certainty that “the Husbandry of England in General is Virgilian.” In a polemic chapter titled “Remarks on the Bad Husbandry, that is so finely Express’d in Virgil’s First Georgic,” Tull’s derides the well-respected classical piece on several apparent deficiencies in Virgil’s farming techniques:

• Shallow and late plowing of poor land: Tull disagrees vehemently, as hoeing to enrich the soil is at the crux of his “New Husbandry”, and encourages frequent and early plowing. Lacking modern scientific understanding of soil nutrition, he incorrectly imagined that the act of dividing soil into smaller and smaller particles through pulverization was what gave nutrition to vegetable roots. Thus he promoted the enrichment of soil by frequent plowing, which he reasoned would also encourage absorption of dew moisture in the land.

• Burning of stubble to enrich land: Tull derides Virgil’s “unbecoming” foolishness for suggesting such a faulty method. Tull cites measurements of soil weight before and after stubble burning, noting that the decrease in soil weight must indicate loss of soil content and nutrition.

• Tilling of land with harrows and cross-ploughing: again Tull scoffs at a method of plowing which diverged from his own.

Tull concludes his tirade with an emphatic declaration that his “New Husbandry,” at odds with many of his contemporaries and differing “in all respects, warrants [him] calling it Anti-Virgilian.”

Tull’s attack against the beloved Roman poet was not without consequences. Switzer leapt to Virgil’s defense against what he saw as groundless and polemic attacks from Tull. He took offense at Tull’s rejection of not only Virgil, but of any and all who practiced husbandry in his style. Switzer attacked Tull for prescribing heavy plowing to all regardless of soil type and condition, and for his dogmatic dismissal of the value of dunging. In a burst of revealing emotion, he compared Tull to a quack who claims one medicine can cure all manners of disease. For two more volumes, Switzer fine-combs through The Horse-Hoeing Husbandry, mining Virgil for authoritative statements on agriculture and pouncing on apparently erroneous claims. Tull’s rejection of a traditional mode of agronomy in favor of self-experimentation, and Switzer’s defense of classical authority belied the beginnings of an intellectual discussion around the field of agricultural science.