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Laval théologique et philosophique

The Nature of Agriculture (I)

Joseph B. McDonald

Volume 14, numéro 2, 1958

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McDonald, J. B. (1958). The Nature of Agriculture (I). Laval théologique et
philosophique, 14 (2), 186–212. https://doi.org/10.7202/1019966ar

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 The Nature of Agriculture

The art of agriculture holds a unique place in this world. It is the

first art of civilisation ; first both in time and in importance. To begin
with, it is necessary for the continuance of human life itself. Except
under the most primitive conditions, humans could not get enough food
to survive without resorting to this art. The primitive arts of subsist­
ence, which may have preceded agriculture, are capable of supporting
very few, and widely scattered peoples, even under the most favourable
conditions. It is estimated that for one family to subsist by hunting
alone, an area of ten to fifty square miles of virgin wilderness is required.1
People who live pastoral lives wander hundreds, even thousands, of miles
to find pasture for their animals. And, given the most favourable
conditions, a life lived by hunting or herding is hard, cruel and hazardous.
People who follow these modes of life are always forced to supplement
the meager and uncertain returns which they give with some agriculture,
or by plundering their wealthier neighbors.
But agriculture is even more necessary for a civilized life. By this
art alone can humans acquire enough food and other necessities, in the
abundance, variety, and with the regularity required for civilized life.
Without this abundance men could not five together in numbers large
enough for a political community ; nor could they live together peace­
fully, which is also a condition for political life. Friendship, the bond
of political life, cannot be cultivated when people are widely separated
from each other. The abundance of food which agriculture produces also
makes it possible for many members of the community to devote their
energies to other pursuits ; and the first of these are the other practical
arts, by which other goods are produced for the community.2 Many of
the earliest arts arose to minister to the needs of agriculture itself, such
as the making of agricultural instruments. Moreover, the surplus of
agricultural products is the first foundation of trade and commerce, by
which more goods are brought into the community, thus helping to
make it more self-sufficient, and capable of political life.3 And, finally,
the surplus of goods permits some members of the co m m u n it y to be
freed from the pursuit of wealth, and to be permitted to pursue the work
of free men, such as the arts of defence and of governing, and even the

1. S e a r s , Paul, Deserts on the March, Norman, Oklahoma, Univ. of Oklahoma Press,

1947, p.4.
2. St. T h o m a s , In I Politicorum, lect.6 : “ et isti habent cibum elaboratum.” —
H ow ard, Albert, The Soil and Health, New York, Devin Adair, 1945, p.3.3, “ Until man
had learned to add the cultivation of plants to his knowledge of hunting and fishing he
could not emerge from his savage condition.”
3. St. T h o m a s , op. dt., lect.7.
 THE N A TU R E OF AGRICULTURE 187

pursuit of truth or science. For these reasons agriculture is called the

mother of all the arts of civilized life ; a notion which is well expressed
in the words of Daniel Webster : “ When tillage begins other arts
follow. The farmers therefore are the founders of human civilization.”
N ot only has civilization risen and flourished when agriculture has
flourished, but civilization has declined when agriculture has declined
or been abandoned. The oldest uninterrupted civilizations, those of
Egypt, China and India, are also the ones which have a permanent and
vigourous agriculture, as old as the civilizations which it has made
possible. The Chinese people attribute divinity to the Emperor Shon-
nung (2,700 B.C.), “ who cleared the land and taught the people to sow
crops, and thus saved them from the hardships of the chase. ” The
subsequent emperors were, themselves, expert farmers, and many of
them plowed their own fields. The development and improvement of
agriculture became the main function of their government, which
maintained a large department of agricultural experts, and enforced
many agricultural laws.1 In Ancient India, according to Megasthenes,
a farmer could not be arrested during harvest time ; and in the time
of war, the farmer, his work and his crops were left unmolested.2
In contrast to the East, Africa never succeeded in establishing a
permanent agriculture. Albert Howard says : “ It may be observed
here that the great misfortune of the African continent has been that
it never came in contact with the agricultural peoples of the Far East
and never revised its systems of cultivation in the light of the knowledge
it might thereby have gained — the great lesson of the Nile basin was
not truly apprehended and has had no influence outside Egypt, whereas
over large parts of eastern Asia the central problem of agriculture was
solved early, empirically and not by a process of scientific investigation,
yet with outstanding success.” 3
In the West, the story of agriculture is quite a different one. Both
the Greeks and the Romans recognized that the strength and vigor of
their nations was founded on the agriculture of a sturdy peasantry. In
The Economist, Xenophon praises agriculture unstintingly, as the matrix
of the other arts, the fountainhead of plenty, a school of virtue, and the
source of many wholesome pleasures :
All this I relate to you, continued Socrates, to show you that quite
high and mighty people find it hard to hold aloof from agriculture, devotion
to which would seem to be thrice blest, combining as it does a certain sense
of luxury with the satisfaction of an improved estate, and such training of
physical energies as shall fit a man to play a free man’s part. Earth, in

1. S o b o k i n , P., Z i m m e r m a n , C., and G a l p i n , C., A Systematic Source Book in

Rural Sociology, Minneapolis, University of Minnesota Press, 1930, Vol. I, pp.10-30. Also
K i n o , F. H., Farmers of Forty Centuries, London, Jonathan Cape, 1926.
2 . S o b o k i n , Z i m m e r m a n a n d G a i p i n , loc. cit.
3. H o w a r d , Albert, The Soil and Health, New York, Devin Adair, 1945, p.38.
188 LAV AL THÉO LO GIQU E E T PH ILO SO PH IQ U E

the first place, freely offers to those that labor, all things necessary to the
life of man ; and as if that were not enough, makes further contribution
of a thousand luxuries . . .
Yet she suffers not her gifts to be received effeminately, but inures her
pensioners to suffer gladly, summer’s heat and winter’s cold . . .
For myself, I marvel greatly if it has ever fallen to the lot of freeborn
man to own a choicer possession or to discover an occupation more seductive,
or of wider usefulness than th is. . . But furthermore earth, of her own
will gives lessons in justice and uprightness to all who can understand her
meaning, since the nobler the service of devotion rendered, the ampler the
riches of her recompense. One day perhaps, these pupils of her whose
conversation in times past was in husbandry, shall by reason of the mul­
titude of invading armies be ousted from their labors. The work of their
hands may indeed be snatched from them, but they were brought up in a
stout and manly fashion. They stand, each one of them in body and soul
equipped ; and save God himself shall hinder them, they will march into
the territory of those their human hinderers, and take from them the
wherewithal to support themselves.
But there is another lesson to be learned in the public school of hus­
bandry — the lesson of mutual assistance. “ Shoulder to shoulder ” we
march to meet the invader ; “ shoulder to shoulder ” stand to compass
the tillage of the soil. . .
It was an excellent saying of his who named hunbandry the “ mother
and nurse of the arts ” for while agriculture prospers all other arts are
vigourous and strong, but when the land is forced to remain desert the
spring that feeds the other arts is dried up ; they dwindle, I had almost
said one and all, by land and sea.1

The general tenor of these views on agriculture, either in whole or

in part, is to be found in many Greek and Roman writers. Hesiod,
Aristotle and Polybius are among the Greeks ; and, among the Romans,
Cato, Varro, Cicero, Sallust, Horace, Columella, Palladius (who is
mentioned by St. Thomas), Seneca, Lucan, Tacitus, and others. Virgil
laments the destruction of farming, and the lack of respect for it, as the
people abandoned it for city life and military careers. Sharpest of all
the writings on the decline of Roman agriculture, perhaps, are those of
Columella, at the time when peasant agriculture was being widely
replaced by cattle raising and by slave-operated plantations :
. . . All we who are masters of families, having abandoned the pruning
hook and the plough, have in a sneaking manner, crept within the walls,
rather move our hands in the circus and the theatre, than in the cornfields
and vineyards : . . . Now we disdain and think it below us to five upon and
cultivate the land ourselves. . . But whether he be a rich man that
purchases a piece of ground, he picks out of his crew of footmen and chair­
men, one that is the feeblest and most worn out with years, and banishes
him to the country ; whereas that business requires not only knowledge

1. S o b o k i n , Z i m m e r m a n a n d G a l p i n , op. cit., p p .3 7 - 3 9 .
 TH E N ATURE OF AGRICULTURE 189

but green age and strength of body . . . or if he be a master of a middling

estate, he commands one of his hirelings (who cannot serve him otherwise)
to be director and overseer, who is ignorant of the business he is to have
the oversight of.
I frequently hear the principal men of our city blaming, sometimes
the unfruitfulness of the ground, at other times the intemperateness of the
weather, as hurtful to the fruits of the earth. . .. Which causes, Publius
Silvanus, I am convinced, are far from the truth ; because it is neither
lawful to think, that the nature of the ground, which the original Farmer
and Father of the universe endowed with perpetual fecundity is affected
with barrenness as with a certain disease ; . . . but rather from our own
fault, who commit our husbandry to the very worst of our servants, as
a criminal to the public executioner, which all the best of our ancestors
were wont to treat with the greatest gentleness : . . .*

“ The strength of man and of the state,” says Mommsen, “ lies in

their dominion over the soil ; the strength of Rome was built on the
most extensive and immediate mastery of her citizens over the soil,
and on the compact unity of the body which thus acquired so firm a
hold.” J
Thus the land which had so long supplied the food and the citizens
for Rome’s greatness declined gradually to a barren and desolate condi­
tion. A few years ago, says Howard, “ it was possible to see on a mere
day’s excursion away from Rome a wild shepherd tending his sheep over
a ruined countryside which might have been carved out of the most
ancient wilderness, so entirely denuded was it of all traces of tillage or
of the care of man.” 3 In the time of the Empire, much of Rome’s
food had to be imported from the then fertile North Africa, Egypt and
the regions of the Black Sea.
North Africa has long since become barren, and a similar fate
has happened to Persia, Mesopotamia, Palestine and other ancient
nations. Reviewing this story, Paul Sears says :
Man’s own past is full of clear and somber warnings — vanished
civilizations buried like flies in lacquer, beneath their own dust and mud . . .
For man, who fancies himself the conqueror of it, is at once the maker
and the victim of the wilderness. Even the dense and hostile jungles of
the tropics are often the work of his hands . . .
The virgin forests of the tropics are no thicket of scrub and thorn,
but a cathedral of massive, well spaced giant trees under whose dense
canopy the alien and tangled rabble of the jungle does not thrive.4
Thus far, the short history of agriculture in the western hemi­
sphere, in Australia and in South Africa, has been a prodigal one, as

and G a l p i n , op. cit., p p .4 6 - 4 9 .

1. S o b o k in , Z im m e r m a n
2. H ow ard, Albert, An Agricultural Testament, p.7.
3. H ow ard, Albert, The Soil and Health, p.40.
4. Op. cit., p .5 .
190 L AV AL THÉO LO GIQU E E T PH ILO SO PH IQ U E

the whole chorus of writers on the subject repeat in unison. Says

Sears :
Wherever we turn to Asia, Europe or Africa, we find the same story
repeated with an almost mechanical regularity. The net productiveness
of the land has been decreased, fertility has been consumed and the soil
destroyed at a rate far in excess of the capacity of either man or nature to
replace. The glorious achievements of civilization have been built on
borrowed capital to a scale undreamed of by the most extravagant of
monarchs.1

The question arises whether this course of things is inevitable.

If it is, then the end of all civilization is already in sight. Hugh
Bennett, of the United States Soil Conservation Service, has said :
“ This nation and civilization is founded on nine inches of topsoils,
and when that is gone there will no longer be any nation or civiliza­
tion.” But, to read these authors, such a result is in no sense inevi­
table. Chinese agriculture, and that of many parts of India, as well
as the agriculture of many smaller groups throughout the world, offer
a host of examples to the contrary. It is not nature that is wanting
in the matter, even though nature be unable to do the work single-
handedly. Rather, it has been the ignorance, the negligence or the
greed of humans which has caused the trouble. Now, there is no
longer any reason for ignorance, nor any room for negligence or greed.
The story of Japanese agriculture is an excellent example of a land
where these three factors have been kept at bay.
The true peasantry, the founders of the permanent agriculture
of past and present times, did not know the real causes of their success­
ful practices. These causes are rapidly being made known by science.
But they did possess the first requisites for good farming ; that is, a
sense of stewardship of the soil which they worked, a willingness to be
guided by nature’s laws as manifested by signs, and a respect for
practices which are sanctioned by long experience. This kind of
peasantry, says Ehrefried Pfeiffer, is on the point of disappearing :
Looking back over the course of the last few centuries we can follow
its decline step by step. Old traditional customs are no longer understood
and practiced. The whole attitude has changed. In times gone by, after
a week of hard work, the farmer used to walk through his fields on Sunday.
His heavy swinging gate . . . betokened his train of thought. It expressed
a deep penetration into the processes of nature. On these Sunday walks,
the creative work of the week was thought over in terms almost to be
compared with the biblical epic of creation.
The farmer was often accompanied by his son, whom he initiated into
the mysteries of nature. He described to him in simple words the manner
1. Ibid., p.9. For the whole story, cf. H y a m s , E. J., Soil and Civilization, New York,
Thames and Hudson, 1952 ; and O s b o b n , Fairfield, Our Plundered Planet, Boston, Little
Brown, 1948.
 THE N A TU R E OF A G RICU LTU RE 191

of tilling the earth, the art of sowing. These experiences had been handed
down from his forefathers from time immemorial. Other rules did not
exist ; experience alone was his guide. From observation and tradition
the farmers were able to use the course of nature as an almanac with signs
and symbols. . . . This instinctive certainty of the old time farmer prompt­
ed him to take the necessary measures at the right moment by observing
nature’s course. This instinct has been lost. An uncertainty has arisen
and now the successful neighbor is often the only guide for the farmer’s work.
Scientific agriculture has decidedly altered the way of ancient peasan­
try. It has told the farmer to abandon his old superstitions ; that he
can obtain better results by turning his fields into a growth factory. The
economic development of the 20th century has transformed the farmer
into the agriculturist who has to calculate costs and output. Concepts
such as “ profitableness ” born of the decline of the old agricultural tradi­
tion, have become his “ daily bread ” . . .
Although the farmer was told that by means of scientific methods
he could double his yield, the fact remains that after years of scientific
help, present century farmers are discovering that their “ double yields ”
today are no better than the single yields of previous years .. .
Unfortunately modern science has developed no exact rules to take
the place of the old farming wisdom . . . The farmer has constantly to
complain of the uncertainty of his crops. . . .
Development, under the pressure of profitableness has forced him to
resort to the use of machinery to replace the more expensive hand labor . . .
The machine age has brought great changes to the work of the men whose
business it is to till the soil. It has created the “ growth mechanic ” type
of farmer. This age has also seen the ever increasing use of mineral ferti­
lizers . . . The situation today shows that while in comparison with the
time prior to the war, three times as much nitrogen is being used, the
average yield per acre has not increased. In some areas it has actually
decreased. Yet the idea that there may be an uneconomical principle
underlying the fertilizing methods now in use is often considered heretical.
Another problem of the times is the increase in the phenomena of degenera­
tion — plant diseases and insect pests. A description of these phenomena
is not necessary, for they are part of the farmer’s daily experience.1

The problem of establishing a permanent and sound agriculture

is more than a technical one ; and it is more than to obtain the blessing
of a true peasantry. In the final analysis it is a social and a political
problem. The unprecedented increase in the world’s population in
our times puts an inexorable pressure on the soil’s fertility. Vastly
increased yields are necessary. Moreover, modern industry demands
a large portion of the farmer’s produce for industrial fibers ; which
means that a large portion of the land is withdrawn from the production
of food at a time when many more mouths are to be fed. And these
difficulties are compounded by the fact that a greatly increased per­

1. P f e i f f e r , Ehrenfried, Bio-Dynamic Farming and Gardening, New York, Anthro­

posophie Press, 1938, pp. 1-5.
192 L AV AL THÉO LO GIQU E E T PH ILO SO PH IQ U E

centage of people live in urban centers. Many harmful effects have

followed from this shift in population pattern.1 For one thing, it
means that the working population of the soil is decreasing at a time
when the work to be done in increasing. In return, the farmer
receives from the town, machinery for his farm and conveniences for
his home. But these are costly in terms of cash. To make this cash
he must produce in large and regular quantity, and to do this means
increased machinery. It becomes a vicious circle, from which the
farmer is usually saved by costly subsidies. For another thing, it
means that the fertility of the soil, in the form of agricultural products,
is removed from the land and funneled into the urban centers, without
any corresponding return (except in the form of chemical fertilizer).
Rather, the organic wastes of the towns are dumped into the rivers
and seas, to pollute and destroy aquatic life, and to accelerate flooding.2
Finally, the predominance of urban standards and customs has
invaded rural life, so that the farmer is no longer satisfied with his
own way of life. The kind of life that he and his family lead is no
longer compatible with the way he makes his living.* This is a
situation that is almost contrary to nature itself ; for, as St. Thomas
says, the lives men lead are determined primarily by the way in which
they get their food.4
Because the fives men lead are primarily determined by the way
they get their food ; and because the character of men is primarily
determined by the lives they lead, agriculture is also judged by its
moral effects as well as for the food it supplies. Agriculture not only
supplies food to the community, it also supplies it with citizens.
From ancient China and India until our own times, the importance
of the farming class as citizens has been appreciated, as the opinions
cited above reveal ; in the first place because agriculture is a mode of
life appointed by nature.
It is the first obligation of man to cultivate the earth, because
only by so doing will it provide him with the things he needs ; and
furthermore, only by this means will the adornment of the earth be
completed, and the evidence of man’s mastery over it be manifested.6
In the Encyclical Rerum Novarum, Pope Leo X III says :
For that which is required for the preservation of life and for life’s
well-being is produced in great abundance by the earth, but not until man

1. These problems are the special concern of the Decentralists and Distributists.
Cf. R o p k e , Wilhem, The Social Crisis of Our Time, Chicago, University of Chicago Press,
1950. Also B e l l o c , Hilaire, The Restoration of Property, el al.
2. S e a r s , op. at., ch.12, Wet Deserts. Also, cf. M t jm f o r d , Lewis, Techniques and
Civilization, New York, Harcourt Brace, 1934.
3. Cf. M t jm f o r d , The Culture of Cities, New York, Harcourt Brace, 1928.
4. In I Politicor., lect.6.
5. Cf. B a r d e t , Gaston, Demain, c’est Van ZOOO, Paris, Plon, 1952.
 T H E N A TU R E OF AGRICULTURE 193

has brought it into cultivation and lavished upon it his care and skill
Now when man thus spends the industry of his mind and the strength of
his body in procuring the fruits of nature, by that act he makes his own
that portion of nature’s field which he cultivates — that portion on which
he leaves, as it were, the impress of his own personality.

Secondly, because of the special virtues which seem to follow from

this kind of life. In the Politics, Aristotle gives reasons why the
farming class makes the best body of citizens for a democracy. The
farmers desire the gains which their own labor produces more than
honors ; and for this reason they are not ambitious for offices or
rewards. They are satisfied if they have a voice in deciding their
rulers ; and they wish to see the best men as rulers, because good rule
leaves them free to improve their own lot by their labor. Nor are
they prone to envy the wealth or fortune of others, because their
labors keep them separate from others and continually occupied.
For this reason, also, they do not congregate frequently and give rise
to seditions. And, because war threatens their own fields and homes
before those of others, they are ready to defend them, and readily
become citizen soldiers. Moreover they make good soldiers because
their work inures them to long and strenuous activity, and to the
hardships of the seasons. The primary reason for the peaceful
character of farmers is that they derive their wealth from the fruits
of nature itself and not from the labors of other men.1
Many other moral qualities have been attributed to those who
follow agriculture, by the many writers who have praised it.2 In
our own times it has been recognized as a natural foundation for a
strong and wholesome family life. Among other things, farming
makes for a stable home life, much more closely knit than others.
It is a common enterprise, demanding intelligent cooperation from
all the members. Children are in more continual contact with parents
and with responsible tasks. Here, also, is a fine opportunity for
parents to give to children the moral training which the home affords.
Pope Pius X II speaks of the family farm in these words :
Of all the goods that can be the object of private property none is
more conformable to nature, according to the teaching of Rerum Novarum,
than the land, the holding in which the family lives, and from the products
of which it draws all or part of its subsistence. And it is in the spirit of
Rerum Novarum to state that, as a rule, only that stability which is rooted
in one’s holding makes of the family the vital and most perfect and fecund
cell of society, joining up, in a brilliant manner, in its progressive cohesion
the present and the future generation.*

1. Book VI, ch.4.

2. Cf. S o r o k i n , Z i m m e r m a n and G a l p in , op. cit., V.I, pp.143-145.
3. Address of June 1st, 1941.
194 LAV AL THÉO LO GIQU E E T PH ILO SO PH IQ U E

Accordingly, there can be no greater obligation on any government,

save, perhaps, defence, than the protection and the fostering of agri­
culture. Nor can any modern government be unaware of this
obligation. Next to defence, agriculture is the largest and costliest
department in many modern governments. In 1943 the United
Nations Conference on Food and Agriculture made the following
resolutions :
(1) That the conservation of land and water resources should
be regarded as an obligation of governments as well as individuals.
(2) That governments should conduct surveys to determine
losses of soil due to erosion and other causes, and that conservation
measures should be undertaken, based on the results of such surveys.
(3) That governments should assist farmers and operators in
rebuilding the fertility of the soil.1
There are many examples of the things that can be accomplished
by well conceived government measures for protecting agriculture.
In Denmark, after the Danish Prussian War, a land reform was
carried through, the results of which were multiple. It increased the
number of small independent farmers so that in 1935 they represented
upwards of 80 per cent of the population. The condition of the soil
was changed from relative sterility to fertility ; and finally, it brought
greatly increased prosperity, and a most even distribution of wealth.
It should be noted that this reform was made possible by a movement
of spiritual rejuvenation. Another example is had in the successful
control of the use of forests in Germany and the Scandinavian countries
— a condition which has much to do with the preservation of soil
fertility. The work of the United States Soil Conservation Service
has been responsible for the restoration of fertility to more than sixty
million acres of poor land, and this during the first fifteen years of its
existence. The Tennessee Valley Authority was instituted, primarily,
to rehabilitate the lives of the rural population of that large and
important area. It succeeded, besides, in restoring fertility, arresting
erosion and establishing many new industries in that region.2

THE PU RPO SE OF T H ESE PAGES

Our purpose is to determine the nature and first principles of the

art of agriculture, in the light of St. Thomas’ observations on the
subject, namely, to the extent that philosophy considers such things
in a rather general way. Our mode of treatment will therefore differ
from a special or, to use a current expression, a technical study of the
subject, which would get down to particulars and be more practical.

1. Report of the United Nations Conference on Food and Agriculture, 1943.

2. L i l l i e n t h a l , David, T. V. A. Democracy on the March, New York, Harpers, 1944.
 THE N A TU R E OF AGRICULTURE 195

To explain more clearly the distinction implied we will appeal to

St. Thomas’ own words in the matter. Aquinas discusses agriculture
in his Commentary on the Politics of Aristotle. In the Prologue to
this treatise he says that, in order to be complete, philosophy must
give us some teaching on everything that the human reason can know.1
And, since the unity which we call civil society is subject to the
judgment of reason, a philosophy of civil society should be a part of
philosophical knowledge. The first book of the Politics treats of the
first elements of civil society, which are domestic communities. But
wealth, or possessions, are necessary instruments of the domestic
community, and so are the arts by which possessions are acquired ;
now agriculture is primary among these arts. Thus Aristotle treats
of it in this place.
Now first philosophy is concerned with the first or universal
causes of being ; and since all other principles are ultimately reduced
to the primary principles, the principles of all other sciences pre­
suppose the principles which philosophy treats of. Philosophy, there­
fore, directs all the other sciences, as St. Thomas says in the com­
mentary on Aristotle’s Ethics : “ For as the senses which are in the
head direct the movements and operations of all the other members,
so wisdom directs all the other sciences, since all the others take their
principles from it.”
Wisdom, simply speaking, is metaphysics, or first philosophy ;
but the philosophy of nature and political philosophy are spoken of
as kinds of wisdom, because they deal with the first principles of
nature and of human affairs, respectively. Now agriculture is a
practical art, and it is therefore subordinated to political philosophy,
which is the supreme science in the practical order, as St. Thomas
explains in his commentary on the Ethics.* However, in its first
principles it is subordinated to the philosophy of nature, because, as
St. Thomas points out, it is concerned with acquiring food, which is
produced by nature.3
It follows from the above distinction that agriculture can be
studied both on a speculative and practical level. It is a practical art
but some part of it may be called speculative, as St. Thomas says in
his Expositio in Boethium de Trinitate.* Yet, the interest that
philosophy has, even in a practical art, is speculative. To be more
precise about this we will apply the criteria which St. Thomas gives
for speculative and practical knowledge.6 Knowledge may be called

1. “ For everything that can be known by reason, it is necessary that some doctrine
be given, for the perfection of human wisdom which is called philosophy.”
2. In I Etkicor., lect.2.
3. In I Politicor., lect.8.
4. Q.5, a.l, ad 4.
5. Summa Theologica, la , q.14, a.I6, c.
196 LAV AL TH ÉO LO G IQ U E E T PH ILO SO PH IQ U E

speculative or practical according to its objects, its mode or its end.

The object of speculative science is things not operable by us, and of a
practical science things operable by us. From this point of view,
agriculture is concerned with operables ; yet not everything about
its object is something operable, for the first principles of the art are
the natural forces of growth, which, as natural, are not produced by us.
The mode proper to a speculative science is resolutive, and that
proper to a practical science is compositive. The consideration of
agriculture in the Politics is compositive, for not only is its formal
nature treated but also its use, and this is the compositive mode, as
St. Thomas describes it. However, since the first principles of agri­
culture are speculative objects, it is suitable to treat of them in the
resolutive mode, and St. Thomas’ mention of them in the Commentary
on Boethius’ De Trinitate makes use of this mode.1 Finally, the end
is speculative if the study aims at knowing about the subject and
practical if it aims at putting knowledge to use. In this respect a
philosophical study is always speculative, for it is always too general
and remote from practice to be put to immediate use.
In the Politics, agriculture and the other arts of acquisition are
considered philosophically, both as to their nature and as to their use
or practice. Even consideration of their use is speculative in purpose,
as we have already indicated ; for philosophy is always concerned with
the first or universal principles of things, both speculative and practical.
To consider such arts from a practical point of view, St. Thomas says,
is outside the aim and scope of the philosopher, for they are not
liberal pursuits and special experience is required for their successful
practice. In the commentary on the Politics, he says :
[Aristotle’s treatment of these arts] is divided into two parts. In the
first he determines about it insofar as it is science. In the second he
determines about it regarding its use.2
After the Philosopher had made known the origin of the arts of
acquiring money and their properties and their parts, he now goes on to
determine those things which pertain to their use.3
[Aristotle] excuses himself from a complete determination of these
matters ; and he says that that which pertains to the use of these arts
has now been spoken of ; it will be useful, however, to the activities of
those who wish to acquire money, to determine more diligently about
singulars ; nevertheless, it is irrelevant to dwell further on such matters
while aiming to consider higher things.4

1. Loc. cit. Also in the commentary on A r i s t o t l e ’s De Sensu et Sensato, I, lect.l.

2. In I Politicor., lect.6.
3. Ibid., lect.9.
4. Ibid. See also B a b i n , Eugène, Aristote, La Politique, nouvelle traduction et
notes, Livre I, M. Doyon, Québec, 1956, pp.95-96. The universal nature of these arts is
the proper concern of the philosopher, who should consider even the operable in its universal
or changeless nature, but not as operable — for this is to reach out to the singular, which
 THE N ATURE OF AGRICULTURE 197

Those who wish to have a detailed and practical knowledge of these

arts are then referred to the writings of those philosophers who have
treated them more thoroughly :
Therefore, he says first, that, since certain philosophers have written
on the foregoing matters — such as Chares, the Parian, and Appolodorus,
the Lemnian, who wrote about the cultivation of the land, whether bare or
planted, or as among the Latins, Palladius, and others who have written
on the other pratical arts — whoever wishes to know more fully about
them should consult their books.

In this study, we will be guided by the manner in which St.

Thomas treats of these arts. First, we will consider agriculture as a
practical art, subordinated to politics. Under this aspect, we will
consider it primarily in its universal nature, and then, briefly, in
reference to its use. In regard to its universal nature we will consider
first the genus of art to which it belongs, namely, the cooperative arts.
Then we will consider it in its species : as an art by which food, and
other goods are provided for the human community, both domestic
and civil. Finally, we will consider it in reference to its first principles,
which is to consider it as subordinated to the philosophy of nature
in general, and to the more particular ramifications of this philosophy
— the so-called natural or experimental sciences.
If the teachings of St. Thomas on agriculture are sound, we can
expect to find that what he has to say in a generic way will be re­
iterated more particularly in special works on the subject. We will
make use of the opinions of some of these agriculturists along with
those of St. Thomas, inasmuch as they will serve to bring his teachings
down to a more concrete level, and to corroborate their soundness.
There is a timely reason for dwelling on the subject of agriculture
in a philosophical way. By tracing the art to its speculative founda­
tions, as we will be doing if we can determine something about its
universal nature and its first principles, some light may be thrown
on a disputed question as to the proper method to be followed in the
practice of agriculture ; and, even more so, on the nature and scope
of agricultural research. The question might be put in this form :
Has the new scientific knowledge at man’s disposal given him the
power to make his own terms, conditions and quotas in the production
of his food, or must he still consider his knowledge and his practices
as being subordinated and ministerial to the natural forces which are
at work? Those who take the affirmative of the first part of this
dispute in their practice and theory do not so much argue the question
as assume the answer. Contemporary practices point increasingly
to the implicit, if not explicit, acceptance of this view. Natural

acquires more particular and appropriate knowledge of things in their concretion, and to
consider them in this fashion is not speculative.
(■*>
198 LA V A L THÉO LO GIQU E E T PH ILO SO PH IQ U E

fertilizers are indiscriminately replaced by chemicals ; when any

disease or pest threatens the crops or animals of the farmer, science
supplies a preventive, or a remedy, in the form of a poison, or a
hormone or some other such thing, so that no crop or animal is required
to have the hardiness to weather the threat ; when a strain of plant
or animal loses its hardiness or productiveness, strains of plants and
animals are developed which produce, under forced conditions, un­
believable amounts of grain, fruit, eggs, meat, wool, etc. These
are just a few of the ways in which science is altering the old
practices.
Those who are opposed to the assumptions which underlie these
practices are more articulate. Howard, for instance, has this to say :
On this ingenuity and on these inventions rests, so it is claimed, the
constantly growing food supply needed by modern populations, and much
time is devoted to reckoning up the magnitude of this human achievement.
The argument is based on figures of increased crop and animal production
over the last few generations of human life and ignores the fact that these
results depend on the plunder of the capital of the soil. The conclusions
reached are fundamentally erroneous and are fraught with the certainty of
failure and catastrophe.1

Fairfield Osborn gives a similar warning :

[Man] causes the life giving soils for his crops to wash into the oceans.
He falls back on palliatives and calls upon a host of chemists to invent
substitutes for the organized processes of nature. Can they do this?
Can his chemists dismiss nature and take over the operation of the earth ?
He hopes so. Hope turns to conviction — they must or else he perishes.
Is he not nature’s crowning glory? Can he not turn away from his
creator? Who has a better right? He has seemingly “ discovered ” the
secrets of the universe. What need he, then, to live by its principles ?2

I. THE CONCEPT OF COO PERA TIVE ART IN ST. THOMAS

Agriculture is one of a group of arts which can, appropriately,

be called cooperative arts. For a first understanding of St. Thomas’
conception of agriculture, then, it will be helpful to examine what
he says about arts of this kind, since a consideration of the genus is
prerequisite. And this understanding will in turn be easier if certain
things are presupposed which are true of art in general.
All art has as its purpose the production of something which
nature either cannot make, or which it does not make so conveniently ;
and, moreover, art accomplishes this end by means of the operation

1. The Soil and Health, p.195.

2. Our Plundered Planet, p.31.
 THE NATURE OF AGRI CULTURE 199

of natural principles.1 Art, therefore, presupposes nature, because

it produces its work by making use of natural things and of their
operations. These are, in a manner of speaking, the matter of art.*
The form of art is, in a general way, an imitation of nature. All art,
St. Thomas says, imitates nature as far as it is able to. He gives
the reason for this proposition in both the Physics and the Politics.
In the Physics, he says :
The reason for the statement ‘ art imitates nature ’ is this : the
principle of artificial operation is knowledge ; but all of our knowledge is
drawn from sensible and natural things through the senses ; thus we
produce a likeness of natural things in artificial things. Therefore natural
things are imitable through art, inasmuch as all nature is ordered to its
end by some intellectual principle, so that the work of nature seems to be
a work of intelligence to the extent that it proceeds towards definite ends
by determinate means ; which art also imitates in its operation.3

The passage in his commentary on the Politics is more explicit :

As the Philosopher teaches, in book II of the Physics, art imitates
nature. The reason is as follows : as principles are to each other, so,
proportionally, are the operations and effects which proceed from them.
Now the principle of those things which are made by art is the human
intellect, which by way of a certain resemblance is derived from the divine
intellect which is, in turn, the principle of natural things. Whence it is
necessary that both the operations of art imitate the operations of nature,
and the things which are from art imitate those which are from nature.
So that if any instructor of an art should bring about a product of that art,
it is fitting that the disciple, who is learning the art from him, should pay
attention to that work, and from this similitude learn to operate himself.
And thus the human intellect, which has the light of intelligence by deriva­
tion from the divine intellect, when it makes something, must of necessity
be informed by an inspection of those things which are made naturally,
and operate similarly in its work. And thus it is that the Philosopher
says that if art were to make those things which are made by nature, it
would operate similarly to nature : and, conversely, if nature were to make
those things which are by art, it would make them similarly to the way
art does. But nature does not make those things which are by art ; but
rather, it only prepares certain principles, and, in some manner, offers an
exemplar for operating by art. Art, however, can examine those things
which are by nature, and use them for performing its proper work ; but
it cannot make them itself.4

1. De Potentia, q.4, a.3, c. Also, In IV Sent., d.42, q.2, a.l, c. Thepurpose of art
is to supply the things that nature fails to supply, either absolutely speaking, or insome
respect.
2. Q. D. de Veritate, q .ll, a.l, c. ; In I I Physicor., lect.4 and 13.
3. In I I Physicor., lect.4.
4. Ibid.. I, Prooemium. — Perhaps we should point out that ‘ to be like nature ’
and ‘ to be of nature ’ are not the same thing.
200 LAVAL THEO LO GIQU E ET PH ILO SO PH IQ U E

The reason why art cannot make the things in the way nature
does is that the power of art does not extend directly to the substance
of things, but only to the accidents. The substance of things is made
by generation, from a principle that is first and intrinsic to its cause ;
whereas art is a principle that is extrinsic to nature. For art is in the
reason, and reason differs from nature inasmuch as it is above con­
traries. For the notion of blindness does not destroy the notion of
sight. The latter is essential to the former. But one cannot in fact
both see and be blind, except successively. In this sense reason and
art are extrinsic to nature. But they can act upon nature by way of
direction and command. The forms produced by art itself are those
of composition, order and figure.1 However, nothing prevents art
from bringing about the substance of a thing by making use of what
is already provided by nature, either proximately, such as wheat to
make bread, or remotely, such as hydrogen to make new types of
atoms. In such cases art makes things by applying natural forces
to produce effects, some of which could be wrought by nature alone,
others only with the help of our own reason.2

The cooperative arts.

Thus, although nature does not produce the things which are
proper to art, nor art, those which are proper to nature, there are
certains things which can be brought about both by nature and by art.
Examples of these are health, or knowledge, or food. Knowledge can
come directly from things, or it can be acquired through instruction
or teaching. Health may come about through the natural restorative
powers of the living body, or thanks to the art of medicine. And
food may be produced by nature alone, or by the arts of agriculture
and husbandry.
First of all, it is fitting that there should be arts of this kind, for
the ends intended by nature’s operations do not always materialize.
In some cases nature operates by necessity, in other it operates regular­
ly, but not unfailingly. For instance nature intends that living beings
should have health, but some fail to achieve it, due to some inter­
ference with the working of organs. Moreover, even where nature
does not fail to realize its intentions, the effects may be lacking from
some point of view. Thus, nature intends that there should be food
for living bodies, and, in general, it does not fail to supply it ; but it is

1. Summa Theologica, I la Ilae, q.96, a.2. Also A r i s t o t l e ’s Physics, Book II,

ch.l. Nature is there defined as “ a principle and cause of motion and of rest in those
things in which it is primarily, per se, and not accidently.” Also Q.D. de Potentia, q.6, a .l,
ad 18. And In I I Sent., d.I, q.l, a.4, ad 3 : “ Specifically the same effect cannot come
from diverse immediate agents, having operations determined to their effects, as from
art and nature.”
2. Cf. Summa Theologica, I l i a , q.66, a.4, c.
 THE N ATURE OF AGRICULTURE 201

not the business of nature alone to supply food for man in conditions
of his own designing, which he is due to create if he is to lead a civilized
life. Under these conditions, art is required to supplement the work
of nature. An appropriate name for these arts is ‘ cooperative arts.’
St. Thomas also calls them ministerial arts. These are described in
many of his works. In the Summa Theologica he says :
. . . Of effects proceeding from an extrinsic principle some proceed
from that principle alone, as the form of a house is produced in the materials
by art alone. But other effects proceed now from an extrinsic principle,
now from an intrinsic principle ; and thus health is caused in a sick man
sometimes by the former [such as medical art], sometimes by an intrinsic
principle [as when a man is healed by the power of nature alone].
In these latter effects two things must be noted. First, that art in its
work imitates nature, for just as nature heals a man by alteration, digestion
and rejection of the matter that caused the sickness, so does art. Secondly,
we must remark that the extrinsic principle, art, acts not as the principal
agent, but as helping the principal agent, which is the interior principle, by
strengthening it, and by furnishing it with instruments and assistance,
of which the intrinsic principle makes use in producing the effects.1

It is to be noticed, again, that the things produced by the work

of these arts are not artifacts in the strict sense of this term, but
things of nature. They can be called artifacts, however, in reference
to their mode of production.
In the De Veritate, St. Thomas speaks still more clearly of these
arts :
We must bear in mind, nevertheless, that in natural things something
can preexist in potency in two ways. In one, it is in an active and com­
pleted potency, as when an intrinsic principle has sufficient power to flow
into perfect act. Healing is an obvious example to this, for the sick person
is restored to health by the natural power within him. The other appears
in a passive potency, as happens when the internal principle does not have
sufficient power to bring it into act.
Therefore when something preexists in active and completed potency,
the external agent acts by helping the internal agent and providing it with
the means by which it can enter into act. Thus in healing the doctor
assists nature, which is the principal agent, by strengthening nature and
prescribing medicines which nature uses as instruments for healing . . . '
In effects which are produced by nature and art, art operates in the
same way and by the same means as nature. For as nature heals one who
is suffering from a cold by warming him, so also does the doctor. Hence
art is said to imitate nature.2

1. Ia, q.117, a.], c. Other passages are found in the commentary on the Meta­
physics, VII, lect.6 ; the commentary on the Physics, II, lect.13 ; The Summa Contra Gen­
tiles, II, c.75 ; and De Potevtia, q.6, a.3.
2. Q.2, a.l, c.
202 LAVAL THÉO LO GIQU E E T PH ILO SO PH IQ U E

The words of St. Thomas, that these arts operate in the same
way, and by the same means as nature does, deserve further study ;
for, as mentioned above,1 this is a principle which in contemporary
agricultural practice is honored more in the breach than in the observ­
ance.
The first and most important things to be remembered about the
cooperative arts is that they cooperate with nature as a secondary
and helping agent, and not as a primary or equal one. The reason is
that the things produced by such arts are things of nature and primari­
ly the result of natural causes. The purpose of such art is to help
nature — their operations presuppose those of nature, and art is
unable to duplicate these by its own power alone ; for, as was said
above, the power of art does not extend directly to the substance of
things, but rather to such things as figure, composition and order.
This presupposes an aptitude in the natural substance for such
accidents, which is realized primarily by the active power of the
natural agency, though with help of the art.
There are four ways in which one agent can cooperate with
another : by counsel, help, disposition, or by means of a tool.2 In
reference to nature — the principal agent — a cooperative art like
agriculture cooperates by helping and by disposing. As St. Thomas
says in the De Potentia : “ In some cases art perfects that which
nature cannot make ; in some, however, it produces an order in
nature, as the doctor does to heal, by altering and directing, through
the apposition of those things which have a natural virtue to do this.” 3
But in reference to politics and economics, to which agriculture, and
the other useful arts are subordinated by reason of their end, these
arts cooperate as instruments of the former, or by deliberation, which
is made plain by St. Thomas in his commentary on the Politics.4
In the second place, it should be remembered that inasmuch as
these arts imitate nature, the imitation consists of operating in the
same way and by the same means as nature does — or would, if she
could. The reason for this imitation is the fact that the exemplar
which governs the operations of reason in art must be taken from
nature ; for that which these arts aim at is something which nature
can produce by natural powers. In the commentary on the Meta­
physics, St. Thomas gives an example of this characteristic :
It is plain, therefore, that just as in natural things a man is generated
from man, so also in artificial things it happens that in some manner health
comes to be from health, and a house from a house ; namely, when that
which has matter comes from that which exists without matter in the mind.

1. Pp.197-198.
2. In IV Sent., d.5, q.I, a.2, c.
3. Q.6, a.3, c.
4. In I Politicor., lect.8 and 9.
 THE N A TU R E OF AGRICULTURE 203

For the art of medicine, which is a principle of healing, is nothing but the
conception of health which is in the mind.
And just as the doctor, who wishes to bring about health, begins by
considering what health is, such as that it is a certain balance, then he
should know what this is, such as a suitable proportion of humors in refer­
ence to human nature. But this may occur if the body is made warm, if
the infirmity in question is due to a lack of warmth. And, again, he should
know what this is, namely, to be warmed ; as if he were to say that to
become warmed is to be immuted by a heated medicine. But to give a
heated medicine is something within the immediate power of a doctor to do,
and it is now within his power to provide this remedy.1

Now, when one thing imitates another, it does so by a specific

likeness of its exemplar. A true imitation, or image is more than a
generic likeness. It is a likeness in kind ; that is, either the same
in species or in some sign of the species, such as a quality, like shape
or disposition. N ot only is this kind of likeness required for an image,
but it must also refer to an original. The image is seen as proceeding
from the exemplar. An egg is not said to be the image of another,
for it is not seen as originating from it — to use St. Augustine’s
example. But the drawing of an egg is an image ; and so is a statue,
even though it is not the same in species as the person it represents, but
it has a specific resemblance in shape, which is a proximate sign of the
species. There must, therefore, be this type of equality between
exemplar and image, but it need not be an absolute equality, but
only a proportional one. Nor does a statue have to be the same size
as its exemplar, but it must be proportionally the same in size.2 To
say, then, that a cooperative art imitates nature is to say that it uses
proportionally the same ways and means as nature does. Its opera­
tions and the means that it uses must be specifically proportional to
those of nature.

Agriculture as a cooperative art

In the commentary on the Politics, St. Thomas speaks of agri­
culture as an art by which food is acquired for use in the home and
the civil community. But it is the proper task of nature to produce
food, and its operations are presupposed in the work of agriculture.
To explain this, St. Thomas reasons as follows : It is the office of
nature to provide whatever is needed by the things that are produced
by nature. But men, and other living things, are generated by
nature ; and they require food to sustain their lives. Nature, how­
ever, does not fail in necessary matters, and thus it provides food for
living things. We see that nature provides food for animals in the
1. In V II Metaph., lect.6.
2. Summa Theologica, la, q.35, a.l, c., and q.93, a.l, c. ; also In I Sent., d.28, q.2,
a.l, c.
204 LAV AL THÉOLOGIQTTE E T PH ILO SO PH IQ U E

beginning of their lives. The embryo which is in the egg makes use
of the rest of the egg’s substance as its food ; and nature provides
food for young mammals in the mother’s milk. And as animals
continue to grow and complete their lives, nature continues to provide
food for them. Thus plants serve as food for some animals, while
others live on animals. Man in turn uses all, or most, of the plants
and the other animals as his food, or to satisfy other needs ; for the
needs of man are manifold, and all of the other things of nature are
at his disposal, for this is their end.1
Though it is the business of nature to supply food for man, it
does not follow that nature, alone, has the completed power to supply
food in the abundance, the regularity, the variety and the places
which are required for life in the political community, which is the
proper mode of human life. By nature man is destined to live in a
civil community ; yet this community and its conditions are not the
work of nature, but of reason and art. Man differs from the other
animals in this respect, for they are directed by instinct in their actions,
whereas man should be directed by reason and art.2 To illustrate
this fact, St. Thomas points out that while the other animals are
naturally endowed with all the equipment and instruments for carrying
on their lives, such as natural clothing, means of attack and defence,
etc., man is not naturally endowed in this way. In place of these he
has reason and hands which are a kind of universal tool, a tool of tools
inasmuch as reason and hand may produce an infinite variety of tools.
The universality of the uses of man’s hands makes them the proper
counterpart for the universality of his reason. And, since man’s
needs spring, not from nature alone, as do those of other animals,
but from reason, which is universal, so also the means of satisfying
these needs arise, not from nature alone, but from reason and art
which is nothing else but right reason about making things.3
Therefore, for the acquisition of food man stands in need of art,
the purpose of which is to supply food in the abundance, the regularity
and the variety needed for life in the civil community. And, among
the food productive arts, only agriculture is equal to this task. Living
beings are generated, nourished and brought to maturity by means of
the vegetative powers of the soul, and these are active and completed
potencies — according to the distinction quoted above known to us
by their observed effects. — They are principles of fertility in nature.
By means of them food is supplied to living beings.
The primitive arts by which man acquires his food, such as
hunting, fishing and shepherding, are arts of interception. In them,

1. In I Politicor., lect.6 and 8. Also in the commentary on A r i s t o t l e ’s De Anima,

II, lect.7.
2. St. T h o m a s , In I Post. An., lect.l.
3. St. T h o m a s , In I I I Physicor., lect.S.
 TH E N ATURE OF AGRICULTURE 205

man takes directly from nature the food naturally produced. To

live by these arts man must live within the limits of nature itself.
But by agriculture man directs, helps and enhances the forces of fertility ;
he releases new and untapped energies and, in general, he intervenes
in the operations of nature to bring about their utmost fulfillment,
which is a condition of advanced political life. “ The sun and stars
cooperate in the work of production by their movements as the
husbandman does by his labour.” 1 Thus agriculture is a cooperative
art in the strictest sense of this term.
The words “ culture ” and “ cultivate ” are used most appro­
priately of farming ; for its work is the cultivation of the soil, and of
the things that grow in the soil, and of the animals that are nourished
by these. Each of the principal parts of agriculture, namely, tillage,
cultivation and husbandry, is a cultivation, by means of which the
natural forces of fertility are brought to the service of reason, which
is their end. The same may even be said of fertilizing, which in a
certain sense is the fourth part of agriculture.
Tillage is the primary operation of agriculture. Albert Howard,
the British agriculturist, describes the effects of tillage as follows :
The first effect is, of course, physical. The loosened soil makes room
for the seed, which can thus grow in abundance, while to cover the sowing
with scattered earth or to press it into the ground protects it from the
ravages of birds or insects. Secondly, tillage gives access to the air — and
the process of soil respiration starts up, followed by the nitrification of
organic matter and the production of soluble nitrates [immediate plant food].
The rain too, can penetrate better. In this way physical, biological and
chemical effects are set in motion and a series of lively physiological changes
and transformations result from the partnership between soil and plant.
The soil produces food materials : the plants begin to grow : the harvest
is assured : the sowing has become a crop.2
Of the operations which follow tillage, one is concerned with the
care of growing plants and animals. It is the farmer’s business to see
to it that the growing things obtain the nourishment, and whatever is
required for maturing ; and to forestall the agencies which threaten
their development. The other operation is that of fertilizing, one
made necessary by the practices of tillage, cultivation and harvesting ;
it is the counterpart of these. The effect of tillage and harvesting is a
great depletion of soil fertility. Fertilizing aims to restore and
maintain fertility.
In all these operations agriculture is, to use the words of St.
Thomas, helping and directing and strengthening the work of natural
forces, by applying these to their proper effects. It is a cooperative
art throughout.

1. Summa Theologica, la, q.70, a.l, ad 4.

2. The Soil and Health, p.34.
206 LAVAL THÉO LO GIQU E E T PH ILO SO PH IQ U E

St. Thomas’ statement — that a cooperative art operates in the

same way and by the same means as nature does — must not be
interpreted as meaning that the art does not have its own operations,
to distinguish it from the work of nature. “ In every practical art ”,
he says, “ there is an end proper to it and means that belong properly
to that art.” 1 The same specific effect cannot, he says, be produced
by diverse immediate agents which have determinate operations to
their effects, such as nature and art.2 Only when one is subordinated
to the other in their operations, as ministering to it, can the two
produce the same effect ; and this is the case in the cooperative arts.
When it is said that a cooperative art operates by the same
means as nature does, we must observe that the manner in which this
is accomplished by art is not the same as that of nature, for the effect
is then proper to the art. Again, the art has as its end to bring about
a natural product, yet its own end is not the product as it is produced
by nature, but as it is produced by art.3
The means which are proper to agriculture have been stated
above. The principal means are tillage, cultivation, husbandry and
fertilizing. In each of these operations art is doing something which
nature does not do. As Howard says :
Yet this is not the way in which Nature is accustomed to work. She
does not, as a rule, collect her plants, the same plants, in one spot and
practice monoculture, but scatters them : Her mechanisms for scattering
seed are marvelous and most effective. Man’s habit, so convenient, of
collecting a specified seed, and sowing it in a specified area implies, it must
be acknowledged, a definite interference with Nature’s habits. Moreover,
by consuming the harvest and thus removing it from the place where it
had grown, he for the time being interrupts the round of natural pro­
cesses.4

It is the same with cultivation and animal husbandry. Nature

does not stir up the soil and remove weeds, prune branches and
practice the other activities of cultivation ; nor does she separate
her animals and raise them under the artificial conditions that husband­
ry makes use of. Finally, the proper end of agriculture is the crop.
The crop is an effect of art, not of nature. In comparison with the
crops and animal products produced by agriculture, nature’s harvests

1. Summa Theologica, Ia IIae, q.8, a.2, ad 3.

2. In I I Sententiarum, d.I, q.l, a.4, ad 3.
3. Commentary on the De Sensu et Sensato, Book I, lesson 1. “ From which it appears
that the consideration of health and sickness is common to both the doctor and the natural
philosopher. And the reason for this is that health is sometimes caused by nature alone,
and this pertains to the consideration of the natural philosopher, who considers the works
of nature ; and sometimes it is caused by art, and in this respect it is considered by the
medical man.”
4. T h e Soil and Health, p.34-35.
 THE NATURE OF AGRICULTURE 207

are “ dispersed, scanty and irregular.” Crops, as Howard says, are

the result of the special operations of agriculture. They are meant
for removal and consumption in the domestic and the civil com­
munity.
The result of these special practices, as Howard points out, is a
disturbance and an interruption of the processes of nature. “ In
fact man has laid his hand on the great Wheel and for a moment has
stopped or deflected its turning. To put it in another way, he has
for his own use withdrawn from the soil the products of its fertility.
. . . But if he is to continue to exist, he must send the wheel forward
again on its revolutions. . . . all the great agricultural systems which
have survived have made it their business never to deplete the earth
of its fertility without at the same time beginning the process of
restoration.” 1 This is the reason for the other practice which is
proper to agriculture, namely, fertilizing. And in this process also,
the practices of agriculture differ from those of nature, and exceed it ;
for the operations of fertilizing must be proportional to the crops
produced, and to the depletion thus entailed.
Despite the difference between the means which are proper to
nature and those proper to agriculture, the operations of agriculture
must imitate and be patterned on those of nature. This is so because
the proper effects of agriculture are not achieved by the means proper
to agriculture as their principal cause, but rather by natural forces as
aided and directed by the proper methods of agriculture. And,
because the operations of agriculture minister to the natural forces at
work, they must be proportioned to them. The operations of nature,
as St. Thomas points out in the commentary on the Physics, seem
to be the work of intelligence, and it is from nature that man draws his
knowledge, through the senses ; which knowledge is the principle of
his art.2 We have seen, in the lines of Columella cited above, that
among the ancients also the idea that God and nature is the first
farmer, was a guide to their thought on agriculture. Howard insists
throughout his books, that nature is the supreme farmer, and her
practices the first principles of everything which the art of farming
undertakes. The same is true with other writers whom we quoted.
Paul Sears has this to say :
Nature is not to be conquered save on her own terms. She is not
conciliated by cleverness or industry in devising means to defeat one of
her laws through the workings of another. She is a very business-like old
lady, who plays no favorites. Man is welcome to outnumber and dominate
the other forms of life, provided he can maintain order among the relentless
forces whose balanced operation he has disturbed.*

1. The Soil and Health, pp.34-35.

2. In I I Physicor., lect.4.
3. Deserts on the March, p.5.
208 LAV AL THÉO LO GIQU E E T PH ILO SO PH IQ U E

The current literature on agriculture, says Howard, pays scarce

attention to the means which nature, the supreme farmer, uses in her
management of the soil. Nevertheless these natural methods must
form the basis of all our studies of soil fertility.1 Nature’s methods
are best seen in the life in woods and forests. He then summarizes
the lessons to be learned as follows :
Mixed farming is the rule. Many species of plants and animals live
together . . . there is never any attempt at monoculture. . . .
The soil is always protected from the direct action of sun, rain and
wind. In this care of the soil strict economy is the watchword : nothing
is lost. The whole energy of sunlight is made use of by the foliage of the forest
canopy and of the undergrowth. The leaves also break up the rainfall
into fine spray so that it can more easily be dealt with by the litter of plant
and animal remains which provide the last line of defense of the precious
soil. These methods of protection . . . also reduce the power of the strongest
winds to a gentle air current.
The rainfall in particular is carefully conserved. A large portion is
retained on the surface of the soil : the excess is gently transferred to the
subsoil, and in due course to the streams and rivers. The fine spray created
by the foliage is transformed by the protective ground litter into thin films
of water which move slowly downwards, first into the humus layer and
then into the soil and subsoil. These latter have been made porous in two
ways ; by the creation of a well marked crumb structure and by a network
of drainage and aeration channels made by earthworms and other burrow­
ing animals. The pore space of the forest soil is at its maximum so that
there is a large internal surface over which the thin films of water can creep.
There is also ample humus for the direct absorption of water. There is
remarkably little run-off even from the primeval rain forest. When this
occurs it is practically clear water. Nothing in the nature of erosion
occurs. The streams and rivers of the forest areas are always perennial
because of the vast quantity of water in slow transit between the rainstorms
and the sea. There is therefore little or no drought in forest areas because
so much of the rainfall is retained exactly where it is needed.
The forest manures itself. It makes its own humus and supplies
itself with minerals. If we watch a piece of woodland we find that a gentle
accumulation of mixed vegetable and animal residues is constantly taking
place on the ground and that these wastes are being converted by fungi
and bacteria into humus. They are sanitary. There is no nuisance of
any kind. . . .
The mineral matter needed by the trees and the undergrowth is
obtained from the subsoil. This is collected in dilute solution in water
by the deeper roots of the trees . . . Even in soils markedly deficient in
phosphorus trees have no difficulty in obtaining ample supplies of this
element. . . . Nature’s farming, as seen in the forest, is characterized
by two things : (1) a constant circulation of the mineral matter absorbed
by the trees ; (2) a constant addition of new mineral matter from the vast
reserves held by the subsoil. . . .

1. An Agricultural Testament, pp.1-5.

 THE N A TU R E OF AGRICULTURE 209

The soil always carries a large fertility reserve. . . . The extent of

this enormous reserve is only realized when the trees are cut down and the
virgin land used for agriculture. When plants like tea, coffee, rubber,
and bananas are grown on recently cleared land, good crops can be raised
without manure for ten years or more.
The crops and livestock look after themselves. . . . It is true that all
kinds of diseases are to be found here and there among the plants and
animals of the forest, but these never assume large proportions. . . .*

The principles which govern the processes of soil and life in the
prairies, the rivers and the sea are similar to these. In all cases the
result of nature’s farming is a building up of fertility, and a gradual
conquest of bare land by vegetation. The island of Krakatao is a
good example of this law. In 1883 a volcano reduced the island to
bare rock and sand. Twenty years later it was again covered with
vegetation.2
The soundness of any system of agriculture must be judged,
primarily, by the extent to which it adheres to the principles which
are furnished it in the exemplar of nature’s farming. According to
Howard, the agriculture of the Orient has grasped these principles and
adhered to them faithfully. This agriculture, he says, has passed the
supreme test ; the test of time. The small holdings of China, for
example, are still maintaining a steady, and a high output with no
loss of fertility after as much as forty centuries of management.3
To a lesser extent many other peoples have learned to follow nature’s
laws in their farming. In the works we have referred to, Howard
gives many examples of this, taken from his own observations. He
describes the Chinese method of making humus by composting all
vegetable and animal wastes, as a careful imitation of the manner in
which it is made in the forest. It is like rolling up the forest floor and
arranging it in a heap, he says. Another example is the way in which
the peasants of Northern India ward off the threat of the formation
of a hard soil pan under their fields — a condition which leads to the
development of alkali salts in the soil and the end of its fertility.
They plant deep rooting legumes between other crops, and the roots
of these legumes break up the subsoil, thus maintaining its permea­
bility and fertility. In another place he tells how he induced the
hop growers in a part of England to add the male hops to their plant­
ings, alongside the commercially valuable female plants. The female
plants were then pollinated, as nature intended they should be, and
they acquired the hardiness to throw off the disease which threatened
to destroy them.4
1. An Agricultural Testament, pp. 1-5.
2. M a n g h a m , Sidney, The Earth’s Green Mantle, New York, Macmillan, 1939, p.25.
3. An Agricultural Testament, pp.9-17.
4. The Soil and Health, p.2.
210 LAV AL THEO LO GIQU E E T PH ILO SO PH IQ U E

Many examples of the ways in which agriculture imitates nature

are found in the farming practices of our own country, as well. At
present, many cattle are brought from the western plains to the
cornfields of the midwest, to be fattened on the corn, before being
taken to the stockyards. Formerly they were fattened at the stock­
yards, the grain being shipped in from the farms. Aside from the
economy of this practice it is also closer to the conditions of nature
where plant and animal life are never isolated from each other. Thus
the farmers receive the benefit of the manure on their fields, which
helps to maintain the humus reserve — a condition required by nature.
Again there is the practice of orchardists, who chop up the grass cover
in their orchards with harrows ; or, in some cases, of piling straw
around the base of the trees. In both instances they are imitating
the conditions of tree life in the woods, where grass does not grow.
The grass cover prevents the air from penetrating to the tree roots,
and thus interferes with their proper growth. Many market garden­
ers spread a mulch of vegetable wastes around their crops, as a means
of protecting the texture of the soil surface and of conserving moisture.
In doing so they are seeking the same effects that are brought about
by the litter on the forest floor.
If these opinions about the nature of agriculture are sound, then
certain questions which are now being asked about its operations are
already answered. The point is expressed concisely in the words of
Fairfield Osborn, cited above : “ Can his chemists dismiss nature
and take over the operation of the earth ? ” 1 Taken literally, the
affirmative would be circular ; for the chemists can only take over the
operation of the earth by applying certain natural powers to their
proper effects. But this is not the author’s meaning, as the rest of
his book makes clear. What it does mean is this : can modem science
make use of the new knowledge to set its own terms, or those of
society, in the management of the soil and of the plant and animal
life which it nourishes, without essential obedience to the principles
which nature sets forth in its own management of the soil, and its
own creatures? When it does, the results are a disturbance of the
balance in nature, and the inevitable loss of fertility. For man is
then trying to defeat the operation of some natural laws through the
working of others, as Paul Sears warns.2
This leads, quite naturally, to a second question : can man
exceed nature through the practice of agriculture? The answer to
this question is, of course, that he can. If this were not so then
agriculture would lose all or most of its reason for existing. But the
condition for such an achievement is that his operations must be
proportional to those of nature. They must be characterized by

1. Our Plundered Planet, p.31.

2. Deserts on the March, p.5.
 THE N A TU R E OF AGRICULTURE 211

balance. We find this view reiterated throughout the writings of these

men. Howard summarizes his views on this point in the following
words :
My constant references to nature as the supreme farmer have been
found inapplicable and inept, it being pointed out that if we were to follow
nature alone we would be restricted to those small harvests that she alone
is accustomed to provide.
. . . I am accused of ignoring the fact that the whole aim of the cul­
tivator is to do better than nature and that the success attained in this
direction is a source of legitimate pride.
. . . The conception of agriculture as an interruption or interception of
natural processes has always been recognized by me. Where I part
company with my critics is in my general view of the unbalanced nature of
these human acts . . . These interruptions or intrusions must not be
confined to mere exploitation : they involve definite duties to the land
which are best summed up in the law of return. They must also realize
the significance of the stupendous reserves on which the natural machine
works and which must be faithfully maintained.
The first duty of the agriculturist is to understand that he is part of
nature and cannot escape from his environment. He must obey nature’s
rules. Whatever intrusions he makes must be, so to speak, in the spirit
of these rules. They must on no account flout the underlying principles
of the natural laws nor be in outrageous contradiction to the processes of
nature. . . .
But provided that the actions of the cultivator are well conceived,
that they have been proved successful by long experience, and that the
character of the intervention undertaken is comprehended, and that
measures are initiated to restore the natural cycle in a proper way, much
may be accomplished by man : and this is the art of agriculture.1

It is necessary that agriculture exceed nature and that it should

do so greatly. This is immediately deducible from what we have
reported on the nature of the art. From the viewpoint of the final
cause, because the purpose of the art is to bring about what nature
cannot accomplish ; from that of the agent cause, because art is a rela­
tively superior cause to nature, for it proceeds directly from intellect.
And the truth of this is seen even more readily on the part of the
effects. The crops of agriculture are superior to the harvests of nature,
not only in that more is produced, but also, and even more so, in
quality. No one can be unaware that cultivated plants and animals
are better in size, taste, texture and almost every other quality that
food can have. And, finally, agriculture accomplishes its results
much more efficiently and rapidly than nature does. In his book,
Pleasant Valley, Louis Bromfield describes how he built up five inches
of fertile soil on a badly eroded field in as many years. It would take

1. The Soil and Health, pp.194-196.

212 LAV AL THÉO LO GIQU E E T PH ILO SO PH IQ U E

nature hundreds of years to accomplish the same effect. Howard

describes how the Chinese get several crops from the same field in
one year, by planting new crops before the older ones are harvested.
Vegetables and fruits started under glass mature earlier, and can
often be produced in unfavorable climates where natural conditions
would exclude them. These examples are enough to suggest the
inumerable ways in which agriculture exceeds nature.

J oseph B. M cD on a ld .
(To be continued.)