Ceri Crossley
110
fully organized in Paris in the mid-1850s.
13 There was general agreement that human manure was an excellent fertilizer. According to the
agronomist Jean-Baptiste Boussingault, writing in 1851: “ Les
déjections de l’homme sont un des agents les plus actifs dont dispose
le cultivateur. Dans les pays où l’industrie agricole est en progrès, ces
déjections sont très-recherchées, et on n’épargne aucune peine pour se
les procurer”.
14 The mid-century discussion regarding the benefits of
human manure can usefully be related to the wider debate that was
sparked by the development of artificial fertilizers. Justus von Liebig
played a decisive role in promoting the use of chemicals, publishing
his hugely influential study, Chemistry in its Application to Agriculture, in 1840. Science appeared to have demonstrated that what depleted soils needed most was the renewal of their mineral content.
Although in some of his later work Liebig revealed himself to be a
staunch supporter of manure, his prestige in the 1840s led many to
conclude that the future of agriculture lay in the correct application of
chemicals rather than organic matter.
15
In France the advocates of artificial fertilizers referred to by
Leroux Jean-Baptiste Dumas, Anselme Payen and Jean-Baptiste
Boussingault were clearly winning the argument against traditional
farming methods. What makes Leroux’s ideas worthy of attention is
the way in which his arguments prefigured a number of the principles
that subsequently came to underpin the organic movement’s rejection
of industrial farming methods. Organic cultivation, writes the historian
Philip Conford, aims to establish a virtuous circle: “the return of
wastes to the soil creates humus, which encourages healthy crops
whose remains, properly composted, return to enrich the soil’s humus
content”.
16 The founders of the organic movement insisted that the
natural order could not be “flouted with impunity”.
17 Leroux would
have agreed. He bluntly rejected the claims made by the chemists: “Je
___________________________
13 The results are discussed by Louis Figuier in L’Année scientifique et industrielle
(Paris: Hachette, 1858), pt. 2, pp. 131-35.
14 J.-B. Boussingault, Economie rurale considérée dans ses rapports avec la chimie,
la physique et la météorologie, 2 vols (Paris: Béchet Jeune, 1851), I, p. 791. See F. W.
J. McCosh, Boussingault: Chemist and Agriculturist (Dordrecht: Reidel, 1984).
15 See William H. Brock, Justus von Liebig. The Chemical Gatekeeper (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1997), pp. 250-72.
16 Philip Conford, The Origins of the Organic Movement (Edinburgh: Floris Books,
2001), p. 17.
17 Conford, Origins of the Organic Movement, p. 16.
110
fully organized in Paris in the mid-1850s.
13 There was general agreement that human manure was an excellent fertilizer. According to the
agronomist Jean-Baptiste Boussingault, writing in 1851: “ Les
déjections de l’homme sont un des agents les plus actifs dont dispose
le cultivateur. Dans les pays où l’industrie agricole est en progrès, ces
déjections sont très-recherchées, et on n’épargne aucune peine pour se
les procurer”.
14 The mid-century discussion regarding the benefits of
human manure can usefully be related to the wider debate that was
sparked by the development of artificial fertilizers. Justus von Liebig
played a decisive role in promoting the use of chemicals, publishing
his hugely influential study, Chemistry in its Application to Agriculture, in 1840. Science appeared to have demonstrated that what depleted soils needed most was the renewal of their mineral content.
Although in some of his later work Liebig revealed himself to be a
staunch supporter of manure, his prestige in the 1840s led many to
conclude that the future of agriculture lay in the correct application of
chemicals rather than organic matter.
15
In France the advocates of artificial fertilizers referred to by
Leroux Jean-Baptiste Dumas, Anselme Payen and Jean-Baptiste
Boussingault were clearly winning the argument against traditional
farming methods. What makes Leroux’s ideas worthy of attention is
the way in which his arguments prefigured a number of the principles
that subsequently came to underpin the organic movement’s rejection
of industrial farming methods. Organic cultivation, writes the historian
Philip Conford, aims to establish a virtuous circle: “the return of
wastes to the soil creates humus, which encourages healthy crops
whose remains, properly composted, return to enrich the soil’s humus
content”.
16 The founders of the organic movement insisted that the
natural order could not be “flouted with impunity”.
17 Leroux would
have agreed. He bluntly rejected the claims made by the chemists: “Je
___________________________
13 The results are discussed by Louis Figuier in L’Année scientifique et industrielle
(Paris: Hachette, 1858), pt. 2, pp. 131-35.
14 J.-B. Boussingault, Economie rurale considérée dans ses rapports avec la chimie,
la physique et la météorologie, 2 vols (Paris: Béchet Jeune, 1851), I, p. 791. See F. W.
J. McCosh, Boussingault: Chemist and Agriculturist (Dordrecht: Reidel, 1984).
15 See William H. Brock, Justus von Liebig. The Chemical Gatekeeper (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1997), pp. 250-72.
16 Philip Conford, The Origins of the Organic Movement (Edinburgh: Floris Books,
2001), p. 17.
17 Conford, Origins of the Organic Movement, p. 16.