Organic Matter and the Rise of Holistic Agriculture: John Pitkin Norton and William Henry Brewer at Yale, 1840-1900

Lloyd Ackert
Yale University, History of Science and History of Medicine

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     Last modified: June 15, 2005
     Presentation date: 07/17/2005 9:00 AM in ROZH 107
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Abstract
In the mid-nineteenth century, agricultural chemists studying at Yale strove to reform agriculture in New England. At the center of their efforts lay the new principles of organic chemistry that they had imbibed from their training abroad with Justus Liebig in Germany, James Johnston in Scotland, and Jean Baptiste Dumas in France. This training taught the American students--already prepared by the Sillimans--to see and investigate nature as a circulation of matter through the soil, plants, and animals and back again into the soil. John Pitkin Norton (1822-1852) and William Henry Brewer (1828-1910) engaged this holistic vision of the "cycle of life" in their attempts to reform agriculture through science, e.g. by promoting the use of organic matter as "green fertilizers." Revisiting this history, first explored by Margaret Rossiter in _The Emergence of Agricultural Science: Justus Liebig and the Americans, 1840-1880_ (1975), allows us to examine the rise of a thermodynamic view in biology—by Dumas and Leibig in Europe—and its subsequent transmission to the United States. The experiences of Norton and Brewer provide case studies for comparing the transfer of this view across scientific cultures (German, French, British, and America) and across disciplines (Organic Chemistry, Agriculture, Forestry, and Biology).

Multiple Paper Session:
Other papers in this session:
The creation of the Bussey Institution, between the Morril Act and Harvard
Origin of Public Patronage of Agricultural Research: Perpetuating the Myth of Autonomy and Political Neutrality
Inventing 'Gaichu' (Insect Pests): The Emergence of Economic Entomology in Japan