Table Of ContentNew Perspectives on the History of Life Sciences
and Agriculture
Archimedes
New StudieS iN tHe HiStory ANd PHiLoSoPHy of
ScieNce ANd tecHNoLogy
VoLuMe 40
editor
Jed Z. Buchwald, Dreyfuss Professor of History, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena CA, USA.
ASSociAte editorS for MAtHeMAticS ANd PHySicAL ScieNceS
Jeremy Gray, The Faculty of Mathematics and Computing,
The Open University, Buckinghamshire, UK.
Tilman Sauer, California Institute of Technology
ASSociAte editorS for BioLogicAL ScieNceS
Sharon KinGSland, Department of History of Science and Technology,
Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD, USA.
manfred lauBichler, Arizona State University
AdViSory BoArd for MAtHeMAticS, PHySicAL ScieNceS ANd tecHNoLogy
henK BoS, University of Utrecht
mordechai feinGold, California Institute of Technology
Allan d. franKlin, University of Colorado at Boulder
KoSTaS gavroGlu, National Technical University of Athens
Paul HoyninGen-Huene, Leibniz University in Hannover
trevor Levere, University of Toronto
JeSper lüTzen, Copenhagen University
william Newman, Indiana University, Bloomington
Lawrence Principe, The Johns Hopkins University
JürGen renn, Max-Planck-Institut für Wissenschaftsgeschichte
Alex roland, Duke University
Alan Shapiro, University of Minnesota
Noel Swerdlow, California Institute of Technology, uSA
AdViSory BoArd for BioLogy
Michael dieTrich, Dartmouth College, USA
Michel MoranGe, Centre Cavaille`s, Ecole Normale Supe´rieure, Paris
HanS-JörG rheinBerGer, Max Planck Institute for the History of Science, Berlin
Nancy SiraiSi, Hunter College of the City University of New York
Archimedes has three fundamental goals; to further the integration of the histories of science and
technology with one another: to investigate the technical, social and practical histories of specific
developments in science and technology; and finally, where possible and desirable, to bring the histories
of science and technology into closer contact with the philosophy of science. to these ends, each volume
will have its own theme and title and will be planned by one or more members of the Advisory Board
in consultation with the editor. Although the volumes have specific themes, the series itself will not be
limited to one or even to a few particular areas. its subjects include any of the sciences, ranging from
biology through physics, all aspects of technology, broadly construed, as well as historically-engaged
philosophy of science or technology. taken as a whole, Archimedes will be of interest to historians,
philosophers, and scientists, as well as to those in business and industry who seek to understand how
science and industry have come to be so strongly linked..
More information about this series at
http://www.springer.com/series/5644
Denise Phillips • Sharon Kingsland
editors
New Perspectives
on the History of Life
Sciences and Agriculture
1 3
Editors
denise Phillips Sharon Kingsland
department of History History of Science and technology
university of tennessee Johns Hopkins university
Knoxville Baltimore
tennessee Maryland
uSA uSA
iSSN 1385-0180 iSSN 2215-0064 (electronic)
Archimedes
iSBN 978-3-319-12184-0 iSBN 978-3-319-12185-7 (eBook)
doi 10.1007/978-3-319-12185-7
Library of congress control Number: 2014955545
Springer cham Heidelberg New york dordrecht London
© Springer international Publishing Switzerland 2015
this work is subject to copyright. All rights are reserved by the Publisher, whether the whole or part
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the use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication
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the publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book
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Printed on acid-free paper
Springer international Publishing is a brand of Springer
Springer is part of Springer Science+Business Media (www.springer.com)
Contents
1 Introduction .................................................................................................... 1
denise Phillips and Sharon Kingsland
2 Plants and Places: Agricultural Knowledge and Plant
Geography in Germany, 1750–1810 ............................................................. 9
denise Phillips
3 Drawing the Line: Mapping Cultivated Plants and Seeing
Nature in Nineteenth-Century Plant Geography ...................................... 27
Nils güttler
4 Rose and Pear Breeding in Nineteenth-Century France: The
Practice and Science of Diversity ................................................................ 53
cristiana oghina-Pavie
5 Napoleonic Cotton Cultivation: A Case Study in Scientific
Expertise and Agricultural Innovation in France and Italy,
1806–1814...................................................................................................... 73
Joseph Horan
6 W hale Oil Pesticide: Natural History, Animal Resources, and
Agriculture in Early Modern Japan ........................................................... 93
Jakobina Arch
7 Forests, Climate, and the Rise of Scientific Forestry in
Russia: From Local Knowledge and Natural History to
Modern Experiments (1840s–early 1890s) ............................................... 113
Anastasia A. fedotova and Marina V. Loskutova
8 T he Rise of Applied Entomology in the Russian Empire:
Governmental, Public, and Academic Responses to Insect
Pest Outbreaks from 1840 to 1894 ............................................................ 139
Marina V. Loskutova and Anastasia A. fedotova
v
vi contents
9 Nutrition Science and the Practice of Animal Feeding in
Germany, 1850–1880 ................................................................................ 163
Brendan Matz
10 A rtificial or Biological? Nature, Fertilizer, and the German
Origins of Organic Agriculture ............................................................... 183
corinna treitel
11 S cience, Promotion, and Scandal: Soil Bacteriology,
Legume Inoculation, and the American Campaign for Soil
Improvement in the Progressive Era ...................................................... 205
Mark r. finlay
12 Mold Cultures: Traditional Industry and Microbial Studies
in Early Twentieth-Century Japan ......................................................... 231
Victoria Lee
13 T he Coproduction of Station Morphology and Agricultural
Management in the Tropics: Transformations in Botany at
the Botanical Garden at Buitenzorg, Java 1880–1904 .......................... 253
robert-Jan wille
14 Regionalizing Knowledge: The Ecological Approach of the
USDA Office of Dryland Agriculture on the Great Plains ................... 277
Jeremy Vetter
15 Rexford F. Daubenmire and the Ecology of Place: Applied
Ecology in the Mid-Twentieth-Century American West ...................... 297
Adam M. Sowards
16 A gricultural Improvement at China’s First Agricultural
Experiment Stations ................................................................................. 323
Peter Lavelle
17 Did Mendelism Transform Plant Breeding? Genetic Theory
and Breeding Practice, 1900–1945 .......................................................... 345
Jonathan Harwood
18 Chicken Breeding: The Complex Transition from
Traditional to Genetic Methods in the USA .......................................... 371
Margaret e. derry
19 Breeding Better Peas, Pumpkins, and Peasants:
The Practical Mendelism of Erich Tschermak ...................................... 395
Sander J. gliboff
contents vii
20 More than Metamorphosis: The Silkworm Experiments
of Toyama Kametarō and his Cultivation of Genetic
Thought in Japan’s Sericultural Practices, 1894–1918 ........................ 415
Lisa onaga
21 Genetics and “Breeding as a Science”: Kihara Hitoshi
and the Development of Genetics in Japan in the First Half
of the Twentieth Century ......................................................................... 439
Kaori iida
22 Speeding Up Evolution: X-Rays and Plant Breeding in the
United States, 1925–1935 ......................................................................... 459
Helen Anne curry
23 W atching Grass Grow: The Emergence of Brachypodium
distachyon as a Model for the Poaceae ................................................... 479
christopher w. P. Lyons and Karen-Beth g. Scholthof
Index .................................................................................................................. 503
Chapter 1
Introduction
Denise Phillips and Sharon Kingsland
the essays in this volume explore problems in the history of science at the intersec-
tion of life sciences and agriculture, from the mid-eighteenth to the mid-twentieth
century. we interpret agricultural practices in a broad sense, including the practices
and disciplines devoted to land management, forestry, soil science, and the im-
provement and management of crops and livestock. our purpose is to show that in-
vestigation of this border zone raises many interesting questions about how science
develops. in particular, it challenges us to reexamine and take seriously the intimate
connection between scientific development and the practical goals of managing and
improving—perhaps even recreating—the living world to serve human ends. with-
out close attention to this zone it is not possible to understand the emergence of new
disciplines and transformation of old disciplines, to evaluate the role and impact of
such major figures of science as Humboldt and Mendel, or to appreciate how much
of the history of modern biology has been driven by national ambitions and imperi-
alist expansion in competition with rival nations. focusing on agricultural practices
also leads to new insights about how life sciences have interacted with economics
and politics.
A few prescient historians of biology have recognized the importance of looking
at the agricultural context to understand the emergence of new disciplines, such as
genetics. their pioneering contributions are amply recognized in the references to
the essays in this volume. But on the whole, despite the promptings of these schol-
ars since the 1980s, historians of biology have devoted most of their attention to
academic biology and have continued to neglect the agricultural context. Historians
S. Kingsland ()
department of History of Science and technology,
Johns Hopkins university, 3400 N. charles St., Baltimore, Md 21218, uSA
e-mail: [email protected]
d. Phillips
department of History, university of tennessee,
915 Volunteer Blvd., Knoxville, tN 37996, uSA
e-mail: [email protected]
© Springer international Publishing Switzerland 2015 1
d. Phillips, S. Kingsland (eds.), New Perspectives on the History of Life Sciences
and Agriculture, Archimedes 40, doi 10.1007/978-3-319-12185-7_1
2 d. Phillips and S. Kingsland
of agriculture on the other hand concentrate on social and economic history, ne-
glecting the science. we hope to engage both of these communities of historians and
bring them into closer conversation with each other.
in so doing, we are building on the momentum of recent scholarly work in our
field that suggests that scholars are keen to explore the complex intellectual, social,
and economic problems that are raised at the intersection of life sciences and agri-
culture. in 2006, Jonathan Harwood, a contributor to this volume, edited a special
issue on biology and agriculture for the Journal of the History of Biology. He noted
that the long neglect of agricultural topics was changing, perhaps in light of the
emergence of modern concerns about food safety, environmentalism, and the re-
cent controversies over genetically modified organisms.1 contributors to that issue
(Barbara Kimmelman, christophe Bonneuil, thomas wieland, Karin Matchett, and
Lloyd Ackert) not only expanded scholarship on history of life science and agricul-
ture but also embraced an international perspective by examining topics in Ameri-
can, french, german, Mexican, and russian history of science and agriculture. in
this volume, we build on the momentum created by these and other scholars with an
expanded international comparative approach that, in addition to the uSA, france,
germany, the Netherlands, and russia, also extends to indonesia, china, and Japan.
once we adopt a longer-term perspective spanning three centuries, and take a broad
multinational view, we notice many areas of connection and continuity, linking past
to present and also linking the history of one nation to another. our introduction will
serve to indicate some of the synergistic connections between themes developed by
contributors to this volume. there is, to be sure, much more to be done, especially
in the second half of the twentieth century, but we hope these essays will prompt
interest not just in the connections between life sciences and agriculture but also in
cross-national comparisons.
indeed, one significant theme that runs through numerous contributions to the
volume is agriculture’s historical importance in conceptions of national strength
and wealth. Agriculture was a nexus of concern that brought together the resources
of state, civil society, and science, all in the interest of transforming natural or cul-
tivated landscapes. Several of the chapters on the eighteenth and nineteenth century
show government officials, voluntary associations, and scientific experts working
together (or sometimes working at cross-purposes), trying to bring natural knowl-
edge to bear on problems of pressing agricultural concern. Joseph Horan examines
Napoleon’s attempts to make cotton a successful cash crop, an effort, Horan argues,
that was part of the regime’s broader political strategies for dominance in europe.
Like Napoleon’s continental blockade, homegrown french and italian cotton was
supposed to strike a blow to the economic strength of national rival great Britain.
Anastasia fedotova and Marina Loskutova’s chapter on forestry in the russian em-
pire looks at another ambitious expansionist dream, the attempt to increase rainfall
on russia’s drought-prone southern steppes by building up the region’s forest cover.
in addition to being an important arena for practical intervention, agriculture also
played a significant role in political discourse about the nation. in the eighteenth
1 Harwood (2006).
