Experimentation in the agricultural EnlightenmentPlace, profit and norms of knowledge-making in eighteenth-century Germany

Abstract

Most research into history of eighteenth-century experimentation has focused on the instrument-based traditions of natural philosophers and chemists. This article explores an alternate, but related, tradition: the experiments carried out by agricultural improvers. While authors interested in improving farming were aware of natural philosophical practices, they self-consciously devised different strategies in their own forms of experimentation. Experiments in the chemical and physical sciences generally sought to find universal laws operative everywhere; agricultural experimentation often explored the particular possibilities of a given place. The cost and likely economic success of an experiment was also worked explicitly into its design.