Hermann von Schullern zu Schrattenhofen: Review of Filippo Virgilii’s Il problema agricolo e l’avvenire sociale (1896)

Schullern’s review examines Virgilii’s account of agricultural improvement and its wider social promise. It moves from the book’s first four chapters, devoted to crop rotation and chemical fertilization, to the optimism of its concluding chapters. Its central judgment distinguishes technical efficacy from social adoption: Schullern endorses the agricultural system but doubts that its benefits will spread as readily as Virgilii expects.

The review locates the argument in Italy’s dependence on agriculture and its low level of technical development. Its practical model is the landowner Stanislao Solari, whose intelligence and sense of social obligation Schullern expressly praises. Solari alternates clover and wheat, applying the mineral fertilizer needed for both harvests to the preceding clover crop. As Schullern explains it, clover enriches the soil with nitrogen and leaves roots and mineral nutrients for wheat, allowing abundant yields without the expense of artificially supplying nitrogenous fertilizer. The procedure is not a fixed recipe independent of local conditions:

Dabei muss natürlich der Dünger alle Materien enthalten, welche für die Absorption nothwendig sind u. z. in genauem Verhältnis zur erwarteten Erntemenge und nach Maassgabe der angebauten Pflanze und der Qualität des Bodens.

English translation: In this the fertilizer must of course contain all the materials which are necessary for absorption, and that in exact proportion to the expected quantity of the harvest and according to the plant cultivated and the quality of the soil.

This qualification anchors the review’s confidence in rational adjustment to crop, soil, and anticipated yield. Schullern reports striking increases in harvests and reductions in production costs wherever the system has been applied. Solari’s efforts to publicize it also make agricultural knowledge a means of public improvement, rather than merely private advantage.

Die ungeheure Tragweite einer Verallgemeinerung der Anwendung dieses Systems vom Standpunkte der Volkswirtschaft und der Socialpolitik liegt auf der Hand, vorausgesetzt, dass es sich stets so bewährt, wie bisher.

English translation: The immense import of a generalization of the application of this system from the standpoint of the national economy and of social policy is obvious, provided that it always proves itself as it has hitherto.

The move from agronomy to political economy rests on the prospect of generalizing these gains. Schullern considers continued success highly plausible because the system is internally rational, provided it is applied appropriately. His reservation concerns the transition from demonstrated improvement to widespread practice:

Wenn wir trotzdem den in den letzten Capiteln des vorliegenden Buches zu Tage tretenden, weitgehenden Optimismus nicht ohne weiteres theilen können, so geschieht das nicht deswegen, weil wir an der Richtigkeit des Systems zweifeln würden, sondern deswegen, weil wir fürchten, dass tausendjährige Vorurtheile seiner siegreichen Ausbreitung hartnäckigen Widerstand entgegenstellen werden.

English translation: If nevertheless we cannot without further ado share the far-reaching optimism which comes to light in the last chapters of the present book, this happens not because we would doubt the correctness of the system, but because we fear that thousand-year-old prejudices will offer stubborn resistance to its victorious spread.

The review’s significance lies in this separation of productive possibility from the resistance of inherited habits. Schullern does not reject Virgilii’s social hopes; he identifies diffusion as their vulnerable premise. His closing recommendation therefore emphasizes study and practical experimentation: the book should instruct its readers and encourage intelligent farmers to test the system themselves.