My final stop on my June research trip is in New York, just over the border from New Jersey. I’m visiting Threefold Community Farm, which was established in 1927 as the first biodynamic farm in the United States. It’s also one of the main centers for Anthroposophy in the US. And fittingly, it’s been exactly a hundred years since Rudolf Steiner gave the original Agriculture Course in Koberwitz, Poland on June 7-16, 1924. Mac Mead teaches biodynamic farming classes at Threefold, but has taken time out of his busy schedule to give me a tour. He shows me the Threefold Auditorium first, built in the distinctive Anthroposophic architectural style. Ehrenfried Pfeiffer’s lab was housed in some small, asymmetrical rooms on the lower level.
Next, we head over to a fenced-in garden where they grow herbs for the biodynamic preparations and other purposes. It’s harvest season for chamomile, and I also see yarrow, valerian, and even a tiny equisetum plant in a pot. Mac shows me the yarrow preparation, a stag’s bladder stuffed with yarrow flowers hanging in a sunny, sheltered spot. It’s also encased in a cage of hardware cloth to keep animals out. Inside a shed are some cow horns with the finished quartz preparation, and in a cool cellar Mac shows me the finished horn manure preparation.
Mac drives me up to a hilltop field. We pass an exceptionally nice-looking heap of finished compost, rich and brown and ready to be spread on the fields. The soil here is very poor and rocky, but thanks to the biodynamic compost, the vegetables are as lush and productive as any I’ve seen. The farm’s team of Haflinger ponies do a lot of the tillage work with small, specially designed implements; a small tractor does the rest. There are four dairy cows, too, and a tiny bulk tank in a spotlessly clean room to hold their milk.
Our final stop is Fellowship Community, an elder care community founded in 1966 by the Anthroposophic physician Paul Scharff. Expecting to see a typical institutional nursing home, I’m pleasantly surprised to be greeted instead by a picturesque village of small, low buildings with lots of windows, surrounded by flowers, vegetable gardens, and even a flock of Buff Orpington and Barred Rock chickens. Many of the residents are outside gardening or taking walks along the paths; others work on weaving, knitting, or other fiber arts. Everyone seems happy and relaxed; it’s a pleasant, peaceful atmosphere.
Down in the basement of the main building at Fellowship Community, Mac takes me to the library, which is full of books on Anthroposophy. What we’re most interested in is a small side room that houses Paul Scharff’s archives, including about twenty binders that hold what seem to be all that has survived of Ehrenfried Pfeiffer’s papers. After a pleasant lunch with Mac and his wife at the Threefold Café, I spend the rest of the afternoon photographing documents. I find a few interesting things—including Pfieffer’s lecture notes from the 1942 Kimberton Farms School—but, as at the Rodale archives, a lot of my questions remain unanswered.
Even if I didn’t find everything I’d hoped to in the archives, I’m grateful I made this trip. Biodynamics has been so maligned in much of the historical literature that it was very important for me to visit actual biodynamic farms and see it in practice. On the biodynamic farms I visited in Pennsylvania and New York, I was impressed with the health of the plants and animals, the quality of the compost, and the hospitality of the farmers. Biodynamics may not be for everyone, but it showcases some of the best in organic farming methods and is definitely worthy of respect.
Comments