“We have all manner of books and lecture courses on Economics, containing, among other things, chapters on the economic aspects of Agriculture. Economists consider, how Agriculture should be carried on in the light of social-economic principles. There are many books and pamphlets on this subject: how Agriculture should be shaped, in the light of social and economic ideas. Yet the whole of this — the giving of economic lectures an the subject and the writing of such books — is manifest nonsense. Palpable nonsense, I say, albeit that is practiced nowadays in the widest circles. For it should go without saying, and every man should recognize the fact: one cannot speak of agriculture, not even of the social forms it should assume, unless one first possesses as a foundation a practical acquaintance with the farming job itself. That is to say, unless one really knows what it means to grow mangolds, potatoes and corn! Without this foundation one cannot even speak of the general economic principles which are involved. Such things must be determined out of the thing itself, not by all manner of theoretic considerations.”