| Author(s) | Karl Marx |
|---|---|
| Written | 5 May 1851 |
Published in English for the first time in Marx-Engels Collected Works, Volume 38
[London,] 5 May [1851]
Dear Engels,
Below you will find in the original English a copy of an article concerning the application of electricity to agriculture.[1] Please be good enough to write by return, telling me
1. What you think of the thing.
2. Explaining the business to me IN PLAIN GERMAN, as I can make little sense of it.
'A field is divided into oblong squares, 76 yards long and 40 yards wide, and containing, therefore, just one acre each.' The above is the plan of such a 'square'.At each of the points A, B, C and D 'pegs are driven into the ground; the external lines represent strong iron wires, extending from and fastened to each of the 4 pegs, and communicating with each other, so as to form a square of wire, sunk 3 inches below the surface; at the Points E and F poles are fixed in the ground 15 feet high; a wire is connected with the cross wire beneath the surface at the Point E,—carried up the pole and along the centre of the square to the top of the pole at F, down which it is conducted and fixed to the cross wire beneath the surface at that point. We must here remark that the square must be so formed, to run from north to south, so that the wire passing from E to F shall be at right angles with the equator. It is well known that a considerable body of electricity is generated in the atmosphere, and constantly travelling from east to west with the motion of the earth. This electricity is attracted by the wire suspended from E to F, and communicated to the wires forming the square under the surface of the ground, from the points A, B, C and D. ... any quantity of electricity could be generated, that might be required, by placing under the ground at the point G, a bag of charcoal, and plates of zinc at the point H, and to connect the two by a wire passing over two poles similar to those at E and F and crossing the longitudinal wire passing from those points. The cost at which this application can be made is computed at one pound per acre, and it is reckoned to last 10-15 years, the wires being carefully taken up and replaced each year.'
The poles are made of 'dry wood. As the area increases the cost diminishes.... The mode in which the plot is laid out is as follows. With a mariners' compass and measured lengths of common string, lay out the places for the wooden pins, to which the buried wire is attached (by passing through a small staple). Care must be taken to lay the length of the buried wire due north and south by compass, and the breadth due east and west. This wire must be placed from two to three inches deep in the soil. The lines of the buried wire are then completed. The suspended wire must be attached and in contact with the buried wires at both of its ends. A wooden pin with a staple must therefore be driven in, and the two poles (one 14 feet and the other 15 feet) being placed by the compass due north and south, the wire is placed over them, and fastened to the wooden stake, but touching likewise at this point the buried wire. The suspended wire must not be drawn too tight, otherwise the wind will break it.'
Voilà l'affaire.[2]
The German Central chaps[3] have reunited for the nth time, and General Haug has accordingly issued an advertisement announcing the appearance on 10 May of his Kosmos, with Messrs Rüge, Kinkel, Ronge, etc., for collaborators. That'll be worth seeing.
Tupman[4] has just brought me a letter from Miquel from which it transpires that the German democrats—as well as a number of communists—with Rüge's rotten Bremen rag[5] in the lead, are slandering me indefatigably, that sort of thing being, of course, greedily lapped up by German philistines and Straubingers.[6] The fellows must really be scared to death of me if, even at this stage, they're employing all available means to make it impossible for me to take up residence in Germany.
Your
K. M.
Jones gave a truly splendid lecture yesterday in which he attacked the COOPERATIVE MOVEMENT and assailed his own public de front[7] . He told me that nothing was likely to come of producing a newspaper with Harney, since the latter's wife[8] made it impossible to transact business. For the time being he intends to publish a magazine on his own.[9]
- ↑ 'Remarkable Discovery—Electricity and Agriculture', The Economist, Vol. III, Nos. 17 and 18, 26 April and 3 May 1845.
- ↑ There you are
- ↑ members of the Committee for German Affairs (see this volume, p. 342)
- ↑ Wilhelm Pieper
- ↑ Bremer Tages-Chronik
- ↑ Straubingers—travelling journeymen in Germany. Marx and Engels used this term for German artisans, including some participants in the working-class movement of that time, who were still largely swayed by guild prejudices and cherished the petty-bourgeois illusion that it was possible to return from capitalist large-scale industry to petty handicraft production.
- ↑ head on
- ↑ Mary
- ↑ A reference to Notes to the People (at first the title was intended to be Poems and Notes to the People)—the Chartist weekly published in London from 1851 to 1852 and edited by Ernest Jones. Since Harney had then drawn closer to the petty-bourgeois democrats, the publication of this periodical—the mouthpiece of the revolutionary proletarian wing of the Chartists—assumed exceptional importance.