Adolf Trientl

Adolf Trientl with the Cross of Merit

Joseph Adolf Trientl (born August 26, 1817 in Oetz , Tyrol ; † March 6, 1897 in Umhausen , Tyrol) was a priest and the first agricultural adviser in Tyrol, probably for the entire Alpine region. The main focus of his agricultural and forestry consultancy work includes fertilizer management , plant cultivation , alpine farming , animal breeding and, above all, forestry . Four times he undertook extensive trips through Tyrol; He wrote extensive reports on three trips. He published numerous articles in newspapers, magazines and calendars and was an astute observer of current affairs. His spiritual confreres, for whom he was probably too liberal, gave him the nickname “Mistapostel”.

Life

Adolf Trientl was born as the first child of the country doctor Franz Trientl and his wife Maria, nee Kluibenschedlin. His two siblings, Tobias and sister Johanna Sofia, also entered the clergy: Tobias became pastor in Hall in Tyrol , Sister Sophia entered the Ursuline monastery in Bruneck .

At the age of twelve, Trientl went to high school in Hall , where he was mostly the best in his class according to the catalogs that were completely preserved. In 1835 he joined Graz in the novitiate of the Jesuit one. The novice spent some time as a student of philosophy on Freinberg near Linz. In 1841 and 1842 he was a teacher at the grammar school in Innsbruck . Here he was ordained a priest in 1845. The next place of work was the easternmost base of the Austrian Jesuit Province in Lemberg , where he taught mathematics and physics at the aristocratic Konvikt there . Before the revolution in 1848, as the dean's office Flaurling reported to Brixen , he fled to Tyrol in the gear of a tailor's apprentice .

Trientl first became a chaplain in Inzing , then in Heiterwang , then in Umhausen in the Tyrolean Ötztal . From here he went to the former Jesuit high school in Feldkirch in 1851 . In 1851, at his request, the Jesuits placed him as "apart from all association with the order". When this school and boarding school was taken over again by the Jesuit order as Stella Matutina in 1856, he became unemployed again as an ex-Jesuit. He becomes curate in Obergurgl , where I spent 7 very happy years - so Trientl in a résumé written by him, which was published in the "Tiroler Landzeitung" Imst on the occasion of his death in March 1897. In Gurgl he wrote his first agricultural articles for the “Neue Tirolerimmen”, the daily newspaper of the conservatives. In Gurgl he started a parish chronicle, which was continued by his successors until 1930.

In 1864 he became curate in Gries in the Sulztal . With that he had "moved quite a bit closer to the world". In November 1866 he started the first of his four large trips, each lasting several months, as a hiking instructor from Gries , financed by the emperor widow Karoline Auguste von Bayern, who lived in Salzburg . He made the second trip in the winter of the following year. What the third trip was is unknown. He started his fourth journey in 1871 as a Waldaufscher chaplain from Hall in Tirol. As such, he had hardly any priestly obligations, so that he could devote himself entirely to his life's work, the education of the rural population.

It is not clear where Trientl acquired his extensive scientific knowledge. They were so remarkable that Justus von Liebig , to whom Ludwig Steub showed the prints of Trientl's travel reports in the Tyrolean Bothen , declared him to be at the cutting edge of science .

In 1895 Trientl resigned as a Waldaufscher chaplain and became a deficient (temporary priest) in Köfels via Umhausen. Shortly before his death, he was seriously ill and carried down by four men from Köfels to Umhausen, where there was a doctor, and where he died in 1897.

Honors

• In 1865 he was awarded the golden cross of merit with the crown.
• In 1962 the Trientlgasse was named in the Innsbruck district of Roßau at the request of the Tyrolean Chamber of Agriculture , which has its training center on this street .

plant

Adolf Trientl wrote articles for calendars, magazines and newspapers, totaling more than 1000 A4 pages, covering practically all fields of agriculture. Animal breeding - although of greater importance for the Tyrolean grassland - is given a little less space than plant cultivation; This can be explained by the fact that Mendel's laws , which had already been discovered , remained unknown to animal breeding practice for decades. In forestry, Trientl is ahead of the knowledge of many foresters in the 20th century, as well as in torrent and avalanche control. In his calendar articles, Trientl has also dealt with questions that appear to be quite secondary, such as “harvesting frogs' legs” in a gentle way, washing clothes, buying the right glasses and so on. He also fought against the excesses of alcoholism. He gave a critical examination of the church of his time to the moderate liberal Tobias Wildauer; he should make use of this after Trientl's death, "especially if clerical newspapers should still concern themselves with me."

Individual works

• The fertilization of the mountain ranges. Innsbruck 1863.
• Agricultural letters from Adolf Trientl, curate in Gries. Innsbruck 1865.
• Principles of fertilization. By Adolf Trientl, "Chairman of the agricultural district association in Ötzthal, owner of the golden cross of merit with the crown." Innsbruck 1867.
• The improvement of the Alpine economy. From Adolf Trientl. Vienna 1870, also published in Italian (Le Megliorazioni Nell 'Alpicoltura di Adolfo Trientl, 1870) and Slovenian (Zbolsanje gospodarstva na planinah, 1872).
• Agriculture in the mountainous countries. Innsbruck 1884.
• The forest litter. 1891, second completely revised edition, Innsbruck 1891.
• Forestry in the Alpine countries, especially in Tyrol. Innsbruck 1893.
• The savings cooker. Innsbruck 1894.

literature

• Winfried Hofinger (ed.): The Mistapostel. A life for the peasant class. Adolf Trientl (1817-1897). Haymon, Innsbruck 1992, ISBN 3-85218-105-4 .
• Adolf Trientl - priest hiking teacher Mistapostel . Catalog for the exhibition for the 175th birthday of Adolf Trientl in 1992 in the "Galerie zum alten Ötztal" in Ötz, designed by Hans Jäger.
• Adolf Trientl - Documentation of the State Chamber of Agriculture for Tyrol. 8 volumes. Innsbruck 1992. (Works by and about Adolf Trientl, mostly from the holdings of the Ferdinandeum and the Innsbruck University Library)
• "Trientl-Zeitung" - a collection of articles about Adolf Trientl around his 175th birthday in 1992, compiled by Winfried Hofinger.
• Winfried Hofinger: The will of Adolf Trientl. In: Tiroler Heimatblätter. 1/2010.
• W. Hofinger, H. Bergmann:  Trientl, Adolf. In: Austrian Biographical Lexicon 1815–1950 (ÖBL). Volume 14, Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, Vienna 2012–, ISBN 978-3-7001-7312-0 , p. 463.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Josefine Justic: Innsbruckerstraße name. Where do they come from and what they mean . Tyrolia-Verlag, Innsbruck 2012, ISBN 978-3-7022-3213-9 , p. 260-261 .