Alexander von Lengerke

Alexander von Lengerke (born March 30, 1802 in Hamburg , † December 23, 1853 in Berlin ) was one of the most creative and versatile German agricultural writers in the first half of the 19th century.

Live and act

Lengerke, the son of a merchant, attended a naval school, but after his first long sea voyage devoted himself entirely to agriculture. First he worked as an apprentice in Silesia and then as an estate manager in Schleswig-Holstein. He deepened his agricultural knowledge with Franz Christian Lorenz Karsten at the University of Rostock . He tirelessly studied the agricultural production methods on extensive hikes and tried to convey his findings to his professional colleagues in practice-oriented publications. In 1826 his first two books were published on agriculture in Mecklenburg and on agriculture in Schleswig-Holstein.

In 1826 Lengerke bought the Wiesch estate on the outskirts of Wismar , which he managed successfully until 1830. During this time he published his description of agriculture in the Grand Duchies of Mecklenburg in 1831 . In 1831 Lengerke took over the Stegen estate in Holstein as a tenant . In 1835 he went hiking again and reported about it in the book Reise durch Deutschland, in a special relation to agriculture and industry (1839).

Between 1835 and 1842 the main work of his literary activity was created, a six-volume agricultural conversation lexicon for practitioners and laypeople . This extensive, diligently compiled encyclopedia is considered the best agricultural encyclopedia of its time. For several years Lengerke was managing director of the assembly of German farmers and foresters . Due to his high reputation in science, he was appointed professor of agriculture at the Collegium Carolinum in Braunschweig in 1841 . But just a year later he went to Berlin and became general secretary of the newly founded Landes-Oekonomie-Collegium . Until his death he managed the business of this highest agricultural body in Prussia. At the same time he took over the editing of the Annals of Agriculture in the Royal Prussian States, which had been published since 1843 .

In his new position Lengerke traveled extensively to all Prussian provinces and reported on them in the "Annals" he edited and in the five-volume work Contributions to Knowledge of Agriculture in the Royal Prussian States (1846-1853). He also published numerous practice-oriented specialist books. Noteworthy from the perspective of plant cultivation, his works on the management of meadows , through the investment of hedges , on the Kardenbau and over the corn as flour and fodder plant. In 1847, together with his friend, the animal breeder Oswald Mentzel , he founded the "Agricultural Aid and Writing Calendar", which appeared in the 156th year of the year 2007 with the names of the two founders (current title: Mentzel und v. Lengerke's agricultural Auxiliary and writing calendar).

Alexander von Lengerke was an agricultural writer with unusual judgment. He left a comprehensive picture of the science and practice of agriculture in the first half of the 19th century. For historical agricultural research, his works are a fundamental, but so far largely neglected source of information.

Major works

• Agricultural journey through Mecklenburg in the late summer and autumn of 1825, or contributions to the knowledge of Mecklenburg estates. Rostock 1826.
• The Schleswig-Holstein Agriculture. 2 volumes, Berlin 1826.
• The Mecklenburg horse breeding. Berlin: Reimer 1827 ( digitized at the University of Veterinary Medicine Hannover )
• Representation of agriculture in the Grand Duchies of Mecklenburg. Based on our own experience and practice, based on the best older and newer sources and aids. 2 volumes, Königsberg 1831.
• Instructions for practical meadow construction. With special consideration of the condition and needs of the North German meadow economy. Prague 1836; 2nd edition Prague 1844.
• Agricultural conversation lexicon for practitioners and laypeople. 4 volumes, Prague 1837 and 1838 along with two supplement volumes. Braunschweig 1841 and 1842.
• Journey through Germany, with a special focus on agriculture and industry. Prague 1839.
• Contributions to the knowledge of agriculture in the Royal Prussian States. 5 volumes, Berlin 1846–1853.
• Instructions for creating, maintaining and using the living hedges. Berlin 1846; 2nd edition 1847, 3rd edition 1860, 4th edition Neudamm 1896.
• Studies of peat bogs in general. Berlin 1847. ( digitized in the digital library Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania)
• Card making in the Prussian state. A description of the present extent of this culture, the ways and means of its improvement and expansion, and especially of its rational practice. Berlin 1849; 2nd ed. 1852.
• Instructions for growing maize as a flour and fodder plant with consideration of the physical conditions in northern Germany. Berlin 1850; 2nd edition 1851, 3rd edition 1898.
• Agricultural sketches from Rhenish Prussia: the administrative districts of Cöln, Coblenz, Trier. Wiegandt and Grieben, Berlin 1853. ( Digitized edition of the University and State Library in Düsseldorf ).

literature

• Carl Leisewitz :  Lengerke, Alexander von . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 18, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1883, p. 251 f.
• Asmus Petersen: Alexander von Lengerkes works. A previously untapped source of agricultural research. In: Researches and Advances. Vol. 28, 1953, pp. 108-112.
• Hermann von Wenckstern : Three contemporaries of Thünens. Alexander von Lengerke - Lucas Andreas Staudinger - Caspar von Vogth . In: Scientific journal of the University of Rostock, Mathematical-Natural Science Series, vol. 4, 1954/55, pp. 323–348 (extensive list of publications).
• Heinz Haushofer: Innovations in agriculture around Munich 1838. The travel report of Alexander von Lengerke . In: Bayerisches Landwirtschaftliches Jahrbuch vol. 59, 1982, pp. 141–160.
• Martin Riesebrodt:  Lengerke, Alexander. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 14, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1985, ISBN 3-428-00195-8 , p. 206 f. ( Digitized version ).

Web link

• Literature about Alexander von Lengerke in the state bibliography MV

Individual evidence

1. ↑ There is no evidence of enrollment in the Rostock matriculation portal .