Carl August Gadegast

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Carl August Gadegast
Sheep Breeding Medal 1851 in London
Medal for sheep breeding 1873 in Vienna
Carl August Gadegast with the winning sheep in London

Carl August Gadegast (born January 21, 1791 in Colochau , † October 5, 1865 in Oschatz ) was a farmer, pioneer of merino sheep breeding in Germany, politician and important sponsor of the city of Oschatz.

Life

parents

The later royal-Saxon Secret Ökonomierat was a son of the sheep farmer Johann August Gadegast (1765-1848) - son of Schliebener Country judge Johann Georg Gadegast and his wife Maria Elisabeth, born Brochwitz - and his wife Johanna Gadegast, born Springfeld (1766-1847) , Daughter of the Mügeln tax collector Heinrich Springsfeld and his wife Johanna, nee Schumann.

His father Johann August Gadegast had become the owner of the grandfather's manor Colochau II in 1787, where Carl August was born. In 1812, his father sold this estate, as Carl August had meanwhile looked elsewhere and was no longer interested in returning to Colochau in the Saxon office of Schweinitz .

Act

Carl August Gadegast received training as an estate manager at the Lohmen Chamber Estate near Pirna , where he learned the great agricultural and economic value of breeding merino sheep, which has been successfully farmed since 1783 and which were only brought from Spain to Saxony in 1765 and 1778 for domestic sheep breeding to improve. In 1810 the Saxon government made it possible for him to acquire the 275 hectare Thalgut, which was one of the oldest, most important and largest manors in the Oschatz area and where he immediately began building his "Elektoral family sheep farm" .

Since 1815 Gadegast has successfully bred pure-blood merino sheep, which have often received awards at exhibitions at home and abroad. He had recognized that when it comes to rearing wool, it is not just the fineness that counts, but above all the richness of the fur. The prosperous, Saxon textile industry valued the Saxon merino wool as a high quality raw material and therefore the fine wool production led to the rapid overcoming of the agricultural crisis that had lasted since the Napoleonic Wars . Around 1850 Gadegast owned a herd of around 1000 animals. He raised 400 lambs a year and sold 200 rams, mainly to Austria, Hungary, Poland and Russia, where they were needed to build up further flocks.

Carl August Gadegast acquired Mannschatz Castle near Oschatz in 1838. Along with the felt and felt goods manufacturer Ambrosius Marthaus and the cloth makers Richter, Sturm and Witschel, he was one of the pioneers of the local textile industry, which grew rapidly as a result of the Leipzig-Dresden railway line operated via Oschatz since 1839 . After all, Gadegast was one of the fifteen founders of the Städtische Sparkasse Oschatz with a deposit of 1000 thalers. He was also a member of the Saxon Extraordinary Diet of 1848, the 6th Ordinary Landtag from 1850/51 and the 7th Ordinary Landtag from 1851/52. In addition, the successful, educated and respected sheep farmer maintained a lively correspondence with the zoologist Carl von Siebold and the agronomist Albrecht Philipp Thaer .

Marriage and offspring

The Gadegast family ran the Thalgut near Oschatz for four generations.

Carl August Gadegast married Christiane Steiger in 1817. Both are the parents of six sons and two daughters.

Her son Robert (1828–1907) took over his father's estate and also introduced sheep farming on the neighboring Mannschatz and Schmorkau estates. His son Otto Gadegast (1866–1947) was in charge of sheep breeding since 1897. In 1890 and 1900 he exported merino bucks to Australia and in 1903 brought his herd of animals to German South West Africa to set up the regular merino sheep farm .

Her daughter Aurora (1819-1891) married the pupil of her father Heinrich Adolph Steiger (1817-1897), sheep farmer and manor owner of Leutewitz near Meißen . Both are the parents of the conservative politician Otto Steiger .

literature

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