Hermann Jaeger (winemaker)
Hermann Jaeger (born March 23, 1844 in Brugg ; † probably 1895) was a native Swiss businessman who became a well-known winemaker and grapevine grower after emigrating to the USA. He helped to save French viticulture by sending phylloxera-resistant vines that he had bred to France, thereby helping to overcome the phylloxera plague in Europe. For this achievement he was awarded the French Order of Merit Chevalier de la Légion d'Honneur and the French Order of Merit for Agriculture ( Ordre du Mérite agricole ).
Life and family
Jaeger was the sixth of seven children of Karl Samuel (1797–1879) and Marianne Jaeger (1808–1879) born Custer in Brugg. He came from a respected Swiss family that placed great emphasis on education. His father was a farmer and merchant. His mother was a daughter from the second marriage of Anna Magdalena Custer-Pestalozzi, née Fröhlich (1767-1814), who had been married to the son of the pedagogue Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi .
Hermann Jaeger attended the local school until he was 16 and then completed commercial training in a textile goods store from 1860 to 1863. He then worked from 1863 to 1864 in a wine shop on Lake Geneva . In 1864 he emigrated to the USA. It is believed that he already gained experience in viticulture in Switzerland. In the United States, he first arrived in Norfolk, Virginia , then went to St. Louis, and finally settled in Neosho , Newton County, Missouri , in 1865 , where he acquired a 40- acre farm . When his brother John also emigrated to the USA, he bought a neighboring property of the same size. The brothers merged their land and worked the farm together.
In 1872, Hermann Jaeger married Eliza Wagenrieder from St. Louis, Missouri. His brother John had married Eliza's sister Anna in 1866. His wife Eliza died on October 19, 1873 at the age of 19, shortly after the birth of their first daughter Bertha. In 1874 Jaeger married Elise Grosse (1854–1913) from Saint Louis for the second time. With her he had four children: Herman (1878-1923), Lena (* 1881), Emma (* 1884) and Carl (1892-1950).
Viticulture
In 1866, Hermann Jaeger planted the first vines on his farm. He had brought Reiser made of the Concord grape from the east coast of America. However, Jaeger had brought down the downy mildew , which soon threatened to destroy his entire new vineyard. Jaeger then experimented with various treatment methods. Finally, he managed to successfully control the powdery mildew by spraying a mixture of sulfur, iron sulfate and copper sulfate. This made him one of the first winemakers in the USA to use spraying to protect agricultural crops.
Hermann Jaeger spoke several languages and was in contact with other winemakers and winemakers around the world, with whom he exchanged experiences in viticulture and grapevine breeding and published numerous specialist articles in scientific journals and viticulture journals. He was a member of the viticulture committee of the Missouri State Horticultural Society.
Vine breeding
Hermann Jaeger cultivated wild vines, which he mainly collected on the Ozark plateau . He found that some of the native vine species were extremely resistant to plant diseases and particularly well adapted to the local climate and soil conditions. He therefore undertook cross -breeding attempts in which he crossed wild vines, especially summer vines ( Vitis aestivalis ) and the so-called frost vines (Vitis cordifolia) with noble vines in order to increase the quality and resistance of the plants.
In the course of his life he bred more than 100 new grape varieties. Among other things, he is the breeder of the Jaeger 70 grape variety , which is the ancestor of many modern hybrid grapes . Jaeger actually named the variety after his friend, the Texan vine breeder Thomas Volney Munson (1843-1913) Munson , but it was mostly distributed under its selection number 70. Jaeger 70 was mainly used by French vine growers, including Albert Seibel , Georges Couderc and Eugène Contassot, as a female cross-breeding partner for breeding phylloxera-resistant grapevines. Well-known descendants include the Couderc Noir , Aramon du Gard and Flot Rouge grape varieties . Many of the so-called Seibel vines go back to Jaeger 70 .
Jaeger also undertook refinement attempts in which he grafted noble varieties onto resistant wild vines as a base. The vines obtained in this way were characterized by high vitality and particular resistance to root diseases.
Combating phylloxera
After American wines had received a lot of attention at international trade fairs, the French winemakers reacted by importing American grapes, especially the Norton grape variety . With these vines, however, phylloxera (Viteus vitifoliae) was introduced from the east coast of America via London to southern France to Europe in the 1860s . It was recorded for the first time in France in 1863, from where it first spread to Spain and Portugal, and later also to Germany. The phylloxera epidemic had fatal consequences for European and, above all, French viticulture. Between 1865 and 1885, entire wine-growing regions were destroyed. Many vintners had not replanted their vineyards until after the powdery mildew crisis in the 1850s and were now forced to give up viticulture and instead used the areas that were freed up for growing fruit and grain.
In 1871, the French Minister of Agriculture appointed a high commission against phylloxera (Commission supérieure du phylloxera), which, under the chairmanship of the chemist Jean-Baptiste Dumas, should develop proposals for combating the phylloxera plague. In 1885, Louis Pasteur , who had previously been a member of the commission, was named chairman. However, the Commission's main focus was on chemical control of the pest. Initially, carbon disulfide in the form of soil injections was recommended as a control agent. However, the agent was highly toxic, laborious to handle and expensive to use at 300 to 450 francs / ha. As a second chemical approach, the Commission later recommended the use of less toxic sulfur carbonates. However, the phylloxera could only be pushed back by the chemical control methods, but not finally destroyed.
Jaeger had been looking for hardy and disease-resistant grape varieties since he started working as a winemaker. He worked extensively with George Hussman (1827–1903), a professor of agriculture at the University of Missouri at Columbia, as well as the state entomologist Charles Valentine Riley (1843–1895) and the winemaker and grapevine grower Isidor Bush (1822–1888) from St. Louis together. Riley was one of the first scientists to recognize that the American grape Vitis labrusca was resistant to phylloxera.
Jaeger had already succeeded in breeding several grape varieties resistant to phylloxera. He offered the French government to send vines from his vines to France so that they could be planted in the phylloxera-infested areas. The French accepted the offer and Jaeger sent 17 freight carloads with vines to France within three years. Hussmann, Riley and Bush also sent vines to Europe. There was close contact between the four American viticulture scientists and Jules Émile Planchon , who worked at the University of Montpellier as one of the few French viticulture scientists to combat phylloxera by grafting French vines on resistant substrates. Altogether, vines were imported into France by numerous different American breeders, but some of the vines from Missouri were found to be particularly suitable for the French climate and the soil conditions there.
In total, several million vines were imported from America to France between 1885 and 1890. Although this number sounds very high, scientists have calculated that around 35 billion resistant vines were needed just to recultivate the vineyards destroyed by phylloxera in France, Italy and Spain. However, European winemakers began early on to propagate the imported American vines in their own nurseries and tried to crossbreed themselves, so that American viticulture benefited economically only for a short time from the export business.
For the essential contribution that Jaeger had made to the rescue of French viticulture with his grapevine breeding, he was awarded the French Order of Merit of the Chevalier de la Légion d'Honneur and the French Order of Merit for Agriculture ( Ordre du Mérite agricole ) in 1888 . George Hussmann and Charles Valentine Riley were also honored with the Legion of Honor for their services to French viticulture.
Business decline and death
Despite the great international recognition, Jaeger's winery ran into financial problems in the 1890s. Newton County had passed a local law prohibiting the sale of alcohol nearly 30 years before America's 1920 prohibition. For the local winegrowers, this meant a sharp drop in sales and for many, including Hermann Jaeger, a threat to their economic existence. Jaeger tried to get around the sales ban by selling biscuits and cakes, with which he served a glass of wine "to wash down" for free. For this he was eventually charged, which is why he decided to sell the vineyard in Neosho. He settled in Joplin, Missouri , where the family wanted to start a new vineyard and also grow fruit.
On May 16, 1895, Hermann Jaeger said goodbye to his wife and children because he supposedly wanted to travel to Neosho again to clarify legal matters there. His family has never seen him again since then. A few days later his wife received a letter posted in Kansas City in which Jaeger wrote in German that if his wife held this letter in her hands, he would no longer be alive. The letter was signed with your unfortunate Herrmann .
Honors
- The grapevine grower Thomas Volney Munson, who was friends with Jaeger, named one of the grape varieties he bred Hermann Jaeger .
- In Neosho, a memorial stele on the Pathway-To-Outstanding-Citizens in Big Spring Park reminds of Hermann Jaeger and his services to viticulture. It bears the inscription:
"Herman Jaeger, a Swiss immigrant, settled in Neosho in 1865 and started a vineyard. He is located superior wild grapes in the area. Some of these local disease resistant varieties he sent to France in the 1870's. They were used to replenish the French vineyards which had been infected by a grape louse. In 1889, he was awarded the French Legion of Honor. "
“Hermann Jaeger, a Swiss immigrant, who settled in Neosho in 1865 and planted a vineyard. He discovered superior wild vines in the area. He sent some of these local disease-resistant varieties to France in the 1870s. They were used to plant French vineyards that were infected by phylloxera. In 1889 he was awarded the French Legion of Honor. "
- Missouri State University honored Hermann Jaeger in 2011 with the exhibition Hermann Jaeger, Ozark Grape Hunter: Saving European Vineyards in the 19th Century. in which his services to viticulture were shown.
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c Jaeger, Hermann (1844 -?). In: Lawrence O. Christensen, William E. Foley, Gary Kremer, and Kenneth H. Wim (Eds.): Dictionary of Missouri Biography. University of Missouri Press, Columbia 1999, pp. 427f
- ^ Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi: Complete Works and Letters. Critical edition. Register volume I. Pestalozzianum Zurich (ed.), Verlag Neue Zürcher Zeitung, p. 251
- ^ Annual Report of the Missouri State Horticultural Society. Volume 35, 1893, p. 8.
- ^ A b Hermann Jaeger (winemaker) in the database Vitis International Variety Catalog of the Institute for Grapevine Breeding Geilweilerhof (English), accessed on April 3, 2015
- ^ Harry W. Paul: Science, Vine and Wine in Modern France. Press Syndicate of the University of Cambridge, Cambridge 1996, p. 39
- ^ Missouri State Highway Department: Missouri - The WPA Guide to the "Show Me" State. Missouri Historical Society Press, 1998, p. 66
- ^ Thomas Pinney: A History of Wine in America from the Beginnings to Prohibition. University of California Press, Berkley and Los Angeles 1989, p. 393
- ^ George Husmann: American grape growing and wine making. Orange Judd Company, New York 1880, p. VII
- ^ Daniel A. Sumner (Ed.): Exotic Pests and Diseases: Biology and Economics for Biosecurity. Iowa State Press, Ames 2003, p. 59
- ^ Archie Satterfield: Missouri's Rhineland - West Of St. Louis, Wineries Carry On A Tradition That Changed The Industry. In: Chicago Tribune, May 7, 2000, accessed April 2, 2015
- ↑ a b Mark Parker: The Legend of Hermann Jaeger. In: The Missouri Ruralist. April 2009, p. 34
- ^ Entry of the memorial stele for Hermann Jaeger on the Waymarking.com homepage, accessed on April 3, 2015
- ^ Lynda Johnson: Friendship, Business, and Science in 19th-Century Viticulture. from the homepage of the Student Exhibition Center at Missouri State University October 18, 2011, accessed April 3, 2015
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Jaeger, Hermann |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Jaeger, Herman |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | American vine grower and winemaker |
| DATE OF BIRTH | March 23, 1844 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Brugg |
| DATE OF DEATH | uncertain: 1895 |