Max Fesca

Max Fesca (born March 31, 1846 in Soldin , Neumark , † October 31, 1917 in Wiesbaden ) was a German soil and crop scientist .

Studies and lecturer in Göttingen

Max Fesca was the son of a postal director. From 1868 he studied agriculture and natural sciences at the Friedrichs University in Halle . He moved in 1872 to the Georg-August University , and in 1873 the Corps Hercynia recipiert . With Philipp Zöller he wrote his agricultural chemistry doctoral thesis on the material composition of tobacco leaves . In 1873 he was awarded a Dr. phil. PhD. He then worked for three semesters as a teaching assistant with Julius Kühn at the agricultural physiological laboratory of the University of Halle. He returned to Göttingen at the end of 1874 and completed his habilitation with a soil science thesis for the entire field of agriculture. Until the summer semester of 1882, Fesca worked as a private lecturer at the Agricultural Institute of the University of Göttingen . He gave lectures on soil science, meadow cultivation, agriculture and animal breeding. He published a book in 1876 about a study trip to England and Scotland in 1875 . The main research areas of his time as a lecturer in Göttingen were agronomic investigations and mapping of arable soils, the results of which he published in several articles in the Journal für Landwirthschaft.

Agricultural expert in Japan

In 1882 Fesca followed a call to Japan as scientific director of the Agronomic Department of the Imperial Geological Institute in Tokyo and as a lecturer at the Agricultural Academy in Komaba , Meguro . For almost twelve years he studied large parts of Japan agronomically and pedologically and developed soil maps on a scale of 1: 100,000. The results of his work have greatly promoted the development of a science-based agricultural science in Japan. Since the Japanese parliament in 1894 no longer approved funds for his work, he left the country in the same year. However, his many years of work received high recognition. During his service, he was awarded several Japanese orders , including the fourth class of the Order of the Rising Sun and the third class of the Order of the Holy Treasure . He was also given a small pension for life.

Professor of Tropical Plant Production

In 1895 Fesca undertook a six-month study trip to the Asian tropics ( Java , Sumatra , Malacca , Ceylon ). In 1895/96 he took over the lectures of the seriously ill crop scientist Georg Liebscher, who taught at the University of Göttingen . In 1897 he went to the Agricultural University of Berlin as a lecturer for tropical agriculture and during the winter semester of 1899/1900 he lectured at the Agricultural Academy in Bonn-Poppelsdorf .

From 1901 Fesca worked as a "professor for tropical and domestic agriculture" at the German Colonial School in Witzenhausen . He held lectures on plant cultivation, climate, soil and fertilizer theory as well as animal breeding and management. From 1910 to 1914 he taught at the Colonial Institute in Hamburg . He spent the last years of his life in Wiesbaden . Fesca published numerous articles on tropical agriculture in the magazine "Der Tropenpflanzer". He crowned his scientific life's work with a three-volume textbook on crop production in the tropics and subtropics.

Important books and writings

• Agricultural chemical studies. Dissertation. University of Göttingen 1873.
• Agricultural studies in England and Scotland. Deuerlich'sche Buchhandlung Göttingen 1876.
• Agronomic soil research and mapping on a scientific basis. In: Journal for Agriculture. Vol. 27, 1879, Supplement.
• Contributions to agronomic soil research and mapping. In: Journal for Agriculture. Vol. 30, 1882, Supplement.
• Contributions to the knowledge of Japanese agriculture. Parey, Berlin. Volume 1: General part with atlas and maps. 1890. Volume 2: Special part. 1893.
• Crop production in the tropics and subtropics. 3 volumes. Berlin 1904, 1907, 1911 = Süsserott's Colonial Library, Vol. 7, 8, 20.

literature

• Max Fesca. Der Deutsche Kulturpionier, vol. 5 (1904/05), p. 19 (with picture).
• Max Fesca , in: Otto Wenig (Ed.): Directory of professors and lecturers at the Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität zu Bonn 1818–1868. Bouvier and Röhrscheid, Bonn 1968, p. 73.
• Kiyohiko Tomoda: Numerous articles on the life and work of Max Fesca in Japanese, among others in the journal Journal of Rural Community Studies published by the Agricultural Economics Society of Tokyo University of Agriculture from No. 47, 1978 ff.

Web links

Commons : Max Fesca  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Kösener corps lists 1910, 75/26