Max Maercker

Max (imilian) Heinrich Maercker (born October 25, 1842 in Calbe / Saale , † October 19, 1901 in Gießen ) was a German agricultural chemist .

Life

Maercker is a son of the judge and later Prussian Justice Minister Karl Anton Maercker ; he attended high school in Halberstadt and from 1861 studied chemistry in Greifswald , where he was a member of the Corps Pomerania . He finished his studies in Tübingen and received his doctorate in 1864 from the University of Greifswald with a dissertation on the decomposition of creatinine by nitrous acid . After a brief activity at the Greifswald University Laboratory and at the Agricultural Research Station in Braunschweig, in 1867 he went to the Agricultural Research Station Weende , located just outside Göttingen . Under the aegis of Wilhelm Henneberg , he mainly worked in the field of animal nutrition.

In 1871 Maercker was appointed head of the "Experimental Station of the Agricultural Central Association of the Province of Saxony in Halle-Saale". Here he has represented agricultural chemistry as a trend-setting researcher and teacher for three decades. In 1872 he completed his habilitation and since then has also worked as an associate professor for agricultural chemistry and physiological chemistry at the Agricultural Institute of the University of Halle . In 1872 he turned down a call as a full professor at the University of Dorpat, for which he was appointed associate professor in Halle in the same year. In 1892 he was appointed full professor. During his thirty-year term in office, he expanded the experimental station in Halle into one of the most important agricultural research facilities in Germany.

His grave is on Halle's Stadtgottesacker (inner field II).

Research services

During the first years of his activity in Halle, Maercker devoted himself preferably to agricultural technology. In 1877 his handbook of alcohol production appeared , which for decades had been the authoritative standard work for the distillery industry . Later, Maercker's main interest was the problems of mineral fertilization . In container and field tests, he was able to demonstrate the high fertilizer value of the potash salts, which were initially thought to be worthless as spoil salts . His book Potash Salts and Their Use in Agriculture , published in 1880, became a successful promotional leaflet for this new fertilizer. Supported by the farmer Albert Schultz-Lupitz , who carried out the potash fertilization with great success on his farm, Maercker has decisively promoted the widespread use of potash salts in agricultural practice.

Maercker was the first to point out the high phosphoric acid content of the Thomas slag from pig iron production . When, after 1880, the finely ground slag came on the market as a fertilizer under the name Thomas phosphate , Maercker was able to prove the profitability of this fertilizer in long-term experiments and thus accelerate its use in agricultural practice.

Maercker was first and foremost a practice-oriented researcher and teacher. With over 1000 lectures in agricultural associations and institutions, he has made a name for himself as a "farmer professor". He also got farmers excited about doing fertilization trials on their own fields. During the potato fertilization experiments carried out under his direction in large Saxon farms from 1875 to 1878, he had repetitive plots set up for the first time. This enabled him to statistically calculate the test results and significantly reduce the test errors. He saw the value of these large-scale nationwide experiments primarily in sharpening the farmers' sense of their own observations. Improving the methodology of the field tests and thus increasing the credibility of their results with the farmers has always been a particular concern of his.

In 1893 he went on a three-month study trip to the USA. He visited the world exhibition in Chicago and numerous agricultural research stations and educational institutions. In his travelogue American Agriculture and Agricultural Experiments and Education , published in 1895, he was very impressed by the connection between the experimental stations and an "experimental farm" that is customary there. Based on the North American model, he was able to work in Bad Lauchstädt near Halle / S in 1895 . set up an experimental economy and thus considerably expand its experimental possibilities for practice-oriented field research.

honors and awards

Maercker received several royal medals for his work in the service of agriculture. He was an honorary member of the Royal Society of Science in London and since 1890 a privy councilor . In 1886 he was elected a member of the Leopoldina . In 1902 the fertilizer department of the German Agricultural Society donated a Max Maercker Medal for scientific achievements in the field of agriculture . In 1904 a Maercker memorial stone was erected on the site of the Bad Lauchstädt experimental farm and in 1905 in front of the building of the Chamber of Agriculture of the Province of Saxony in Halle / S. a Maercker memorial was inaugurated. In addition, a street was named after him on a former industrial wasteland in Halle in a new residential area south of the old town.

Major works

• Handbook of alcohol manufacturing . Verlagbuchhandlung Paul Parey Berlin 1877, 2nd edition 1880, 3rd edition 1883, 4th edition 1886, 5th edition 1890, 6th edition 1894, 7th edition 1898, 8th edition 1903, 9th edition Ed. 1908; the last two editions were published by Max Delbrück .
• Instructions for distillery operation. Practical guide for burners and for use in agricultural schools . Publishing bookstore Paul Parey Berlin 1898, 2nd ed. 1900, 3rd edition 1904, 4th edition 1909; the last two editions were edited by Max Delbrück et al = Thaer-Bibliothek Bd. 97.
• Potash Salts and Their Use in Agriculture . Paul Parey publishing house, Berlin 1880.
• Potash fertilization in its value for increasing and making agricultural production cheaper . Publishing bookstore Paul Parey Berlin 1892, 2nd rework. Ed. 1893.
• American Agriculture and Agricultural Experiments and Education. Personal observations on an occasional trip through America at the 1893 Chicago World's Fair . Paul Parey Publishing House, Berlin 1895.

literature

• Peter Lietz : Max Delbrück, Hugo Thiel and Maximilian Maercker - their importance for the development of the fermentation industry. In: GGB yearbook 2013, Berlin 2013
• Bernhard Tollens: Max Maercker † . In: Journal for Agriculture. Vol. 49, 1901, pp. 305-309 (with picture).
• Paul Behrend: Max Maercker †. A look back . Publishing bookstore Paul Parey Berlin 1902. Zugl. in: Landwirtschaftliche Jahrbücher Vol. 31, 1902, pp. 1-54 (with picture and complete list of his writings).
• Wilhelm Rimpau: In memory of the secret government councilor Professor Dr. Max Maercker - Hall a. S. In: Yearbook of the German Agricultural Society. Vol. 17, 1902, pp. 3-9.
• Ernst Schulze: In memory of Max Maercker . In: The agricultural experimental stations. Vol. 56, 1902, pp. 265-275 (with picture).
• Theodor Roemer: The life's work of Max Maercker . In: The Nutrition of the Plant. Vol. 39, 1943, pp. 1-4.
• Wolfgang Böhm:  Maercker, Max. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 15, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1987, ISBN 3-428-00196-6 , p. 639 f. ( Digitized version ).
• Erwin Bahn: The forgotten researcher Max Maercker - outstanding agricultural chemist and founder of the agricultural research facility Bad Lauchstädt . Published by the Academy of Agricultural Sciences of the GDR, o. O. uo J. [Bad Lauchstädt 1990] (with picture).
• Erwin Bahn: Max Maercker. A biobibliography . Private print Bad Lauchstädt 1995 (with picture).

Web links

• Entry on Max Maercker in the Catalogus Professorum Halensis

Individual evidence

1. ^ Kösener corps lists 1910, 93 , 386