School for horticulture, fruit cultivation and pomology Reutlingen

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The institute for horticulture, fruit culture and pomology , which was usually simply referred to as the Reutlingen Pomological Institute , was the first private training center for tree maintenance and gardeners in Germany. It was founded by the pomologist Eduard Lucas and the Stuttgart publisher Georg Ebner in 1860. The Pomologie park is now located on the former site of the training institute in Reutlingen .

Goals of the institute

Eduard Lucas, founder of the Pomological Institute

The school for horticulture, fruit culture and pomology in Reutlingen was founded in 1860 by Eduard Lucas. Lucas had previously worked as a horticultural inspector at the Hohenheim College for 18 years . By founding the institute, he wanted to promote fruit growing on a national level. This goal should be achieved on the one hand by training gardeners in fruit and vegetable growing as well as in landscape gardening, as preparation for independent work as a manorial gardener or as a commercial gardener . On the other hand, fruit varieties were to be tested via the affiliated tree nursery and then distributed as fruit trees and rice . At that time, types of fruit were often distributed under different names that were due to regional synonyms or confusions. An important concern of Lucas was therefore to check the identity of fruit varieties and then distribute them under the pomologically correct name. The authors of the Illustrirten Handbuch der Obstkunde were asked to send journals of the fruit types they described to the Reutlingen Institute so that they could be included in the range.

founding

Main building of the Pomological Institute and home of the Lucas family

In 1857 Eduard Lucas and Johann Georg Conrad Oberdieck published the book Contributions to the Elevation of Fruit Cultivation , which also contained a detailed plan for a pomological institute. The two authors sent a copy of the book to all German governments of the time in order to promote the establishment of such institutes. But since this was unsuccessful, Eduard Lucas finally decided to found a private educational institution. In 1858 he worked as a pomological traveling teacher for the Royal Centralstelle. On the mediation of Conrad Weckler, one of his former students at the horticultural school in Hohenheim, he also gave a lecture on fruit growing in Reutlingen. Lucas found out that the area was particularly suitable for growing fruit and came up with the plan to set up a school for gardeners in Reutlingen.

In the Stuttgart bookseller and publisher Georg Ebner , whose publishing house Ebner & Seubert also published the Pomological monthly books and the Illustrirte Handbuch der Obstkunde , he found a business partner who was willing to provide the necessary financial resources for the project.

In March 1859, Lucas and Ebner acquired Gut Hagöschle and an adjacent cellar brewery on the edge of what was then Reutlingen's old town and commissioned the architect Johann Georg Rupp to plan an institute building, construction of which began in the summer of 1859. The former building of the brewery was converted by Rupp into the residence of the director.

On February 1, 1860, Lucas resigned from the civil service in Hohenheim and opened the new school on March 7, 1860. Lucas and Ebner were the owners of the institute in which Lucas acted as a director. The senior teacher Johannes Fritzgärtner employed at the institute was a member of the management as secretary and cashier. In addition to Lucas and Fritzgärtner, four other teachers initially taught at the institute.

At the founding meeting of the German Pomologists Association on October 4, 1860 in Berlin, Eduard Lucas was appointed its first managing director, which made the Pomological Institute the headquarters of the association.

Equipment and scope of the institute

Pomological institute with tree nursery, orchard, arboretum and berry orchard
Branch of the Pomological Institute in Lenningen

The institute had its own tree nursery, vegetable cultivation with forcing, vegetable seed cultivation and extensive fruit plantations. A mother orchard with over 2000 types of fruit was used to obtain rice to propagate the varieties. The institute also had a nursery and a berry pattern garden. For teaching purposes, the institute maintained its own library as well as an extensive collection of model fruits, tools and illustrations, which should serve as illustrative material for the students' studies. In the main building there was a lecture hall, a meeting room, a library, four dormitories for the accommodation of the students as well as the apartment and the office of the head teacher. There were also laboratories for teaching physics and chemistry as well as facilities in which the use of the fruit was demonstrated. In 1862 another building with a kitchen, dining room and additional accommodation for students was completed.

When the institute was founded, the acreage initially comprised 12 acres . The area belonging to the educational institution has been enlarged over the years through acquisitions. In 1875 Lucas acquired an estate in the Lenninger Valley, on which he established a branch of the institute. Cattle breeding, fruit growing, hop growing and a tree nursery were carried out here. As a trading company, the institute sold fruit trees, seeds and garden tools that were shipped all over the world.

Training content

The institute was divided into a gardening school and a fruit growing school. The gardening school offered a three-year training course for gardeners, which could be shortened by one to two years if there was already experience in the field of horticulture. The weekly teaching time was 12 to 18 hours depending on the season. The training focused on kitchen gardening. Theoretically and practically taught subjects were, in addition to the actual horticultural topics such as fruit, viticulture and vegetable growing, pomology, tree pruning, plant protection, equipment science, beekeeping as well as soil and fertilization science, also mathematics, practical geometry, botany, physics, chemistry, plan drawing and accounting . The fruit growing school offered three-month courses to become a fruit tree keeper and a six-month course to become an orcharder. The fruit tree keepers were in general fruit growing, tree care , grafting, pomology and fruit processing. The fruit tree gardener course also included natural history, fruit tree pruning and viticulture. School teachers were able to take a two-week fruit growing course during the school holidays.

The students were obliged to work in the gardens and orchards of the institute. The daily working time was 9 hours, whereby the students of the gardening school received no wages, but only free food. The students of the fruit growing school received a small fee for the work they did. Tuition fees had to be paid for accommodation and school attendance.

The institute after the death of Eduard Lucas

After the death of Eduard Lucas in July 1882, his son Friedrich Lucas, who at that time had already worked in the educational institution for 18 years, took over its management. At first he steadily expanded the institute. The First World War, however, led to a considerable drop in sales: trade relations with foreign countries were cut off, the tree nursery business collapsed, as did the number of schoolchildren, as both the young people and the teachers at the institute were called up for military service. The institute was unable to recover from the aftermath of the war.

The institute after the death of Friedrich Lucas

After the death of Friedrich Lucas, his son Eduard Lucas Jr. and his brother-in-law Karl Stiegler, who had worked in the institute under Friedrich Lucas, broke up the collaboration and the institute was foreclosed in 1922. Initially, negotiations were carried out with the city of Reutlingen, but the city finally withdrew from buying it. The building and the entire site were acquired by the Pfullingen factory owner Burkhardt, who used it for several decades. In 1961 the now vacant building and part of the former three hectares of land were sold to the city of Reutlingen. This initially planned to build a new town hall on the site, later the construction of a theater and concert hall along Friedrich-Ebert-Straße was discussed.

In the end, however, it was decided to hold the State Garden Show in 1984 on the site. After the garden show, the area was converted into a local recreation area, which is now called Pomologie . There are still numerous fruit trees on the former institute premises, which are tended by the Reutlingen Fruit and Horticultural Association. Of the buildings of the former educational institution, the director's house and the main building of the educational institution on Friedrich-Ebert-Straße are still preserved today. The Eduard Lucas working group in the Reutlingen Regional Fruit Growing Association is committed to preserving the building in memory of Eduard Lucas and his Pomological Institute. The vaulted cellar of the main building, which Lucas used as a storage and exhibition space for fruit, has been renovated and is used as an event and exhibition space.

Former students of the institute

At the Pomological Institute in Reutlingen, numerous students were taught horticulture and fruit growing. Some of them later took on managerial positions in scientific institutions or private gardening companies:

  • Jakob Schlotterbeck

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Eduard Lucas: The Pomological Institute in Reutlingen - aim and purpose of the institute. In: Eduard Lucas and Johann GC Oberdieck: Monthly magazine for pomology and practical fruit growing , Verlag von Ebner and Seubert, Volume 5, Stuttgart 1859, p. 308
  2. ^ Eduard Lucas: The Pomological Institute in Reutlingen - II. Regulations for the gardening school, § 1 purpose of the same. In: Eduard Lucas and Johann GC Oberdieck: Monthly magazine for pomology and practical fruit growing , Verlag von Ebner and Seubert, Volume 5, Stuttgart 1859, p. 309
  3. ^ Eduard Lucas: The Pomological Institute in Reutlingen - aim and purpose of the institute. In: Eduard Lucas and Johann GC Oberdieck: Monthly magazine for pomology and practical fruit growing , Verlag von Ebner and Seubert, Volume 5, Stuttgart 1859, p. 308
  4. ^ Eduard Lucas: The Pomological Institute in Reutlingen - aim and purpose of the institute. In: Eduard Lucas and Johann GC Oberdieck: Monthly magazine for pomology and practical fruit growing , Verlag von Ebner and Seubert, Volume 5, Stuttgart 1859, p. 308
  5. ^ Johann GC Oberdieck and Eduard Lucas: Contributions to the raising of the fruit culture . Verlag von Karl Aue, Stuttgart 1857, p. 54ff
  6. ^ Report on the celebration on the occasion of the 20th anniversary of the Pomological Institute in Reutlingen on March 7, 1880, with a verbatim celebratory speech by Eduard Lucas. In: Eduard Lucas and Johann GC Oberdieck: Pomological monthly books for fruit and wine growing , published by Eugen Ulmer, Stuttgart 1880, pp. 137–157
  7. ↑ Conrad Weckler: Memories from my life. Konrad Weckler 1830-1907 . 1903
  8. ↑ City archive recalls the establishment of the Pomological Institute 150 years ago ; Article on the homepage of the city of Reutlingen from February 24, 2010; accessed on December 18, 2013
  9. ^ Eduard Lucas: The Pomological Institute in Reutlingen - aim and purpose of the institute. In: Eduard Lucas and Johann GC Oberdieck: Monthly magazine for pomology and practical fruit growing. Verlag von Ebner and Seubert, Volume 5, Stuttgart 1859, p. 308.
  10. ^ Eduard Lucas: The Pomological Association in Germany. In: JGC Oberdieck, E. Lucas: Monthly for pomology and practical fruit growing - organ of the German pomologists association. Verlag von Ebner and Seubert, Stuttgart 1861, p. 3.
  11. ^ Eduard Lucas: The Pomological Institute in Reutlingen - II. Regulations for the gardening school, § 1 purpose of the same. In: Eduard Lucas and Johann GC Oberdieck: Monthly magazine for pomology and practical fruit growing , Verlag von Ebner and Seubert, Volume 5, Stuttgart 1859, p. 309
  12. ^ Eduard Lucas: The Pomological Institute in Reutlingen - aim and purpose of the institute. In: Eduard Lucas and Johann GC Oberdieck: Monthly magazine for pomology and practical fruit growing , Verlag von Ebner and Seubert, Volume 5, Stuttgart 1859, p. 308
  13. ^ K. Reichelt: The Pomological Institute in Reutlingen. In: F. Lucas: Pomological monthly books - magazine for the promotion and uplifting of fruit science , fruit culture and fruit use , Verlag von Eugen Ulmer, Stuttgart 1885, p. 110
  14. ↑ Conrad Weckler: Memories from my life. Konrad Weckler 1830-1907. 1903
  15. ↑ Roland Hauser: It got too tight for him in Hohenheim - 150 years ago, horticultural inspector Eduard Lucas founded the Pomological Institute in Reutlingen. In: Reutlinger General-Anzeiger from August 10, 2010
  16. ↑ E. Lucas, U. Ebner, J. Fritzgärtner: The Pomological Institute in Reutlingen - II. Regulations for the gardening school, § 6 duration of the apprenticeship. In: Eduard Lucas and Johann GC Oberdieck: Monthly magazine for pomology and practical fruit growing , published by Ebner and Seubert, Volume 5, Stuttgart 1859, p. 310
  17. ^ Eduard Lucas: The Pomological Institute in Reutlingen - II. Regulations for the gardening school, § 3 teaching staff and instruction. In: Eduard Lucas and Johann GC Oberdieck: Monthly magazine for pomology and practical fruit growing , published by Ebner and Seubert, Volume 5, Stuttgart 1859, p. 309f
  18. ^ Eduard Lucas: The Pomological Institute in Reutlingen - III. Regulations for the fruit growing school, § 4 subjects. In: Eduard Lucas and Johann GC Oberdieck: Monthly magazine for pomology and practical fruit growing , published by Ebner and Seubert, Volume 5, Stuttgart 1859, p. 315f
  19. ^ Eduard Lucas: The Pomological Institute in Reutlingen - II. Regulations for the gardening school, § 9 work of the pupils. In: Eduard Lucas and Johann GC Oberdieck: Monthly magazine for pomology and practical fruit growing , published by Ebner and Seubert, Volume 5, Stuttgart 1859, p. 310
  20. ↑ The Pomological Institute - Eduard Lucas and the types of fruit; Article ( Memento of the original from January 11, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. from April 21, 2011 on the homepage: The history portal for the districts of Tübingen, Reutlingen and the city of Horb; accessed on January 11, 2014 @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.zeit-zeugnisse.de
  21. ↑ Andrea Anstädt: “Green thumb” runs in the family. In: Reutlinger General-Anzeiger of September 21, 2010
  22. ↑ City archive recalls the establishment of the Pomological Institute 150 years ago ; Article on the homepage of the city of Reutlingen from February 24, 2010; accessed on December 18, 2013
  23. ^ Homepage of the city of Reutlingen. ; accessed on January 11, 2012
  24. ↑ Brochure of the Eduard Lucas working group in the Reutlingen Regional Fruit Association, accessed on January 11, 2014
  25. ↑ Conrad Weckler: Memories from my life. Konrad Weckler 1830-1907. 1903; accessed on January 11, 2014
  26. ↑ http://www.bio.tu-darmstadt.de/media/projektname/dokumente_~id3913593/Botanik_an_der_TU_Teil1.pdf ; accessed on January 11, 2014
  27. ↑ http://www.gartenwelt-schlotterbeck.de/100jahre.html ; accessed on January 11, 2014