Richard Zorn
Richard Zorn (born March 7, 1860 in Groß Schierstedt ; † March 3, 1945 ) was a German pomologist , local researcher and author of specialist books.
Life
Youth and years of apprenticeship
Richard Zorn was born the son of a farm owner in the Aschersleben district. After finishing school, he began an apprenticeship with the court gardener Hermann Jäger in Eisenach. During this time he showed little interest in the local garden culture , but tried to increase his knowledge of fruit growing and scientific fruit species science. Therefore he visited in March 1880, the pomological Institute of Eduard Lucas in Reutlingen. Since he was particularly interested in this area, Lucas preferred to train him in fruit variety studies. During this time, Zorn received a first prize from the German Gardeners Association for the creation and planting of a larger orchard. In the period from 1881 to 1884, Zorn visited various well-known fruit growers in Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands, England and France. In the then largest German tree nursery, which was located in Trier, he expanded his knowledge in plant grafting and other practical work. For six months he studied the then famous Belgian fruit and wine forcing at the state school for building gardens in the Flemish town of Vilvoorde . In Holland, England and France he visited well-known botanical gardens and parks before returning to Germany. Here he attended the gardening school of Nicolas Gaucher, in particular to train himself in drawing plants. After further studies at the Gäbertz formal fruit school in Stuttgart- Feuerbach , he moved to the Späth tree nursery in Berlin in 1884 .
Fruit grower in Hofheim
In 1884 Zorn bought land in Hofheim am Taunus . Since he was already financially independent of a job back then, he could afford to be the first in Germany to try growing dessert fruit . Hofheim offered good conditions as a location due to the mild climate on the southern edge of the Taunus and the proximity to the sales market in Frankfurt . First, Zorn founded a successful tree nursery before intensively cultivating dessert fruits and strawberries . On 10.5 hectares he grew 60 different varieties of apples, pears, plums , apricots , gooseberries , currants , raspberries and strawberries. His example as the first table fruit grower caught on and people also spoke of the Kriftel fruit tree paradise because of the imitators . 1898 was anger a method in which with corrugated cardboard rings for Vertigung of codling moth was worked patented. The invention was reported in newspapers as far as Saint Petersburg, Russia . In 1906 Zorn stopped the tree nursery and only grew fruit. He leased it in 1923 before selling the entire site to the city of Hofheim in December 1928.
Volunteering
Richard Zorn had been a member of the pomologists' association since 1885 and later from 1919 after its dissolution and renaming in the German Fruit Growing Society . There he was also part of the board of directors and worked as a variety expert to identify the same at fruit exhibitions. As a practitioner, he was able to use his experience to actively shape the change in fruit growing from secondary and additional income to intensive fruit cultivation in commercial cultivation. In 1887 he was a founding member of the Hofheim Fruit and Horticultural Association , from which he was particularly honored on its 50th anniversary.
Since 1884 he wrote, initially for Möllers Deutsche Gärtner-Zeitung and later for various specialist and daily newspapers, specialist articles on pomology and horticulture. His main work was his long-lost list of all pome fruit varieties grown in Germany , in which he scientifically described around 1000 apple and pear varieties and at the same time made an exact drawing of each. From the 1930s onwards, he also made mini watercolors that resemble detailed photos. For reasons of cost, this work, which was not quite completed by Zorn, was never published. After it was undiscovered for almost 50 years in the archive of the Geisenheim Research Institute , where it was archived as a donation, it was rediscovered in the 1990s. With their help, it was possible to reliably identify some Hessian regional and local varieties such as the Mensfelder Glanzrenette or Schöner from Kelsterbach .
Since Zorn became a widower at an early age and his marriage remained childless, he had plenty of time for a second hobby. In the Landesmuseum Wiesbaden today there is a collection of photographs of original costumes from various villages, in which he recorded all the types of furnishings he found. From 1921 he began to deal intensively with historical field names and boundary stones. In 1931, he made part of the almost 700 boundary stones described and drawn by him accessible to the public in his book Grenzsteine des Rhein-Main -gebiets. Zorn was also the custodian of the cultural and historical soil antiquities of the Höchst district and state cultivator of the nature conservation authority. As such, he was involved in excavations of the Hofheim fort . He also dealt with heraldry and family research. His last project was never consummate a summary listing of all fallen, missing and wounded in World War I soldiers from Hesse-Nassau .
Death and aftermath
Richard Zorn died a few days before his 85th birthday and was buried in the Hofheim forest cemetery. He left an adopted daughter who had looked after him for a long time. In 1961, they made his written estate available to the Hofheim city historian Günter Rühl. With this material he wrote a biography of Zorn in the Hofheimer Chronik (No. 1, 1962).
In Hofheim, the Richard-Zorn-Weg was named after him, which mainly opens up properties on its former land. After this was in the meantime only an internal access road of a larger company, efforts have been made since 2011 to divest it and instead rename a footpath and cycle path between Hofheim and Kriftel after Zorn.
On the occasion of its 150th birthday, the Hofheim apple variety garden was renamed Richard Zorn apple variety garden in 2010 . There are trees of 106 different old varieties, most of which were also described by Zorn, in order to preserve the genetic reserve.
See also
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c d e f g h Steffen Kahl: Richard Zorn (1860–1945) Pomologist from Hofheim in Pomologenverein eV Pomologisches Jahresheft 2005 , Aue / Sachsen, 2005, p. 65
- ↑ a b c Municipality of Kriftel: Kriftel: The pomologist Richard Zorn also worked in Kriftel ( memento from February 9, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) , press release from March 25, 2014
- ^ Frankfurter Rundschau : Richard Zorn in Hofheim - Pioneer of Fruit Growers , April 6, 2010
- ↑ streuobst-mtk.de: Richard Zorn-Apfelsortengarten ( Memento from February 9, 2015 in the Internet Archive )
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Anger, Richard |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | German pomologist, local researcher and author of specialist books |
| DATE OF BIRTH | March 7, 1860 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Gross Schierstedt |
| DATE OF DEATH | March 3, 1945 |