Provisions Made for Prosperity and Affluence: Karl Sigmund Franz Freiherr von Stein zum Altenstein and the Establishment of the Gärtnerlehranstalt in Prussia

ABSTRACT

Abstract.  This paper addresses some of the reasons behind the Prussian state's support for cultivation, (Landeskultur), in the early 19th century. Taking three different case studies, the paper sets out to demonstrate the importance of the garden in land improvement, and how this interest resulted in the foundation of an institution for the specific training and instruction of gardeners. Not only was this Königliche Gärtnerlehranstalt (Royal Gardener's Institute), along with the Royal Botanical Garden and the Society for the Advancement of Horticulture in the Royal Prussian states, seen as an outstanding centre for the improvement of the Prussian landscape, it also combined practical theoretical, and scientific instruction. Merging agrarian and horticultural utility with beautiful gardens, it was aimed at the scientific schooling of land cultivators and experts of plant culture so providing technical support for those industries dedicated to garden culture. Copying the magnificent example of the Parisian Jardin des plantes not only was the garden regarded as a place in which the state's affluence and prosperity was rooted, it also combined cameralistic as well as the scientific and political ideas of the time. The gardener became part of the agrarian political economy.