The Making of a Botanist

The Making of a Botanist The centennial celebration of the Arnold Arboretum pays deserved tribute to the men who fashioned the "worn-out farm" 1 into one of the world’s greatest parks and botanical in- stitutions. There is an interesting parallel here with a park in East Germany, the park in Muskau, Upper Lusatia, which too was fashioned from seemingly unpromising material into one of the outstanding parks of Germany and western Europe by the devotion and energies of a few men. A close personal tie exists as well. Alfred Rehder, who served the Arboretum for fifty-one years, next only to Sargent in length of service, was the grandson of one of the men who laid the foundations of the greatness of the park in Muskau. This personal tie, and the obvious likelihood that Alfred Rehder’s interest and training were influenced by his family background, led the editors of Arnoldia to suggest that an article on this subject would be appropriate at this time. To go back over a century and a half to the story of the founding of the park in Muskau 2 takes us to the spring of 1815. The long wars of the French Revolution and Napoleon were coming to an end, though for the moment, seemingly rekindled by the Emperor’s dramatic return from Elba. Seven weeks before Waterloo, on May lst, Count Hermann Puckler,3 heir since the death of his father four years earlier to the feudal domain of Muskau, issued a proclamation to the inhabitants of the town announcing his intention to devote himself to the man- agement of his inheritance and to transform a large part of the domain lands into a landscape park on the English model. Thus the first of May 1815 is regarded as the official date of the founding of the park. Count Hermann, on several visits to England, had come to admire the landscaped parks which were replacing the formal gardens of an earlier era. In deciding to follow this model in his proposed park he was to become one of the leaders in bringing the "natural" landscape style to Germany and would 141 142 Muskau Park, East Germany 143 make his park in Muskau a model which would influence parks throughout central Europe. The political events of the time, and other duties which en- gaged Count Hermann, including another visit to England in 1816, did not allow him at once to turn his attention to the car- rying out of his plans. Finally in 1817 he was ready to take up residence in Muskau and begin the great task which he had set for himself. It was obvious that he needed a trained gardener to assist him and he found the right man when, in that same year, he brought Jacob Heinrich Rehder to Muskau. For thirty-five years Rehder was to direct the work which created the park, laying the foundations on which his succes- sors were to build. Count Hermann (after 1822, Prince Her- mann) might contribute the drive, the imagination and the financial means, but it would be Jacob Heinrich who would translate the dreams and proposals into reality, devising the methods and supervising the day-to-day work. Jacob Heinrich Rehder, the grandfather of the Arnold Ar- boretum’s Alfred Rehder, was born February 18, 1790 in Eutin, the chief town in a small enclave of territory belonging to the Duchy of Oldenburg and located near the free Hanseatic city of Lubeck. His ancestors, judging by the name, came from this region along the Baltic Coast. The name Rehder (also spelled Reeder and Reder, but in all cases pronounced alike) is an oc- cupational name denoting a shipper or ship owner, and is not uncommon in this part of Germany. The word, with this mean- ing, is still current in the German language. ~~ A century earlier Jacob Heinrich’s forebears had been farmers in the outside a of lakes and countryside Eutin, region rolling ‘ hills somewhat exaggeratedly called the "Holstein Switzerland". The grandfather, Joachim, moved into Eutin, became a burgher (in those days a meaningful title), and took up a trade. His son, Paul Heinrich,4 followed in his footsteps. It was Jacob Heinrich,5 eldest son of Paul Heinrich and his wife Juliane von Decke, who was again to break the pattern. In him the call of the soil seemed to reassert itself. In the spring of 1806, at the age of sixteen, he began a three year apprenticeship in gardening in the park of Ludwigslust,6 the summer residence of the Dukes (after 1815, Grand Dukes) of Mecklenburg- Schwerin. In 1809 he received his certificate testifying to the successful conclusion of his apprenticeship.77 In those days the old guild system still carried on in some vocations, and the period of apprenticeship was followed by a 144 I period as "journeyman", when, seeking work where one cared to or could find it, one was paid a daily wage. We do not know for sure where Jacob Heinrich worked in the eight years before he was called to Muskau, but it is likely that he spent part of this time, if not the larger part, on the estates of the Counts Bruhl in Pforten, Brandenburg, working under the court gardener, Paul Hermann Schmidt. We do know that in 1821, after he was well-established in Muskau, he returned to Pforten and married Paul Hermann’s eighteen year old daughter, Auguste Friederike. His grandson was to follow a very similar pattern. Auguste Friederike outlived her husband by thirty-eight years, dying in Muskau in her eighty-eighth year in 1890. The grandson remembered her well. In 1817 Count Piickler and his newly-appointed Head Gar- dener Rehder were ready to begin work on the park. One can gain some idea of the problems faced and contributions made by Jacob Heinrich from the following description written by Jacob Heinrich’s successor, Eduard Petzold: "How carefully the Prince treated his material is made clear by the fact that on two occasions he had landscape gardeners come from England. One was the son of the great Repton, the other, named Vernal, was in Muskau from 1822 to 1823. The former was really more landscape architect than gardener, and, like the latter, was really of little use to the Prince, except in- sofar as both encouraged him in his plans. In comparison he received far greater advantage from his German head gardener Rehder through his tireless carefulness and the skilled way in which he entered into his plans. Rehder is a man to whom the park owes a great deal. "Certainly it was not an easy task to give expression to the indefatigable genius of the Prince and to carry out his ambitious plans skillfully and tastefully in an unusually short time and with relatively little manpower and financial means. The problems this task presented were solved by Rehder. In a period of thirty-four years, which he devoted wholly to his chosen work, he was able to create under his skilled direction expan- sive lawns, richly adorned with flowerbeds of all sorts, fields with the most nutritious grasses, picturesque groves of trees and handsome and impressive plantings, all this where before hardly even a blade of grass grew, where the swampy terrain was impassable, and where some miserable sand hills support- ing a few wretched pines offered the only vista to the eye of the beholder. What it means to carry out such tasks can be 145 judged only by someone who has done the like. It could have been no ordinary man who could satisfy the Prince for so many years as the right man to carry out his ideas." 9 On occasion Jacob Heinrich accompanied the Prince on his travels. In the early 1840’s both went to Babelsberg, a castle near Potsdam, to consider plans for redesigning its park. It was the residence assigned to Prince William of Prussia,l~ heir apparent to his childless elder brother, King Frederick William IV. Off and on for some ten years the Prince and, on occasion, Jacob Heinrich, worked on developing the park. As a memento of his part in this work Jacob Heinrich received from Prince William a gold watch, still a prized family possession. Transforming the swampy and sandy terrain along the Neisse River and the spine of a steep ridge behind the town into the landscape park of his dreams cost Prince Hermann a fortune. In addition he rebuilt the castle and was often on travels in Western Europe, North Africa, and the Near East. One might well ask whether this restless romanticist could ever have suc- ceeded in creating his park without the practical and devoted Jacob Heinrich in charge. Bankrupt at last, the Prince was forced to sell the domain in 1845, though he did it reluctantly and to the sorrow of his loyal townspeople. The park was sold on April 1st to a Count Nostitz who, the following year, sold it to Prince Frederick of The Netherlands," who was to make it his favorite residence up to the time of his death in 1881. Prince Hermann retired to a smaller estate at Branitz, not far from Muskau, where he set about to create a handsome, if more modest, landscape park.12 He never again openly visited Muskau, but did once attempt a visit in disguise; on being recognized, he left. He died at Branitz on February 4, 1871. For Jacob Heinrich the more resounding title of Royal Netherlands’ Park and Garden Inspector hardly compensated for the loss of the imaginative genius, and the sense of mutual interest and close cooperation which had grown up between him and Prince Hermann.

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