- Author: Ben A Faber
The USDA Pomological Watercolor Collection is one of the most unique collections in the Rare and Special Collections of the National Agricultural Library (NAL). As a historic botanical resource, it documents new fruit and nut varieties, and specimens introduced by USDA plant explorers from the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
The collection spans the years 1886 to 1942. The majority of the paintings were created between 1894 and 1916. The plant specimens represented by these artworks originated in 29 countries and 51 states and territories in the U.S. There are 7,497 watercolor paintings, 87 line drawings, and 79 wax models created by approximately 21 artists.
Lithographs of the watercolor paintings were created to illustrate USDA bulletins, yearbooks, and other publications distributed to growers and gardeners across America.
Today, the collection is preserved in NAL's Rare and Special Collections, where it serves as an important research tool for a variety of users, including horticulturists, historians, artists, and publishers. In 2010 and 2011, the entire printed collection was digitized to improve public access to this valuable resource, and to better preserve the paintings by reducing the need for researchers to handle them. Today, the whole collections is searchable.
In 1886, the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) established the Division of Pomology to oversee the collection and distribution of new varieties of fruits, and to disseminate information to fruit growers and breeders. USDA commissioned artists to create technically accurate illustrations of newly introduced cultivars for the division's publications. In 1887, William H. Prestele was appointed as the first artist for the Division of Pomology. Henry E. Van Deman, division chief, explained the importance of Prestele's appointment in his 1887 Report of the Pomologist:
Up to August 1, when Mr. Prestele took his place here, there was no one to make drawings of fruits which were being daily received for study and comparison...but since then a part of the drawings have been made in India ink, and others have been reproduced in water-colors, all in the most skillful manner, showing the natural size, shape, and color of both exterior and interior of the fruit, with the leaves and twigs characteristic of each. These are invaluable for comparison and reference, and a portion for publication.
Over the years, other artists were also assigned to the division and their watercolors were used for lithographic reproductions in USDA publications and as scientific documentation of research results. Although some of the watercolor paintings are not signed, we know of 21 artists (nine of whom were women) who contributed to this important resource.
A more detailed history of the USDA fruit pictures is found in Paula Sewell's Garden History Girl blog:
Annona cherimola
- Author: Ben A Faber
Hans Jenny (1899-1992) was a soils teacher at UC Berkeley, a pedologist. He distilled the factors that drive soil formation into an equation signified as CLORPT. The CLimate, Organisms, Relief, Parent material and Time that create soil. This might all sound academic, but this approach has helped us better understand how soils form from rock or a base material (Parent Material) to become what we see as soil today. And what we will see as soil tomorrow. He was a firm advocate for soil organic matter (SOM) and spent much of his energy showing the value of protecting SOM and how to show its value to not just agriculture, but the landscape and its health. In a 1980 Science magazine letter he said, “The humus capital, which is substantial, deserves being maintained because good soils are a national asset.” It fits right in with our ideas of carbon sequestration today.
He had a real love for soil and an eye for its beauty. He was interviewed back in 1984 for the Journal of Soil and Water Conservation where he shared some of his views.
http://nesoil.com/upload/Hans_Jenny_Interview.pdf
“Over the years I have acquired a kind of reverence for the soil, for the creature-world inside it, and for its character expressed in the profile features.”
“Soil speaks to us through the colors and sculptures of its profile, thereby revealing its personality: we acknowledge it by giving soil a name, albeit in a foreign tongue, but we don't mention our emotional involvements…”
Hans Jenny went “Hollywood” in 1983 by collaborating with David Bellamy of the BBC. The documentary covers the concept of CLORPT referred to in the interview. It's spoken in a pretty thick English accent, so you might want to read up about the Ecological Staircase that exemplifies soil formation. The transect of soils and plants that are discussed are at Jughandle State Park in Mendocino.
David Bellamy's New World explaining Hans Jenny's CLOPRT, Part 1 y
“Soil contains over a thousand different species of lower animals, the earthworms, pill bugs, nematodes, millipedes, termites, ants, springtails, and amoebas, not to mention the millions of molds and bacteria…If all the elephants in Africa were shot, we would barely notice it, but if the nitrogen-fixing bacteria in the soil, or the nitrifiers, were eliminated, most of us would not survive for long because the soil could no longer support us. I can't help thinking of the claim that healthy soils make healthy people, and as an extension, I am intrigued by the thought that good soils make good people, but that notion seems untenable. Well, not wholly so. Working in the garden with spade and hoe soothes the minds of many people….”
“Soil speaks to us through the colors and sculptures of its profile, thereby revealing its personality: we acknowledge it by giving soil a name, albeit in a foreign tongue, but we don't mention our emotional involvements…”
Jenny also studied how we have viewed soil in art over the ages. He gave presentations on the progression over time of how our views have changed from broad nondescript representations to elaborate characterizations and on to more idealized shapes. Check out this essay he did for the Pontifical Academy of Sciences in 1968 after years of roaming art museums - The Image of Soil in Landscape Art.
And more on the art of soil through the ages from a different author
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S034181620900112X
Arbor Day - Grant Wood
