1Lecture 30Lecture 30Origins of Horticultural ScienceThe origin of horticultural science derives from a confl uence of 3 events: the formation of scientifi c societies in the 17th century, the creation of agricultural and horticultural societies in the 18th century, and the establishment of state-supported agricultural research in the 19th century. Two seminal horticultural societies were involved: The Horticultural Society of London (later the Royal Horticulture Society) founded in 1804 and the Society for Horticultural Science (later the American Society for Horticultural Science) founded in 1903. Three horticulturists can be considered as the Fathers of Horticultural Science: Thomas Andrew Knight, John Lindley, and Liberty Hyde Bailey.Philip Miller (1691–1771)Miller was Gardener to the Worshipful Company of Apothecaries at their Botanic Garden in Chelsea and is known as the most important garden writer of the 18th century. The Gardener’s and Florist’s Diction-ary or a Complete System of Horticulture (1724) was followed by a greatly improved edition entitled, The Gardener’s Dictionary containing the Methods of Cultivating and Improving the Kitchen, Fruit and Flower Garden (1731). This book was translated into Dutch, French, German and became a standard reference for a century in both England and America. In the 7th edition (1759), he adopted the Linnaean system of classifi cation. The edition enlarged by Thomas Martyn (1735–1825), Professor of Botany at Cambridge University, has been considered the largest gardening manual to have ever existed. Miller is credited with introducing about 200 American plants. The 16th edition of one of his books, The Gardeners Kalendar (1775)—reprinted in facsimile edition in 1971 by the National Council of State Garden Clubs—gives direc-tions for gardeners month by month and contains an introduction to the science of botany.Thomas Andrew Knight (1759–1838)The establishment of the Royal Society of London in 1660, devoted to “improving natural knowledge,” received and published a number of papers on botany and in 1795 published a contribution by Knight on the grafting of trees in 1795. In 1804, Knight wrote to Sir Joseph Banks, the great naturalist who sailed with Captain Cook, as follows:SoHo Square, March 29, 1894My Dear Sir:It having occurred to some of us here, that a Horticultural Society might be formed, upon a principle not very dissimilar from that of the numerous Agricultural Societies, which, if they have done no other service, have certainly wakened a taste for agriculture, and guided the judgements of those who wished to encourage it; two meetings have been held in order to commence the establishment, the proceedings of which I enclose to you. You will see that I have taken the liberty of naming you as an original member.The Horticultural Society was formed in 1804 with Lord Dartmouth as president and John Wedgewood as secretary, with the fi rst Transactions published in 1807. A Royal Charter was granted in 1809 and Knight assumed the presidency in 1811.Thomas Andrew Knight2 Lecture 30Thomas Andrew Knight president of the London Horticulture Society (later Royal Horticultural Society) from 1811–1838, can be considered the father of horticultural science. He was the fi rst of the 18th century naturalists to devote himself to the emerging science of horticulture, having an interest both in basic issues in botany as well as applications in practical horticulture. He was both an observer/naturalist and an experi-mentalist. His interests were wide ranging and embraced the disciplines that we now call plant physiology, structural biology, and genetics. Knight investigated physiological problems such as the ascent and descent of sap, gravitational biology, tropisms, and the nature of the cambium. He was interested in relating mor-phology and anatomy to development and function. His studies on the effects of pollen in the garden pea on seed characters presaged the work Gregor Mendel carried out 40 years later. He describes dominance and segregation, although he fails to make the brilliant leap of Mendel in relating phenotypic characters to the factors we now know as genes. He reports observations on the genetics of animal behavior, a fi eld not truly explored until the end of the 20th century. Knight’s true love, however, was horticulture. In this fi eld he investigated controlled environmental culture (greenhouse construction and vegetable forcing), plant nutrition and fertilization, culture of fruits and vegetables, pest control, and plant breeding. He was an early proponent of the development of plant improvement through cross breeding and selection, and he literally initiated the fi eld of fruit breeding. He released a number of improved cultivars of both fruits (apple, cherry, strawberry, red currant, plum, nectarine, and pear) and vegetables (pea, cabbage, and potato). He was interested in developing improved cultural methods to enhance earliness and yield, the effect of rootstocks, the infl uence of girdling, plant hardiness, and the causes and control of disease. Clearly ahead of his time, he was the fi rst to investigate the infl u-ence of electricity on plants. He contributed nearly a hundred scientifi c papers on a wide range of topics, with the bulk on horticultural science. Unfortunately, his notes are lost, so we know little of his methods of collecting data other than what is detailed in his papers. It is clear he appreciated the value of having ap-propriate controls, the value of replication, and the verifi cation of data. He investigated such horticultural species as vegetables (bean, broadbean, cabbage, carrot, celery, melons, mint, mushrooms, onion, parsnip, pea, potato), fruits (avocado, apple, cherry, grape, lemon, mamey, mango, orange, nectarine, peach, pear, pineapple, plum, quince, strawberry, walnut) and ornamentals (amaryllis, camellia, fern, ivy, lily, palm, rose). His early experimental study of the effect of gravity on seedling growth in bean has become the cornerstone of modern gravitational biology. His 1806 paper entitled “On the direction of the radicle and germen during the vegetation of seeds,” was selected for inclusion in the volume Classic Papers in Horticultural Science (1989). His study on the phototropism of tendrils has been incorporated in textbooks of plant physiology without attribution. A renaissance investigator, he is honored here for
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