AND HORTICULTURAL REGISTER. 



PUBLISHED BY JOSEPH BRECK & CO., NO. 62 NORTH MARKET STREET, (AsBicntTonAL Warehoos..) 



CXII.] 



BOSTON, WEDNESDAY EVENING, JANUARY 17, 1844. 



[NO. a9. 



N. E. FARMER. 



DEATH OP DR. VAN MONS. 



; make the following extracts from an arti- 

 ilished in iho Boston Transcript, of Jan. Hlli, 

 i to llie decease of tliis celebrated individii- 

 1 sketches of his history as connected with 

 ticulliiral labors. We believe an account 

 e of tlic difficulties he had to encounter in 

 iig his favorite occupation, have before been 

 fore our readers, in an article written by 

 )earborn, a number of years since ; but as it 

 wable to repeat an intportant idea in on ad- 

 ir discourse, so we may be excusable in 

 ling a second time an example of such un- 

 in perseverance as is exhibited in the life of 

 nenled Van Mons, as an encouragement to 

 who may have their favorite schemes frus- 

 by unforseen circumstances.] 



m a letter received on Saturday by the Mas- 

 etts Horticultural Society, we are inforfiied 

 death of a truly great and wonderful man — 

 Baptiste Van Mo.ns — a learned physician, 

 inguished chemist, a superior linguist, and 

 perimentnl and scientific agriculturist — to 

 Europe and .America are indebted for many 

 iieories concerning the propagation and im- 

 inent of fruit trees, and various facts connect- 

 !:h the beautiful science of horticulture. To 

 |ie world is indebted for some of the best 

 I; and it was from him that Mr Manning, of 

 obtained his great collection of the same 

 pus fruit. The letter announcing the de- 

 of this benevolent and gifted individual, is 

 ;iis son, a Colonel of artillery in the Belgian 

 and was accompanied wjili several pamphlets, 

 r a history of the principal events in his life, 

 aturday, the Massachusetts Horticultural So- 

 passed a vote cf thanks to Col. Van Mons, 

 oted that it, with a sincere expression of con- 

 ce, should be immediately transmitted to the 

 ed family of the deceased. 

 )m one of these French pamphlets we trans- 

 he following interesting facts: 

 in Biiptisle Van Mo7is was born at Brussels, 

 B 11th of November, 17G5, an epoch when 

 ;rand intellectual movement began to mani- 

 ;self in Belgium, out of which grew the Lite- 

 ?nciely and the Royal Academy of Brussels. 

 Mons, however, was entirely self-educated, 

 ad learned in college the little Latin that was 

 taught, and he instructed himself whilst per- 

 ng the simple duties of an apothecary. His 

 irous writings gave evidence of the varied 

 ledge he began to acquire, and it was soon 

 by his voluminous correspondence with the 

 distinguished men of his time, that he under- 

 i nearly all the living languages of Europe, 

 om his youth he had devoted himself with 

 to the cultivation of flowers and fruit, pos- 

 ng an observing mind which led him to make 

 / important discoveries. In 171)5, BertholUl 

 ied him in the name of the Society for the 

 lotion of Agriculture and Arts, for several 



valuable communications, and afterwards, the Ag- [ which they obliged him to give up his first nurse- 

 ricultnral Society of the Province of the Seine, ; ry, he undertook, with M. Bory, the compilation of 

 publicly awarded to him a gold medal, for multi- I the 



He received simi- "" 



plying varieties of fruit trees. 



lar tokens from many other countries, and his works 

 were translated into their languages. After the 

 troublous events of 1815, when King William re- 

 established the Royal Academy of Science and 

 Belle Lettres, which the French invasion had de- 

 stroyed. Van Mons was honored with the first ap- 

 pointment, and in 1817, he was appointed to fill 

 the chair of Chemistry and Agriculture in the Uni- 

 versity of Lauvain. Under other circumstancei, 

 he would doubtless have declined this appointment ; 

 for, it was asked, " how could he leave his nursery, 

 the result of so much labor and experience ?" Two 

 successive and sad events induced his departure 

 from Brussels — the death of his youngest son, and 

 the loss of his cherished wife. This double mis- 

 furtune plunged him into grief: he isolated him- 

 self from society, and became negligent in his ap- 

 pearance. His friends believed that the new ap- 

 pointment to which he was called, might divert his 

 thoughts ; they conceived how he came to quit his 

 nursery, the object of his constant care. He had 

 more than 80,000 trees, the greater part being 

 seedling pears. The neighborhood of Lauvain 

 and his extraordinary activity enabled him to unite 

 his new duties with his favorite cares, but in 1819, 

 it was thought necessary by the authorities to cut 

 up hii nursery grounds into streets and building 

 lots. M. Van Mons was summoned to clear it in 

 the brief space of two months, under penally of 

 seeing all his trees cut down and destroyed by fire. 

 Such a command would liave been death to many 

 in the situation of M. Van Mons: he was sensibly 

 affected, but not cast down. Professor in the Uni- 

 versity of Lauvain, he resolved to transport his 

 nursery into that town, so that he might see it 

 without quitting the Univer.'ity. But the time as- 

 signed to clear the place, was unfortunately in the 

 winter, (Ist of November to the 24th of December.; 

 M. Van Mons had only Saturday and Sunday of 

 each week at his own disposal. To cut his graft- 

 ings, mark the choicest trees, and give his orders 

 for the rest, was all that he could do himself. He 

 could only save the twentieth part of whut he pos- 

 sessed, and that twentieth part consisted in slips to 

 o-raft. The remainder were sold or given away. 



After such a catastrophe it might be supposed 

 that he would never expose himself to one of a 

 similar nature; but he had unfortunately selected 

 land belonging to the town, and the authority 

 which should have protected his grounds as if they 

 had been the g.irdcns of Hesperides, were the first 

 to abandon them to pillage. In 1831, they were 

 destroyed by the army during the siege of Anvers! 

 His philo!(ophy here did not forsake him ; he hired 

 two pieces of land and recommenced his labor, but 

 here again the rage for public utility pursued him, 

 and the engineers decided in 1834 that the nursery 

 of M. Van Mons was the only proper spot upon 

 which to establish a gas manufactory ! Notwith- 

 standing these checks, he persevered towards the 

 end ho desired to attain, and in the same year in 



Central Jnnats of Ihi J^alural Sciences." 

 The year 1825, found him confined to his bed with 

 a severe wound in the leg, and he profited by this 

 obligatory repose to publish a catalogue of fruits, 

 in which wo (ind mention ol more than 2000 varie- 

 ties. The revolution of 1830, suppressed the Uni- 

 versity at Lauvain, Biid gave place to a Catholic 

 College. M. Van Mons was chosen professor at 

 Gaud, but his advanced age prevented him from 

 accepting this post. The government feeling that 

 this veteran of science had a lawful demand upon 

 their favor, granted him a pension with the ordina- 

 ry distinctions due to his .■services, and soon after 

 the King conferred upon him the decoration of liia 

 Order. In 1837, he lost his second son, and his 

 grief for this event, nearly overwhelmed him. One 

 month before his death, he wished to go back to 

 Brussels to see his two remaining sons, and the 

 tombs of those for whom he had not ceased to 

 weep ; but soon the force of habit prevailed, and 

 he returned suddenly to Lauvain, where he shut 

 himself up in the midst of his papers, and where 

 death surprised him on the Glh of September, 1642. 

 M. Poiteau, in preparing a work of the greatest 

 interest, in which he developed the principal views 

 of M. Van Mons regarding the means employed 

 for the improvement of fruit, observes: "I call it 

 the Theory Van Mons, and I present it as one of 

 the most learned and most useful discoveries that 

 genius and reason have made towards the end of 

 the 18th century." 



Food of the German Peasantry — Veit, in his 

 work on Husbandry, gives the following as the 

 kind of food, and the quantity, on which the farm 

 laborers in Germany usually subsist, and his ac- 

 count is fully corroborated by Howitt's Domestic 

 Life in Germany : 



For breakfast, from one-half to two-thirds of a 

 quart of skimmed sour milk, with an allowance of 

 two and a half ounces of barley meal per individu- 

 al. For dinner, dumplings of wheat flour, 4 oz. of 

 flour to a person, with skimmed milk ; or if meat 

 is given, three fourths of a pound, with barley 

 bread, constitutes the allowance. For supper, two 

 pounds of wheat meal, made into meal eoup in 

 skimmed milk, for ten persons, with a pint of 

 skimmed milk to each, and a pound and a half of 

 potatoes, makes the meal. There are of course 

 some variations in the mode of serving up this 

 homely food, and on feast days boiled pork and 

 beer are sometimes added to the ordinary provis- 

 ions. 



That such a mode of living is not unfavorable 

 to health, the condition of the German peasant and 

 his general longevity fully prove, but we can hard- 

 ly believs a person could perform the severe tasks 

 which meet the American laborer, with such food 

 and in such quantities as arc specified above. — 

 Mb. Cull. 



The annual value of the manufactures of Massa- 

 chusetts, is upwards of $80,000,000. 



