Invention Timeline - Johann Gottlieb Gleditsch, German Botanist; Acquired Distinction by the Application of Botany to Rural Economy
b. February 5, 1714 and d. October 5, 1786
German botanist. He acquired distinction by the application of botany to rural economy. He published “A System of Plants Founded on the Position of the Stamens” (1764), “Essays on Physics, Botany and Economy” (1767) and an “Introduction to Forest Science” (1774).
Thus with a Hermetic art, the Adept combines
The royal acid with cobaltic mines;
Marks, with quick pen, in lines unseen portray’d
The blushing mead, green dell and dusky glade;
Shades, with pellucid clouds, the tintless field,
And all the future Group exist conceal’d;
Till, waked by fire, the dawning tablet glows,
Green springs the herb, the purple floret blows;
Hills, vales and woods, in bright succession rise,
And all the living landscape charms his eyes.
—Botanic Garden: Dr. Darwin
The farmer’s office is precise and important, but
you must not try to paint him in rose-color; you
cannot make pretty compliments to fate and gravitation,
whose minister he is. He represents the necessities.
It is the beauty of the great economy of the world
that makes his comeliness.
—Farming: Emerson
1520—The Spaniards brought chocolate from Mexico.
1522—Rice culture was an industry in Lombardy.
1600—The Portuguese introduced the tobacco plant into India.
