Why should Germany import foreign fruit? Has she not in all her provinces tracts of land with conditions and climate suitable for fruit and vegetable growing, and why should not German women earn a livelihood by horticulture? From these questions, which the student asked herself in the harbour of Baltimore, has arisen the Horticultural School of Marienfelde. In the meantime the lady was naturally inclined to continue her chosen career of dentistry, to finish her studies, and begin to earn her living. But the idea would not rest! Whoever comes to Marienfelde to-day and sees there the stately building in its large garden, or has met a lady-gardener, trained at Marienfelde, in her thoroughly satisfying calling, must acknowledge what splendid results have sprung from this idea of the German student in the distant American commercial town.
A bee-hive with the inscription, “No reward without diligence,” is carved over one of the entrance-doors of the school a suitable escutcheon as warning and incentive to the entering students, and not less as a reminder of the origin of the school and the busy life of its foundress.
Elvira Castner was a chemist’s daughter, born in 1844 in a small town of western Prussia, and was a very lively, clever child. That she might not have to go from home for her education, her parents sent her to a boys’ school, kept by a very scholarly pastor; there she eagerly studied every subject up till then reserved for boys. After two years at a seminary in Posen, she passed her teacher’s examination. She liked her calling as teacher, but owing to throat trouble had to give up this profession. She went to Berlin for five years, and her health being re-established, her long-restrained love for medicine woke to new life. Liberal Berlin granted her what had been unattainable in the provinces.
She returned from Baltimore in 1878, with her degree as dental-surgeon, set up as a dentist in Berlin, and soon gained an extensive practice. Her mother and sisters came to reside with her, and one of her sisters, after taking her dental degree in America, became her assistant. Having attained her object, there came a time of comparative rest, in which the idea of German Horticulture stepped again into the foreground. Leisure hours were utilised for botanical study, holiday tours to visit various horticultural schools, pomological institutions and model-gardens in Reutlingen, Stuttgart, Switzerland, etc.
In the year 1889 an opportunity occurred to purchase in the neighbourhood of Berlin a small piece of ground where her acquired theoretical knowledge might be put into practice. Dr. Elvira Castner, with her family, occupied part of the double house built on the ground, while the remainder was let. A market garden was laid out—the rougher work being done by the porter’s wife. The sisters took charge of the remainder, aided by the counsel of their mother, an experienced farmer.
The first practical trial of a School of Horticulture for women was made at this time by the wife of the Counsellor of Commerce for Charlottenburg. Dr. Elvira Castner thought herself fortunate to see her idea so soon realised, and gave the school her warmest interest. As vice-president of the Berlin society for the benefit of women, she had opportunity to know it well. The society protected the school, and appointed a commission for the promotion of pomology and horticulture, of which Miss Castner was chairman. Accompanied by this committee she visited the Charlottenburger school, and came back quite disillusioned. That school of horticulture was not to her mind; the tending of flowers was undertaken, but without any solid instruction, and fruit and vegetable cultivation were never mentioned.
At the first sitting of the commission, she gave her ideas on the subject of a School for Horticulture, and was requested to embody them in a report, so as to reach a larger public. In complying with this desire she answered clearly and convincingly the three questions:
1. Should more be done in our Fatherland for pomology and horticulture?
2. Is it possible for women to follow a gardener’s calling, and to earn a living by it?
3. How would an educated woman, after sufficient training, find opportunity to practise this calling?