The twentieth century marked a significant increase in the production of plant products; the agricultural sector of the economy began to receive great value. For the first time, it was understood that the best varieties were needed to obtain high yields. Breeders received ample opportunities not just to work, but to create, creating more and more new forms and varieties of cultivated plants. One of these outstanding domestic figures was Ivan Vladimirovich Michurin, a breeder who, with his activities, marked a new stage in the development of domestic science.
Life and work of I.V. Michurina
The future great breeder was born in the mid-nineteenth century into a family of simple peasants. Probably, it was his childhood and his surroundings that marked Michurin’s love for plants and animals, which always reciprocated his care. Even in early childhood, his parents noticed in little Ivan a love for the garden and wildlife. It was not possible to shame the young naturalist for his pranks; once, after punishment, Michurin grabbed a salt shaker and began to sow the garden bed with it. It was so funny that parents had no choice but to support their child in his endeavors.
Biography of an outstanding breeder
Over the 80 years of his life, I.V. Michurin created more than 300 new varieties of fruit, berry, ornamental and other valuable cultivated plants, which then became widespread both in our country and abroad. Unfortunately, now many of these forms have become history for a number of reasons and are not grown en masse in gardens, but some of its varieties continue to remain famous among gardeners of our time. One of the most remarkable facts in the biography of the scientist, perhaps, is the fact that he did not receive a special education. All his scientific research and activities are the result of enormous talent combined with natural intelligence.
I.V. Michurin was always very devoted to his work and homeland. He was repeatedly offered work abroad and the sale abroad of valuable hybrid forms of fruit and berry crops and a unique variety of violet lily. However, he was not flattered by all these tempting offers, remained in his native country and worked for its benefit all his life. Already in the twentieth century, after the Bolsheviks came to power, his nursery and garden, which he created with his own hands, were transferred to state ownership.
At that difficult time, the outstanding abilities of I.V. Michurin were appreciated, they helped him in every possible way, allowed him to develop and create more and more new varieties of fruit and berry crops, flowers.
photo: own sourceAbout the hobbies and other talents of I.V. Michurina
Ivan Vladimirovich Michurin’s support, inspiration and support have always been his faithful, modest and quiet wife, and later their two children, who left many memories of their unique father. Daughter Maria, describing her childhood years in the breeder’s family, notes his dedication and love for his life’s work. All the scientist’s thoughts, dreams and aspirations were directed towards the world of garden plants; he could often deny himself the simplest and most necessary things: clothing, food. The father of the family invested all his meager income in the development of his favorite business. He spent a lot to get the treasured seeds, which were very difficult to find at that time. It all started with a small plot, where the future world genius and creator of a considerable number of unique varieties spent free time, devoting him to the study of plants.
It is known that a talented person is talented in everything. K I.V. This phrase applies to Michurin like no one else. Who has he never been to in his life? Even an electrical engineer: when, at the very dawn of the scientific and technological revolution, electricity was installed in his native village, he was one of the first to become interested in this cunning science. In addition, Ivan Vladimirovich was friends with mechanics and was a first-class watchmaker.
photo: Author: I.V. Michurin “Results of 60 years of work”, Public domain,Great-grandchildren I.V. Michurin was also recalled that he was well versed in medicinal plants, knew their beneficial properties and how they can help with a particular disease. In addition, already being known throughout the world, Michurin mastered watercolor; his drawings in catalogs and scientific articles were distinguished by their accuracy and were flawless from an artistic point of view. However, any of his activities was in one way or another connected with his main passion - plant selection, to which he devoted his entire life without reserve.
photo: own sourceOutstanding achievements of I.V. Michurina
Already at the very beginning of his journey, Ivan Vladimirovich noticed that many of our domestic varieties of fruit crops - apple trees, pears, cherries - of that time were either unstable to unfavorable natural and climatic conditions, or the taste qualities of their fruits left much to be desired. On an intuitive level, he understood that these crops needed significant improvement by creating new forms of fruit and berry plants that would combine increased resistance to negative changes environment with good fruit taste and high yield. Genetics as a science did not yet exist at that time, but he seemed to have a presentiment of some of its patterns when studying the inheritance of traits in hybrids.
photo: own sourceThe main goal of the scientific and practical activities of I.V. Michurin's goal was to create highly resistant (especially to frost) and productive domestic varieties of fruit and berry crops with tasty fruits, which would later form the basis of the industrial assortment. While developing the basics of garden plant breeding, he wrote that varieties imported from abroad need to be “grafted” with those valuable features, which local highly resistant varieties and forms have. Michurin on real examples in my garden I saw and understood that not a single plant, brought from the south and never having known our latitudes, local climate and especially severe frosts, could successfully adapt to its new conditions.
In this regard, it is necessary to improve its environmental sustainability using methods and techniques of selection based on the use of the gene pool of local varieties, as well as valuable wild forms. It is this approach that makes it possible to obtain a wide variety of initial hybrids and select from them the best and most stable forms that will become varieties. He rightly noted that forms that arose in natural conditions and then grown by humans lose some of their positive qualities over time.
That is why cultivated plants constantly need human help in order to increase their economically valuable characteristics and minimize the influence of negative traits. Therefore, the main methods of the great breeder, like many of his followers, were artificial hybridization in combination with targeted selection of valuable forms. Flowers of one of the varieties were artificially isolated from bees with special gauze and paper bags, and then manually pollinated with pollen of another valuable form.
photo: Author: Michurin, Ivan Vladimirovich, Public domain,The resulting fruits were collected separately, the seeds were isolated from them and then planted in a nursery in special areas. From them grew a large number of various hybrids, most often without positive qualities, but among thousands of such plants there could be one or two especially valuable ones, with a complex of valuable characteristics - cultivated shoots, tasty fruits, high winter hardiness, etc. Then these selected forms were transplanted into the garden and studied there in detail , and the remaining hybrids that did not show positive properties were destroyed. The site at the nursery was vacated, and everything was repeated again - year after year.
How to easily can tomatoes
Tomatoes are those vegetables that you want to enjoy throughout the year. But, thanks to the ability to process and preserve fruits, we not only want, but can also make them available all the time...
Most Michurin varieties were obtained from apple trees, the main domestic fruit crop. The best apple varieties created by I.V. Michurin: Antonovka six hundred grams, Arcade winter, Bellefleur-Chinese, Bellefleur-record, Bessemyanka Michurin, Bolshak, Voskovoe, Daughter of Cinnamon, Esaul Ermak, Golden autumn, Kandil-Chinese, Early Golden China, Cinnamon China, Komsomolets, Pepin Saffron, Pepin the Fourth, Taiga, Northern Buzhbon, Slavyanka, Saffron-Chinese, etc.
photo: own sourceThe best pear varieties created by I.V. Michurin: Winter Bere Michurina, October Bere, Green Bere, Michurin's Favorite, Sugar Surrogate, Fat Beer. The great breeder managed to obtain pear varieties that combine the valuable qualities of both parental forms - the high quality and taste of the fruits of southern varieties and the increased resistance to natural stress inherent in local forms and especially wild species (which themselves have inedible small fruits).
Thanks to I.V. Michurin created valuable varieties of the main stone fruit crops - cherries and plums, which made it possible to promote their cultivation to more northern regions. Such achievements required decades of hard work. Thus, using wild cherry species, distant hybridization methods and numerous intervarietal crossings, I.V. Michurin created some of the first domestic resistant cherry varieties - Griot pear-shaped, Ideal, Beauty of the North, Small-leaved semi-dwarf, Fertile Michurina, Polevka, Polzhir, Ultraplodnaya, Tserapadus. With the participation of sloe and its hybrids with plums - damsons, they obtained stable and productive varieties of plums: Konservnaya, Renklod collective farm, Renklod Reforma, Renklod thorny, Dessert thorn, and Kozlovsky prunes.
Despite the fact that the main area of interest of I.V. Michurin were precisely fruit plants, he also created several varieties of berry crops. Raspberry varieties selected by I.V. Michurina Damskaya, Commerce, Progress, Grocery, Chokeberry at that time became widespread on garden plots.
At the same time, the lack of professional education made him an amateur in the eyes of the scientific community. They did not recognize the hybrids he created, considering them unsuitable for use in industrial scale. However, over time, the “survivability” of Michurin’s varieties justified itself, and in North America and Europe began to be interested in them much earlier than their compatriots appreciated them. Thanks to crossing the best domestic and foreign varieties, I.V. Michurin managed to obtain a number of new valuable varieties of fruit and berry crops for various periods ripening, which expanded the areas of their cultivation to more northern regions of the country and made it possible to preserve the harvest in winter, when vitamins are so needed. The best of them are still loved by summer residents for their unpretentiousness and good taste.
The followers of the great breeder named the winter variety of apple tree in memory of Michurin in his memory. The trees of this variety are medium in size, making them quite easy to care for even for non-professionals. The fruits are large, fragrant with red sides, transport well and can be stored until January. Ideal climatic conditions for this variety in middle lane Russia, where in summer it is not very hot and there is enough moisture and sun. When creating this variety, breeders first of all wanted to create an apple tree whose fruits could be stored for a long time and be suitable for processing.
photo: Author: Michurin, Ivan Vladimirovich - I.V. Michurin “Results of sixty years of work”, Moscow, Selkhozgiz, 1936, Public domain,Creation of frost-resistant apricot varieties
In addition to excellent varieties of apple, pear, cherry and plum, humanity should be grateful to I.V. Michurin for the creation of the first domestic frost-resistant varieties of apricots. Every self-respecting summer resident wants to grow on his plot a large harvest of tasty and beautiful apricots that do not require complex care. Unfortunately, such luxury was previously available only to residents of the southern regions with mild winters and the absence of severe spring frosts.
I.V. Michurin received the first domestic apricot varieties Mongol, Best Michurinsky, Satser, Tovarishch, which are distinguished by high winter hardiness and good taste of the fruit. Trees of these varieties can easily withstand winters near Moscow, which are characteristic of the entire central region of Russia. To do this, Michurin, when developing highly resistant apricot varieties, sowed seeds of Far Eastern forms, and also crossed southern varieties with the most frost-resistant species. As a result, it was possible to realize the dream of more than one generation of domestic gardeners - to grow typically southern crops in new natural and climatic regions.
photo: own source Amazing plant forms bred by I.V. Michurin
In addition to all of the above, I.V. Michurin managed to obtain unique and unusual shapes garden plants, some of which still have no analogues. These include the hybrids he bred and the sloe - damson. The taste of their fruits is quite specific, but this combination of parental forms has helped to achieve further success in improving the winter hardiness of plum varieties.
Also in his activities, the breeder devoted a lot of time to improving the qualities of the original Russian crop - the mountain ash. Its hybrids with medlar acquired an unusual and very interesting taste of the fruit, which was highly appreciated at many international exhibitions. I.V. Michurin was the first to create domestic varieties of mountain ash with a good taste of fruit - Burka, Granatnaya, Dessertnaya Michurina, Krasavitsa, Rubinovaya, Titan.
Having created winter-hardy grape varieties Buitur, Korinka Michurina, Russian Concord, Northern White and Northern Black, I.V. Michurin actually became the founder of viticulture in the northern regions, because at that time it was a southern culture. Then this undertaking was continued by numerous followers and like-minded people, and now grapes in garden plots in Central and Northwestern Russia, the Urals, Siberia and Altai are more the norm than a rare and unusual curiosity.
photo: Author: I.V. Michurin - I.V. Michurin “Results of 60 years of work”, Public domain, From non-traditional garden crops the great breeder obtained Northern Quince Michurina; the first domestic varieties of golden currant Krandal, Purpur, Seyanets Krandal, Ondina, Shafranca; the first varieties of actinidia kolomikta Klara Zetkin and Ananasnaya Michurina; productive forms of Schisandra chinensis.
The methods of intervarietal and distant hybridization that the scientist used were subsequently recognized as the most effective. As it turned out, plants that are distant both geographically and in terms of their species characteristics are capable of producing hybrids not only unique fruits, but also exhibit increased resistance to unfavorable natural and climatic conditions.
In addition to the selection of fruit and berry plants, I.V. Michurin managed to create a variety of domestic tobacco, oilseed rose, and a unique violet lily with a delicate scent, which can grow successfully in our climate.
For his successors, Ivan Vladimirovich always remained a man of great talent and an example of devotion to duty; in his business, he reached outstanding heights without being a certified specialist.
The name of Ivan Vladimirovich Michurin, a great transformer of nature, an honorary member of the USSR Academy of Sciences, a full member of the All-Russian Academy of Agricultural Sciences, and in Soviet times awarded the Order of the Red Banner of Labor and Lenin, became known to the whole world after the winged words he wrote: “We cannot expect favors from nature; It’s our task to take them from her.” Today, few people know that this phrase had a continuation: “But nature must be treated with respect and care and, if possible, preserve it in its original form,” which significantly changed its meaning.
In the Ryazan province, among deep forests, near the ancient Russian town of Pronsk, along the Pronya River, there was a group of villages: Alabino, Birkinovka Dolgoe-Michurovka, Yumashevo. In the middle of the 19th century, they housed the tiny estates of the Michurins. In the village of Dolgoe (now Michurovka), at the forest dacha “Vershina”, on October 28 (15), 1855, Ivan Vladimirovich Michurin was born.
His great-grandfather, Ivan Naumovich, and grandfather, Ivan Ivanovich, served in the military field. Ivan Naumovich had several wounds and took part in many campaigns, including Suvorov’s crossing of the Gotthard Pass. In 1812, a veteran voluntarily joined the militia and was wounded in the head. He ended the war with his son, Major Ivan Ivanovich Michurin, in Paris. After retiring, he settled in the Kaluga province, where he was engaged in gardening and bred several varieties of pears.
Grandfather - Ivan Ivanovich - repeatedly showed courage in battles, for which he received several awards. In 1822 he retired and until the end of his life he was also engaged in gardening.
Michurin's father, Vladimir Ivanovich, served for some time at the Tula Arms Factory as a receiver of weapons for supplies to the army. Having married a bourgeois girl, he retired and settled on the Vershina estate, which he inherited through division between his brothers and sisters.
Vladimir Ivanovich was an authoritative person in the area. He subscribed to the works of the Free Economic Society, received from it the seeds of the best varieties for the garden, conducted experiments with fruit and ornamental plants. IN winter time At home he taught peasant children to read and write.
The future biologist Ivan Vladimirovich was the seventh child in the family. All of his brothers and sisters died in early childhood. And when the boy was four years old, his mother, Maria Petrovna, died of cancer.
Vanya Michurin showed the ability to see in living nature what is hidden from the ordinary observer from early childhood. When he was three years old, he seriously embarrassed his father and mother (who were avid gardeners, vegetable growers, and flower growers) by wanting to take part in sowing seeds. They refused him, so he climbed into the basket with his little hand. He was pushed out. Vanya started running around the garden beds and ended up getting several spanks. After crying, the boy became quiet, then became cheerful and ran as fast as he could towards the house. And a minute later he returned with a salt shaker in his hand and began to sow salt on the garden bed. The parents watched the small figure in amazement and, feeling awkward in front of each other, rushed to their son with permission. His father first taught him at home, and then sent him to the Pronsky district school. Coming home for the holidays, the boy adopted his father’s gardening experience.
In June 1872, Ivan Michurin graduated from college, after which his father began preparing his son at the gymnasium course for admission to the lyceum. The Michurins pinned all their hopes for admission to the elite Alexander Lyceum on their beloved aunt Tatyana Ivanovna Birkina-Michurina. Her husband (her nephew’s cousin) Sergei Gavrilovich Birkin was an inspector of this St. Petersburg educational institution for a long time.
But the Michurins’ plans were not destined to come true. Suddenly, Vanya’s father went mad and was sent to a mental hospital in Ryazan. The estate turned out to be mortgaged and was sold for debts. The aunt took patronage over her nephew Vanya Michurin.
In 1865, during the construction of the Ryazan-Kozlovskaya railway, the Kozlov station began to be developed. There is information that his uncle, Lev Ivanovich Michurin, the chairman of the Pronsky district zemstvo government, in 1872, when opening a commodity office, provided his nephew with a letter of recommendation. And the 17-year-old boy was hired as a commercial clerk at the goods office of the Kozlov station (later the Michurinsk station of the Moscow-Ryazan railway) with a salary of 12 rubles per month and a 16-hour working day. Soon he settled in a room in the railway settlement of Yamskaya.
In 1874, Michurin took the position of commodity cashier, and then one of the assistant chiefs of the same station. According to Bakharev’s biographer, Michurin lost his position as assistant station chief due to a conflict (“caustic ridicule”) with station chief Everling. In the same year, Ivan Vladimirovich married Alexandra Petrushina, the daughter of a distillery worker. He confirmed the fact of his marriage to a bourgeois woman in 1878, responding to a request from the Department of Agriculture: “Married on August 28, 1874 to a bourgeois woman from the city of Kozlov, Alexandra Vasiliev Petrushina, born in 1858. From this marriage I have two children: a son, Nikolai, born in 1876 g., and daughter Maria, born in 1877.”
Renting an apartment in the city and lacking funds, Michurin opened a repair shop in one of the rooms. After duty, he often worked long after midnight, repairing watches, sewing machines and various devices. The news about the talented mechanic quickly spread throughout the city, and the number of orders increased. Perseverance and the ability to quickly grasp the intricacies of mechanics helped him get a new position. From 1876 to 1889, Michurin was an assembler of clocks and signaling devices on the Kozlov-Lebedyan section of the railway with a decent salary of 360 rubles per year.
In the winter of 1881, the head of the Kozlovsky railway depot, engineer Ground, suggested that Michurin install electric lighting at the Kozlov station. The difficulty of the task was that the electricity had to come from its own power plant, which Michurin had to design. Having practical experience and natural ingenuity, Michurin completed the task brilliantly.
At the same time, Ivan Vladimirovich, having rented a piece of land, continued to work in the garden.
“Mr. Mechanic, you should stop messing around with your garden,” Ground once told him. - You are a ready-made first-class electrical engineer.
Indeed, railway workers were considered intellectuals, were respected in society and had great career opportunities. The nobleman Michurin served on the railway for twelve years, but the craving for selection and breeding of new varieties, for the land, laid down by his ancestors, overpowered him, and he left the service.
On rented land, in a short time, he created a collection of fruit and berry plants of more than 600 species. Further experiments in plant breeding were suspended due to a lack of free land.
In the fall, Michurin moved to the Lebedev estate, where there was a garden next to the house on Moskovskaya Street. Two years later, he took out a loan from a bank, bought an estate and immediately mortgaged it for 18 years. Ivan Vladimirovich moved the entire collection from the Lebedev estate here.
After several years of work, the first varieties appeared: raspberry “commerce”, cherry “griot pear-shaped”, “small-leaved semi-dwarf”, “fertile” and an interspecific hybrid variety of cherry “Beauty of the North”. By 1887, the gardener again faced the question of land.
At the beginning of autumn, Michurin buys from priest Yastrebov, seven kilometers from the city, near the settlement of Turmasovo, a forest plot on the river bank with an area of about 13-15 hectares. The site was divided into two parts: one half, intended for the garden, was convenient, the second, located under the river cliff, was rocky, with thickets of wild bushes, and was of little use. The deal was completed on May 26, 1888. It can be argued that all the money raised was used to purchase the estate, since neighbors saw how the Michurin family dragged the collection from the city on themselves and lived for two years in a hut. Freed from work at the station, the young scientist-practitioner is developing new high-yielding varieties.
In 1893-1896, when the nursery in Turmasovo already had thousands of hybrid seedlings of plum, cherry, apricot and grapes, severe winters destroyed most varietal seedlings. From the misfortune, Michurin concluded that the method of acclimatization by grafting on “fat” soil is good only in warm countries. In Russia, especially in risky farming areas, hybrids lose resistance to frost and die.
In 1900, Michurin began growing frost-resistant varieties, for which he transferred seedlings to an area with poor soils, selecting lower (dwarf) trees for planting. And in 1906, Ivan Vladimirovich began to work closely with the all-Russian magazine “Bulletin of Gardening, Fruit Growing and Horticulture,” in which his first scientific works appeared, devoted to the problems of breeding new varieties of fruit trees.
In the biography of Michurin, published during the Soviet period, a red thread runs through the statement: the great gardener in tsarist times was suffocated by poverty and indifference of tsarist officials and was only truly appreciated during the years of Soviet power. In reality it was not entirely true.
The printing of numerous articles, the distribution of seeds, and Ivan Vladimirovich’s complete and comprehensive recommendations for growing new varieties of fruit and berry crops aroused enormous interest in the scientist from gardeners around the world. In addition to numerous requests from Russian colleagues, international specialists began to come to Russia. The tsarist administration did not sleep either. One can give an example of a dispatch addressed to the provincial agricultural inspector, sent from the office of the Tambov governor: “The main department of land management and agriculture is currently considering the issue of awarding the Romanov badge for useful works in horticulture, gardener I.V., living near the city of Kozlov. Michurina. As a result of the request I received from the Department of Agriculture on this matter, I ask Your Highness to inform me how much this activity of Michurin has benefited the local economy and, in your opinion, it deserves encouragement.” On September 5, a response was sent to the governor’s office: “The horticulture of I.V. Michurin, located 2-3 versts from the city of Kozlov, is almost the only place in Russia where hundreds of new varieties of fruit, berries and flowers have been bred and are being bred through hybridization Michurin has been hybridizing plants for more than 30 years, and during this time he has developed and released on the market a large number of new varieties of mainly fruit plants. Michurin’s works are extremely valuable and have become famous not only in Russia, but also abroad... why I think that. he deserves every encouragement, not only honorary awards, but also monetary assistance, since Michurin does not have the means to necessaryly expand his extremely useful business.”
The Romanov badge was awarded, and the scientist wore this award with pleasure. In passing, we note that Michurin was proud of the fact that he was a nobleman and served his fatherland. Thus, in the act of registration of land property, which he received in 1915, in the column “Title and rank of the actual owner,” instead of “Small nobleman,” he wrote “Nobleman of the Ryazan province.”
“Our researcher Frank N. Meyer, after talking with you in January, wrote to us that you could be useful in our experiments that we are now carrying out with trees and shrubs in our northwestern steppes. Would you be kind enough to prepare this list in such a form that we can get an idea of how much of each type you could deliver to us and what reward you would like to receive. ...If you want to sell the entire collection, please set a price for the entire collection, and we will decide whether we can buy it for the price you set or not. Material will be allocated for packaging the collection, and delivery will be carried out on a ship sent from America.”
There were other offers to purchase varietal material - from Australia and a number of European countries.
In the same year, Professor Meyer officially invited Michurin, on behalf of the US Agricultural Department, to move to America and continue working in Quebec on condition of payment of $8,000 a year. Michurin was 58 years old, ignorance in English, the illness of his wife, who had undergone two operations, did not allow her to travel. However, Michurin did not reject the proposal, as evidenced by a letter (January 31, 1913) written to the Russian gardener and acclimatizer Voikov: “As for the sale of all new plant varieties in bulk, I believe it will be possible to come to an understanding with them [the Americans].”
However, the scientist’s plans were confused by the war.
In the summer of 1915, a cholera epidemic raged in Kozlov. This year, Michurin’s wife, Alexandra Vasilievna, died. An unprecedented flood led to the death of part of the nursery. Based on surviving plants, Michurin determined the law of “inheritance” and developed a method for breeding more resistant varieties.
Before the revolution, Michurin’s nursery had more than 900 varieties of plants from the USA, France, Germany, Japan and other countries. Ivan Vladimirovich was an apolitical person in life, but he met the October Revolution calmly. There was still shooting in the streets when Michurin appeared at the newly organized county land department, where he met with the former farm laborer Dedov, the commissioner of the land department, and told him: “I want to work for the new government.” The latter ordered that a board meeting be convened on the Michurin case on the same day, promised to inform the People's Commissariat of Agriculture and suggested that the Donskaya Sloboda Land Committee take measures to protect the nursery. Dedov provided financial assistance to Michurin and his family.
On July 18, 1918, Dedov wrote to Michurin: “At the same time transmitting a copy of the Board’s resolution of June 29 and copies of relations to the local council and the Moscow Commissariat of Agriculture, the agronomic department asks you, Ivan Vladimirovich, to calmly continue your work that is extremely useful for the homeland...”
On November 22, 1918, the People's Commissariat of Agriculture took the nursery under its jurisdiction, approving Michurin as manager with the right to invite staff for a broader development of the business. The scientist was given an allowance in the amount of 3,000 rubles to carry out the work. During this difficult time, Michurin not only took part in the agronomic work of the People's Commissariat of Agriculture, he advised agricultural specialists on issues of breeding, combating drought, and increasing yields. In his articles, Michurin repeatedly called on agronomists to work for the benefit of the new social system: “... Real workers in the field of horticulture will have the opportunity to continue their activities under the new system, perhaps even more so.” on a large scale... You can’t cling to a part when the whole is moving forward.”
By 1920, Michurin had developed over 150 new hybrid varieties, among which were: apple trees - 45 varieties, pears - 20, cherries - 13, plums - 15, sweet cherries - 6, gooseberries - 1, strawberries - 1, actinidia - 5, rowan - 3, walnuts - 3, apricots - 9, almonds - 2, quince - 2, grapes - 8, currants - 6, raspberries - 4, blackberries - 4, mulberries - 2, nuts (hazelnuts) - 1, tomatoes - 1, lilies - 1, white acacia - 1. In addition to the new hybrid assortment, the nursery had over 800 species of original plant forms collected by Michurin from various parts of the globe.
The scope of the experiments required an associate, however, due to the son’s refusal to follow in his father’s footsteps and his secret departure to another city, the scientist was faced with the question of a successor.
In 1920, Michurin invited agronomist-fruit grower Gorshkov to work, who was working at that time in Kozlov as a district horticulture specialist and was a follower of Michurin. Gorshkov organized a reproduction department of the nursery on the lands of the former Trinity Monastery, which was located 5 kilometers from Michurin’s estate. In his autobiography, the scientist wrote: “Tens of thousands of experiments have passed through my hands. I grew a lot of new varieties of fruit plants, from which several hundred new varieties emerged, suitable for cultivation in our gardens, and many of them are in no way inferior in quality to the best foreign varieties. Now I can’t even believe how I, with my weak, sickly build, could endure all this.”
At the age of 45, Michurin established a strict working hours regime, which remained unchanged until the end of his life. Getting up at 5 am, he worked in the nursery until 12 with a tea break at 8 am, a half-hour lunch at 12, after which he spent an hour and a half reading newspapers and watching special periodicals, an hour to rest. From 3 to 5 Michurin worked in the nursery or room, depending on the circumstances and weather, at 9 pm dinner for 20 minutes, until 12 am - work on correspondence and then sleep.
Having become a widower at an early age, he no longer thought about family ties, retired to his estate-garden, fenced off by the river from the city, and communicated with a very narrow circle of people. He did not tolerate the intelligentsia of various ranks, ignored the merchant environment, and rarely left the nursery. The only constant connection with the world was a huge correspondence with gardeners, Russian and foreign scientists.
Soviet biographical literature emphasized the scientist's poverty, because of which he could not publish his works. But the real reason was the lack of time to work out the provisions of scientific work on hybridization (“Heredity and Environment”, “Theory of Education”). They were based on excellent experiments, but the theoretical part suffered. At the same time, the beginning of the development of genetics required a rethinking of some of Michurin’s provisions, which required additional experiments.
Michurin understood this, but directed his efforts towards achieving financial independence, choosing the path of industrial gardening with high profitability. Ivan Vladimirovich stated that developing a variety is half the battle; it must be conveyed to gardeners. And in the catalogs he sent out, he not only offered more than 2,000 seedlings and seeds, but also indicated the yield: “I dare to assure you that the profitability of some of the plant varieties I offer, under favorable terrain conditions, reaches up to 2,000 rubles, and sometimes more per dessiatine.” . And these statements were supported by the real results of gardeners.
And how many unique colors Michurin’s price list offered! There were up to twenty varieties of roses alone, among which were those bred by him personally. And gardeners bought them in considerable quantities. Few people know that the scientist bred the violet lily (lily has no smell, but Michurinskaya exuded the aroma of violet). Lily is a noble flower, which was included in the state emblems of many rulers of France and Florence, but it occupied a special place in the state emblem of the Dutch, from whom an offer to sell all the bulbs immediately followed. They offered 20,000 rubles for this variety.
Ivan Vladimirovich was a good manager. He constantly advertised the best varieties in various periodicals. In a letter to the editor of the magazine “Progressive Gardening and Horticulture,” Michurin mentioned that the magazine’s subscribers include about 10,000 of its regular customers. Even at the lowest cost - 20 kopecks - a bag of seeds or seedlings, the scientist’s income was considerable.
The scientist proposed to the government, which purchased tobacco for cigarettes abroad, to create its own plantations and grow his variety of tobacco, which ripened well and could provide high income to the state, but was refused. Michurin himself before last days In my life I smoked only my own brand. It was with him light hand Residents of the northern regions of our country began to sow tobacco in their gardens, and instead of cigarette tubes they rolled cigarettes of any thickness and length.
For a long time it was generally accepted that the scientist and practical gardener was unmercenary and suffered terribly under the tsarist regime. However, the brilliant journalist Mikhail Belykh, in his book “Unknown Michurin”, having studied the archives, convincingly debunked this legend. Let us present some of his research from the scientist’s fund No. 6856, stored in the Moscow archive:
"...P. 770. Introductory sheet issued by the Tambov District Court for the ownership of a house in Tambov. July 8, 1883;
item 771. Note from I.V. Michurin about the purchase of land in the settlement of Panskoye. 1888;
item 773. Boundary plans of the estate plot of I.V. Michurin and a record of the right to use land in the Prigorodnaya volost of the Kozlovsky district of the Tambov province. July 29, 1898, January 25, 1899, March 10, 1928;
p. 774. Powers of attorney issued to I.V. Michurin, daughters Maria Ivanovna Michurina and Nikolai Egorovich Nikonov, to conduct the case of 57 acres of land located after the death of I.V.’s aunts. Michurina - Tatyana Ivanovna and Varvara Ivanovna Michurina, owned by I.V. Michurin and his relatives 1903;
p. 775. Insurance certificates issued by I.V. Michurin by the Salamandra insurance company and the Tambov city government in 1908, 1909, 1912, 1917;
item 776. Agreements on the lease of 5 acres of land on the Voronezh River by I.V. Michurin. 1909, 1919;
p. 777. Documents on the claim of I.V. Michurin to Fortunin regarding the collection of rent for 8 acres of land in the Penza province...”
If we add to this incomplete extract that foreign emissaries purchased large quantities of varietal fruit and berry seedlings and legally transported them abroad, then it is simply incorrect to say that the great gardener was poor. And Michurin himself said more than once: “Owning land and being hungry is contrary to nature itself.”
Earlier we mentioned that the Michurin family lived for two years in a hut - after moving from the Turmasovsky site to a new one - near the suburban settlement of Donskoye. But next to the hut they also had a small temporary shelter until their own house was built. Ivan Vladimirovich competently designed, calculated estimates and built a house on the banks of the Lesnoy Voronezh River in 1899-1900. The building is a two-story red brick structure. Today on external wall, at the entrance, a memorial plaque testifies: “I.V. Michurin lived and worked here in 1900-1935.”
It is interesting to visit Michurin’s room, which served as a multifunctional office: a library, a laboratory, a precision mechanics and optics workshop in which instruments were made. There was also a forge here - Michurin forged and soldered using a furnace of his own design. In the workshop, he invented tools: secateurs, a budding tool for grafting wild plants with an eye, a Geiss-Fuss-chisel designed for grafting plants with cuttings, and much more. On the walls of the office there are several advanced meteorological instruments, among them a device for measuring radiation invented by Michurin. Next to the shelf is a distillation apparatus invented by the scientist, necessary to determine the percentage of rose oil in the new variety of oilseed rose he developed, which is still used today.
The scientist also designed a lightweight internal combustion engine. In his experiments, he used electricity, which was generated by a hand-held dynamo he made. A rich legacy was left by scientists in the field of art. Ivan Vladimirovich perfectly mastered not only graphics, but also the complex technique of watercolor. The drawings he made were included in his scientific works and in the atlas of plants and fruits.
Michurin met Soviet power calmly, but seeing the rampant anarchy, confusion, and the unauthorized expropriation of land that had begun, in order to save the nursery, he went to the land committee and offered his services to the new government.
In order to correctly evaluate the work of the gardener Michurin, it is necessary to understand what gardening and horticulture were like in tsarist times. It is known that of the entire bulky assortment of fruit and berry plants, only 20 percent had economic value. The rest only depleted the land. Large gardens were concentrated on the farms of landowners and monasteries.
In noble estates there were gardeners at gardens and greenhouses, as a rule, contracted from abroad. Even if these specialists expanded the range of trees, bushes and flowers, they grew them either in greenhouses or in barrels of soil, which were transferred to the garden in the spring and to a warm storage in the fall. True, there were also titled amateur gardeners - Prince Trubetskoy, Baroness Bostream, Count Kleinmichel. But their activities were limited to competition for the presence of rare exotic plants and participation in the distribution of price lists for seeds, bulbs and cuttings. As an example, let us give prices for products from the “Catalog of trees and shrubs, fruit and other plants sold in the garden establishment of Baroness Maria Pavlovna Bistrom.” The cost of a one-year-old pear is 25 kopecks, a two-year-old is 30 kopecks, a three-year-old is 40 kopecks. Cherries "Vladimirskaya" - 5 and 10 kopecks per piece, 100 pieces - 4 rubles 48 kopecks. Strawberries and wild strawberries for 25 pieces - 40 kopecks, a hundred - 1 ruble 50 kopecks. American agave (greenhouse) - from 1 to 15 rubles.
To get an idea of the prices, we note that in 1849 a pound of first-grade beef cost 6 rubles 40 kopecks, a pound of rye bread - 3-4 kopecks, a pound of sterlet - 7 rubles 50 kopecks, a bucket of vodka (depending on the variety) - 5-16 rubles (government bucket - 12.3 liters). In 1902, a bucket of vodka cost 4 rubles, chrome boots - 2 rubles, tarpaulin boots - 1 ruble, a pound of meat - 40-60 kopecks, a pound of sieve bread - 3 kopecks. In 1908, the monthly salary of a cook was 14 rubles, a servant - 12 rubles, a policeman - 40 rubles, a city chairman - 200 rubles.
Based on the salary received, the proposed list price for the peasant was not cheap.
It is no coincidence that Ivan Vladimirovich managed to acquire financial independence in practice, even on rented land. Appointed by the Soviet government as director of the nursery, within two years he made it self-supporting and self-sustaining. For the Soviet authorities, such ascetics and transformers of nature were a rare find, and the more their fame spread, the more generous the authorities were towards them.
"1. Issue a special act to I.V. Michurin indicating his state merits, expressed in many years of work on breeding many valuable varieties of fruit plants, and assign to him for life the land plot on which his garden is located.
2. Select I.V. Michurin 500,000 rubles in 1922 banknotes for his personal, unaccountable disposal...
3. Instruct the editorial and publishing department of the People's Commissariat of Agriculture to collect and publish all the works of Michurin with his biography and portrait under the general editorship of Professor N.I. Vavilova."
It was this Resolution that allowed Michurin to be exempt from many taxes. Since that time, Ivan Vladimirovich has really gotten stronger financially.
Lenin was the first member of the government to pay attention to the breeder-biologist. The leader of the revolution wrote a note to the “All-Russian Elder” Kalinin with an order to create a commission and send it to Kozlov with the aim of studying on the spot the issue of gardening and Michurin’s work. Kalinin came to visit Michurin twice, and, as can be seen from the short letter, the gardener’s work was assessed positively: “Dear Ivan Vladimirovich!
As a reminder of myself, I am sending you a small package. Do not take it as an act of favor from a person in power. This is just my sincere desire to somehow emphasize my respect and sympathy for you and your work.
With sincere greetings M. Kalinin. 15/XII 1922".
On January 28, 1923, in Michurin’s memo on the issue of releasing funds for further expansion of the nursery’s work, Kalinin wrote To the People's Commissar agriculture: "TOV. Yakovenko! I think this matter needs to be carried out in the very urgently. I have no doubt that the Presidium of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee will meet you halfway.”
Representatives of local authorities provided specific assistance to the nursery. Thus, by the decision of the provincial economic meeting on March 19, 1923, five quitrent articles were assigned to the nursery the best gardens and land plots with a total area of 915 acres. In 1923, the first All-Union Agricultural Exhibition was organized in Moscow. Exhibits from the Michurin nursery, unprecedented varieties of plants, fruits and berries bred by the scientist, surprised even experienced gardeners. The commission, headed by Professor Vavilov, awarded Michurin the highest award and presented him with the following address:
“Dear Ivan Vladimirovich! The experts of the 1st All-Union Agricultural Exhibition, having become acquainted with your exhibits, send you heartfelt greetings, wishes for health and continued such brilliant success in creating new varieties.
Moscow, September 12, 1923.”
A real campaign to glorify the scientist was launched in the country on the anniversary of the gardener-breeder. For his outstanding half-century-long, exceptionally valuable work in developing new and improved varieties of fruit and berry plants, Michurin was awarded the Order of the Red Banner of Labor by the Central Executive Committee of the USSR with a lifetime pension.
One of the many varieties bred by Michurin. From left to right:
1. Rowan "Michurinskaya dessert"
2. Above - “Abundant” blackberry, below - “Texas” raspberry
3. Gooseberry “Black Moor”
In the fall of 1929, the People's Commissariat of Agriculture of the RSFSR, the regional and district executive committees of the Central Black Sea Region realized Michurin's long-standing dream. The country's first technical school for the selection of fruit and berry crops was opened in Kozlov. Soon the first volume of Michurin’s major works “Results of half a century of work” was published, covering the fundamentals of his methodology. breeding work. Some scientists who disagreed with a number of Michurin’s works criticized the “revolutionary of nature,” to which he sharply replied: “Get to work, carry out experiments, observe and check for yourself.”
On June 7, 1931, the Presidium of the Central Executive Committee of the USSR awarded the scientist the Order of Lenin for particularly outstanding services in the creation of new forms of plants that are of exceptional importance for the development of fruit growing, and for special work of national importance in this area.
On September 18, 1934, before his anniversary, Michurin wrote to Comrade Stalin: “Dear Joseph Vissarionovich! The Soviet government and the party led by you turned me from a lone experimenter, not recognized and ridiculed by official science and officials of the Tsarist Department of Agriculture, into the leader and organizer of experiments with hundreds of thousands of plants. The Communist Party and the working class gave me everything I needed - everything an experimenter could want for his work. ... Soviet government awarded me the highest award for a citizen of our land, renaming the city of Kozlov to the city of Michurinsk, gave me the Order of Lenin, richly published my works... Dear Joseph Vissarionovich! I am already 80 years old, but the creative energy that millions of workers and peasants are full of Soviet Union, and in me, an old man, it instills a thirst to live and work under your leadership for the benefit of the cause of socialist construction of our proletarian state. I. Michurin.”
In connection with the next anniversary, Michurin received a greeting from Stalin: “I sincerely greet you, Ivan Vladimirovich, on the occasion of the sixtieth anniversary of your fruitful work for the benefit of our great Motherland. I wish you health and new successes in the transformation of fruit growing. I firmly shake your hand.”
In his response telegram, Michurin wrote: “Dear Joseph Vissarionovich, a telegram on your behalf was for me the highest reward for all 80 years of my life, it is more valuable to me than any other awards. I am happy with your great attention. Your Michurin."
Local authorities were not far behind. Thus, Yakovlev, the People's Commissar of Agriculture, freed Ivan Vladimirovich from almost all everyday problems: he had at his disposal food, clothes, a telephone, a car, a house for children and even a bridge (still in operation today) across the river directly to the scientist's nursery. During one of his visits, Yakovlev sets the scientist the task of developing varieties that will begin to bear fruit not in 10 years, but in 3-4 years, which would significantly increase the efficiency of orchards.
The cult of the scientist was created not only by the Soviet government, but also by academic professors. At the solemn anniversary (60 years of work) meeting, responding to greetings and speeches, Ivan Vladimirovich said: “The whole point is that with this pomp of celebration our government shows the importance of gardening so that all state farms and collective farms Special attention on this matter in order to increase the productivity of their gardens and enter into a more prosperous life.” Michurin was especially warmly supported by Professor Vavilov and such a controversial figure as Academician Lysenko. Let us immediately note that the essence of Michurin’s provisions was reflected in different ways in the works of these scientists, but on June 1, 1935, all twelve full members of the Academy of Sciences unanimously elected Michurin an honorary member of the USSR Academy of Sciences.
People considered Michurin a good sorcerer and a great healer. He knew herbs that had medicinal properties, prepared ointments, decoctions, and tinctures from them. He treated his wife, who had cancer, with tinctures, which extended her life by nineteen years. It was rumored that Ivan Vladimirovich saw kidney stones and successfully removed them. He was able to influence the growth of plants and knew how to talk to them. Out of a thousand seedlings, he kept two or three, but those he selected actually turned out to be hybrids. Secretly from him, his assistants tried to replant the seedlings he had rejected. None of them took root. He could talk for hours with a dying plant, and some would come back to life. Dogs did not bother him, cats adored him, and hundreds of birds flocked to his nursery for lunch. Trained frogs lived in the garden.
The years have taken their toll. Ivan Vladimirovich fell ill and stopped eating, experiencing stomach pain. To the arriving council of doctors, he announced the diagnosis of the disease: “Carcinoma (cancer) of the lesser curvature of the stomach.” Doctors confirmed this diagnosis. On June 7, 1935, at 9:30 a.m., Ivan Vladimirovich died.
Ivan Vladimirovich Michurin is a famous biologist-breeder, creator of many modern varieties of fruit and berry crops. Since 1935, Michurin has been an honorary member of the USSR Academy of Sciences. He was awarded the Order of St. Anne (1913), the Order of Lenin (1931) and the Order of the Red Banner of Labor. Michurin republished collections of essays on various methods of breeding plant varieties three times. Of particular interest are his unique methods of hybridization of fruit and vegetable crops: the author selected parental pairs, overcoming their lack of crossbreeding.
Ancestors of Ivan Vladimirovich and their family tradition hobbies for gardening could not help but affect Michurin’s fate. Michurin was born in the village of Vershina, Pronsky district, Ryazan region. He was the seventh child in a poor peasant family. His brothers and sisters died at an early age, and his mother died in her thirty-fourth year. Ivan was then four years old. Already with early age Michurin began to show interest in plants: he was fond of gardening, collecting fruit trees, and adding agricultural literature to his library.
At first Michurin studied at home, then went to the Pronsky district school. After graduating from college, Michurin was preparing to enter the St. Petersburg Lyceum. Due to the unexpected illness of his father, Ivan Vladimirovich was forced to enter the Ryazan gymnasium instead of the St. Petersburg Lyceum, so as not to leave far from his parent. The father soon died, the estate went bankrupt, and his aunt took care of Ivan Vladimirovich. In 1872, Michurin was expelled from the gymnasium for “disrespect for superiors,” which in fact was due to the failure to hand over a bribe to his superiors.
That same year, Michurin left Ryazan and went to the city of Kozlov, where he spent the next years of his life. He had to earn a living somehow, so Michurin got a job as a commercial clerk in one of the commodity offices with a 16-hour working day and 12 rubles a month. Two years later, Michurin occupied the position of assistant chief, but not for long; a quarrel with the station chief disrupted his plans. Michurin changed jobs and began repairing clocks and signaling devices.
Then he opened his own watch workshop. However, he still wanted to study plants and their species. Soon he managed to rent an abandoned estate in the Kozlov area, with an area of 130 hectares, with a small plot of land, on which Michurin began to conduct breeding experiments with more than 600 species of plants. Moving to the city estate of his acquaintances, Michurin bred the first varieties of plants: raspberry Commerce, cherry Griot, cherry Beauty of the North, etc. But soon this estate was planted with plants.
Michurin's attention was attracted by the estate being sold by priest Yastrebov, with a plot of land of 12.5 acres. Although half of the plot was located under the river, under bushes and a ravine, Michurin was still pleased with the acquired estate. Years later, this estate-nursery became one of the first breeding centers in Russia, and a few years later - the central estate of the state farm named after. I.V. Michurina. Between 1893 and 1896, hybrids of plums, cherries, apricots and grapes were bred in the nursery. But all these seedlings were unable to undergo acclimatization using the grafting method, since the powerful black soil constantly saturated them. Then Michurin transplanted the plants into more poor soils, for them to acquire Spartan hardening.
In 1906, the first scientific publications of I.V. Michurin were published, touching on the problem of new breeding of fruit tree varieties. Already in 1912, Michurin was awarded the Order of Anna, third degree, for his achievements. In 1913, the Americans offered Michurin to sell a collection of varieties, but the breeder refused. In 1915, as a result of a spring flood, the nursery was flooded: many hybrids died. In the same year, Michurin's wife dies due to a cholera epidemic.
At this time, Michurin finds confirmation of his assumptions about the law of inheritance of traits in plants. Immersing himself in his work, Michurin slowly forgets about the tragedies that happened. Now each issue of Progressive Gardening and Horticulture begins with articles by Michurin. In 1917, with the beginning of the February Revolution, Michurin announced that he wanted to cooperate with new government. The answer came immediately. On November 22, 1918, the People's Commissariat concluded a resolution to accept Michurin's nursery into its department, and Michurin himself was appointed head of this nursery with the right to invite workers to further expand production.
By 1922, Michurin produced over 150 new varieties of fruit trees and shrubs: apple trees - 45 varieties, pears - 20 varieties, cherries - 13 varieties, cherries - 6 varieties, rowan - 3 varieties, etc.
In 1934, a genetic laboratory named after A.I. was created on the basis of the nursery. I.V. Michurina, engaged in the development of new varieties and species of plants, which exists to this day. The Fruit Growing Research Institute was founded here. Michurin and Michurin State Agrarian University. Contribution of I.V. Michurin in the development of science and the state as a whole was so great that the city of Kozlov, even during Michurin’s life in 1932, was renamed
The great scientist gained a reputation among the people as a healer and sorcerer
The city of Michurinsk is known as a major railway junction. It is also known that the famous breeder Ivan Vladimirovich Michurin (1855-1935) lived here and created new varieties of fruit crops. A wide range of readers know almost nothing about Michurin himself...
“Pushkin - he talks to us himself, in poetry. Michurin cannot do this, and almost no one knows him. No one really knows Landau or Kapitsa. Sakharov is known as a human rights activist, but not as a physicist, and before his death he made one of the greatest assumptions that the proton is an unstable system, and now this is confirmed...."
This is how our conversation began at the Department of Mathematics and Physics of the Michurin Agrarian University, where the great-great-grandson of Ivan Vladimirovich Michurin, Alexander Kursakov, works.
But, it happened, Michurin was wooed to America. He received his first offer from there in 1914. The US government not only guaranteed the breeder a laboratory and land without restrictions, but promised to take out his entire garden by ship. Michurin flatly refused. He explained it this way: “Mature plants do not take root well in another place, and people even more so.”
The Dutch offered him a lot of money for violet lily bulbs on the condition that this flower would no longer be grown in Russia. Didn't sell.
Although he himself lived poorly. On the monument in the center of Michurinsk, the scientist’s jacket is buttoned on the “female” side. Many believe this to be a mistake by the sculptor, although Matvey Manizer, to whom the monument was commissioned, sculpted it from photographs. The whole point is that Ivan Vladimirovich himself remade old clothes. I sewed my own mittens and wore my shoes to the max. The government did not help, and everything he grew in the garden went to pay workers. There was nothing left for him to do. Only honor.
In general, he was an amazing person. IN civil war, when the “whites” came to the city, he hid the wounded “reds” in his basement, and when the “reds” - the wounded “whites”. Why didn't they report him?
Kursakov says that Michurin’s neighbors loved and feared him at the same time. The fame of a healer and sorcerer was established among the people. He knew many herbs that had medicinal properties, prepared all kinds of ointments and decoctions from them, healed migraines, mumps, renal colic, furunculosis, heart failure, even cancer, and removed kidney stones. He had the ability to influence plant growth and human behavior. Sometimes he would walk across the field with a cane and show: “Keep this one, this one, and this one, throw out the rest.” Out of 10 thousand seedlings, with some instinct I identified two or three. They were the hybrids. His assistants secretly tried to replant the seedlings he had rejected. None of them took root.
He could talk for hours with a dying plant, and it would come back to life. He could easily enter any yard without the huge guard dogs barking. The birds sat on his hat, shoulders, palm without fear and pecked the grains.
My grandmother’s younger brother once drowned,” says Alexander Kursakov. - They searched for him for a long time and unsuccessfully, and finally they went to Michurin. He pointed to the river pool and said: “He’s there.” He was actually found there.
Michurin was an excellent watchmaker, he ran a workshop, and by the sound he could determine what was wrong with the mechanism. The man had a unique intuition. A rare natural gift. He generally loved tinkering. Grafting chisel, hand pruner, elegant portable forcing device essential oil from rose petals, a lighter, a cigarette case - he made everything himself. I used a special machine to fill cigarettes with “Michurinsky” tobacco. He had a unique workshop for making dummies of fruits and vegetables from wax. They were considered the best in the world and were so skillful that others tried to bite them. He didn't like it when anyone was late. He said: take care of your time and mine. But when one of his employees had a birthday, he would come up and see what kind of eyes she had, and he would try to give a cut on her dress to match their color...
Michurin's family life was difficult. His wife (and he took her as his wife when she was not yet 16 years old, and they lived for 41 years) died in 1915 from cholera. Michurin took her death seriously. For a long time I did not go out anywhere, did not receive anyone. They had two children - Maria and Nikolai. Michurin believed that his son would be his successor, but Nikolai did not like to work with the land, and did the opposite of what he was assigned. Then the father said: “Either you work as expected, or I will ask you to leave the family.” Nikolai left. He was 14 years old at that time. He lived in Leningrad, did not know his father. They met a few months before the death of Ivan Vladimirovich. First of all, Michurin showed his son his books and awards.
Maria Ivanovna, on the contrary, helped Michurin in all his affairs. She had three daughters and two sons. The sons died in the civil war. Nothing is known about one daughter, but two lived in Michurinsk. Alexander Kursakov follows the line of Maria Ivanovna. Life is difficult, stressful.
Michurin’s descendant flies like a bullet from one school to another, works three shifts in order to at least give something to his student son and feed his two other sons, says his friend, associate professor Vladimir Petrushin. - I’m already used to the fact that Sashka Kursakov wears the same jacket and the same pants all the time. And it goes with my gray suit. A Moscow janitor who sweeps near the city hall probably earns more than our entire department of mathematics and physics combined.
Ivan Vladimirovich Michurin was unlucky even after his death. Bolshevik ideologists took his phrase out of context: “We cannot expect favors from nature; taking them from her is our task,” and made him a militant atheist.
In the film about him, in one of the frames, a priest peeks out from behind a fence, and a scientist throws something at him. In fact, he and his neighbor-priest were friends, and Michurin honored God.
So Lysenko, in his fight against geneticists, also relied on Michurin. And he was friends with Vavilov until the end of his life. But when the first genetic studies began to appear, I began to check them. And I found out that all Mendel’s laws apply to annual plants, but not to perennial plants. Then it was confirmed. Michurin was never an opponent of genetics, but, already dead, Lysenko signed him up as one of his allies and thereby sullied the name of the scientist.
When people of a different layer came to power, they began to smear not only the layer they replaced, but also its spokesmen. Remember how director Sergei Bondarchuk and composer Alexandra Pakhmutova were persecuted... History was once again rewritten for the next ruler. Michurin also fell under this skating rink. His name was removed from the university he founded. They wanted to rename the city, but the residents opposed it. Kozlov was not known to anyone, but Michurinsk was known to everyone.
Michurin died at the age of 80 from stomach cancer. He bequeathed to bury himself near the house, but it was not carried out mainly because in the spring everything around is filled with flood waters. He rests next to the agricultural institute, which cowardly erased the name of its founder from its sign.
Michurinsk, Tambov region
Special for the Centenary
Ivan Vladimirovich Michurin (1855-1935)
We cannot wait for favors from nature; taking them from her is our task.” “Whoever does not master the technique of some art, science or craft will never be able to create something outstanding...” These words belong to Ivan Vladimirovich Michurin, who perfectly mastered the technique of the art of creating new life, grow new wonderful varieties of fruits, berries and flowers. He was truly a restless, greedy transformer of nature, a creator of new life, who set himself the goal of renewing the earth. The life of Ivan Vladimirovich Michurin is a real scientific labor feat.
Ivan Vladimirovich was born in the village of Dolgoye, Pronsky district, Ryazan province, on October 27, 1855. Michurin’s great-grandfather, grandfather and father were lovers of fruit growing. In the former Kaluga province, where Michurin's ancestors lived before, Michurin pears bred by one of these ancestors are still known.
In order to achieve great things in life, it is very important to set yourself a big goal early, to feel your life calling early and then persistently, with all the strength of will, follow this calling, to move towards your life goal.
Michurin found his calling in life early. He wrote: “...as far as I can remember, I was always and completely absorbed in just one desire to engage in cultivation of certain plants, and such a passion was so strong that I almost did not even notice many other details of life: they seemed to “Everyone passed me by and left almost no traces in my memory.”
I.V. Michurin managed to graduate from the Pronsky district school and enter the Ryazan gymnasium. But he was soon expelled from the gymnasium under the pretext of “disrespect” towards the authorities, but in fact because the authorities demanded a bribe and did not receive it. I.V. Michurin dreamed of higher education, but he did not even manage to graduate from high school. Nineteen-year-old Michurin was forced to become a clerk in a goods office at the Kozlov station of the Ryazan-Ural Railway from a month wages at 12 rubles.
In 1874, I.V. Michurin married the daughter of a worker, Alexandra Vasilievna Petrushina. This led him to a break with his parents - impoverished nobles who were outraged by this choice of their son. Ivan Vladimirovich began his independent life almost in poverty. But the modest railway clerk, abandoned by fate to the remote provincial town of Kozlov, was full of bright hopes and dreams. He wrote:
“After thirteen years of comprehensive theoretical and practical study of plant life in general and, in particular, the business of gardening and its needs in the areas of central Russia, after I traveled and examined all the gardens and garden establishments outstanding at that time, and also on the basis of personal testing the qualities and properties of fruit trees suitable for cultivation in the central and northern parts of former European Russia, in 1888 I came to the conclusion that the state of our gardening was too low... The urgent need for a radical improvement in the assortment of our gardens by replenishing them became obvious. productive varieties of better quality, which forced me in 1888 to found a garden nursery for the sole purpose of breeding new, better and more productive varieties of fruit plants."
It started with a tiny front garden near a house in the city. Here, on a small piece of land, I.V. Michurin could grow only a small number of fruit trees. Only in 1895 was Ivan Vladimirovich Michurin able to save up money to buy an estate outside the city, where he and his wife carried his expensive plants in his arms. From Ivan Vladimirovich’s work diaries it is clear how widely and with what energy he developed his creative activity here.
Here is the entry: "Crops of 1887." It shows that I.V. Michurin worked very hard on many plants. There are also fruits and berries - pears, apples, cherries, plums and peaches; there are also vegetables - melons, watermelons; there are floral and decorative ones - carnations, primroses, gladioli, petunias, begonias, gloxinias, cyclamens, kalistegia, lilies, dahlias, daffodils, etc.; all the listed plants - different varieties. The same entry includes various palms, dracaenas, magnolias, camellias, cycads, eucalyptus, lemon, orange, bitter orange, cedar, Engelmann spruce, etc.
I. V. Michurin - an insatiable explorer of nature in his searches - with my own hands sows, grafts, cuttings; conducts extensive experimental research; achieves good rapid rooting of cuttings, tests different compositions for covering cuts and different compositions of the substrate in which the cuttings are planted.
The diaries of I.V. Michurin show what difficulties he had to overcome. He plants cuttings, without laboratory glassware, in sprat and jam jars, in glasses, in bottles, in a vessel from a Bunsen element. Material worries always hang over the creative work of the researcher. I had to count pennies.
I. V. Michurin’s entry “Crops of 1887” took only 8 pages of printed text, but the content contained in it creative work A single researcher could be the envy of more than one large research institute with dozens of scientists. Meanwhile, I.V. Michurin at this time had to work not only without support, but even in an atmosphere of alienation and hostility towards the new business. With amazing devotion to the idea that had taken possession of him, clenched on small area his garden, I.V. Michurin, who did not have any official diplomas, worked to create a new fairy-tale world of northern fruits, wonderful in taste, size and beauty.
The tsarist government was greatly surprised when news began to arrive from abroad about Kozlov’s “eccentric.” “In 1898, an all-Canadian congress of farmers, meeting after a harsh winter, stated that all the old varieties of cherries of both European and American origin in Canada were frozen out, with the exception of “Fertile Michurin” from the city of Kozlov (in Russia).” So wrote the Canadian professor Saunders. The fame of I. V. Michurin’s new wonderful varieties of fruit plants spread in the United States of America. From there, the Department of Agriculture sent its specialist, Professor F.N. Meyer, to I.V. Michurin and made I.V. Michurin an offer to sell all his living collections to America. At that time, I.V. Michurin was in a difficult financial situation. Nevertheless, the very advantageous offer from the Americans did not seduce him. He loved his homeland and wanted to pass on the fruits of his creativity to his people.
Under the influence of news from America, even the thick-skinned tsarist government became worried. It awarded I.V. Michurin the cross of “St. Anne”, 3rd degree, “for services in the agricultural field,” but did not provide any real support to I.V. Michurin in his most valuable creative work. Meanwhile, old age was approaching.
In 1914, at the age of about 60, this man with an iron will burst out with bitter words: “The years have passed and the strength is exhausted, it is extremely disappointing to work for so many years for the common benefit of a person and not have any provision for oneself in old age.”
Three years later the Great October Socialist Revolution came. I. V. Michurin, who did not leave his nursery throughout the entire period of the February Revolution, appeared on the very next day after the Soviets of Workers', Soldiers' and Peasants' Deputies took power into their own hands, not paying attention to the shooting that was still continuing in the streets. organized the county land commissariat and declared: “I want to work for the new government.”
V.I. Lenin and I.V. Stalin showed great personal concern for I.V. Michurin. Mikhail Ivanovich Kalinin visited I.V. Michurin in Kozlov twice. New research and educational institutions named after Michurin have grown in Kozlov: Selection and Genetic Station, Institute of Northern Fruit Growing, Technical School, Higher School. The city of Kozlov itself turned into Michurinsk - a large scientific center of northern fruit growing. In 1934, eighty-year-old I. V. Michurin wrote: “Life has become different, full of meaning, interesting, joyful.”
Ivan Vladimirovich Michurin was one of those “eccentrics” who, in the words of Maxim Gorky, adorn the world. He wanted to “move” the south to the north. He wanted winter-hardy varieties of apple trees, pears, plums, grapes and other plants with fruits no worse than the beautiful southern varieties to grow somewhere in the Voronezh or Tambov provinces and even further to the north.
Ivan Vladimirovich’s creative research was built on two main foundations. He himself created and developed these foundations and filled them with his original Michurin content. These basics are distant crossing and nurturing of plants.
Distant crossing or distant hybridization are called distant because they cross with each other and produce the offspring of two parent plants that are distant in their relationship in evolution and in their geographical origin.
There is a southern variety of apple tree - American yellow Bellefleur. It has large, tasty fruits. In addition, they ripen late and can be stored for a long time in winter. But the Bellefleur apple tree does not have sufficient winter hardiness. I. V. Michurin sets himself the task of obtaining new variety an apple tree whose fruit would be no worse than Bellefleur, but the tree itself would withstand winter well. To do this, I.V. Michurin fertilizes Bellefleur with pollen from the Chinese apple tree. The Chinese apple tree is related to the wild Siberian apple tree and is characterized by great winter hardiness, but its fruits are very small (they are used for jam called “paradise apples”).
Bellefleur American and Chinese apple are distant both in relationship, since they belong to two different types of apple trees, and in their geographical origin. From their crossing, I.V. Michurin received a seed from which he developed his new variety Bellefleur-Kitaika. But to develop this variety, the scientist had to work a lot.
When a young apple tree grown from a seed in its seventh year of life bore its first fruits, they ripened relatively early - in August, but turned out to be not large enough. To improve the properties of fruits, I.V. Michurin used the “mentor” method, i.e., educator, the essence of which is that, wanting to obtain hybrid varieties with desirable properties, the gardener grafts a cutting of that plant variety into the crown of a hybrid plant , the properties of which he wants to transfer to hybrid fruits. The transplanted cutting affects the hybrid plant, as if nurturing it in the desired direction. Hence the name of this method. I.V. Michurin grafted cuttings of the maternal species Bellefleur americana into the crown of this young apple tree as mentors, or educators. This, indeed, had an effect on the young apple tree, and it began to bear ripe fruits later and larger. But I.V. Michurin was not satisfied with this. He grafted cuttings of winter varieties of apple trees with shelf-stable fruits onto his tree.
As a result of all this, the fruit weight of the new variety increased from 154 to 222 grams, and the ripening time was delayed by approximately 90 days. Subsequently, I.V. Michurin increased the weight of the fruits of the Chinese bellefleur to 340 grams. This Bellefleur-Kitaiki variety turned out to be quite frost-resistant in the Ivanovo region, 500 kilometers north of the city of Michurinsk. In its beauty and taste, Bellefleur-China is not inferior to its mother plant, Bellefleur yellow American. Under good storage conditions, winter fruits can be stored until February, without losing any of their taste. Distant hybridization was only the beginning of Ivan Vladimirovich Michurin’s work on the creation of this variety. The methods of education he used were of great importance.
Why was distant crossing necessary? When crossing closely related small varieties living in the same area with each other, major changes cannot be achieved. Only very limited minor improvements will be obtained. And with distant crossing, you can go far beyond these minor improvements. It is characteristic that during distant crossings I.V. Michurin did not take local wild varieties of fruit and berry plants, despite their high frost resistance. The fact is that these varieties are very well adapted to the conditions of the local climate and, when crossed with plants from other places, suppress the properties of these plants, including the valuable qualities of their fruits.
Ivan Vladimirovich put forward and proved the position that “the farther the pairs of crossed producer plants are separated from each other in the place of their homeland and the conditions of their environment, the easier it is for the hybrid seedlings to adapt to the environmental conditions in a new area.”
I. V. Michurin began to use the method of distant crossing in 1884. This remarkable discovery of I. V. Michurin was not understood for a long time by the theoretical science of heredity and variability - genetics. Only in September 1923, at a meeting of the German Society of Heredity, the famous geneticist Renner said: “Perhaps we will have more success if we begin to cross species with each other from distant geographical areas of habitat for a long time and have been separated from each other for a long time.”
When Renner said this only in the form of an assumption, I.V. Michurin had long ago had a deeply developed scientific theory of distant crossing, and on the basis of this theory he created many new wonderful fruit plants. With the help of distant crossing, I. V. Michurin not only combined the ability of an aquatic organism to produce the fruits needed high quality with the ability to withstand harsh winter conditions. The organisms obtained in this way were more flexible in adapting to new living conditions and more malleable in altering their nature.
Plants were not always amenable to distant hybridization. Then I.V. Michurin, who deeply understood the nature of plants, forced them to do this using his original methods:
- pollen mixtures,
- vegetative rapprochement,
- introduction of an intermediary.
If during distant (interspecific) hybridization the usually used artificial pollination did not produce results, then I. V. Michurin applied not pure pollen of one particular variety or species to the stigma of the pistil, but a mixture of pollen of many varieties or species and, as a result, achieved fruit set . I.V. Michurin called this technique the “mixed pollen method.” Another method of overcoming interspecific noncrossing, the method of vegetative rapprochement, which was introduced by I.V. Michurin, consists of the following. I.V. Michurin grafts cuttings of plants that do not cross through pollination in the usual way, and when flowers develop on the scion, their pollen pollinates the flowers of the rootstock and vice versa. I.V. Michurin called this technique the method of “preliminary vegetative rapprochement,” which then facilitates the sexual reproduction of these forms vegetatively brought together by inoculation.
And finally, in a number of cases, the technique of the “intermediary” turned out to be extremely effective, the essence of which is schematically as follows. If species A does not cross with species B, which crosses with species C, then I.V. Michurin first tries to obtain an AXC hybrid and, if obtained, easily crosses this hybrid with species B; species C was only the “intermediary” through which it was possible to cross the uncrossed forms A and B. Using these and other methods, I. V. Michurin was able to widely cross various species, and sometimes even genera of plants, for example, cherry with bird cherry, peach with almonds, shadberry with quince or pear, etc. I. V. Michurin considered two aspects especially significant in the transformation of living nature: the hybrid origin of plants (from distant crossing) and their young age.
The theory and methods of I.V. Michurin have great creative power. This ingenious transformer of the nature of plants seemed to have punched a hole in the thick stone wall, through which poured a whole stream of new wonderful varieties of fruit and berry plants, valuable in quality and hardy to the more severe northern climate.
You stop with surprise in front of this creative power, especially when you remember the old Belgian fruit grower Van Mons, who argued that it takes at least 40 years to develop a new variety of apple trees and spread it.
And how many and what wonderful new fruit plants were created by I.V. Michurin! Here, for example, is the Pepin saffron apple tree. Its fruits are beautifully painted with scarlet painting on a beautiful yellow-saffron background. The pulp is dense, yellowish in color, wonderful wine-sweet, with slight acidity, spicy taste, with a delicate aroma. This is a late variety of apple tree, the fruits of which can be stored until May of next year. The tree is tolerant of winter frosts.
But the Chinese anise. It has exceptional frost tolerance, is extremely fertile and ripens very early. The color of the fruit is light greenish-yellow with a delicate blurry reddish-pinkish blush on the sunny side. The pulp is white with a green tint, loose, juicy, sweet and sour with a wonderful wine taste.
The famous pear "Winter Bera Michurina" is remarkably frost-resistant. The yield is very generous, and the taste of the fruit can be considered equal to the taste of many dessert southern varieties of pears. The “Fertile Michurina” cherry is no less famous: the fruits are dark red, with a smooth shiny skin, the pulp is juicy, with a pleasant sweet and sour taste, the juice is pink. The yield reaches 25 kilograms from one mature tree. The tree's tolerance to winter frosts is outstanding. This cherry is widespread in North America and Canada.
When you leaf through the works of I. V. Michurin, a whole panorama of various fruits passes before your eyes, which beckon with their wonderful taste: apples, pears, northern quince, hybrid mountain ash, cherries, sweet cherries, plums, apricots, intermediary almonds, abundant blackberries, raspberries , four new varieties of grapes, new varieties of the wonderful Far Eastern berry plant actinidia, etc. This is evidence of the wonderful creative power of man. You can feel in him not only a great creator, but also an artist passionately in love with his creations.
I.V. Michurin left us not only new wonderful varieties of fruits, but also the science of how to create them.
Charles Darwin firmly substantiated the very fact of evolution and explained its process, for which he very widely used the practical experience of agriculture. I. V. Michurin, figuratively speaking, with great courage and great success created evolution in the interests of man and on this basis further developed Darwin's theory . Darwin explained how adaptations arise in animals and plants through hereditary changes and natural selection. And I.V. Michurin gave his theory and method of how to create new plants, especially pliable for adaptation to new living conditions.
Darwin showed how human experience in breeding new varieties of plants and animal breeds could be used to explain the evolution of wild flora and fauna. And I.V. Michurin discovered in wild plants, in these often neglected “Cinderellas,” an inexhaustible source for increasing endurance in order to, by crossing with them, improve the quality of cultivated plants.
I.V. Michurin drew attention to the fact that wild plants, in the spontaneous process of evolution, have accumulated valuable qualities of endurance and fertility. He showed how these qualities, with the help of distant crossing, can be widely used to improve cultivated plants. Soviet scientists are now working on this path, who have set themselves the task of obtaining new varieties of wheat with much higher endurance and fertility by crossing it with wild species of wheatgrass and wild perennial rye.
Under Soviet conditions, the work of I. V. Michurin received an unusually wide outlet in life and practice. For the first time in world history, a real folk scientific school in the field of biology was created. This is the Michurin school. In this school, together with academicians and other scientists by profession, Michurin’s science is introduced into life and together they move it forward “people completely unknown in the scientific world, simple people, practitioners-innovators." These are amateur Michurinists, Stakhanovites of plant growing, collective farmers-experiments.
Ivan Vladimirovich’s working environment was extremely modest, but it was all inspired by his creativity. There is nothing left to say about the garden. Here, in front of living plants, at every step, from the lips of Ivan Vladimirovich, one could hear entire poems about the great work, living witnesses of which were right there before our eyes.
But the same thing happened in the office. Here Ivan Vladimirovich sits in the corner of his office behind his modest desk and stuffs himself with cigarettes. But the tobacco for these cigarettes is special. It was developed by Ivan Vladimirovich himself; he also invented and made a machine for cutting tobacco, which he uses to stuff his cigarettes. And on the wall behind Michurin hangs the aneroid he improved. I.V. Michurin was an inventor at heart. He combined an insatiable, powerful creative thought with golden hands. Ivan Vladimirovich himself, in his address to the XVI Congress of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, wrote: “everything I encountered, I tried to improve: I worked in various branches of mechanics, electricity, improved tools, studied beekeeping. But my favorite work was the work of improving varieties of fruit and berry plants."
Michurin's entire creative life was a powerful impulse towards the future, towards a new, young, better one.
On June 7, 1935, the creator of new life in the world of plants passed away. The grave of Ivan Vladimirovich Michurin is located on the square of the city of Michurinsk, not far from the high school, where young Michurin residents are growing up, continuing his work.
The most important works of I. V. Michurin: Results of half a century of work on developing new varieties of fruit and berry plants, M., 1929 (vol. I), 1932 (vol. II); Breeding new improved varieties of fruit and berry plants, M., 1933; Results of sixty years of work on developing new varieties of fruit and berry plants, M., 1936 (4th ed.): Works edited by Academician. B. A. Keller and acad. T. D. Lysenko, M.-L., Selkhozgiz, 1939-1941, vol. I. Principles and methods of work; Vol. II. Descriptions of varieties of fruit and berry plants; Vol. III. Notebooks and diaries; Vol. IV. Various notes and articles not included in the first three volumes.
About I. V. Michurin: Bakharev A.N. and Yakovlev P.N., Ivan Vladimirovich Michurin (Life and Creativity), M., 1938; Gorshkov I. S., Ivan Vladimirovich Michurin, his life and work, M., 1925; Bakharev A. N., Ivan Vladimirovich Michurin (biographical sketch), in volume I Op. I. V. Michurina.
Loading...