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From The Ground Up: Practical Gardens And Horticultural Knowledge In Early America
Gruntner, Holly
Gruntner, Holly
Abstract
“From the Ground Up: Practical Gardens and Horticultural Knowledge in Early America” argues that practical gardens and horticultural knowledge were important features of ordinary early Americans’ intellectual lives in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. It reveals the intricacies of practical garden-keeping in New England and the Mid-Atlantic region, showing not only how horticultural knowledge was made by individuals and in households, but also how knowledge moved between households and into crystallizing scientific societies and texts during this period. Practical gardens contained produce to be consumed by the household, as sustenance, seasoning, or medicine. From grafting bits of fruit trees together to create an entirely new breed, to recording the effects of heavy rainfall or drought on one’s plants, to experimenting with fertilizer recipes, to sharing seeds and trading labors with neighbors, these gardens were manifestations of gardeners’ intense collaborative kinetic and intellectual work. “From the Ground Up” examines horticultural knowledge-labors from a variety of perspectives, pulling together a constellation of micro-experiences, tasks, and knowledges of gardens and gardening. Focusing on one household garden, it first examines how labors and knowledges combined within, and how gardeners’ statuses influenced their horticultural roles. It then shows how gardeners recorded their successes and struggles in the margins and interleaved pages of their almanacs. Almanacs’ form and content advised and facilitated the annotations within. Gardeners’ knowledge also moved beyond the bounds of their gardens and almanacs. Through exchanges of garden seeds, cuttings, and labors with neighbors, horticultural knowledge circulated in local communities. Finally, “From the Ground Up” demonstrates that as traveling naturalists observed practical gardens and learned from ordinary gardeners, gardeners’ horticultural knowledge and networks of horticultural circulation became the basis for emerging scientific canons and societies. In many ways, ordinary people’s horticultural knowledge and its circulation shaped the intellectual and physical landscapes of early America and beyond.
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2024-01-01
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History
DOI
https://dx.doi.org/10.21220/s2-dr1b-7q88