Varieties of fruit and berry crops that created michurin. Ivan Michurin brief biography

Michurin, Ivan Vladimirovich

Ow. a biologist, a great transformer of nature, the works of which marked the beginning of a new stage in the development of Darwinism; honorary member Academy of Sciences of the USSR (1935), valid. tsp VASHNIL (1935). Acc. activities n and t. RSFSR (1934).

Born in the village. Pronsk long. County Ryazan. lips After graduation prosk. county school (1869) entered Ryazan. gymnasium, from a swarm was soon expelled "for disrespect to the authorities." In 1872 he began working as a clerk at the freight station Kozlov (now Michurinsk). At this time, despite the difficult working conditions and insignificant earnings, M. began to realize his dream - to devote his life to gardening. On a small plot of land behind the outbuildings of the house where he lived, M. began to grow plants from the seeds of the selected fruits of apples, pears, plums and cherries; at the same time engaged in the study of Russian. and the world assortment of fruit and berry plants. In 1875 he moved to the town of Ryazhsk, where he began working as a senior clerk at the commodity office of the railway station. station. In 1877 he returned to Kozlov; A new job (master of clocks and signaling devices in the section of the railway Kozlov-Lebedyan) allowed him to get acquainted with the gardening of the central part of Europe while traveling around the station. Russia.

As early as 1875 (in Kozlov) M. rented a small (130 sq. Sazh.) Vacant urban estate, where he began his remarkable experiments. But very soon the experimental site became cramped for work (by this time M. already had a collection containing more than 600 species of fruit and berry trees and shrubs), and in 1882 he rented a new, somewhat larger site, to which he transferred all his plants . In this area, they cultivated first varieties of raspberries (“commerce”), cherries (“pear grimace”, “small-leaved semi-dwarf”, “fertile”, interspecific hybrid variety “the beauty of the north”). In 1888, M. acquired in 7 km  from the city, at the Turmasovo settlement, the site is approx. 12 tithes, on Krom he was able to expand his research.

Already in 1875-77, M. began to work on improving and replenishing the assortment of fruit plants in the central and sev. parts of Russia. Being fascinated by the ideas of acclimatization, he used in his initial experiments methods propagated at that time by Moscow. gardener A. K. Grell, and sought to change the heredity of the South. varieties of fruit plants by grafting their cuttings in the crown of an adult local tree or on cold-resistant dichki. However, after a number of years of work, M. came to the conclusion that this method of acclimatization of the South was inconsistent. varieties, because all plants grafted in this way, died in severe winters. Later M. made the article "How can acclimatization of plants?" (1905), in which the fallacy of the Grellian methods was revealed, indicating that any heat-loving variety that did not have the ability to withstand low temperatures in its homeland could not adapt to them in new climatic conditions. conditions, if acclimatization is carried out by transfer of plants, cuttings, cuttings, etc .; such plants die or degenerate. M. came to the conclusion that the acclimatization of plants is possible only if a consistent transfer of plants by seeds to the north is carried out through a number of geographic areas. areas. By this method (using connections with amateur gardeners of a number of provinces) he created the "northern apricot" and the "first swallow" cherry.

However, this path of acclimatization of plants was very long. Long-term search for the best ways to move fruit crops to the north led M. to the method of hybridization geographic. distant forms, to interspecific and intergeneric hybridization, combined with the systematic upbringing of parental forms before crossing, and the subsequent upbringing of selected best hybrid seedlings. M. formulated his views on distant hybridization in the article "Promoting hybridization gives a more reliable way of acclimatization" (1913) and developed them in a number of subsequent works. The more geographically distant forms of plants interbreed, the more plastic the hybrid organisms possessed, and the easier they could adapt to the harsh conditions of central Russia. But here new obstacles met. Hybrid seedlings obtained from the crossing of local varieties of plants with southern ones, developing on fat black earth soil, declined on the basis of winter hardiness towards the southern varieties and died from frost.

In 1893-96, when there were already thousands of hybrid seedlings in the nursery, M. came to the conclusion that in order to develop more frost-resistant varieties, it was necessary to transfer the experiments to a plot with less fat soil. To this end, he acquired a plot in Donskoy Sloboda (near the town of Kozlov) with alluvial sandy loam soil, where he transferred (in 1899-1900) all saplings. On this site M. worked until the end of his life.

Under Tsarism, M. did not meet with the support of representatives of "state science". He repeatedly suggested to the Department of Agriculture that he take over a small experimental plot under the jurisdiction of the state and pointed out the need to organize at least one state institution for the whole of Russia where hybridization work could continue. All his attempts to arouse interest in his experiences ran into ignorance and indifference of officials, and reactionary representatives of the academic world, who called M. "caste priests of boltology," openly despised him. But despite this, M., being an ardent patriot, flatly refused the insistent proposals (1911, 1913) of a representative of the US Department of Agriculture to sell his collections.

After the Great Oct. socialist revolution, in the first days after the establishment of the Sov. authorities. M. came to the county land department and announced his desire to work for the new government.

On the work of M., as having great national importance, drew the attention of V. I. Lenin. In 1918 the Sov. the state took over the nursery transferred to M., appointed its head and created favorable conditions for his creative work (funds, equipment were provided, personnel was provided). Later (1928) on the basis of the nursery was created breeding-genetic. station fruit crops them. I. V. Michurin (now the Central Genetic Laboratory named after I. V. Michurin). In 1931, a decision was made to organize an industrial training plant, the structure of which included: a state farm garden on an area of ​​more than 3,500 hectares, Central N.-i. Inst. Sev. fruit growing (now N.-i. Institute of Fruit Production named after I. Michurin), higher educational institution - Institute of Fruit and Berry Breeding (later renamed to Fruit and Vegetable Institute named after I. Michurin), The task of these institutions was the broad development of the teachings of M., the introduction of his experience into practice, the creation of new varieties of fruit and berry plants, the development of issues related to horticulture farming, the training of qualified specialists in the field of fruit and vegetables, the management of numerous organized zonal stations and strong points, etc. Only with Sov. power M. idea about the promotion of fruit growing in sowing. areas of the country could turn into reality.

M. was associated with numerous practitioners, gardeners, scientists and collective farmers, conducted extensive correspondence with them, gave personal advice, actively appeared in the press, etc. M. pointed out that only Kommunistich. party and owls. the authorities turned him from a lonely experienced man into a leader and organizer of fruit growing in the country.

In 1932, Kozlov was renamed to Michurinsk.

M. was buried on the square in the city of Michurinsk.

Scientific and practical. M.'s activity was devoted to resolving the task of replenishing the assortment of fruit and berry plants in central Russia and moving the growth line of southern crops to the north. M. deeply characteristic dialectical. understanding of wildlife. He wrote: “Life goes on without stopping ... Everything that stops in one form and one place is inevitably doomed to die. All forms of living organisms are a passing phenomenon and never completely repeat” (Soch., V. 4, 2 ed., 1948, p. 400). All activities M. was directed to. so that a person could, knowing the laws of the formation of species, force nature to produce those forms and with such properties that man needs. "We cannot wait for favors from nature: to take them from her is our task" is the principle that M. has always been guided by in his work (see ibid., Vol. 1, p. 605).

Most of the standard varieties of fruit plants M. obtained by hybridization geographic. remote forms. Almost every variety he bred served as a new confirmation of the correctness of Charles Darwin’s position that even the weakest change in living conditions is often sufficient to cause variability of organisms. In the work "Breeding new cultivated varieties of fruit trees and shrubs from seeds" (1911) M. outlined the main theoretical. questions of their teaching to create new high. plant varieties. When breeding new varieties, he attached great importance to the selection of producers and pointed out that the breeder is required to thoroughly study the properties and qualities of each variety or plant species chosen for the role of the producer. He noted that even the age of the parent plants of the same variety or species significantly affects the quality of hybrid offspring: older trees more fully convey inherited traits than the young ones.

To obtain hybrids between plants of distant species and genera, M. has developed a number of remarkable methods and techniques for overcoming their incompetence. All his research was a desire to know the nature of the organisms, their heredity and variability and to justify the ways of controlling plants in the right direction. Setting the task of creating a new variety, he carefully selected the initial forms, took into account the peculiarities of their individual development, the history of the development of not only the direct parental pairs, but also their distant ancestors. The main work of M. was the hybridization in combination with the appropriate education of hybrid seedlings as organisms most susceptible to the influence of the environment. He considered hybridization as a means for obtaining a new form combining the characteristics and properties of the parental pair, and at the same time as a means of loosening the heredity of the plant (overcoming its conservatism). M. indicated that with the production of hybrid seeds, the work of the breeder does not end, but is only beginning. In publ. in the 1923 article, "Summary of the results of the practical work of the originator of new varieties of fruit plants," he wrote that without the use of an appropriate mode of raising seedlings, only one selection, even when combined with all types of crosses, cannot create quite stable varieties of fruit trees. Environmental conditions are the main factor determining the hereditary qualities of the resulting plant. It is absolutely useless to carry out the most rigorous selection among breeding material in a number of generations in the hope of obtaining promising varieties from it, if these organisms are not provided with the appropriate soil. abundant nutrition, light, etc. However, changes in the body resulting from the influence of the external environment in the process of its individual development cannot be considered in isolation from the heredity that has developed in the process of history. development of this species. Heredity is stable and difficult to change, but even the most profound hereditary properties of the organism can be shaken through hybridization and the influence of new environmental conditions. The young organism obtained as a result of crossing due to the loosened heredity will have greater plasticity, and its development can be directed in the desired direction through the use of various methods of education.

One of the most effective ways of educating hybrids is the mentor-educator method developed by M.

Having developed methods for controlling the dominance of characters, M. in the articles "Concerning the inapplicability of Mendel's laws in the matter of hybridization" (1915), "Seeds, their life and preservation before sowing" (1915) and others criticized the Mendelian laws of inheritance of characters. Having thoroughly studied the nature of the interaction of the stock and scion, he proved the effectiveness of vegetative hybridization on a huge amount of facts and thereby confirmed the correctness of the provisions of Charles Darwin, who believed that by grafting one plant to another, a vegetative hybrid was obtained - a form combining the signs of grafted plants. In 1922, M. wrote the work "The erroneous judgment of many scientific researchers to recognize the possibility of the phenomenon of vegetative hybrids" (first published in the journal Yarovization, 1936, No. 4). He showed the possibility of obtaining vegetative hybrids not only between varieties of the same plant species, but also between different species and even their genera, which cannot be achieved by ordinary crossing in many cases; at the same time, the new properties of the hybrid organism are transmitted to its descendants through the germ cells (seeds), which was confirmed on the created M. vegetative hybrid between apple and pear ("rendered bergamot"). Research on vegetative hybridization M. showed the possibility of inheriting changes that occur in the process of the individual life of the organism. Teaching M., based on the disclosure of patterns in nature, indicates the ways and means to guide the development of the plant world.

M. was an innovative scientist who knew how to organically combine theory and practice and develop his research work in accordance with practical. tasks socialist. construction. They bred more than 300 new varieties of fruit and berry plants (apple trees - “saffron pepin”, “belfleur-chinese”, “slav”, “Antonovka six-gram”, “saffron-china”; pears - “take the winter Michurin”, “bergamot novik "; cherries -" fertile Michurin "," the beauty of the north "; plums -" green leaf thorns "," green leaf collective farm "," green leaf reform "; grapes -" northern white "," Russian concord "; mountain ash -" Michurinskaya dessert "; blackberry raspberries - "Texas", and many others.). Numerous followers of M. (scientists, collective farmers, as well as amateur fruit growers) successfully developed the work begun by him.

A year before his death, M. wrote: “I don’t have any other desires how to continue with the thousands of enthusiasts to renovate the land, what the great Lenin called us for” (ibid., Vol. 1, p. 603).

Works: Works, t. 1-4, 2 ed., M., 1948.

Lit .: Lysenko TD, Creator of Soviet agrobiology, in his book: Agrobiology. Works on genetics, breeding and seed production, M., 1952; Bakharev A.N., Ivan Vladimirovich Michurin, M., 1949; P. N. Yakovlev, Ivan Vladimirovich Michurin, M., 1951; Vasilchenko I., I. V. Michurin, M.-L., 1950; People of Russian science, with foreword. and entry Article Acad. S.I. Vavilova, Vol. 2, M.-L., 1948 (p. 763-71); Gennel P. A., On the centenary of the birth of I. V. Michurin, Scientific notes of the Moscow Regional Pedagogical Institute, vol. 41. Proceedings of the Department of Botany, 1956, issue 1; TD Lysenko, One Hundred Years The birthday of I. V. Michurin. Report ..., October 27, 1955, "Proceedings of the Institute of Genetics, USSR Academy of Sciences", 1956. No. 23; Tsitsin N. V., I. V. Michurin and the significance of his teaching in modern Biology. [Report ... Oct. 1955]. "Bulletin of the Main Botanical Garden", 1956, issue 25.

Meech atrin, Ivan Vladimirovich

Rod 1855 mind 1935. Breeder, creator of new varieties of fruit and berry crops. The author of the method of distant hybridization. Cavalier of the Order of St. Anne of the third degree, honorary member of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR (1935), academician of the Academy of Agricultural Sciences (1935).

Great biographical encyclopedia. 2009 .

(1855-1935) russian biologist and breeder

Ivan Vladimirovich Michurin was born in the village of Dolgoe, Pronsk district, Ryazan province, and spent most of his life in Kozlov, the county town of the Tambov province.

His parents were impoverished nobles, who had a small plot of land, and all the efforts of the family were directed to feed themselves. From early childhood, Ivan Michurin enjoyed working in the garden.

After graduating from the parish school, the future scientist entered the Pronsk district school. He finished it with a certificate of merit and was admitted to the Ryazan gymnasium for a "state-owned debris". However, he studied there for only two years. He had to leave school due to illness, and also because the authorities refused to grant him subsidies. At this time, his father was completely ruined, and he was unable to pay for his son's education.

To feed himself, Michurin got a job as a mechanic at a railway telegraph, but he still spent all his free time in the garden.

Ivan Michurin's research work began in a tiny front garden near their home. On such a piece of land he could plant only a few fruit trees. Only in 1895 did he manage to buy from the Slobodsky priest a piece of waste land on the bank of the Lesnoy Voronezh river. There he began to put his experiences.

On his piece of land, Michurin sows with his own hands, plant, slides, and conducts extensive experimental research; he achieves rapid rooting of cuttings, tests a different composition for smearing cuts.

Russian gardeners of that time were fond of plant acclimatization — apples and other fruit crops from warm countries of Western Europe were relocated to our harsh lands. But Ivan Michurin was convinced from his own experience that it was a waste of time: if cherished varieties had yielded tasty fruits in the first years, then in the end all the same they degenerated. It was impossible to create newcomers the necessary climatic conditions for their full development, under the influence of which these varieties were created. It is impossible to mechanically transfer a plant from one climate to another. At the same time, Ivan Michurin found that plants at a young age are easier to change the external environment. Therefore, a new plant as a future variety from its inception should grow and develop in those conditions in which it will have to live for many years. Michurin finds zoning varieties.

But in order for new, acquired properties to be transmitted to offspring, it was necessary to overcome the old heredity, or, as Michurin said, “shatter the heredity”. And according to the scientist, it was possible to do this through a coherent system of the selection process, which combines three main links: hybridization, the impact of environmental conditions on developing hybrids and selection.

Having placed hybridization in the center of his breeding system, Ivan Vladimirovich Michurin paid special attention to the selection of parental pairs. He argued that if you cross geographically distant plants and raise their offspring in conditions alien to both parents, none of the qualities of the parents will prevail. In the hybrid will form new properties and qualities. That is how Michurin created his wonderful winter variety of pear. Bere winter Michurin. The flowers are very frost-resistant Ussuri pear growing in the Far East, he pollinated with Bereroyal pollen grown in Western Europe. From the Ussuri pear hybrid obtained frost resistance, and from Bereroyal - excellent fruit taste and ability to persist for a long time.

Using hybridization, Ivan Michurin considered it necessary to “cultivate” a new variety, that is, to influence him in one way or another, forcing him to change some qualities and acquire others.

Strong influence on the emerging hybrid plant has a special vaccination, called Michurin method of the mentor, or educator. The essence of the method was that the hybrid seedling was grafted by grafting with varieties that had the desired qualities. As a result, the seedling develops at the expense of plastic substances produced by the rearing plant, i.e. the mentor. Ivan Michurin has developed special methods for overcoming insecticide in plants with distant hybridization. These methods include the pre-vegetative approach method, the mediator method and the pollination method with a pollen mixture.

His hybridization methods became classical and were the beginning of the movement of many southern cultures to the north.

But the discovery of these methods and their justification required a truly selfless labor from a scientist.

After the victory of the October Revolution, Ivan Vladimirovich Michurin was created the necessary conditions for large-scale and fruitful scientific work. This allowed the great biologist to expand experimental studies many times. Later in the city of Kozlov on the basis of his nursery, which occupied nine acres, the All-Union Center for Scientific and Industrial Horticulture and Plant Growing was organized. A city Kozlov renamed Michurinsk.

The significance of Ivan Vladimirovich Michurin in the history of plant breeding is quite large: despite the limited nature of individual conclusions, his vast experience in caring for plants is important for modern researchers and especially for amateur gardeners.

IVAN VLADIMIROVICH Michurin (1855-1935)

russian breeder *, geneticist gardener

  "I, as I remember myself, always and completely absorbed in only one desire to practice growing these or other plants, and such a passion was so strong that I almost did not even notice many other details of life."

  Ivan Vladimirovich Michurin

* Breeder  - a scientist engaged in crossing plants, in order to obtain new varieties.

  Ivan Vladimirovich was born in the Ryazan region, not far from the village of Dolgoe, in the family of a small nobleman.

After graduating from the Pronsk district school, Michurin entered the Ryazan gymnasium, but he stayed there for a short time because of the ruin of his family - there was nothing to pay for his studies. Therefore, the young Michurin began working at the railway station. He studied the telegraph, signaling devices, repaired them. Then Michurin became interested in watchmaking and opened his own watch repair shop.

In 20 years, Ivan Michurin created a plant nursery in the city of Kozlov, Tambov region, and devoted his life to creating new varieties of garden plants.

Even at the very beginning of garden activitiesIvan Vladimirovich  I visited many gardens in the Ryazan, Tula and Kaluga regions and made sure that the old Russian varieties yielded miserable yields due to diseases and pests, and imported southern plants did not adapt well to our climate — frost, rain, and a rare sun.

There was a threat - Russian varieties will degenerate, and imported ones will not take root - Russians will have to buy expensive imported apples and pears.

"It was impossible to repeat the mistakes of the former gardeners, who vainly hoped to acclimatize foreign varieties. We must develop new, improved, hardy varieties for each particular locality!" - wrote I. V. Michurin.

A dozen fruit and berry crops, several dozen botanical species were involved in the work of Michurin. In his nursery, he collected a unique collection of plants from different parts of the globe - from the Far East, the Caucasus, Tibet, from China, Canada and other countries. Michurin began to cross all these plants in order to breed new Russian varieties!

In 1913, Michurin received an offer to move to work and live in America and sell his collection, he refused.

  Achievements Michurin:   The scientist brought about 30 new varieties of roses, as well as violet lily bulbs (a flower looks like a lily, and smells like a violet), 48 varieties of apple trees, 15 varieties of pears and 33 varieties of cherries and cherries, several varieties of plums.Ivan Vladimirovich the also brought grapes, apricots, blackberries, currants, adapted to the conditions of central Russia. More than 300 varieties of different plants!

All his life, Ivan Vladimirovich Michurin kept working diaries in which he described and analyzed his work.

In the diaries of Michurin many specific recipes for all occasions of the garden, which are still relevant today.

1. Trees and shrubs, purchased in the fall, but not planted, need to prikopat (put in a specially designated place, where water does not stagnate).

2. To scare off rodents, planted trees are covered with some odorous substances. You can not apply kerosene, fat, tar, oil directly on the bark. It is necessary to put these compounds on thick paper, straw and tie them.

For his outstanding achievements in breeding, Ivan Vladimirovich Michurin was awarded the Order of St. Anne by the Russian government.

Michurin died on June 7, 1935, was buried at the Novodevichy cemetery in Moscow.

The contribution of Ivan Vladimirovich Michurin to the Russian and world gardening is so great that his name has become a household name. If they say about someone: “Well, he is straight, Michurin!”, Then it is immediately clear that the person is a notable gardener.

Today many streets and squares of Russia are named after Michurin:
  Michurovka village in the Ryazan region, railway platformMichurinets , Michurinsky Avenue in Moscow, Michurin Square in Ryazan. Michurin Street is in Belgorod, Volodarsk, Voronezh, Kemerovo, Samara, Saratov, Saransk, Tomsk, in other cities. There is even a lake and a village in Karelia named Michurin!

About Michurin shot a feature film, which even translated into Chinese, because Michurin and in China know!

But the most obvious signrussian love for Michurin - a lot of popular jokes and cartoons about this outstanding breeder!

Jokes about Michurin

***
  Who invented the barbed wire? Michurin. He crossed the grass and the hedgehog.

***
  Michurin crossed a watermelon with flies so that the seeds themselves flew out.

***
  Michurin crossed a pumpkin with a cherry so that the hybrid would have the taste of a berry and the size of a vegetable. It turned out the opposite.

A poor-eyed man stares at a tree for a long time, in the foliage of which a light bulb shines: “Well, Michurin, well, he gives, he did not expect”!

***
  How did Michurin die? Climbed on a poplar for dill, there it watermelons and piled up.

Caricature for fans of the book and the movie "Twilight":

Who does not understand - in the garden CHESNOOOOK !!!

******************

Now do you understand why like these ones  photo spread on the Internet with the signature "Michurin's dream" ?!

Michurin Ivan Vladimirovich (1855-1935) worked all his life in the garden, studied plants, and brought out new varieties. He said: people are mistaken, thinking that nature is unchanged. Nature can and should be changed. Man is the master of nature. He cannot wait for mercies from her, but must manage it himself. And Michurin proved it.

Formerly, it was believed that grapes can grow only in the hot south. And Ivan Vladimirovich changed the "habits" of grapes and taught him to live in the north. True, changing the "nature" of plants is not easy and it turns out not immediately. It takes a lot of time and labor. Michurin worked hard all his life and brought out many wonderful varieties and plant species.

Thanks to Michurin, many southern plants - grapes, apricots, peaches, pears - began to live much further north. He brought out an extraordinary variety of cherries that grow not one or two on the branches, but tassels like currants. He grew currants, similar in size to cherries, and gooseberries, similar to grapes. Michurin did a lot. But his main merit is that he proved: a person, if he knows nature, if he does not spare labor, can grow fruits, flowers, vegetables, whatever he wants, and wherever he wants.

Ivan Vladimirovich Michurin was born long before the revolution and lived a long, difficult life. Since childhood, fascinated by the cultivation of plants, he in the small town of Kozlov (now the city is named after him Michurinsky) created an amazing garden. Michurin had a very hard time - work in the garden was difficult, and one had to earn a living: the garden did not give him income. Michurin worked as a clerk on the railway, and could only work in the garden in his spare time. And even becoming famous all over the world, Michurin continued to be in great need. Knowing this, the Americans offered to buy his garden for huge money, and he - to move to America. Ivan Vladimirovich categorically refused. He refused, despite the fact that he was not recognized in pre-revolutionary Russia, and the church was persecuted as an atheist. But Michurin believed that another time would come and his work would become known to the people, it would be necessary for the Motherland.

The dream came true. Immediately after the October Revolution, Michurin's nursery was taken under state protection, the scientist was created all the conditions for work. V.I. Lenin knew him well, he highly valued the work of Michurin and was constantly interested in his work.

Many Michurins followers and disciples of I. V. Michurin work in our country.

Gardener, breeder.

Born on October 15, 1855 in the village of Dolgoe, Pronskoy District, Ryazan Province, in the family of an impoverished nobleman. Both the grandfather and Michurin's father were engaged in gardening, Michurin himself sooner felt a craving for the earth, for the plants. “I, as I remember myself,” he wrote later, “always and completely absorbed in only one desire for studies to grow these or other plants, and such a passion was so strong that I almost did not even notice many other details of life: they seemed all passed by and almost left no trace in the memory. "

After graduating from the Pronsk district school, he entered the Ryazan gymnasium, but was soon expelled from it - for disrespect to his superiors.

In 1872 he got a job as a clerk at a freight station in the city of Kozlov.

Despite the hard work, he tried to do gardening on a tiny plot of land. Absolutely everything had to be done by hand, but Michurin liked such a life. Only the material has made him throw the plot. In 1875, he moved to the city of Ryazhsk, where he began working as a clerk at the railway station. However, the dream of gardening did not let him go and in 1877 Michurin returned to Kozlov. Here he worked as a duty officer who monitors the health of watches and signaling devices at the Kozlov-Lebedyan railway section. Constant patrols allowed Michurin to study well the horticulture of the central part of European Russia. Strangely enough, it was during these years that Michurin came to the well-known opinion that a person should do much better than nature.

In 1875, Michurin rented a small vacant estate.

Very soon, his collection gathered more than six hundred types of fruit and berry trees and shrubs. The site became too small for work and in 1882 Michurin rented another, larger plot, to which he transferred all his plants. Already on this site, Michurin developed such well-known varieties as raspberry “commerce”, cherry “pear-shaped griot”, “small-leaved semi-dwarf”, “fertile”, and an unusual interspecific hybrid “beauty of the north”.

In 1888, seven kilometers from the city, near the Turmasovo settlement, Michurin finally acquired a fairly extensive site. He began his research with the improvement and replenishment of the assortment of fruit plants in central and northern Russia. Fascinated by the ideas of acclimatization, in his first experiments he used methods promoted by the well-known Moscow gardener Dr. A. K. Grell at that time; Dicky. However, after a few years, Michurin came to the conclusion that the Grell’s methods were inadequate, since all the plants grafted in this way died in severe winters. Michurin even published a special article “How can plants be acclimatized?”, In which he revealed the inaccuracy of Grellian methods. Any thermophilic variety that did not possess the ability to withstand low temperatures in its homeland, he pointed out in this article, cannot adapt to them in new climatic conditions. If acclimatization is carried out by transferring plants, cuttings, cuttings, etc., the plants must die or degenerate.

Continuing the begun experiments, Michurin came to the conclusion that successful acclimatization of plants is possible only if the plants are carried over to the north. So, using connections with amateur gardeners of a number of provinces, he created the “northern apricot” and the “first swallow” sweet cherry.

“... I myself had at the beginning of my work,” Michurin wrote, “to suffer great losses in vain labor of several years. Hybrid seedlings from crossing the best foreign varieties with local, frost-resistant varieties grown on ridges with puffy, fertilized and deeply cultivated soil, died out during the first two or three winters. And only at the end of the 80s, by chance the end of one of the seed beds appeared with very thin sandy soil, and a dozen hybrid seedlings grown on it turned out hardy to frost. I noticed this at the time seemed to me a paradoxical phenomenon. How did these more underdeveloped seedlings prove to be hardy, while the strong ones died? ”

However, this way of acclimatization took time.

Long-term search for the best ways to move fruit crops to the north led Michurin to the method of hybridization of geographically distant forms, to interspecific and intergeneric hybridization combined with a systematic upbringing of parental forms before crossing, and with the subsequent cultivation of selected best hybrid seedlings.

Michurin formulated his views on distant hybridization in 1913 in the article “The promotion of hybridization provides a more reliable way of acclimatization.”

Michurin widely used distant hybridization to obtain new varieties of fruit and berry plants.

This method was discovered by him.

And not only discovered, but also developed, in time understanding his prospects.

It is required, for example, to get a frost-resistant pear, based on the tender bere-royal variety. It would seem that you need to cross a cultivar with a local pear, which is found in the wild right here near Kozlov. However, Michurin took a wild pear is not the one that grew near Kozlov. He took a wild pear from a very remote area, for example, from the Ussuri region. The local wild pear, he believed, is so well adapted to its local climate that, when crossed with a cultivar, it will begin in the offspring not only to transmit its frost resistance, but also to suppress all other valuable cultural qualities of the pearl "bere royal". “The farther apart are the pairs of crossed plant-producers at their place of birth and their working conditions,” Michurin wrote, “the easier hybrid seedlings adapt to the environmental conditions in the new locality.”

In parallel, Michurin used a hybridization of plants that are quite remote and systematic in their relationship, that is, they interbreed various species and even genera, for example, cherry and bird cherry, peach and almond, pear and quince. With such a crossing, the hereditary systems of the plant in the process of the generation of offspring are deeply rebuilt and receive a particularly flexible and flexible character. There are many strong hereditary deviations, among which you can choose the most valuable for practice.

Having accumulated thousands of hybrid seedlings, Michurin came to the conclusion that, in order to develop more frost-resistant varieties, it is necessary to transfer the experiments to a plot with worse soils. For this, he acquired a plot in the Donskoy settlement near Kozlov, with alluvial sandy soil. By 1900, he transferred there all his seedlings. And here he worked already until his death.

Michurin repeatedly proposed to the department of agriculture that his experimental plot be taken over by the state. There should be at least one state institution in Russia where it would be possible to carry out work on hybridization, he pointed out. But the officials remained indifferent, and representatives of the scientific world, whom Michurin did not in vain call caste priests of boltology in vain, treated Michurin at best condescendingly.

However, Michurin always worked for.

In 1911 and in 1913, for example, he flatly refused the lucrative offers of representatives of the US Department of Agriculture to move to continue his work in America or to sell his collections to Americans. The Americans offered Michurin for transporting seedlings a separate steamer from Windawa to Washington and a salary of $ 8,000 a year. The interest in Michurin shown by foreign experts turned out to be so noticeable that the Russian government urgently awarded Michurin of the 3rd degree for “merits in the agricultural field”.

“... All my way to the revolution,” wrote Michurin, “was lined with ridicule, neglect, oblivion. Before the revolution, my hearing was always offended by an ignorant judgment about the uselessness of my works, that all my works are “undertakings,” “nonsense.” Department officials shouted at me: “Don't you dare!”. State scientists declared my hybrids "illegitimate." Priests threatened: "Do not blaspheme! Do not turn the garden of God into a house of tolerance! "(This is how they characterized hybridization)."

After the revolution, Michurin himself appeared in the county land department and declared his firm desire to work for the new government.

Michurin was not mistaken, he was supported.

“Due to the fact that the Michurin Fruit Nursery at Donskoy Sloboda in the amount of 9 acres, according to documentary information in the Commissariat, is the only one in Russia for brooding new varieties of fruit plants,” said a special decision adopted by the Commissariat of Agriculture, recognizing the nursery as inviolable, leaving him temporarily, before being transferred to the Central Committee, for the county Commissariat, to notify the relevant parish and local councils. Michurin should be granted the right to use the nursery in the amount of 9 acres and ask him to continue his useful work for the state at his own discretion. To produce works to issue a benefit in the amount of 3,000 rubles. "

All-Union elder M. I. Kalinin visited Michurin several times in Kozlov.  Academician N. I Vavilov, through the business manager of the Council of People's Commissars N. P. Gorbunov, informed Lenin about the importance of the work of the Kozlov gardener. In the end, the Soviet state took over the nursery and appointed Michurin as head, creating extremely favorable conditions for his work. Michurin was allocated funds, scientific equipment, provided the necessary personnel.

In 1928, on the basis of the nursery, a breeding-genetic station of fruit and berry crops named after I. Michurin was established.

In 1931, an industrial training center was organized there, which included: a state farm garden on an area of ​​over 3,500 hectares, the Central Research Institute for Northern Horticulture and a new higher education institution - the Institute for Breeding Berry Crops. The task of all these institutions was the development of Michurin’s teaching, the introduction of his experience into practice, the creation of new varieties of fruit and berry plants, the development of issues related to horticulture farming, the scientific training of specialists, the management of numerous zonal stations and strong points.

All his life Michurin was associated with many gardeners, scientists and collective farmers. He led extensive correspondence, appeared in print, gave advice. Without ever leaving his hometown, he seemed to travel throughout the Soviet Union, and indeed throughout the world, receiving seeds and seedlings from Canada, Japan, Central Asia, the Crimea, France, England, from the northern tundras, from Manchuria and Japan.

“I experienced three kings and I work in the seventeenth year under a socialist system,” wrote Michurin in 1934. - I moved from one world to another, which is diametrically opposed to the past. These two worlds divide the abyss.

It is possible to see from the following.

Throughout my many years of work on the improvement of fruit plants under the tsars, I did not use any wages for my work, much less any subsidies or allowances from the royal treasury. I did the business as best I could with my personal money; he constantly struggled with poverty and endured all sorts of hardships in silence and never asked for benefits from the treasury.

Several times, following the advice of prominent figures of gardening, I sent my reports to the Department of Agriculture, in which I tried to clarify the importance and the need to improve and replenish our range of fruit plants, but nothing came out of these reports.

I met the October Revolution for granted, historically necessary for its justice and inevitability, and immediately appealed to all honest agricultural specialists to go to the side of Soviet power and unconditionally follow the path of the working class and its party. And to those who argued, “that it is better to use the old than to strive for the unknown new,” I then replied: “one cannot cling to a part when the whole is uncontrollably striving forward. And already in 1918 I transferred to the service in the People's Commissariat as its representative, and in 1919 my nursery was declared with my full sincere consent to state ownership. ”

The main scientific and practical task of his business Michurin considered replenishing the assortment of fruit plants of central Russia and advancing the growth of southern crops to the north. When breeding new varieties, he attached great importance to the selection of producers and never forgot to indicate that the breeder is required to thoroughly study the properties and qualities of each variety or plant species chosen for the role of the producer. He stressed that even the age of the parent plants of the same variety or species significantly affects the quality of hybrid offspring: for example, older trees more fully convey inherited traits than the young ones. “When compiling combinations of pairs of plants for crossing,” Michurin wrote, “the role of the mother should be placed on individuals with comparatively better qualities, since the mother plant always transfers more fully its features to the hybrid.”

Michurin considered hybridization as a means for obtaining a new form combining the characteristics and properties of a parent pair, and at the same time as a means of loosening the fixed heredity of the plant. Michurin has repeatedly pointed out that with the production of hybrid seeds, the work of the breeder does not end at all, but on the contrary, it is just beginning. Environmental conditions, he believed, are the main factor determining the hereditary qualities of the resulting plant.

Michurin was attentive to the work of biologists.

It is not his fault that the so-called Michurin doctrine became the banner of the group of scientists who considered themselves the only right - the real materialists, the real Marxists. However, he himself wrote: “Science and, in particular, its specific area - natural science - is inextricably linked with philosophy, but since the human world view is manifested in philosophy, it is therefore one of the tools of the class struggle. Party spirit and philosophy are the main orienting moment. The structure of things determines the structure of ideas. ”

In 1932, the city of Kozlov, in honor of the great Russian gardener, was renamed Michurinsk. Michurin himself was awarded the Order of Lenin and the Order of the Red Banner of Labor.

"... My health is still in a tolerable state," he wrote to his student P. N. Yakovlev. - If at times the attacks of various senile ailments are exacerbated, then this is an inevitable phenomenon during my 77 years. The trouble is that I sit in one place. No exercise. People's Commissariat suddenly had a fantasy to appoint me a salary of 1,000 rubles. a month, which I did not want at all and, of course, immediately appealed against the request to repeal such an order or at least reduce it to at least 500 rubles, but was refused, motivated by the fact that the government could not pay me less than 1000 rubles . in view of the need to improve my financial situation. "

Rejecting the well-known thesis that you could not imagine a better nature, Michurin brought out more than three hundred new varieties of fruit and berry plants. The names of the varieties bred by them sound like music. Apples - “saffron pepin”, “belfleur-kitaika”, “champagne-kitaika”, “slav”, “Antonovka shestiotramramovaya”, pears - “bere winter”, “beauty of the north”, plums - “green leaves thorny”, “green leaves collective farm” "," Renclod Reform ", grapes -" Northern White "," Russian Concord ", Rowan -" dessert ", raspberry" Texas "and many, many others.

In 1934, summing up the results of his work, Michurin wrote:

“... They call me a spontaneous dialectician, an empiricist, a deducteur.

Without going into reasoning - these epithets are correct or incorrect, I consider it a duty to say that I began my works in 1875, during the time of the remnants of serfdom, at the dawn of Russian capitalism, when there was not only science like genetics (she and it is now only being formed), which should be organically connected with breeding, when there was no scientific fruit-growing at all (the department of fruit-growing was established for the first time in 1915), when all Russian science was clothed in Alexander's uniform. In short, I had no precedent for the scientific formulation of the breeding of new varieties of fruit and berry plants. Before me there was not even any serious experience of others. I saw only one thing - the poverty of Central Russian fruit growing in general and the poverty of the range in particular, which is unusual for other countries and for our south.

I sadly observed the poverty of our fruit growing, despite the exceptional importance of this branch of agriculture, and then I came to the conclusion that the horticulture of average and especially northern Russia remained immemorial from time immemorial, not moving a single step forward, using only that which accidentally fell under hand, despite the fact that many centuries have passed, and Western European countries and America have gone far ahead in this area along the path of progress of their crops and raising their yields.

“What do we have in the gardens of the wider terrain of central Russia?” I said then. Everywhere and everywhere, some traditional Antonovs, anisies, borovinki, terentevki and similar archaeological antiquities appear - it is in apple trees, and in pears, cherries and plums and even less, some favorite seedless seeds, thin rivulets of summer ripening, cherry cherry, semi-cultural prunes, wild turn Only occasionally, in several places in small quantities in the gardens were several varieties of rennet of foreign origin were interspersed. The body of these varieties has long become obsolete, has become frail and painful and has lost its resistance, being easily exposed to various diseases and suffering from pests for a long time.

The sad picture of the former Russian gardening caused in me a painfully keen desire to redo it all, to influence the nature of plants in a different way, and this desire turned into my special, now well-known principle: “We cannot wait for favors from nature; to take them from her is our task. ” But without having any precedents in the field of scientific research in the early stages of my work, I was forced to act intuitively, and a little later - to turn to the deductive method. I set myself two bold tasks: to replenish the range of mid-range fruit and berry plants with outstanding yields and quality varieties and move the growth line of southern crops far to the north. ”

In 1935, Michurin was elected an honorary member of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR, and in 1935 - a full member of the All-Union Academy of Agricultural Sciences. V.I. Lenin. Sometimes he was compared with the famous American fruit grower Luther Burbank, but Michurin did not like and did not accept this comparison, although he respected the work of Burbank. Even at an old age, Michurin responded to all the activities related to the development of technically necessary crops in the country — tau-sagyz, cotton, efironos, cork and tung trees. Even Michurin grew tobacco for himself, and he stuffed cigarettes himself at leisure. He constantly met with various delegations, gave advice and advice. In this case, with each person he tried to speak the most ordinary language, not complicated by special terminology. In his diary it is written: “... In all conversations with tourists, and in all descriptive articles one should if possible avoid using various difficultly understandable scientific terms, most used by different authors for the sole purpose of showing their scholarship, but in fact always goes that such persons least of all have real knowledge. ”

At the request of his countrymen, he was buried in the central square of Michurinsk, the former Kozlov, the city in which his whole life passed.