CHAPTER 3 - The Building of the Agricultural Station at Atlit
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Aron at the Jewish Agricultural Experiment Station, 1910 |
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| Aron Supervises the Surveying of the Station |
Two years later, the most severe critics ‘are dumbfounded’ at Aron’s successes. The Arabs consider the results ‘miraculous’ but blame the successes not on the hoe or the plough but on Allah’s bountiful munificence.
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| Avenue of Palm Trees at the Station at Atlit |
Should visitors travelling along the coastal highway near Atlit chance to drive on that littoral road their first view would be ‘the Botanist’s Palms’ - two neat rows of tall palm trees disappearing into the distance. Trees which remain a living monument to the life and sacrifice of my very dear friend and mentor. They lead from the town of Atlit on the coast, to the agricultural experimental station he helped found below Zikhron Ya’acov. The trees, still live, Californian Fan Palms, and are close to ninety years old. The head of the Jewish Agricultural Experiment Station near Haifa, is of course, none other than Aron Aronson, that dearest colleague and master of your truly. He made what is considered one of the greatest contributions to agronomy and botany in the pre State Yishuv.
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| Avshalom & Aron Walk Among the Palms |
And here I began working as his assistant. A close friendship developed between us, despite a thirteen-year age difference and many differences of temperament. I also formed close bonds with Aron's family, befriending dear Rifka and my beloved Sara.
With the help of influential Jewish leaders and philanthropists - of which more later - he raised funds for the establishment of that agricultural experiment station at Atlit and established the first American-type research laboratory in the Levant. Louis Marshall, one of America’s most influential Jewish Communal leaders considered Aron a a new type of pioneer, a Renaissance man saying, ‘he has certainly made a conquest of me.’ After a few days Marshall and Aron raised $20,000 for the agricultural station. However, for the Research Station’s approval Aron needed to guarantee outside funding for five years and obtain American incorporation. Marshall was instrumental in incorporating the Atlit Station in New York. The money issue was more vexing, but would eventually be overcome. Its opening was noteworthy enough to be reported in the prestigious journal ‘Science’.
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| Mrs. Henrietta Szold Trustee at Atlit |
During his first U.S. visit, Aron also met Henrietta Szold, founder of Hadassah who had long been active in Zionist Affairs. Shortly after meeting Aron, she arrived in Palestine and visited Aron’s family in Zichron Ya’akov, a two day trip from Jerusalem. Following her visit, the remarkable Szold became a trustee of the Experiment Station.
The Station was established with the goal of developing Jewish agriculture in the Holy Land. Its successes would defy all criticism. Its clandestine dramas during the Great War would be condemned by many. Its disappearance would be one of the greatest tragedies of the Land.
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The invaluable archive of minutes, documents and letters exchanged between Aron and the American trustees makes for interesting reading. Aron’s reports to his sponsors of activities up to December 1911 describes the early work which takes place at the newly built Station and the many obstacles and problems of what Aron calls ‘our backward country’ where the means of communication are ‘very bad or non existant’. ‘We have neither the telegram nor the telephone to connect our various centres of activity.’ This necessitates long journeys by horseback on often impassable roads.
Wild Wheat and - the famous Triticum dicoccum of Mount Hermon as well as ancient barley are the first crops to be grown in that stony soil for reserach into hybridisation with modern cultivated cereals.
The documents also give Aron a voice, his own voice, in his own words, which comes through loud and clear, irascible and patient by turn, just as I remember him.
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| Aron's Report of December 1911 |
The first report of December 1911 begins: ‘Human nature demands immediate results but scientific investigations by there very nature are long and arduous.’
Indeed nature’s results cannot be rushed or hastened. ‘Ripeness is all’, as the great Bard said. We petty humans must accept the natural cycle of life and death, enduring life's journey until death comes at its own natural time, like fruit falling from a tree when ready.
The master continues: ‘We began last spring with the hybridisation of Chamouti oranges with other varieties such as mandarin.’
It is here that Aron mentions for the first time my role in the research. Despite my inexperience and lack of proper training, I am a quick learner:
‘These hybridiations have been conducted for the greater part by Mr. Avshalom Feinberg, our young foreman who works at the Hedera nursery, a sub-station of the Atlit Station.’
The same young foreman gets his hands dirty in the soil and despite not beginning with green fingers, is soon less green. He runs the Hedera nursery and is sent on regular research and plant collections to Judea, Damascus, Hermon and Lebanon from which as the master confirms with the royal pronoun:
‘We brought back a very abundant scientific harvest... of numerous herbarium and geological specimens... I hasten to say that these hybridisations have been wholly successful.’
These journeys result in the harvesting of three hundred cross-fertilised seeds which are subsequently germinated and planted out. Many by yours truly and my Arab workers in our fledgling nursery.
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| Rifka & Sara with Wild Almond Trees, Prune, Cherry and Pear |
A forest of wild almond trees, wild prune, cherry and pear for grafting with our local specimens will soon decorate our hillside with a crown of green and gold. Two nymphs, pretty Jewish maidens, will grace these sylvan groves. The first is Aron’s sister Rifka who, in the master’s words, ‘has aided us greatly in the delicate work of hybridisation which demands great devotion and patience such as women are capable of giving.’
Yes, Rifka’s delicate hands, her feminine wiles and subtle craft, are well remembered by me. But it is of Sara’s quiet presence, both reassuring and mysterious, that this narrative will talk and which my too emotional heart will forever remember.
Aron is a rationalist, an empiricist, a scientist, captivated by the magic of botanical research, and his reports appear to me to be the best way to conjure his mercurial temperament from the darkness.
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The master mentions in his copious messages to his sponsors but notably to Mrs. Henriette Szold, a list of fellow institutions which give invaluable help - in England Alwyn Berger of Harbury Gardens who donates a thousand precious seeds and in Italy the famous La Mortala seed depository under the guidance of Englishman Thomas Hanbury, does the same, sending hundreds of seed packets to the botanical gardens of the world.
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| Jardin d'Essais, Tunis |
In Tunis there is Mr. Guillochon of the Jardin d'Essais, ‘who not only has presented us with seeds but has also enriched our library with the latest works on Tunisian horticulture.’ From Algeria, Doctor Trahut, also makes valuable contributions. In Marseilles, Professor Heckel, ‘presents us with a collection of one hundred and seventy-three lots of wheat.’ The Natural History Museum in Paris and the Berlin ‘King’s Botanical Garden’ follow suit with more generosity, as do seed specialists in Minnesota and Arizona. Aron promises to honour their kindness by reciprocal donation of Palestinian seeds. A perfect cross-fertilisation, you could call it.
Many of these seeds are sowed in the fields at Atlit after germination at Hedera. Others are stored in the herbarium. A repository of botanical history never before seen in our land.
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Aron complains of the huge amount of inquiries and post - nearly a thousand letter arrive and nearly five hundred have been dispatched, all of these under Aron’s personal hand with some help from a single secretary. On occasion, I am called upon to augment this work and to give the master a chance to go into the field in habitual scuffed boots and battered khaki hat. The correspondence is in four languages - Hebrew, French, English and German and for the first of these, as Aron writes: ‘we have no typewriter and the letters must be written and copied by hand.’ But the amount of post is ‘one-tenth of the overall applications and inquiries’.
There are difficulties too, in recruiting staff - there is no shortage of intelligent, educated young Jews who want to be farmers - and their attentive and pushy parents who desire gainful employment for their still unformed youngsters - but few are prepared to work for the very small salaries and long hours the Station’s budget permits.
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| Mr. Avshalom Feinberg Foreman at Atlit |
Aron mentions again, that ‘Among those homebred assistants is Mr. Avshalom Feinberg’ - Despite the formality of the ‘Mister’, Aron never called me anything but ‘Absa’, a childhood pet name used by my dearest mother and sisters. I should add that my paltry salary seemed infinitely rich when I considered my role in the work of growing our country’s essential agriculture and food supply - and recalled my long sorrows in the preceding years when the weight of the world fell heavy on me.
The public, particularly the Yishuv farmers, so recently opposed to the Station now attend illustrated lectures: ‘Not only men, but also women and children, come to them’, as Aron recounts. A statement that reminds one of The Book of Joshua which explicitly states that when Joshua read the Law of Moses to the Israelites, the entire assembly was present - men, women, and children. The synagogue in Hedera makes its lecture hall available for talks. Aron bemoans the fact that he would appreciate ‘even one person who could replace me as lecturer!’. I may have offered - but despite his words Aron preferred to be in charge of the dissemination of all information. Perhaps he considered me too young and impulsive? He was, what you would call a demanding workaholic, and a didact of note; nothing passed his eye or ear. A very strict master indeed.
He writes rather stiffly: ‘I am still the only person at the Station, who is able to superintend the various departments and am very busy with the work of organisation.’
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| Ploughman at Rehovot |
Aron bemoans the paucity of agricultural implements, Arab ones are poor and inadequate, European ones are not designed for the rough conditions of Palestine. A cholera epidemic imposes a quarantine on the country resulting in the import of suitable American machines from the Mid West, being delayed due to the embargo.
At the same time, the fame of the Station grows. Being easily accessible from the Haifa/Jaffa highway, itinerant travellers, the lay passer by as well as the professional all want to ‘pop in’ for a visit. The existing buildings at Atlit have few suitable public spaces for display or gatherings and no spare sleeping spaces. ‘However, we hope, very soon to be able to remedy the insufficiency of our quarters.’ There are other matters that require attention - permits from the Ottoman authorities to build new structures, still not passed, ‘harassing delays’ and considerable expense because of these delays. Some farmers accuse Aron of ‘exclusiveness’ despite his expression of establishing good relations with neighbours. Ottoman Customs must sometimes be bribed as is the way in the Levant, to let in the growing number of botanical samples. But Aron seeks to reassure his sponsors that all is as well as may be expected in so short a time. He is inordinately proud of his Natural Sciences library, ‘the only one in the whole of the Ottoman Empire’, the composite of magnificent gifts of books from the US Department of Agriculture’ and other American institutes such as the Smithsonian - forty four boxes of books, to be exact, delivered to Haifa Port - as well as Aron’s own purchases. A young librarian will be sought and a complete catalogue made - when the funds are available.
This particular report concludes with the necessary and heartfelt thanks to all the sponsors and an open invitation ‘we venture to express the hope that if one or another of our Trustees be inclined in the near future, to honour us with a visit, he would not be disappointed by what he should find.’
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On February 11th 1912 our leader writes to Mrs. Szold that the works on all important drainage has been completed: ‘The canals are almost finished and the marsh has disappeared completely, the road is improved, fencing is all but finished awaiting only a coat of paint’. He mentions too, the shortage of fodder due to the poor rains and most importantly the planting of just grown almond and pear trees which is cause for much celebration by both of us.
At all times, Aron presents both obstacles and progress, knowing the latter is what interests the Trustees the most.
He sweetens this missive with a description of the ornamental plants grown at the Station: ‘Several avenues and borders have been set out’ with sweet scented rose bushes, myrtles and acacias’.
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| Rifka's Sweet Scented Rose Bushes |
These are Aron’s personal favourites and Rifka aids him in their choice and in the design of the beds and avenues. Labour is Arab, though Yemenite Jews will soon join their number.
Sara does not visit the Station much. She would like to do more but the mother is ill, and her place is at home. After her mother’s death in January of this year, she prefers to stay at home caring for her father until Aron persuades her to go to Europe for a break from her sorrows.
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| Aron's Report of February 19 1912 |
The reports of February 19th and 26th 1912, worry about the dryness of the land and the joy of rainfall when it comes in a heavy outburst. The olive trees breathe a sigh of relief and the almond and other deciduous fruits, reward us with the first, tiny, stone fruits.
‘Today it is raining again - 8.5 millimetres - and the rain is still coming down.’
Mulberry trees are sought and planted. Aron has an abiding interest in silk and buys suitable worms for the project. Rifka is put in charge of their nurture and habitat and even spins some golden silk thread for her embroidery. Aron foresees an industry growing from our precious worms, one which has ‘the advantage of giving agreeable and easy occupation to women and children’. The mulberry trees are not just for the future weaving of silk but their leaves will be useful for fodder and as they are so fast growing, will quickly provide shade for other crops as well as delicious, juicy mulberries for the pies and preserves our mothers and sisters make in our rather rudimentary kitchens.
The planting continues, in the master’s word: ‘Beside the mulberry trees we have planted other things during the past week, notably the pomegranate, quince trees and even pineapples.’
Yes, pineapples, though they don’t do very well. Granadillas or passion fruit are a compete failure. More trees are sought for our small plot of paradise. Aron’s words: ‘The crowning event of the week was the arrival of the fruit and ornamental trees bought in the south of France.’
These are brought to us by Sam Aronson, Aron’s brother, a wheeler dealer who moves between Washington and Palestine, an ‘entrepreneur’ who is an expert at arranging customs’ approval at the port, sometimes sweetened with a little gift of our home-grown fruit or preserves for the appreciative ‘douanier’.
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Aron’s reports continue apace always seeking to emphasise our aims for our good Trustees and sponsors.
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| Aron's Report of March 6th 1912 |
He writes with great excitement and some pride from that letterhead, Jewish Agricultural Experiment Station, Haifa, Palestine March 6th 1912:
‘Last Friday, on the first of the month, the Station enjoyed the privilege of welcoming the first Americans, who are happy to see our progress. These guests included Mr. and Mrs. Nathan Straus and Rabbi Dr. and Mrs. Magnes.
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| Frida Lulu Housekeeper at Atlit |
They arrived unexpectedly and our housekeeper Mrs Lulu is quickly enlisted to make beds and prepare a tasty meal. I would have liked to have more time for them but we were in the thick of work and this was not fully possible.’
As I recall - the letter that might have announced these important visitors having been delayed - the master summoned me urgently to take on this not very onerous task and I was most happy to oblige.
The guests admired everything. The freshness of our produce, even Mrs Lulu’s cooking, which is basic at best - the view to the sea and the omnipresent greenery, a great gift in our arid land. Nathan Straus was kind enough to go so far as to exclaim with loud admiration at the results of our hard toil and daily endeavours and the ladies were besides themselves at what they called ‘our little Garden of Eden’! A cigar was enjoyed between our master and Mr. Straus, though I declined the offering preferring my hand roll-ups.
After such excitement Mrs Lulu declared she would take off a day to recover. Aron decided our number needed augmenting and another secretary who could take care of new guests was sought.
Meanwhile the master and I had our hands full with a delivery of vines - forty two varieties for wine and fifty five for table grapes. All of them grafted on American root stock. A fitting symbol of our hopes. It must be admitted that Aron is less interested in the future vintage than the scientific and economic value of our work, but I await a glass of that ruby-red nectar with some anticipation.
But the real result of the visit is to garner more funds. Doctor Magnes spends two more days with us and having seen everything in detail, examines at Aron’s request our account books. These pass muster and the master and I breathe a sigh of relief.
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| Aron & Absa at the Nursery at Hedera |
We go then to the nursery at Hedera where many of our plants grow and again, Doctor Magnes is astounded at our progress.
Aron is satisfied that the good Doctor’s opinion on returning home will be more valuable than any of our reports in persuading our sponsors to increase their generosity.
More Yankee visitors follow: Doctor Steinbach, a Mr. Fernberger - and the ladies accompanying them - all are most sincere Zionists and supporters of ‘the Return to the Land’ - just as long as they can stay comfortably at home in America!
Aron writes that it was ‘my agreeable duty to put myself at their disposal, a duty which became even more agreeable when I saw how thoroughly Jewish, Doctor Steinbach is... It is a true comfort to us to see our efforts appreciated, or at least understood.’
Other visitors from our own colonies, not to be outdone, want to visit too. Mr. Frank who is chief agricultural inspector in Jerusalem and Mr. Rosenhoek, administrator at Haifa and Tiberius,
Mr Frank’s visit comes at the behest of Baron de Rothschild who has urged him to report on our successes and is particularly interested in our hybridisation strategy. Mr. Frank seems impressed and gifts the station a parcel of about four acres of land under his jurisdiction which lies just to the south of our ‘meshek’ - or plot - and will enable the final bit of stubborn swamp to be drained.
Another visitor, a curious chap, who goes by the even more curious name of ‘Colonel Baron de Porcelli’ and who calls himself ‘a tourist with a holy mission’, declares that he will be happy to describe the work at the Station when he is back in England and will present his findings to the London press!
Aron writes with a mixture of pride and exasperation of the next load of ‘tourists’: ‘During the week of Passover, our colonists are in the habit of going on excursions and taking with picnics. Atlit became the goal of their outings. On Thursday the 4th of the month, we counted eighty-six such visitors - fathers, mothers of families and a number of young men and girls. We consider it our duty to give every visitor a detailed explanation of our aims and a tour of the grounds, but we shall certainly need a special guide if this is to continue!’
Mrs Lulu’s consternation becomes obvious when the twentieth person requires water and toilet facilities and Aron’s displeasure is barely contained when two children and a dog run amok through a bed of new lettuce seedlings.
Others come as farmers and are inspired by our activities and are less troublesome, though Aron privately accuses them of snooping...
Aron writes again to Mrs. Szold: ‘I am at present preparing two special reports on parts of our work during the past few months. One is on viticulture, the other on horticulture’ and he requests that Mrs. Szold will be good enough to disseminate then with as much publicity as possible.
Mrs. Szold is indeed, a supporter of note, also a good friend of Aron’s, she is also very exacting and sometimes out of touch with the difficulties on the ground.
She is interested in the export of Palestinian olive oil to the United States, seeing a large market there. Aron explains that our oil does not - yet - compare with that of Italy or Southern France. Filtering and bottling still in its infancy, much of our ‘liquid gold’ goes rancid if not quickly imbibed - the sea jorney would make this probability an actuality! Still Aron obliges and obtains a bottle of our own pressing, one from the Arabs of an adjacent village and the third from Safad: ‘a region celebrated for the abundance and quality of its oils’. He will send the samples and instruction for cooking and would love to know what the dear lady thinks.
Aron now comes to the point. He is ‘surprised and annoyed to learn that our accounts for February and March have not yet been received by you’ - that is Mrs. Szold. ‘They were dispatched in the early days of April, and should have been in your hands long ago. Fearing that these documents might have been destroyed in the Titanic disaster, I hastened to have copies made for you.’
He ends with the all important: ‘As you have properly supposed, we are in need of money.’
So our ship avoids the icebergs that lie ahead.
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| The Disasters of the Month of May 1912 |
But more problems are upon us, as Aron writes: ‘The month of May presented most exceptional climatic conditions, ill-timed rains, harmful siroccos - the ‘Hamsin’ as we call these winds - in short, conditions far from satisfactory for agriculture. Rust diseases, noxious insect pests ravaging the fields, our experimental fields planted with the chick-pea have been exposed to attack by corn moths. Some fields at the feet of Carmel have been completely destroyed. In addition, strong sea winds charged with salt have coated what remains of the wheat! Much of our new plantations of vines, mulberries etc. have been devastated by the caterpillars of a cut worm. The leaves of the vines and the mulberry trees have been completely eaten off, a very serious thing, especially for young plants. Fortunately manual labour is always available and we will have the caterpillars plucked off by hand by Arab women and children. Our chemist is currently working on new pesticides under my supervision so we hope for a solution in the proper time.
On the positive side our field of wheat and barley were harvested before this attack. Lucerne planted earlier was also harvested timeously and is providing good fodder for our cattle.’
Sesame too, is planted by hand after the early rains and is, in Aron’s words: ‘a complete success.’
American implements are increasingly used, ‘The Planet Junior’ small hoes are used by our Yemenite workmen at Hedera, an indispensable tool where ‘a man does five times as much work as he does with the mattock or pick axe’.
Aron writes to Mrs. Szold of a trip to Tiberius, accompanied by ever eager Rifka who collects the samples and brings them back to the Station for classification, ‘A collection of plants that will enrich our herbarium’, though there is so much stuff that we don’t know where to put it all as we lack space for classifying all these treasures.
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| American Backers, Julius Rosenwald, Jacob Schiff and Nathan Straus |
The Trustees in New York include, Rabbi Doctor J.L. Magnus who will reappear in our story, more than once, sponsor, Mr. Nathan Straus, worthy Doctors Adler, Schiff and already mentioned Dr. Magnus, Professor Morrie Loeb, Mr’s. Paul Warburg, Seligman, Marshall and Rosenwald and Judge Mack. Mrs Szold writes that all are suitably impressed with our reports and more so when they attend a talk illustrated by Aron’s own photographs which have been supplied by young Sam Aronson who lives currently in America and whom Mrs. Szold has taken under her wing, and is a useful conduit for our efforts. A ‘Blickensderfer’ Hebrew typewriter is promised, but the offer is replaced by a newer Hammond one which has a reversible carriage and enables one to use any language, whether from right to left or vice versa. The trustees promise that in a few days it will be sent, equipped with an interchangeable Hebrew, French and English shuttle. Everyone is very enthusiastic about the work including those - waspish non Jews - at the Department of Agriculture in Washington.
A brochure is requested from Aron for publication and further dissemination in the United States - the trustees consider that Aron’s saga and the work of the Station requires ‘popularisation’ and the letter ends: ‘My very cordial regards, yours most truly’ and is signed by the inestimable Mrs. Henrietta Szold.
Three years have passed since the opening of the Experimental Staion and Aron admits to Mrs. Szold that he is ‘terrified by our financial situation.’ The cost of living in Palestine has gone through the roof ‘it is not possible to do with ten thousand dollars what one might have done five years ago’ -and although Aron hates to go down on one knee, he is forced to beg for more money, a painful situation as he admits ruefully.
And he ends by requesting an additional type shuttle - in Arabic - for the promised typewriter and promises to send new photographs and a biennial report covering the years 1910 to 1912.
On a more personal note, he adds: ‘I am somewhat worn out and feel the need of getting away from my work here for a little while. Deprived as we are here, of the pleasures of home life, lacking in fact all opportunities for recreation, we necessarily are completely absorbed by our business. We have no ‘office hours’ and, as I personally do not feel the need for more than five hours sleep, I am at work, as a rule from five o’clock in the morning until midnight’.
After conducting his annual summer lecture course to local agriculture students - ‘anything but a restful occupation’ - Aron plans to go to his old friends in Hamburg or Berlin, and ‘will take this opportunity to go too to England’ and in this capacity he requests a few letters of introduction and gives his forwarding address as: Doctor S. Soskin, Hansa Street, 63, 1, Hamburg.
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| Dr. Selig Soskin & Theodor Herzl |
Dr. Selig Evgenii Soskin is the editor of the Zionist paper ‘Altneuland’, a monthly journal, named after Theodor Herzl’s utopian novel. The newspaper is edited and published in Berlin with Aron’s botanical, colleague Professor Otto Warburg. Warburg and Aron have much in common.
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| Professor Dr. Otto Warburg |
Otto is a staunch Zionist, long time president of the Zionist Organisation. He has studied
botany, chemistry and zoology and visited India, Ceylon, Java, China and the Philippines in search of rare plants and orchids He donates his collection to the botanical museum of Berlin. However, as he is a Jew he will not be
appointed full professor and so he turns his attention to that ‘Ancient, New Land’ of Palestine. Both Warburg and Soskin are on the ‘Commission for the Exploration of Palestine’. Warburg’s first trip to Palestine had collected detailed information about plants, water and climate, for the purpose of practical settlement. It was on this trip that Warburg met his future protégé our own Aron. The idea was to introduce the notion of the garden city - ‘Gartenstädte’ into Palestine. Soskin himself had studied agronomy in Berlin and Rostock and was an expert on colonial practices, including German colonisation and he advocated their implementation in Palestine in the form of an agricultural experiment station. The future station was to become the main meteorological station in the Jewish settlements. According to Warburg, Aron’s discovery of wild emmer in Palestine demonstrated that the land was the ‘cradle of agriculture’.
To facilitate trade between Germany and Palestine, Aron’s German friends, together with local Jewish businessmen in Palestine, created a Hamburg-based company in joint venture with the Jewish Colonial Trust. The aim was to create a new Jew rooted in agriculture and free of economic dependency on philanthropy. The wish was that Palestine could once again become ‘God’s garden’ - that is, if the population ‘were to be awakened from its slumber’ by European culture. Soskin added to this conclusion that since there were not enough people to fully cultivate the land, the Jews could fill that gap as a ‘new vigorous cultural element’. Part of his agricultural research was conducted in collaboration with Aron, with whom he became firm friends while in Zikhron Ya’acov.
As to Aron’s exhaustion, this robust man had many things on his mind, not just the shortage of money - but the internal divisions in the colonies - as one might expect, when one man is perceived as having more power than others and is resented for that fact. The first issue is that of the so-called ‘Health Bureau’ where a Dr. Bruhn has been put in charge of the bacteriological investigations regarding the omnipresent threat of malaria; an appointment that angers many of the other notable physicians of the land who feel slighted by being by Bruhn’s having been preferred to them. One of these men is Dr. Hillel Yaffee who Aron accuses with others, rather shockingly, of ‘concocting a plot against me that amounts to a cabal.’ He hastens to add that despite such a conspiracy, ‘fighting has never held any terrors for me.’
Fighting will indeed ensue when Dr. Bruhn involves himself with ‘rather invidious negotiations with some of his German friends’ and neither Aron nor the Trustees have much love for the Germans or for interference from that quarter.
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The Baron & Various Land Purchasing Companies |
The second issue, a more dangerous one, is the competition with the society known as the ‘Agudat Netaim’ or by its other name ‘The Ottoman Society for Commerce, Industry and Agriculture’, with a Mr. A. Hisenberg at its head. A man whom Aron accuses of having no training as an agronomist and lacking even the most elementary education. The society has been responsible for planting oranges on the dunes - in Aron’s opinion an irresponsible act which endangers the shifting sand dunes natural migration and causes erosion. The society Agudat Netaim requests technical advice from the Station which despite Aron’s natural antipathy at this perceived competition, must be honoured. Five thousand francs, annually is requested for this help, an amount that they are loathe to pay.
The third pressing concern is the Baron Edmond de Rothschild’s JCA - the ‘Jewish Colonial Association’ under the command of the high-handed Mr. Henri Frank - which owns more land that it needs and does not farm any of it with the high standards Aron expects and which acts as a discouragement to many of the already settled farmers who see no benefit in it. Aron’s scorn for the administration of the JCA is rooted in his past unhappy experiences and in his present perception of their neglect of infrastructure development of roads, water and sewer systems.
Aron again talks of his desire to visit Berlin with his new findings on sesame propagation as well as to pursue his lifelong passion to see Kew Gardens in England to compare his material with the Kew herbarium.
He is overwhelmed with work, more troubles with parasites, on the orange trees here and at Jaffa - ‘eleven hours at the microscope with in the course of two days were necessary as supplementary work’.
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| Letter from the Station Bookkeeper S. Levy of Haifa |
The Station bookkeeper Mr S. Levy in Haifa continues to keep the accounts in a large ledger and the receipts in a large overflowing box. The financial statements are regularly sent on to the trustees in New York, they are thorough and honest, but there are discrepancies with American bookkeeping practice and some figures are counted twice, others not at all. The bottom line is that there is never enough money for all that needs doing and the financial situation is dire: salaries, upkeep, rent for the nursery at Hedera and other places, the constant travel for scientific expeditions which enrich the library and herbarium, a new chemist, an entomologist specialising in pest control, and the impossibility of sustaining the workers on the current budget - a sentiment for which I can vouch personally.
Aron writes: ‘If our Trustees find no way of aiding us to solve our difficulties, we shall be able to do nothing more than vegetate and we shall have great difficulty in keeping abreast of our programme’.
The trustees are alarmed at Aron’s words and hurry to arrange more funding. Aron writes to Mrs. Szold that he very grateful for her personal intervention.
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| Aron's Letter of August 12, 1912 |
He ends his missive of August 12, 1912, with his projected trip to Europe. A trip which he proposes to commence very soon - his ‘voyage de vacance’, as he calls it, to London, Berlin and Hamburg, though as ever with the master there is to be no actual holiday. He visits first Marseilles where he disembarks on September 1st, then to Montpellier to visit the School of Agriculture there but finds the faculty is away on summer vacation. Then to Lausanne for a few rare, leisurely days by the lake and an investigation of alpine flowers. When he reaches Berlin he is amazed to receive a letter waiting for him at Doctor Soskin’s residence. An invitation from the Trustees to come to America! His response: ‘The invitation gives me great pleasure but it catches me unawares.’ He explains that he is not supplied with documents for such a trip and the unexpected request means he will not be prepared for such a visit. He reiterates that he will be happy to visit the next year as previously planned when he has time to prepare the ‘necessary materials and documents’ for his proposed talk for an illustrated lecture on dry farming. He can’t do two trips - time does not allow it - but the imperative issued by the New Yorkers, a summons, in fact, persuades him to come earlier and postpone the second trip.
He will be in Hamburg on the 20th of the month and ‘will be able to set sail some time between the 25th and 30th, so as to be in New York in the first week of October’.
He awaits a telegram of confirmation before he books passage and requests it be sent again to the ever helpful Dr. Soskin. The telegram is duly dispatched: ‘Soskin, Aronson, Come.’
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| Aron's Pictures of the Station for the Brochure |
The trustees, hire a botanical translator, a Miss Maude Kellerman, for the preparation of a brochure with suitable plates, for the proposed talk and for a number of publications, and Aron sets sail arriving on October 8th where he is eagerly awaited by his many friends among the Trustees.
An invitation is sent by Mrs. Szold to the many Trustees for a talk by ‘The Managing Director of the Jewish Experimental Station, Mr Aron Aronson, to take place in the Trustees Room of the Hebrew Charities Building on Saturday October 12th at 8:15 pm’.
The brochure creates many problems, printing errors, the plates are not clear enough, the cost etc. and Miss Kellerman’s salary is still to be paid, but finally all is ready. Five hundred leaflets to be printed at considerable cost. The venue is changed to Mr. Louis Marshall’s home at 47 East 72nd Street, New York, by his own invitation and Aron is deeply touched by Mr. Marshall’s personal interest in his story.
Aron is in Washington preparing to attend the Dry Farming Congress in Alberta Canada still awaiting the printed brochure but busying himself with preparing to submit said content with the journal ‘Popular Science Monthly’ and other publications. He receives the proofs and having satisfied himself with the content, at last the brochure goes to print.
The Trustee meeting and printed brochure are deemed overwhelming successes.
In November, Aron visits San Francisco to have discussions at the College of Berkeley on the introduction of Palestinian figs and the carob tree - St. John’s Bread - to the dry regions of California. He delivers a lecture to the college on ‘Climatic and Agricultural Similarities between California and Palestine’ which is also judged a success. Articles appear in many of the papers. A lecture is requested in Aron’s honour at the Reform Synagogue to which Aron declines, not on account of the liberal tendencies of the said shul but because he feels sure such a talk would draw him into the subject of ‘politics’.
His presence is demanded everywhere.
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| Aron, December 1912 at the California Fruit Growers' Convention |
In December he is in El Centro, California, at the Fruit Growers Convention where he meets some of the best horticulturists in the country and is given a standing ovation for his talk on dates, figs, raisins and citrus, admitting to Mrs. Szold that his schedule and the demand and adulation of so many people gives him little time for correspondence. The price of botanical celebrity! Many invitations follow from other organisations but Aron is ready to return and declines them. He feels his journey has resulted in keeping Palestine and its Jews in public conversation and that politics will have to wait.
And so Aron’s trip to America ends.’
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