Tools & tillage: a journal on the history of the implements of cultivation and other agricultural processes (4.1980/1983)

NINETY YEARS OF THE CZECH MUSEUM OF AGRICULTURE

The early development of agricultural
museums in Czechoslovakia dates back to
the period of the so-called societies for the
promotion of agriculture in the 1780s. In
1784, J.Mehler, an eminent agricultural
theoretician and experienced practitioner
and organiser, Secretary to the Prague Pa-
triotic-economic Society, founded, as a part
of this Society, a collection of agricultural
implement models. He was a historically-
minded person, with a wide experience in
the economic, geographic and ethnological
differences in the conditions of production.
From 1803, K.H. Andre, another distin-
guished expert on agriculture and a progres-
sive organiser, Secretary of the Society for
the promotion of Agriculture in Brno, was
promoting the formation of a museum of
agriculture. His idea led to the foundation of
the Moravian Museum, with a special de-
partment for practical agriculture. The col-
lection of implements, machines and build-
ings, built up since the beginning of the 19th
century, is one of the most valuable and
instructive parts of the Czech Museum of
Agriculture. Regrettably, this museum does
not posses the specialised libraries of the two
above mentioned societies.
At the instance of F. Sitensky, an eminent
professor in the Tabor Academy of Agricul-
ture, a separate Museum of Agriculture was
founded in 1891, the year of the Jubilee
Industrial Exhibition, when his collections
were made accessible to the general public
for the first time. Thus, one of the oldest,
and as far as the collections are concerned
one of the richest, museums of agriculture
celebrated its 90th anniversary recently. In
1895, the successful Ethnographic Exhibi-
tion considerably enriched its collections,

and promoted the national consciousness
and interest in material civilisation.
After 1918, the Prague Museum of Agri-
culture developed centrally with branches in
Brno, Bratislava and Opava. Its scientific
and varied activities were aimed at collection
and carrying out research on documents.
Several scientific monographs by the perma-
nent collaborators, annual reports, organisa-
tional information (in the Bulletin of the
Museum of Agriculture), and concise scien-
tific articles on agricultural history and eth-
nography (for a bibliography see the Science
Studies of the Museum of Agriculture
6/1966 pp. 273-280) were published. After
the Second World War, the agricultural col-
lections in Bratislava formed the basic stock
of the Slovak National Museum (the Slovak
Museum of Agriculture at Nitra, still with
relatively good possibilities for field collec-
tion, came into existence only in 1960). The
remaining part of the collections from Brno
and Opava, however, heavily damaged dur-
ing the war, were merged with the collec-
tions in Prague.
At present, the Czech Museum of Agri-
culture has its managing and methodical
centre in Prague. There is a mobile work
team of scientific workers with outstanding
historical (ethnological) and biological quali-
fications or with technological backgrounds.
There are excellent photo-archives, and
teams for the production of exhibits (mo-
dels), and for museum display. The collec-
tions, displays and exhibitions relating to
agriculture in a strict sense (plant production
- except for some special cultures, animal
production - except for fishery, the storage
and treatment of agricultural produce, the
organisation of agriculture, agricultural set-