PASTOR HEYLER
From a ministry in Algeria… to the emergence of asparagus from Hoerdt
Louis Gustave Heyler was born on March 3, 1831 in Scharrachbergheim. From 1854 to 1859, he studied theology at the University of Strasbourg and became a pastor, exercising his first ministry for nine years in Philippeville – now Skikda – a coastal town of the former French colony of Algeria.
During that time, he grew various Mediterranean plants in his garden. Among them was a vegetable unknown in Alsace : asparagus. Returning to his native region in 1869, he was appointed head of the Lutheran Church in Hoerdt.
He had brought with him some asparagus seeds from North Africa that he cultivated behind the Protestant presbytery. He compared the arid African soil with the sandy soil of Hoerdt and saw some ideal similarities for asparagus growing. He then successfully planted the first claws in the fields surrounding the parish and convinced a few farmers to do the same.
In 1873, the first plantation was cultivated on fifteen ares (about 0.4 acres): thus began the growing of asparagus from Hoerdt…
Difficult beginnings for a posthumous success
The villagers were for a long time reluctant to accept the new crop that had been recommended to them, not
least because it took several years before the asparagus could be harvested and therefore sold. The vegetable was also unknown at that time and there were few opportunities…
There weren’t many takers at first as it seemed a risky bet. However, the most daring were soon rewarded: at the insistence of Pastor Heyler and Chrétien Maechling, future mayor of the village, about forty or so farmers embarked on the venture in 1880, their number increasing from year to year. On their way to the Jean Sturm school in Strasbourg, the pastor’s sons would sell the small harvest from the previous day at the Aubette auction. Gradually, asparagus was delivered to the Strasbourg canning factories and through merchants, the asparagus quickly found buyers on the other side of the Rhine.
The Société des Planteurs d’Asperges (The Society of Asparagus Planters) was founded in 1891.
Pastor Heyler unfortunately did not live to see the booming market for the vegetable he had successfully introduced to his flock: he died on February 8, 1904 at the age of 73, after a ministry of 35 years spent in Hoerdt.