Alphonse Du Breuil

Alphonse Du Breuil (1811 to 1890) was a French botanist and horticulturist from Rouen, remembered as a teacher of fruit tree care. At the Jardin des Plantes de Rouen he started the first school for the care of fruit trees. In 1848 he was professor of agriculture at the School of Agriculture and Rural Economy of the Seine-Maritime department, and he presented the minister of agriculture with a draft decree for the teaching of horticulture, which went unfulfilled. From 1853 he was professor of arboriculture at the Conservatoire des arts et métiers in Paris and gave lectures on fruit growing to every department that asked for them until 1870. In 1867 he became a chief engineer responsible for gardens, walkways and the municipal arboriculture of Paris, and he founded what became the École Du Breuil. He retired in 1883.