Prosper Berckmans & Sons Legacy to Southeastern Peaches and the Masters Golf Course

Abstract

Prosper Berckmans emigrated in 1850 to New Jersey as a young man from Belgium followed by his father Louis, who at the time was recognized as a distinguished horticulturalist, pomologist and pear breeder. Prosper and his father later moved to Augusta, Georgia where they saw an opportunity to expand horticulture (pomology) in the South, which had been largely an afterthought due to the omnipresence of “King Cotton” and its economic importance among the rural agrarian population. The Berckmans established a nursery called Pearmont in 1857 and then purchased nearby orchard land (named Fruitland) and a large, unfinished house (Fruitland Manor) in 1858 to expand their newly named Fruitland Nursery business, which Prosper owned until his death in 1910. Prosper’s nursery catalog had widespread distribution, and he eventually founded the Georgia State Horticultural Society in 1876, which he served as its president until his death and also served as president of the American Pomological Society from 1887-1897. He bred many types of fruit trees and grew thousands of seedling selections as well as introduced cultivars from Europe, but he was best known for his development of commercial peach cultivars for the South including promoting many new cultivars derived from ‘Chinese Cling’ such as ‘Elberta’ and ‘Georgia Belle’. He sent the first commercial shipment of Georgia peaches to New York in 1858 and earned the titles “Father of Georgia Peach Culture” and “Father of Peach Culture in the South”. His family records show he planted more than 3 million peach trees over his lifetime. Prosper’s three sons continued with the family business and in 1912 they completed the largest peach sale at that time by shipping their entire peach crop to New Jersey. Fruitland was later sold in 1925, but in 1931 one son returned to design the landscape of the future Augusta National Golf Club course (home to the Masters) on the former nursery property. Another son served as the Club’s manager, which was housed at Fruitland Manor and today remains the Masters’ clubhouse. The two sons saved over 4,000 trees during the golf course layout, and each of the 18 holes was named for a different plant to honor the horticulture legacy that Prosper had brought to the southern U.S. more than 70 years earlier. Thus, the horticulture history of both the “Peach State” and the Masters Golf Course are intertwined just as their names are synonymous with the state of Georgia.