Daniel Müller

Joachim Daniel Andreas Müller (7 September 1812 – 18 September 1857) was a Swedish gardener and writer. Some sources identify him simply as Daniel Müller while others resequence his names, most commonly to Daniel Andreas Joachim Müller.

Life Joachim Daniel Andreas Moller was born in Stralsund, at that time still in Swedish Pomerania. His grandfather had come, originally as a soldier, from Scania, the southern tip of mainland Sweden. The Stralsund region had become Swedish during the course of the Thirty Years' War, following a military siege in 1628; but in 1815, under terms mandated at the Congress of Vienna, the whole of Pommerania was returned to Prussia: Daniel's father, a successful commercial/market gardener, changed the family name from "Moller" to "Müller". Daniel Müller left the local Gymnasium (secondary school) when he was 17, and embarked on an apprenticeship in his father's business. where on the recommendation of Hornschuch he took over responsibility for the Botanical Gardens, thereby becoming an indirect successor of the celebrated botanist Linnaeus. Müller was peculiarly suitable for the Uppsala position not merely on account of his expertise as a gardener, but also because his upbringing had left him fluent in both German and Swedish. In the years that followed he was able to act as a link between horticultural research in the two language zones, publishing numerous scientific papers in both languages. The two of them led a fulfilled family life, taking on responsibility for three foster children. However, there were personnel problems at the Uppsala Botanical Gardens, where he felt he was underpaid, and after a couple of years Müller handed in his notice, and, in 1841, moved to Stockholm, taking a position with the recently established Swedish Horticultural Society (Svenska trädgårdsföreningen). A second volume, "Konvaljerna – en sago-krans" ("Lilly of the valley – a fairy ring"), followed.

Müller's own contributions focused on just a few themes. They tell of his love for his wife and the vitality of the plant world, along with the more melancholy themes of a lost homeland, death and eternity. Müller lived before Evolution had been written up and become mainstream among scientists, and his own thoughts concentrate on the "moral" causes and outcomes in a natural world able to operate without human involvement. In nature and the world of plants he saw an unfolding of God's plan, in which man should participate as a "cultivator".

From this perspective he also engaged in the debate of the time about introducing horticulture as a subject worthy of academic study. For him, horticulture offered the possibility of introducing "moral" context to rural populations, and he broadened this into a more general belief that becoming involved in cultivating "beautiful plants" even offered a way to curb alcoholism cultivator".