Sir D. E. Hutchins

Abstract

THE death in New Zealand was announced in the Morning Post of December 3 of Sir David Hutchins, the well-known forester, at seventy years of age. Sir David (with eleven contemporaries, including the late Prof. W. R. Fisher, Mr. E. C. Hill, late Inspector-General of Forests in India, and Mr. E. P. Popert, late Forestry Adviser to the Commissioners of Woods and Forests) was appointed a probationer for the Indian forest service in the spring of 1870, and sent to France for instruction in forestry. Shortly afterwards, on the outbreak of the Franco-German War, he returned and studied, with the other probationers, botany and other auxiliary subjects in Scotland under the supervision of the late Dr. Cleghorn, himself a retired distinguished Indian forest officer. After the end of the war in 1871 Sir David returned to France and studied forestry at Nancy until the autumn of 1872. He joined the Indian forest service at the end of that year, and remained in it until the end of 1885. Owing to ill-health, he was then transferred to the forest service of Cape Colony. During the latter part of his service in India Sir David was occupied with the measurement of Casuarina plantations which had been established along the Madras coast. From the statistics thus obtained, he calculated the “form factors” for the species, this being the first attempt of the kind made in India.