Elias Landolt (forest scientist)

Elias Landolt (1821-1896)

Elias Landolt (born October 28, 1821 in Kleinandelfingen ; † May 18, 1896 in Zurich - Fluntern ) was a Swiss forest scientist and chief forester of the canton of Zurich . The protection of the Swiss forest, which still applies today, goes back to Landolt.

Life

Youth and education

Elias Landolt grew up as the eldest son of a cooper and farmer. He attended the newly founded secondary school in Andelfingen and was then trained as a surveyor and forest official from 1837–1842 by the master forester masters in Benken and Hertenstein in Kyburg . At the suggestion of the Zurich Forestry Office and with the help of a scholarship, he then began to train for higher forest service. From 1842–1844, in order to fill in gaps in his previous education, he attended the industrial school in Zurich (today the canton school with a mathematical orientation). In 1844 he attended, together with the future Federal Councilor and President Wilhelm Hertenstein , a practical preparatory course in the Black Forest , and then from 1844 to 1845 at the Württemberg agricultural teaching, testing and model institute Hohenheim (today University of Hohenheim ) and at the Saxon Forest Academy Tharandt ( today a branch of the Technical University of Dresden ). In 1846/7 he continued his practical apprenticeship in the Harz Mountains and in Höfen near Aachen and concluded it with a forestry study trip through central and southern Germany , Bohemia , Tyrol and Graubünden . In 1848 he passed the state examination in Zurich.

Professional activities

In 1848 Landolt got a call to the new forest school in Madrid , which he refused. On the other hand, he became a Forstadjunkt in the Oberforstamt of the canton of Zurich in 1849, in 1853 a cantonal forester in the first district and in 1864 a chief forester in his canton - an office he held until 1882. From 1861–1893 he was the editor of the Swiss Forestry Journal, and from 1881–1893 he was President of the Swiss Forestry Association.

At the same time, he was Professor of Forestry at the Eidgenössisches Polytechnikum in Zurich from 1855–1893 (today the Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule Zürich ) and 1867–1870 its director.

At times, Landolt also worked in the wine shop founded in 1834 by his father-in-law Emanuel Hess. In 1882 he bought the wine shop for his son Emil Landolt; it is still managed today by direct descendants in Zurich- Enge as Landolt Weine AG .

Non-professional activity

Landolt held a number of public and not-for-profit offices. From 1854–1893 he was a member of the Parliament of the Canton of Zurich ( Cantonal Council ), and from 1893 until his death he was a member of the newly created Parliament of the City of Zurich ( Grand City Council ). Landolt, however, rejected the candidacies proposed to him by Alfred Escher as a member of the government (1856) and the Council of States (1875).

He was a member of the jury , took on public duties in his respective residential communities of Fluntern and Enge, before they were incorporated into Zurich in 1893, and served as a member of the St. Peter's Church Administration .

family

Elias Landolt is the grandfather of the Zurich politician Emil Landolt , great-grandfather of the geobotanist Elias Landolt and the great-great-grandfather of the linguist Christoph Landolt .

Act

Monument to Elias Landolt (1899)

Practice and teaching

In his forestry work, Landolt was shaped by his training in Germany, but at the same time he incorporated his practical work and the conditions in Switzerland into teaching and work.

In silviculture , he advocated neither the traditional, unregulated plenter operation nor the large-scale forest cover that was emerging at the time, but sought to prevent the exposure of the soil and to bring about rapid natural regeneration. In the field of business administration, he promoted surveying and drawing up business plans, stock estimates and forest statistics. Finally, forest research was still quite unusual when Landolt took office in Switzerland. As a result, his basic research was limited to observational descriptions.

Landolt's services are essentially in the successful transfer of knowledge to students, colleagues, authorities and the people. In addition, he carried out extensive expert and appraisal activities in Switzerland and southern Germany. His investigations into the Swiss high mountain forests prompted Art. 24 in the Swiss Federal Constitution of 1874, which granted the federal government "the right to supervise the hydraulic engineering and forest police in the high mountains". (In the Federal Constitution of 1999, Art. 77 states that the Confederation «lays down principles for the protection of forests».)

Publications

Landolt wrote around sixty independent writings and around 300 articles in magazines. Some of these are:

• About forest taxation and farm regulations. Zurich 1856.
• About the history of forests and forestry. Zurich 1858.
• Report to the high Swiss Federal Council on the investigation into Switzerland. High mountain forests, carried out in the years 1858, 1859 and 1860. Bern 1862.
• Forest conditions in the Alps and in the Jura. Extract from the report to the high Swiss Federal Council on the investigation of the mountain forests. Bern 1863.
• The forest. Its rejuvenation, maintenance and use. Edited for the Swiss people. Zurich 1866, 2nd edition 1872, 4th edition 1894.
• Boards for determining the cubic content of lying, de-apexed tree trunks according to metric measurements. Zurich 1866, 6th edition 1894.
• The forest in the household of nature and man. Lecture given on March 17, 1870 at the Rathhaus in Zurich. Zurich 1870.
• Report on the thunderstorms on the Rhine and the Thur on July 21, 1881. Zurich 1881.
• The forest and the Alps. Zurich 1881.
• The streams, avalanches and rockfalls and the means of reducing the damage caused by them. Zurich 1886.
• The forestry management with special consideration of the Swiss situation. Zurich 1892.
• Festschrift for the fiftieth anniversary of the Swiss Forestry Association, founded on May 17, 1843. O. O. 1893.
• Brief biography of Elias Landolt von Klein-Andelfingen and Zurich. Zurich 1894.

Honors

Landolt was granted citizenship of the city of Zurich in 1875. In front of the forest building of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich, a bust made in 1899 commemorates him and in Kleinandelfingen a granite boulder set in 1950. In 1906 a street in Zurich- Oberstrass was named after him.

literature

• E. Dejung: Elias Landolt. In: Historical-Biographical Lexicon of Switzerland , Volume 4: Güttingen - Milan. Administration of the Historical-Biographical Lexicon of Switzerland, Neuchâtel 1927, p. 594.
• Richard Hess:  Landolt, Elias . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 51, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1906, pp. 543-547.
• Katja Hürlimann: Landolt, Elias. In: Historical Lexicon of Switzerland .
• Elias Landolt: Brief biography of Elias Landolt from Klein-Andelfingen and Zurich. Zurich 1894. [autobiography.]
• Elias Landolt [of the same name, great-grandson of the person he honored]: Elias Landolt 1821–1896. A life for the forest. Zurich 2002 (New Year's Gazette for the year 2002, published by the learned society in Zurich).
• Felix Landolt: The good in the tight. A former country estate at the gates of the city of Zurich, its owners and residents and its wine shop. Zurich 2009. [private print.]
• Wilhelm Oechsli : History of the establishment of the Federal Polytechnic with an overview of its development from 1855–1905. Frauenfeld 1905, vol. I, p. 186 f. and passim.
• Anton Schuler:  Landolt, Elias. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 13, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1982, ISBN 3-428-00194-X , p. 507 f. ( Digitized version ).

Web links

• Literature by and about Elias Landolt in the catalog of the German National Library .

Individual evidence

1. ^ Alfred Escher Foundation: Letters Edition. Letter of February 6, 1856 and letter of October 16, 1875 .
2. ↑ Felix Landolt: The good in the tight. A former country estate at the gates of the city of Zurich, its owners and residents and its wine shop. Zurich 2009.