Friedrich Wilhelm von Cotta

Friedrich Wilhelm von Cotta (* December 12, 1796 in Zillbach ; † February 14, 1874 in Tharandt ) was co-director of the Tharandt Forestry College and later head of the Saxon Forest Surveying Institute.

Life

He was the eldest son of the forest scientist Heinrich Cotta and his wife Christiane Ortmann (1739-1802). In 1811 he moved with his parents to Tharandt, where his father had founded a forest academy.

During the Wars of Liberation against Napoleon from 1813 to 1815 he fought in a hunter battalion . After the war he joined the Tharandt Forestry College as a forestry graduate . In 1821 he took part in the forest surveying and taxation work in the Kingdom of Saxony , which was led by his father. He later became co-director of the Forestry Academy in support of his father. In 1830 he became a forester, in addition he was given sole management of the forest surveying institute (later the forestry facility), which he headed until 1852. It was moved to Dresden at the time, a move that the director did not go along with. Instead, he became chief forester at the Grillenburg inspection . He stayed there until his retirement on January 1, 1874.

Incidentally, he was a long-time director of the Saxon Forest Association , of which he was one of the founders. Strictly against himself, he demanded from his subordinates the faithful fulfillment of their duties and, in particular, absolute reliability. But then he also represented them upwards with a frankness that did his character justice. Numerous work in practice and for the same - he directed, besides the Saxon forest management, also taxation in Altenburg and Bohemia - let him find less time for literary occupations.

Act

Cotta's main merit was the establishment and implementation of the Saxon surface framework method. His specialty was the division of forests and the formation of the chopping trains in the mountains. Many German and non-German forest managers studying in Tharandt owed him their practical training in forest management.

However , he no longer had any understanding of the subsequent development of Max Preßler's theory of pure soil yield ; he was one of the signatories of that famous (unmotivated) protest that took place in 1865 at the XXV. Assembly of German farmers and foresters in Dresden was formulated.

He and his brothers participated in the publication of the later editions of his father's works.

literature

• Richard Hess:  Cotta, Friedrich Wilhelm v. In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 4, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1876, p. 520 f.