Max Robert Pressler (17 January 1815 – 30 September 1886) was a German

forester A forester is a person who practises forest management and forestry, the science, art, and profession of managing forests. Foresters engage in a broad range of activities including ecological restoration and management of protected areas. Fores ...

noted for his inventions and writing.

Biography

He was born in

Dresden Dresden (; ; Upper Saxon German, Upper Saxon: ''Dräsdn''; , ) is the capital city of the States of Germany, German state of Saxony and its second most populous city after Leipzig. It is the List of cities in Germany by population, 12th most p ...

, and studied at the school of technology there (now called the

Dresden University of Technology TU Dresden (for , abbreviated as TUD), also as the Dresden University of Technology, is a public research university in Dresden, Germany. It is the largest institute of higher education in the city of Dresden, the largest university in Saxony a ...

). He then taught mathematics and polytechnic engineering in

Zittau Zittau (; ; ; ; ; Lusatian dialects, Upper Lusatian dialect: ''Sitte''; ) is the southeasternmost city in the Germany, German state of Saxony, and belongs to the Görlitz (district), district of Görlitz, Germany's easternmost Districts of Germ ...

(1836-1840), and was later a professor in the

Royal Saxon Academy of Forestry The Royal Saxon Academy of Forestry (German: ''Königliche-Sächsische Forstakademie'') in Tharandt, Saxony, near Dresden, was founded by silviculturist Heinrich Cotta in 1811. Established in conjunction with the school, and later integrated wit ...

Tharandt Tharandt () is a municipality in Saxony, Germany, situated on the Weißeritz, southwest of Dresden. It has a Protestant Church and the oldest academy of forestry in Germany, founded as the Royal Saxon Academy of Forestry by Heinrich Cotta in 181 ...

from 1840 until 1883.Wikisource
@

Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB; ) is one of the most important and comprehensive biographical reference works in the German language. It was published by the Historical Commission of the Bavarian Academy of Sciences between 1875 and 1912 in 56 volumes, printed in Lei ...

Pressler contributed largely to the advance of forestry by his inventions, among which the most important is the “Messknecht” for measuring the height of trees, and by his writings, which are full of novel theories, for the most part based on exact calculation. ''Der rationelle Waldwirt und sein Nachhaltswaldbau höchsten Reinertrags'' (“Rational forestry and sustainable management for highest profit,” 1858-85), his chief work, is a protest against the methods of the old school.

Notes

References

*
Rechnerlexikon.de
The Pressler „Ingenieur-Messknecht“ (Measurement Servant) from 1852. 1815 births 1886 deaths German foresters People from Dresden German non-fiction writers 19th-century German inventors Academic staff of the Royal Saxon Academy of Forestry German male non-fiction writers {{forestry-researcher-stub