Obituaries Australia

Following a car accident between Lockhart and Wagga on the evening of 30th April, 1964, Alexander Douglas Lindsay died the same day at the age of 63 years.

Doug Lindsay, as he was affectionately known to all his associates, graduated from the Forestry School of Edinburgh University, with a gold medal in Botany. A minor medical disability barred him from the Colonial Service with the result that he came to Australia in 1926 and joined the embryonic forestry staff of the A.C.T. as forest assessor. Later on he was selected as one of the future staff of the Commonwealth Forestry Bureau and was sent to U.S.A. to study the sylviculture and seed provenance of all the Pinus spp. likely to be of use in Australian forestry. Caught up in the depression he worked for the Forests Commission in Victoria for a period and then joined the N.S.W. Forestry Commission in 1935 and was engaged in the site quality survey of the Radiata plantations. Following this he undertook and completed an intensive investigation into the sylviculture, growth and timber quality of Alpine Ash. Then he adopted Cypress Pine as his speciality and spent 25 years studying its sylviculture and increment, and was largely instrumental in introducing sustained yield management.

On the personal side Doug Lindsay is chiefly remembered for his good humour under all sorts of conditions, his fine voice and the bush songs which he composed, sang, and encouraged his associates to sing, and for the patient way he passed on his knowledge to the untrained lads who came to the Commission during the depression and after the war. The first world war came to an end before he got to the front and he was not allowed to enlist in the second one.

In more recent years he developed as a hobby the study of Chinese forestry; he learnt to read and speak Chinese, visited China and was instrumental in bringing about the official exchange of seeds between China and Australia.

All his associates will miss him very greatly and we join them in extending our deepest sympathy to his widow and three daughters.