Person

Baker, Frederick Storrs, 1890-1965

1890-1965

Frederick Storrs Baker was born on June 3, 1890, in Bridgeport, Connecticut.

He was an American silviculturist and educator. His parents, who were enthusiastic amateur botanists, introduced him to trees, flowers, and the outdoors at a very young age. After graduating from high school in 1908, he attended a summer course in Milford, Pennsylvania, run by the Yale University Forestry School. In 1912, he graduated from Colorado College with a degree in Forest Engineering. He spent the next fourteen years (1912-1926) studying aspen and other tree species in Pike, Uinta Mountains, and Manti National Forests, Utah, for the U.S. Forest Service. From 1927 to 1947, he taught and researched forestry at the University of California, Berkeley. His research greatly contributed to the knowledge of the growth and reproduction of California tree species, their ecological relationships, and their requirements for light and moisture. He also served as the second Dean of the School of Forestry, University of California, Berkeley from 1947 until his retirement in 1956. He contributed frequent articles to the Journal of Forestry and published one of the most successful textbooks on silviculture, "The Theory and Practice of Silviculture" (1934, 1950).

In 1918, he married Kalla Mae Hodge (1897–1968). He died on January 1, 1965, in Alameda, California.