Joseph Hutchinson – författare

This personal account expresses a dissatisfaction with the social system under which we live; it arises from the author's wide experience of the relations between the developing countries and the Western world. Sir Joseph's thesis is that in taking that the West has to offer and deploying it in the Third World one can see more clearly the constraints and drawbacks of our own social and economic system. This is the challenge. The book sets out to explore the ways in which we could move away from the limitations and injustices of our system towards something better. Based on the Eddington Memorial Lectures given at the University of Cambridge in November 1974, the book sets out the belief that the Christian faith offers the incentive to undertake a revision of our social life that will call for sacrifice from those of us who are now affluent and powerful.

A personal account of the historical evolution and development of agricultural systems. Through agriculture human communities have established a situation in which they are relieved of the need to spend a greater part of their time in pursuit of the necessities of existence. Sir Joseph argues that a rising standard of living has depended historically on the ability of agriculture to release manpower to other more industrial pursuits and with its own reduced human resources to feed the increased urban population. This is a process that has gone on since agriculture began and which continues today. All who are concerned professionally or otherwise with the problem of feeding the world's population will find this a stimulating account. It has the conviction of personal experience. The author hopes that many of his views will gain assent or at the very least generate debate on important issues.

An account of the evolution and principles involved in breeding crops grown in the tropics. This book developed from a symposium held in New Delhi in 1970 at the Indian Agricultural Research Institute. It begins with a consideration of the history of agriculture. Recent techniques make is possible to set crop plant evolution against the time scale of agricultural development, enabling the rate of evolution to be determined with some precision. Throughout the account the studies stress the range of material and changes and improvements in crops, with special reference to their importance not only in the tropics, but also to world agriculture. This book brings to the notice of geneticists and breeders in western countries the work undertaken in India in elucidating the evolution and recent improvement of crop plants of world wide importance. It is also an authoritative account for students of plant breeding in the tropics taking courses in universities, in institutes and colleges of agriculture who need to have within the covers of one book a comprehensive, yet concise text that clearly sets out the principles involved in the breeding of crops grown in the tropics.

This 1959 book takes as its starting point Sir George Watt's Wild and Cultivated Cotton Plants of the World published in 1907, and discusses the findings of the subsequent fifty years, updating, in the light of extensive subsequent work, the account given by Hutchinson, Silow and Stephens in The Evolution of Gossypium (1947). Sir Joseph reviews the range of the genus Gosgpium and the place in it of the four species which constitute the cotton of commerce. He traces the historical development of these species from the coarse, short, perennials grown over 4000 years ago to their more modern annuals. He describes the development of disease-resistant strains, by hybridisation of races from different parts of the world. The book constitutes a valuable account of the results which can be achieved in a relatively short time by the application of genetic and physiological studies to the problems of a commercial crop.