Dr Moritz Frederick Proksch, an agriculturalist of Austrian descent, was the director of the Agricultural School at Hildesheim, Germany. In 1898 he was appointed head of the newly established Department of Agriculture of the Orange Free State, a position he held until the territory was taken over by British forces in 1900 during the Anglo-Boer War (1899-1902). At that time he became a prisoner of war.
In 1906 Proksch published a booklet (130 pp) in Vienna entitled Die Landwirtschaft auf dem Hochlande des Oberen Oranje (Oranje Freistaat und Südtransvaal) auf naturwissenschaftlicher, historischer und national-ökonomischer Grundlage (Agriculture on the highlands of the upper Orange (Orange Free State and southern Transvaal) on a natural science, historical and national economic basis).
