Cutler was listed by Otis R. Marston as the 71st person to travel by boat from Lee's Ferry, Arizona, through Grand Canyon to Lake Mead.

[2][5] In 1940 Hugh and Marian Cutler collected wild varieties of Tripsacum and cultivated maize (including archaeological samples) in the southwestern United States, Mexico, and Guatemala.

Influenced by Cárdenas, Cutler studied the food production and preparation methods used by the Aymara and Quechua Indians of the Cochabamba Valley and the Lake Titicaca basin.

From 1943 to 1945 he was on leave on absence from Harvard University and did his war service working for the Rubber Development Corporation under the auspices of the Board of Economic Warfare.

He flew in blimps over northern Brazil and identified wild rubber trees that could be harvested by ground parties.

[2] After teaching at Harvard for a year after the war, Cutler was appointed Curator of Economic Botany at the Field Museum in Chicago.

From this time onwards his most important work was in archaeological botany, especially in analysing prehistoric remains of maize and squashes from the American Southwest and Mexico.

[1]In 1953 Cutler resigned from the Field Museum of Natural History and that same year became Curator of Economic Botany at the Missouri Botanical Garden.