Samuel William Johnson

Samuel William Johnson (3 July 1830 Kingsboro, New York – 1909) was a U.S. American agricultural chemist. He promoted the movement to bring the sciences to the aid of American farmers through agricultural experiment stations and education in agricultural science.

This article is about the agricultural chemist. For other people with the same name, see Samuel Johnson (disambiguation).

Johnson, working in the 19th century, covered various aspects of farming that today would be called both organic and nonorganic. His work included exposing frauds in artificial manures (some of which would today be called chemical fertilizers).

Biography

Samuel was the son of Abner Adolphus Johnson and Annah Wells Gilbert.[1] Abner was Samuel’s first teacher; later he studied with David Mayhew in a school at Lowville, New York. Early on he obtained a textbook on chemistry by Fresenius, in which he learned methods of analytical chemistry.

Gaining admission to Yale University, Samuel took lessons from John Pitkin Norton, Benjamin Silliman, Benjamin Silliman, Jr. and James Dwight Dana among others. Upon graduation he went to Leipzig, studying with Otto Linne Erdmann. The next year he went to Munich and Liebig's lab. He studied physiological chemistry with Max Joseph von Pettenkofer and Wolfgang Franz von Kobell. Returning through England, he visited the lab of Edward Frankland and the experimental farms of John Bennet Lawes and Joseph Henry Gilbert.

In 1855 Johnson had his translation of Liebig's The Relations of Chemistry to Agriculture and the Experiments of Mr. J. B. Laws published by Luther Tucker, editor of The Country Gentleman.[2]

In 1858, he became a chemist for the Connecticut Agricultural Society, in which capacity he issued an important series of papers on commercial fertilizers and allied subjects. In 1866, he became a member of the Connecticut State Board of Agriculture. Also in 1866, he was elected to the National Academy of Sciences.

Johnson’s skill with analytical chemistry brought him the position of First Assistant at the Yale Analytical Lab in 1874. A year later he was made professor of analytical chemistry. The following year he was also named professor of Agricultural Chemistry. He regularly attended meetings of agricultural societies and farmers' clubs.

He was director of the Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station from 1877 to 1899. In 1878 Johnson was president of the American Chemical Society.

Johnson retired in 1896.

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References

Notes
  1. Johnson & Brown 1906
  2. Justus Liebig, translated by S.W. Johnson (1855) The Relations of Chemistry to Agriculture and the Experiments of Mr. J. B. Laws, printer of The Country Gentleman, via Google Books

Bibliography

Works
  • Johnson, Samuel William (1859), Essays on peat, muck, and commercial manures, New York City: Orange Judd and Company, LCCN 31010684.
  • Johnson, Samuel William (1866), Peat and its uses: as fertilizer and fuel, New York City: Orange Judd and Company, LCCN 06018169.
  • Johnson, Samuel William (1868), How crops grow: a treatise on the chemical composition, structure, and life of the plant, for all students of agriculture, New York City: Orange Judd and Company, LCCN 12010899.
  • Johnson, Samuel William (1870), How crops feed: a treatise on the atmosphere and soil as related to the nutrition of agricultural plants, New York City: Orange Judd and Company, LCCN 12012383.
  • Johnson, Samuel William (1871), Chemical notation and nomenclature, old and new, New York City: John Wiley & Sons, LCCN 04035960.
  • Johnson, Samuel William (1913), Osborne, Elizabeth A. (ed.), From the letter-files of S. W. Johnson, Professor of Agricultural Chemistry in Yale University, 1856-1896, Director of the Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station, 1877-1900; edited by his daughter, Elizabeth A. Osborne, New Haven, Connecticut: Yale University Press, LCCN 14000878.

He edited Fresenius' Quantitative Chemical Analysis (1864, 1875, 1883).

Other sources
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