Samuel William Johnson (chemist)

Samuel William Johnson (July 3, 1830 – July 21, 1909) was an American agricultural chemist. He was elected in 1866 to the U.S. National Academy of Sciences and for the academic year 1878–1879 served as president of the American Chemical Society.

Quotes

Agricultural science, in its widest scope, comprehends a vast range of subjects. It includes something from nearly every department of human learning.
The natural sciences of geology, meteorology, mechanics, physics, chemistry, botany, zoology and physiology, are most intimately related to it. It is not less concerned with social and political economy, with commerce and law.
- 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. 1868. p. 24. ISBN 9781425542344. (2nd edition 1891)

Ville has stated, 1851–2, that vegetation in conservatories may be remarkably promoted by impregnating the air with gaseous carbonate of ammonia. For this purpose lumps of the solid salt are so disposed on the heating apparatus of the green-house as to gradually vaporize, or vessels containing a mixture of quicklime and sal ammoniac may be employed. Care must be taken that the air does not contain at any time more than four ten-thousandths of its weight of the salt; otherwise the foliage of tender plants is injured. Like results were obtained by Petzholdt and Chlebodarow in 1852–3.
- 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. 1870. p. 56.

For more than fifty years he was a constant contributor to agricultural and scientific journals. Although his publications were numerous he wrote few books. Two of these, however, were very successful, namely, "How Crops Grow," published in 1868, and "How Crops Feed," published in 1870. These books were the first printed in this country which brought together the data scattered through the literature relating to the composition and physiology of plants. They furnished a new basis for instruction in agriculture and were more widely read than any books before published on agricultural chemistry. They were translated into German, Russian, Swedish, and Japanese, and the former into Italian and French also.
- Thomas Burr Osborne, (1911) . "Biographical Memoir of Samuel William Johnson 1830-1909". Biographical Memoirs of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences VII: 203–211. (quote from p. 213)