222 TRAXSACTIONS OF ROYAL SCOTTISH ARBORICUI.TURAL SOCIETY 



24. The Work of Professor Louis Grandeau. 



T!y Ai i:x. Laidi.k, D.Sc, Hon. Consiillins; Chcniisl to ilie Society. 



Professor Louis Grandeau, the distinguished French agri- 

 cultural chemist, died at Interlaken, on 22nd November 19 11, at 

 the age of seventy-seven. A disciple of the great Boussingalt, 

 he played an important part in the development of scientific 

 agriculture in France. He was well known both as an experi- 

 menter and writer in agricultural chemistry, and his Traiti' 

 d analyse des mati<'res a_s;ricoles " was perhaps the best known 

 work of its time on agricultural analysis. He held various 

 important official positions, such as the Directorship of the 

 Station Agroioiniqne de V Est, a Professorship at the Conservatoire 

 Natiofiale des Arts et Mi' tiers, and was Inspect eiir-grnrral des 

 Stations A_s;rononiii/nes. In his experimental work he dealt 

 largely with practical problems, such as the manuring of field 

 crops and the feeding of draught horses, which appeal directly 

 to the agriculturist. His best known scientific work was his 

 investigation of the black humic material that he extracted 

 from soils, to which he attributed an important part in the 

 nutrition of plants. The views put forward by Grandeau as to 

 the part taken by these complex substances in plant nutrition 

 have, however, undergone considerable modification in recent 

 years. The following notice of Grandeau's work is from the 

 pen of M. llenr)', and deals largely with his investigation of the 

 " black matter " of soils referred to above : — 



In the early days of agricultural science there were two rival 

 theories as to the sources from which plants derived their food 

 supply. Tlie older theory, associated with the name of Thacr, 

 attributed the richness of a soil almost exclusively to the amount 

 of humus which it contained. 



About 1840 Liebig brought forward his famous mineral 

 theory, and expressed the opinion that it was the mineral 

 consiituents of the soil which alone were important as sources 

 of j'lant food. 



The upholders of the earlier theory declined to recognise the 

 importance of the mineral constituents of plants, in spite of the 

 new and important work of Th. de Saussure on the ash of 

 plants ; while the upholders of the mineral theory were equally 



