510 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXXIX. No. 1005 



and in the dissemination of the results of 

 investigation. 



The career of Samuel W. Johnson presents 

 few dramatic features. He lived the quiet, 

 simple life of the student, occupying a pro- 

 fessorial chair in a single university for forty 

 years, yet few, if any, have exerted a more 

 profound influence for the promotion of scien- 

 tific agriculture. A man of genius as well as 

 of thorough training, he early conceived the 

 idea of making the conquests of science serv- 

 iceable to the basal industry of the country. 

 Even in his student days, in 1851, he published 

 an article — " County Agricultural Institutes " 

 —setting forth his earliest conceptions of the 

 ideas which later assumed a more definite 

 form. Five years later, in an address before 

 the New York State Agricultural Society on 

 the subject " The Relations which exist be- 

 tween Science and Agriculture " he said : 



" I have full faith not only that science may 

 accomplish much for agriculture in the way I 

 have indicated, but that she will be speedily 

 put about the work. The tendencies of our 

 time prophesy this. The notion that there is 

 anything essentially antagonistic between sci- 

 ence and practise is daily meeting its refuta- 

 tion, both in the laboratory and in the field. 

 I may confidently ask, where better than in 

 our own country shall this idea find realiza- 

 tion? Our country now has the strength of 

 the oldest nations with all the freshness of 

 youth. She is girding herself up to contest 

 among the nations for the prize of science. 

 What worthier triumph for our republic than 

 to win for her millions the boon of a rational 

 agriculture ? " 



But Professor Johnson had not only the 

 genius to conceive this ideal and the faith to 

 follow it throughout a long and fruitful 

 career, but the tact and persistence necessary 

 to bring about its institutional embodiment. 



His first opportunity presented itself in 

 connection with the introduction of commer- 

 cial fertilizers into the United States. In 

 March, 1853, he published, under the title 

 " Superphosphate of Lime," an account of the 

 results of analyses which he had made of 



two samples of artificial fertilizers offered for 

 sale. This work was probably the first of its 

 kind in this country and was the protot3rpe of 

 a vast amount of similar work during the next 

 twenty-five years, done at first as a private 

 undertaking and later as chemist of the Con- 

 necticut State Agricultural Society and of the 

 Connecticut State Board of Agriculture. "It 

 was characteristic of the man first to form and 

 tenaciously hold the broad idea, based upon a 

 universal and permanent need; and then, 

 realizing an opportunity for practical work, 

 to set about using his skill and knowledge in 

 routine analysis performed with all possible 

 accuracy in order that these simple analyses 

 should be so absolutely right that they might 

 be an unassailable foundation for the wider 

 work to come after." 



In 1853 he was appointed first assistant 

 and in 1856, professor of analytical chemistry 

 in the Yale Scientific School — later the Shef- 

 field Scientific School — and with various titles 

 remained an active member of its faculty until 

 1896. During all these years, with the capac- 

 ity and equipment to take high rank among 

 scientific investigators, he devoted his powers 

 chiefly to the instruction of his students, to 

 the preparation of those classic text-books, 

 " How Crops Grow " and " How Crops Feed," 

 and to the service of the farmers of his state 

 in promoting the popular understanding of 

 the aid which science could render to agricul- 

 ture. His platform was the farmers' meeting, 

 his means of publication chiefly the oflScial 

 report and the agricultural newspaper; while 

 the humble and prosaic work of fertilizer 

 analysis served to furnish the practical demon- 

 stration. 



Not for almost a quarter of a century did 

 he see the concrete result of his labors in the 

 establishment in Connecticut of the first agri- 

 cultural experiment station in the United 

 States, at first as a semi-private institution 

 and two years later as an independent state 

 institution under his directorship. This was 

 followed by the founding of similar stations 

 in other states in rapid succession, culminating 

 ten years later in the passage of the " Hatch 



