Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Prout, John (1810-1894)
PROUT, JOHN (1810–1894), agriculturist, born 1 Oct. 1810 at South Petherwin, near Launceston, Cornwall, was the son of William Prout, farmer, who had married, in 1808, his cousin, Tomazin Prout. John was educated at a school in Launceston, and brought up to farming under his father; but, dissatisfied with the position of a tenant-farmer on the small holdings of his native land and with the antiquated restrictions of land tenure, he emigrated to Canada and purchased land at Pickering, Ontario, which he farmed from 1832 to 1842. He then returned to England, and joined his uncle, Thomas Prout, in his business at 229 Strand, London. On the death of his uncle, Prrout carried on the business. In 1861 he bought Blount's farm, Sawbridgeworth, Hertfordshire, which he cultivated till June 1894.
Prout had married, about 1841, Sophia (d. 1893), niece of Colonel Thomson of Aikenshaw, Toronto. He died when residing with his married daughter at Wimbish Vicarage, Saffron Walden, Essex, on 7 Dec. 1894.
To Prout is due the credit of teaching a practical lesson in scientific farming by his thirty-three years' successful cultivation of Blount's farm, and his experience has been of great value to agriculturists in this and other countries. His system was based on his Canadian experience and his study of Sir John Lawes's experimental plots at Rothamstead. He demonstrated that successive crops of cereals could be raised on heavy clay-land if drained well and deeply ploughed, and dressed with properly prepared chemical manures.
In 1881 he published a report of his methods, entitled 'Profitable Clay Farming under a just System of Tenant Right;' this was translated into French and German.
[Cable, August 1893, p. 313, with portrait; Times. 11 Dec. 1894; Field, 15 Dec. 1894; Agricultural Gazette, 10 Dec. 1894; Herts Essex Observer, 15 Dec. 1894; information kindly supplied by his son, W. A. Prout.]