The Encyclopedia Americana (1920)/Johnson, Samuel William

JOHNSON, Samuel William, American chemist: b. Kingsboro N. Y., 3 July 1830; d. 1909. He studied at Yale Scientific School and the universities of Leipzig and Munich. In 1856 he became professor of analytical chemistry in the Sheffield Scientific School of Yale, taught agricultural chemistry there 1857-75, and from 1875 to 1896 was professor of theoretical and agricultural chemistry, becoming in 1896 professor emeritus. He was director of the Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station from 1877 to 1899. In 1858 he was made chemist to the State Agricultural Society, in which capacity he issued an important series of papers on commercial fertilizers and allied subjects. He was elected to the National Academy of Sciences, and in 1878 was president of the American Chemical Society. He published ‘Essays on Peat Muck and Commercial Manures’ (1859); ‘How Crops Feed’ (1870); ‘Peat and Its Uses’ (1866); ‘How Crops Grow’ (1868), and edited Fresenius' ‘Quantitative Chemical Analysis’ (1864, 1875, 1883).