[1]: 550 [2] In addition to his work concerning the analytic chemistry of elements and rare earths, he made substantial contributions to Swedish agriculture, including methods of fertilization and the introduction of sugar beets as a crop.

During later life, Lars Fredrik Nilson retained a small holding on Gotland, which he visited yearly.

[3] After graduating from Wisby high school on Gotland, Lars Fredrik Nilson enrolled at Uppsala University in 1859.

[3] His work in mineralogy was noted by the chemistry professor at Uppsala, Lars Fredrik Svanberg, a former student of Jöns Jakob Berzelius.

When his father recovered some months later, the harvest and autumn planting had been completed successfully, and Nilson had installed the first engine threshing machine to be used in Gotland.

His earliest papers mainly concerned sulfides, arsenical sulfosalt minerals, and selenous acid, extending the work of Berzelius.

He began working on rare earths such as euxenite and gadolinite, using methods of successive fractionation introduced by Nils Johan Berlin.

The discovery was of particular importance because the existence of an element with such properties, "ekaboron", had been predicted by Mendeleev, based on his organization of the periodic system.