Samuel William Johnson

Johnson, working in the 19th century, covered various aspects of farming that today would be called both organic and nonorganic.

His work included exposing frauds in artificial manures (some of which would today be called chemical fertilizers).

[1] Johnson's first teacher was his father; later he studied with David Mayhew in a school at Lowville, New York.

Returning through England, he visited the lab of Edward Frankland and the experimental farms of John Bennet Lawes and Joseph Henry Gilbert.

[2] In 1858, he became a chemist for the Connecticut Agricultural Society, in which capacity he issued an important series of papers on commercial fertilizers and allied subjects.