Jean Baptiste Boussingault

Born Feb. 2, 1802, in Paris; died there May 11, 1887. French chemist; author of classic research on plant nutrition; one of the founders of scientific agrochemistry. Member of the Paris Academy of Sciences (1839).

Boussingault graduated from the Higher Mining School in St. Etienne. He was a professor at two agrochemical institutes, first at Lyon and later at Versailles. In 1839 he became a professor at the Conservatory of Arts and Trades (Paris). He engaged in research and practical work in his laboratory in Pechelbronn (Alsace). Boussingault elaborated a series of studies on physiology and agricultural chemistry, the root nourishment of plants, problems of fertilizers, the rotation of substances in nature, the nitrogen cycle, and the dynamics of nitrogen in the soil. In particular, he established that all plants other than legumes, which themselves enrich the soil with nitrogen, take nitrogen from the soil. He was the founder of the vegetative method in the field of plant physiology and agronomy. He is the author of numerous articles and two fundamental studies, Field Agriculture in the Light of Chemistry, Physics, and Meteorology (vols. 1-2, 1851) and Agronomy and Agricultural Chemistry and Physiology (vols. 1-7, 1860-84).