Wilhelm Schumacher

Wilhelm Schumacher (born April 5, 1834 in Endenich near Bonn , † September 17, 1888 in Bonn) was a German arable and crop scientist .

Live and act

Little is known about Schumacher's life. Apparently he studied medicine and worked as a veterinarian since 1854 . In 1859 he was promoted to Dr. phil. PhD. Since then he has dealt intensively with plant physiology , plant nutrition and agricultural physics . With their latest research results he tried to scientifically justify the apparently still very practice-oriented teaching of arable and crop production. From 1864 to 1866, Schumacher taught as a lecturer in agriculture and agricultural physics at the Agricultural Training Institute in Berlin . From 1869 to 1870 he gave lectures on crop production at the Agricultural Academy in Bonn-Poppelsdorf .

Schumacher published an impressive number of books. His main scientific work is the two-volume book "Physics in its application to agriculture and physiology" (1864 and 1867). With this work he paved the way for a plant cultivation theory oriented towards agricultural physics, as it was later a.o. a. was continued by Ewald Wollny . With the help of several specialist colleagues, Schumacher has published a “Yearbook of Agriculture” at the Leipzig publisher Quandt & Handel, of which only three volumes (1868–1870) have appeared.

Major works

• Diffusion in its relationship to the plant. Theory of the absorption, distribution and migration of substances in the plant. A contribution to the study of plant nutrition for plant physiologists, agricultural chemists, farmers and other friends of plant science . CF Winter´sche Verlagsbuchhandlung Leipzig & Heidelberg 1861.
• The nutrition of the plant. With special consideration of the cultivated plants and the agricultural practice according to the latest research for farmers and plant researchers . GF Otto Müller´s Verlag Berlin 1864.
• Physics in its application to agriculture and plant physiology . Vol. 1: The physics of the soil in its theoretical and practical relations to agriculture . Published by Wiegandt & Hempel Berlin 1864; Vol. 2: The physics of the plant. A contribution to the physiology, climatology and culture of plants . Ibid. 1867.
• Exhaustion and replacement in agriculture. Attempt to statics of agriculture . GF Otto Müller´s Verlag Berlin 1866.
• Agriculture. The science of soil cultivation, cultivation of fields and general plant cultivation . Beck'sche University Bookstore Vienna 1874.
• Ludwig Wessel's Poppelsdorf porcelain and earthenware factory in Bonn: a contribution to the history of Rhenish industry, occasionally to celebrate the 125th anniversary of the Poppelsdorf factory . - Bonn: Neusser, 1880. - Digitized edition of the University and State Library Düsseldorf

literature

JC Poggendorff: Biographical-literary concise dictionary of exact natural sciences Vol. III, Abt. 2, 1898, p. 1221 u. Vol. V, Abt. 2, 1926, p. 1139.