Franklin Hiram King

Infobox Scientist
name = Franklin Hiram King
box_width =


image_width =150px
caption = Franklin Hiram King, from the frontispiece of "Farmers of Forty Centuries" (1911).
birth_date = 8 June, 1848
birth_place = Whitewater, Wisconsin
death_date = 4 August, 1911
death_place =
residence =
citizenship =
nationality = American
ethnicity =
field =agricultural scientist
work_institutions = University of Wisconsin-Madison
alma_mater =
doctoral_advisor =
doctoral_students =
known_for = storage silo
author_abbrev_bot =
author_abbrev_zoo =
influences =
influenced =
prizes =
religion =
footnotes =

Franklin Hiram King (8 June, 1848 – 4 August, 1911) was an American agricultural scientist who was born on a farm near Whitewater, Wisconsin, attended country schools, and received his professional training first at Whitewater State Normal School and then at Cornell University.

King served as a professor of agricultural physics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison from 1888 until 1902. Interested in a wide range of subjects throughout his career, King made major contributions during these years in research and teaching that dealt with applications of physics to agriculture. Most attention was given to soil physics, for example, water-holding capacities of soils, moisture requirements of plants, aeration, movement of water in soils, movement of groundwater, the drafts of plows, and the lifting power of windmills; he also began studies of soil fertility. The impact of his career was greatest in the field of soil science. He has been called the father of soil physics in the USA.

King left Wisconsin to become chief of the Division of Soil Management in the USDA Bureau of Soils in Washington, D.C. in January 1902. His findings in the next two years, that the concentration of nutrients in soil solution was correlated with crop yields, began to undermine beliefs held strongly by the chief of the bureau about the relations of soil chemistry to plant growth and soil fertility. King was forced to resign but privately published several additional papers from his research during this period.

King returned to Madison, where he devoted the last seven years of his life to summarizing earlier findings and conducting further research in agricultural physics, including the ventilation of farm buildings. Three of his seven books were written during that period, the best known of which is "Farmers of Forty Centuries, or Permanent Agriculture in China, Korea, and Japan", which recounted his investigations into what would now be called sustainable agriculture during a nine-month tour of Asia in 1909. The last chapter was completed after his death by his wife, Carrie Baker King, and the book was published in 1911.

He is most popularly known for designing the cylindrical storage silo, which reduces the occurrence of moldy corners in the silage. Some have speculated that the designer of the Guggenheim Museum, Frank Lloyd Wright, was influenced by King's designs. King is commemorated at the University of Wisconsin-Madison by King Hall, so renamed in 1934, which is the same Agricultural Physics Hall in which he worked during his tenure there and which now houses part of the Department of Soil Science (formed by the 1904 reorganization of King's original department into the 'Soils Department' and the 'Agricultural Engineering Department'), and by the F.H. King Students of Sustainable Agriculture club, a student organization.

References

*Tanner, C.B. and Simonson, R.W. "Franklin Hiram King – Pioneer Scientist", "Soil Science Society of America Journal": Volume 57, no. 1, January-February 1993. ( [http://www.soils.wisc.edu/soils/people/emeritus/king/fh_king.htm Reprinted at U. of Wisconsin] )
*Paull, John, "Permanent Agriculture: Precursor to Organic Farming", "Elementals: Journal of Bio-Dynamics Tasmania", no.83, pp. 19-21, 2006. (http://orgprints.org/10237/ Organic eprints)...

External links

*
* cite book
title=The Soil, Its Nature, Relations, and Fundamental Principles of Management
author=Franklin Hiram King
year=1895
publisher=Macmillan & co., ltd.
isbn=
url=http://books.google.com/books?vid=0s04HVb75XyTwugsPA&id=oNJRNT26mMEC&pg=PA1&lpg=PA1&dq=Franklin+King
* [http://www.library.wisc.edu/guides/EastAsia/fhking.html F.H. King documents from East Asia at Univ of Wisconsin-Madison]
* [https://www2.fpm.wisc.edu/ppnew/featurebldg/pdf/kinghall.pdf King Hall, Univ of Wisconsin-Madison]
* [http://fhking.rso.wisc.edu/ F.H. King Students for Sustainable Agriculture group at Univ of Wisconsin-Madison]