Adolf Lehmann or Adolph Ludwig Ferdinand Lehmann was a Canadian chemist and agricultural scientist of German origin. He served as the first agricultural chemist of Mysore state in India. He established a laboratory for chemical analysis and began field experiments to study plant nutrition and also worked on chemical problems involved in the processing of sugar from sugarcane.
Life and work
Lehmann was born in Orillia, Ontario, the first son of Adalbert Ludwig Lehmann and Kathinka Helene Friedereike a family of German settlers who farmed around Sparrow Lake. Adolph graduated in 1889 from the Ontario Agricultural College and then studied under Johannes Wislicenus at the University of Leipzig where he studied the reduction of dibenzene diphenylbutadiene to tetraphenylbenzene and received a doctorate. He then worked at the Dominion Experimental Farm, Ottawa as an assistant chemist to Frank Thomas Shutt and then as a chemist in New Orleans. He also gave lectures on fungi and other aspects of natural history for members of the Ottawa Field Naturalists' Club.
India
In 1898 he moved to India to set up the department of agriculture in Mysore State. Lehmann's appointment was based on the recommendations of the Voelcker commission to the government of India. Among his achievements were the establishment of rigorous experimental techniques based on pot cultures, field plots, and developing chemical assays for phosphorus in plant and animal matter. He studied soil fertility, and conducted research on improving the process of converting sugarcane juice to sugar, treating water for drinking, and in paper making. In 1908, as his appointment term ended, shortly after the death of his wife, the Government of Mysore decided not to renew the position of Agricultural Chemist. The Planter' Association resolved in a meeting "That this Association deplores the retrograde policy of the Mysore Government with regard to agriculture by which the services of Dr Lehmann are lost to the Province. It desires to place on record its high appreciation of the valuable services rendered to the planting industry by Dr. Lehmann." Lehmann had worked for nine years before he returned to Canada, to work initially at Queen's University, and then at the University of Alberta as a professor. He was succeeded in 1908 in the state of Mysore by Leslie Coleman who had been recruited as a mycologist. In Canada he studied bitumen deposits in the Athabasca river, studied soil chemistry and influenced numerous students. He was invalid for the last eight years of his life and died at Kingston, Ontario. Lehmann was married to Georgina Mary Agnes and they had four children.
