Ludwig Meyn

Ludwig Meyn (1820 to 1878) was a German agricultural scientist, soil scientist, geologist, journalist and mineralogist from Pinneberg in Holstein, who is also remembered as a pioneer of oil drilling in Germany. After studying natural sciences in Berlin he taught rock and soil science at the University of Kiel and natural science at Kiel High School. Following Justus von Liebig, he taught the importance of agricultural chemistry and set out to persuade sceptical farmers that soil must be enriched with artificial fertilizers to restore the nutrients crops remove. From 1854 he ran a building and fertilizer factory in an old sawmill at Uetersen, later making chemical fertilizers and promoting his bone meal, an organic fertilizer rich in lime, nitrogen and phosphoric acid, and he wrote on soils, animals and plants for the Itzehoer Nachrichten. He collected over 1,500 rock samples across Schleswig-Holstein, drilled for oil in Dithmarschen in 1856, and was lead geologist for the drilling for the Hindenburgdamm in 1875 and 1876.