Vasiliy Williams

Vasily Williams (1863 to 1939) was a Russian and Soviet soil scientist and agronomist, a professor of soil science at the Timiryazev Academy of Agriculture who became its director. Born in Moscow, the son of an American engineer settled in Russia, he studied at the Petrovsky Academy and did postgraduate work in Paris with Louis Pasteur. Influenced by Dokuchaev, he became interested in the organic matter of soil, introduced a doctrine of soil and soil formation and created a field he called meadow science, stressing the importance of perennial grasses in soil fertility. He established the Dokuchaev, Kostychev and Williams system of soil cultivation, which placed meadows, fields, forests, shelterbelts and water bodies as elements of agricultural landscaping, and he promoted clover and grass in fodder meadows. He wrote a textbook Soil Science, advised the Soviet government and was a member of the Soviet Academy of Sciences. Many of his ideas rested on untested theories but were adopted in the Stalin era.