Mr. Hou Kuangchun (1905-1996), also known as Hou Yiru, was among the first group of academicians of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (formerly member of Academia Sinica), a senior fellow of the British Royal Society a national first grade professor of China, a pioneer in soil science in China and also an explorer and founder of the agricultural soil science of China. With the 100th anniversary of Mr Hou birth coming around the corner, to study comprehensively processes, genesis and affecting factors of the formation of Mr. Hou’s academic thought is an event of important theoretical significance, academic value and practical reflection, which will not only help explore and sublime Mr. Hou’s academic life and inner requirements of his thought, but also play an important active role in promoting development of the modern agricultural soil science and strengthening the construction of a benign academic atmosphere. (1) Mr. Hou’s academic career spanned 70 years (1927 to 1996), beginning almost at the same time modern soil science made its debute in China and the development processes of the two were closely related with a high degree of overlapping. Mr. Hou’s academic life can roughly be divided into seven phases, i.e. schooling as a junior, cutting a great figure, struggling in difficulty, ambitious exhibition, downturn, glory days and continuity of thought. Each phase had its own peculiar characteristics in content. (2) On the basis of fully absorbing the advanced research concepts, methods and techniques of the European and American schools of soil science and ex-Soviet Union school of soil science, Mr. Hou founded a China-specific school of soil science, featuring Chinese characteristics in the light of the actual conditions in China. The so-called "Chinese characteristics" were specifically embodied in research concept, research methods and research findings. In the aspect of research concept, Mr. Hou began, as early as in the 1920s and 1930s when he was still in school, to nourish the idea that soil science should serve agricultural; in the aspect of research methods, Mr. Hou advocated summarization and distillation of farmers’ experience in farming production; and in the aspect of research findings, Mr. Hou made a number of representative achievements that suit the specific conditions of the nation, such as propositon of the agricultural soil physiologic conception and the soil fertility bio-thermodynamic theory and development of the technology of natural no-tillage. (3) Mr. Hou’s academic thought is the product of the joint effects of various factors such as social environment, family environment, mentors’ teaching and his own qualities, through decades of accumulation. Tempered by a series of factors, Hou’s academic thought began to take shape, and underwent a course of progressive development from immature to mature, and from fragments to a system.