WILLIAM GILSON FARLOW. 487 



judgment and devotion to truth that made him refuse to accept con- 

 clusions, until they were absolutely established, and the unusual 

 breadth of view so often mentioned already. To these must be added 

 an insatiable love of work, as well as great and constantly increasing 

 stores of learning. 



As soon as he reached America his appointment as Assistant Pro- 

 fessor of Botany in Harvard University put him in a position to make 

 the most of these treasures and to raise cryptogamic botany in the 

 United States from a mere sketchy appendix in a general course of 

 botanj^ to the rank of an independent study. 



For five years he was stationed at the Bussey Institution of Harvard 

 University, although his teaching was in the college, and then in 1879 

 he was transferred to Cambridge as Professor of Cryptogamic Botany. 

 These five years at the Bussey Institution, however, had an im- 

 portant influence on his life as well as on the botanical development 

 of the country, since they called his attention to the fungous diseases 

 of plants, and he threw himself into work in this virgin field with such 

 energy that he is acknowledged as one of the founders of phytopathol- 

 ogy in the United States — ■ a study which has since reached such 

 proportions that we lead the world in it at present. 



His papers in this field are numerous and important. Among them 

 may be mentioned studies of potato rot, grape mildew, black knot, 

 onion smut, gymnosporangia, fungous diseases of hollyhocks, roses, 

 and even of salted codfish. 



After he was settled in Cambridge, his plans included the establish- 

 ment of a herbarium and a library of cryptogamic botany, in addition 

 to the teaching and research properly belonging to his professorship. 

 The first step towards his herbarium had been taken even before his 

 return from Strassburg, as then Asa Gray bought for him the famous 

 collection of fungi made by the Rev. M. A. Curtis. To this nucleus 

 were added later many other famous collections, which had been 

 either bequeathed to the University, or purchased by him. Con- 

 spicuous among them were Tuckerman's lichens, Sullivant's, James's, 

 and Kennedy's mosses and hepatics, Faxon's sphagna, and, quite as 

 important as these, his own rich collections of fungi and algae. His 

 father's wealth enabled him also to make his library — like his her- 

 barium — the fullest and best in the country and both were always 

 open to botanists qualified to use them. 



