Fungous Disi:asI'S of Plants, Phac ii ^'ii.i.ows 167 



was that each believed the disease to be of parasitic origin anil 

 caused, as Burrill said, by some "micro-form." 



Some other scientists were doing some field study of peach 

 yellows. In April 1S8S, for instance, W. R. Lazcnby of Ohio had 

 agreed to take " about three hundred trees . . . 250 inoculated 

 and 100 unbudded," if desired. He was one of many American 

 scientists who protested the discontinuance of Smith's peach 

 yellows investigation. He wrote that there was "a demand for a 

 mycologist" at the Ohio experiment station and he was hoping 

 that within a few years funds would be provided. J. Troop at the 

 Indiana experiment station agreed to take seventy-five to one 

 hundred trees. L. R. Taft of the University of Missouri agreed to 

 take as many as Smith sent. But Smith and Burrill were the 

 acknowledged students of the malady and their research included 

 both held and laboratory examinations. 



On March 7, 1888, A. N. Prentiss of Cornell University deplored 

 the suspension of Smith's investigation and promised that he 

 would "take pleasure" in endorsing him for any position. "It 

 is uncertain as yet," he wrote, " as to what will be done here in 

 the way of Bot[anical} work for the Ex[periment} Station. It 

 may possibly run in the line of mycology — but the salary thus far 

 contemplated — $750 — is quite too insignificant for any one who 

 has already done any work in the subject. I hope the right thing 

 will turn up for you speedily." Garfield advised: "I should not 

 sacrifice myself on the altar of Science were I in your place. If 

 a good place were offered in any other direction, I would drop 

 yellows or blues and delve in a field where payments would be 

 made for services rendered." 



At the University of Michigan Spalding had placed Smith during 

 the second semester in charge of his department's " Microscopical 

 Laboratory." A class of t%venty-four students met on Mondays 

 and Fridays for laboratory or quiz and other days of the week for 

 regular laboratory work. He lived at Ann Arbor until June and 

 possibly until August. During May and June he lectured on 

 histological subjects, and his note book reveals a wealth of learn- 

 in £^ in morphology and physiology, and some attention given to 

 the histology of the peach. Most of the year 1888 was devoted 

 to completing his preliminary report on peach yellows, which was 

 submitted on November 10 to Beverly Thomas Galloway, the 

 newly appointed chief of the Section of Vegetable Pathology at 



