196 Investigations in Plant Pathology 



priation, was seeking to be of use to the farmers and agriailtural 

 communities of every section of the nation. 



Circular 4, a three-page pamphlet (1886), had made available 

 to farmers the best known, prescribed "Treatment of the Potato 

 for Blight and Rot." The several diseases to which tomatoes, 

 another basic crop of the agricultural economy, were found subject 

 were being investigated. Various state experiment stations, 

 ambitious to solve the problems of crop diseases within their 

 jurisdiction began to shape research programs of considerable 

 magnitude, workers of various stations collaborating in studying 

 various widespread diseases. By 1890*^ B. D. Halsted of the New 

 Jersey station, whose work served as a model on several subjects, 

 was calling attention at the Indianapolis meeting of the Society 

 for the Promotion of Agricultural Science to the need for study 

 in all affected regions of the sweet potato rots — ground rot, soft 

 rot, black rot, yellow or stem rot, and dry rot — diseases of real 

 interest to his state because of the industrial impairment being 

 suffered there. He was preparing his New Jersey station bulletin 

 76, " Some fungous diseases of the sweet potato," similar to his 

 bulletin 64 and 70 on fungous diseases of the cranberry and 

 spinach. Collaborating with Fairchild, the next year Halsted 

 would publish in the Journal of Mycology^* a quite important 

 study of the "Sweet-Potato Black Rot." 



Since the start of its publication under government auspices, the 

 Journal of Mycology had been presenting reviews, written by the 

 chief and assistants of the Section of Vegetable Pathology, of 

 especially valuable articles published both in the United States 

 and abroad. In 1889 Fairchild added to this important service by 

 inaugurating in the Journal's first issue of 1890 a prepared " Index 

 to North American Mycological Literature,"*^ a stupendous task 

 when one considers that it was done in spare hours from his 

 regular duties and gathered from station bulletin and annual 

 reports, from botanical publications, and other sources of infor- 

 mation, eventually from publications the world over. 



On October 18, 1890, Fairchild was directed by Galloway to go 

 to Lockport and other points in New York State to examine " a 



*'' Report of the 11th annual meeting of the Society', August, 1890: 27-28. 

 **7 (1): 1-11, Sept. 10, 1891. 



*^ The first series of abstracts was published in Jour. Mycology 6 (1): 42-44, 

 Mar. 1890, and were continued with quarterly issues of the publication. 



