On Plant PAriioi.or.v and l^ACTinuoi.oGY 111 



Burrill continued his studies of pear blight and by 1883 '" was 

 "able to confirm the observation of Mr. Pieffer, of Wisconsin, 

 that bliqht may be introduced through the flowers and probably 

 without wound of any kind." 



In the spring of 1884 J. C. Arthur, recently appointed botanist 

 of the New York experiment station at Geneva, began experi- 

 ments on pear blight which confirmed the work of Burrill. Dr 

 Bessey, his former teacher of botany at Iowa Agricultural College 

 and now at the Univjersity of Nebraska, may have suggested this 

 investigation, since on April 16 Arthur had written him: 



I have hardly i:ot to work yet: of course there is no out of door work 

 yet. I am beginning some experiments on the absorption of oxygen by 

 germinating seeds and accompanying phenomena. I find I am free to 

 plan and execute any investigations I see fit, with the resources of the 

 station at my command. What I shall do in physiological botany I have 

 not determined, but have however concluded to look into the life and 

 habits of some of the plants that cause diseases of cultivated crops, such 

 as the rusts etc. 



He told Bessey that he was very much pleased with his position 

 and would " be very glad for suggestions." On May 6 he again 

 urged Bessey to suggest " subjects for investigation. . . . My work 

 here," he wrote, " is strictly botanical, and I am at liberty to deter- 

 mine what fully nine tenths of it shall be." '" 



On a visit that year to Dr. Farlow's herbarium, he had decided 

 to specialize in the rusts. In 1879 he had been an honorary fellow 

 at Johns Hopkins University and studied under Farlow who was 

 on leave from Harvard. Some work that year was also taken at 

 Harvard under Dr. Goodale.'*'* His doctorate in science, however, 

 was obtained from Cornell University and by March, 1886, he was 

 writing Bessey: "I am now making cultures of pear blight with 

 improved appliances and material and hope to have considerable 

 new matter for my thesis to be presented to Cornell University 

 in June." 



On January 30, 1885, Arthur had written Bessey: " I have just 



'*T. J. Burrill, Pear blight and peach yellows, Trans. III. St. Hort. Soc. for 1883: 

 46-49; see also American Naturalist 17: 319, 1883. 



''* Letters lent author by Dr. Ernst Bessey. 



*" Facts taken from memoranda by Arthur: (1) prepared at Lafayette, Indiana, 

 Feb. 15, 1916; (2) "The Purdue Herbarium basis of the Rust Project"; Arthur's 

 report as a member of the class of 1872, Iowa State College. Permission to use 

 given at the Arthur Herbarium. 



