114 Early Work in North America 



anatomy patterned after his learning in Europe. His instruction, 

 while more closely linked to medical botany than other labora- 

 tories subsequently established in various universities of the 

 nation, helped to train not only medical students but plant pathol- 

 ogists also. A cryptogamic botanist like Farlov/, he early appre- 

 ciated the need for studies in forest mycology and pathology; and, 

 had not the forestry movement in Pennsylvania drawn him almost 

 wholly into its service, he might have gone far in this specialty. 



Arthur reported to Bessey in May, 1885: "The avidity and 

 cordiality with which [the Commissioner] acceded to all demands 

 quite took my breath away, and I haven't yet recovered. He says, 

 ' . . . I fully appreciate the importance of such investigation, and 

 heartily sympathize with the scientists of the country as to the 

 nature of the work. I have further to state that I have recently 

 appointed F. Lamson-Scribner to the position of Assistant Botanist 

 with special reference to this work.' " Arthur commented, " It 

 looks to me as if our movement was tabled. I have no hope that 

 any creditable work will be done. But I see no way to offer a 

 protest. Scribner is a good man, but I don't knov/ that he has any 

 knov/ledge of fungi or methods of investigation." 



Scribner*^ had been born in Massachusetts in 1851. Early in 

 life, he had lost his parents and, being adopted into another 

 family, combined his real name Lamson with that of his adopters 

 Scribner. He was brought up near Augusta, Maine, and soon 

 manifested his inclination toward natural history and his special 

 interest in botany. At the age of eighteen years, he prepared for 

 the state board of agriculture an illustrated pamphlet on the 

 "Weeds of Maine." From 1870 until 1873 he was a student at 

 the agricultural college at Orono, from which institution he gradu- 

 ated. Dr. George Vasey was in charge of the federal Division of 

 Botany when Scribner was appointed assistant botanist, and the 

 New Englander's herbarium in grasses and other plants, later 

 acquired by Bowdoin College, was valuable. 



In July 1885 Commissioner Colman assembled in Washington 

 a convention ^° of influential agriculturists; and, in his address, 

 made known his determination to encourage investigations by the 

 Department "into the health and diseases of plants." He com- 



** Based on a biographical sketch of Scribner prepared by the Division of Records 

 and Editing, U. S. Dept. of Agric, March 29, 1894. 

 ^"Botanical Gazette 10 (8): 325, 327, 1885. 



