On Plant Pmiiology and Bactiiriology 119 



Waitc was an Illinoisaii In birth, as was another student of 

 forthcoming renown, Arthur IMiss Seymour, trained by Burrill 

 during this pioneering period of phmt pathology in America. 

 Seymour graduated in science in 1881 from the University of 

 lUinois and in 1S86 was given a Master of Science degree after 

 he had spent some time as an assistant at the Gray and Crypto- 

 gamic Herbaria of Harvard University. During 1879, and again 

 in 1881-1883, he had served as botanist of the Illinois State 

 Laboratory of Natural History. When William Trclease was 

 called to the Shaw School of Botany and Washington University, 

 St. Louis, he wrote to Gray, " After giving the subject a good 

 deal of thought, I have recommended Seymour for trial one year 

 as Assistant Professor for I have more confidence in him than in 

 any other available man." Seymour was placed in charge of the 

 botanical department of the University of Wisconsin during 1885- 

 1886, but in 1886 he again became an assistant to Farlow in the 

 Cryptogamic Herbarium of Harvard, and together over a period 

 of years, 1888-1891, they published their famous Provisional Host- 

 hid ex of the Fungi of the United States. 



During the year that Erwin Smith was a student at the Uni- 

 versity of Michigan, the only plant pathologists who satisfied Pro- 

 fessor Spalding's definition of a professional investigator in the 

 subject were: Farlow and Seymour at Cambridge, Burrill of the 

 University of Illinois, Trelease of the Shaw School of Botany, 

 and Scribner of the United States Department of Agriculture. 

 Smith's name was the next to be added. Spalding did not include 

 himself. 



September 27, 1885, Smith, still at Lansing, wrote to Mrs. P. 

 H. Worden of Scriba Corners, New York, " I leave on Tuesday 

 next for the State University, where I shall remain a year or two, 

 after which I hope to secure a chair of Natural History in some 

 first class institution." On May 18 he had advised Spalding that 

 he had 



fully decided to enter the University this fall, and in order to get off the 

 regular work and confine myself to a specialty as soon as possible, I am 

 anxious to pass as many studies as I honestly can. I am deficient in 

 mathematics and will make up all that is required in that, but in the 

 natural sciences and the modern languages I believe I can pass off a 

 number of courses. Can you consistently pass me on some of the botanical 

 work? My plan is to spend three years at Ann Arbor, or so long as may 



