248 Early Studies in Bacterial Plant Diseases 



bacterial disease of oats." Galloway believed in plant pathology 

 and its future, combining exact laboratory research in bacteriology. 



For adequate work in bacteriology, the Division's workers could 

 not depend on cooperative arrangements with the state experiment 

 stations. Duties in university administration often took Burrill 

 away from research. During 1891 and 1892 ^° he had continued 

 to study several diseases of plants believed to be of bacterial 

 origin. Students interested in the plant bacterial diseases, how-' 

 ever, were still very few, and even Burrill studied other subjects. 

 Excellent results were reported from the use of copper compounds 

 against grape rot, apple scab, and potato blight. Like many other 

 workers in experiment stations of the central west, he was inves- 

 tigating diseases of grains. 'Puccima ruhtgovera was found to 

 winter over in wheat leaves and in the spring produce rust spores 

 which grow on fresh foliage. He was studying also the economic 

 smuts, raspberry rust, and a disease of plum. 



Early in 1893 Fairchild announced plans to spend three years 

 in study in Europe and in October he was appointed a special 

 agent of the Division to investigate plant diseases and scientific 

 agriculture there. 



Smith and Waite were the two men of the Division now 

 qualified for the needed work in plant bacteriology. Waite was 

 studying pear blight and Smith realized that a study of the bac- 

 terial wilt of cucurbits would yield more definite results than 

 further investigation of peach yellows. He did not relinquish 

 entirely his field and laboratory studies of peach yellows. For 

 nearly two years, however, he had been gathering together and 

 reading everything he could find concerning laboratory apparatus 

 and methods of work. He had excellent advisers in Theobald 

 Smith and V. A. Moore of the Bureau of Animal Industry. He 

 read the Johns Hopkins bulletins. He wrote to Drs. Vaughan 

 and Novy and others familiar with the latest in research methods. 

 He read many new books on plant physiology and other subjects 

 of importance. 



Erwin Smith was a far happier man than he had been for many 

 years. He was now married, and was beginning the new work 

 which was to test his high calibre as a student. 



^* G. F. Atkinson, Botany at the experiment stations, 1892; B. D. Halsted, What 

 the station botanists are doing, 1891, works cited. 



