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RECOGNITION OF THE SCIENCE OF PLANT BACTERIOLOGY 



IN AMERICA 



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N JUNE 22, 189^, Smith sent to Farlow a reprint of his 

 recently published paper on Bdcilhis iracheiphilus. " It is 

 the first plant disease I've ever been able to work out satisfac- 

 torily," he commented, " the yellows having thus far baffled me, 

 although I am not' yet ready to give up on that, but only resting 

 long enough to get a fresh start." 



During this year he began to consult Farlow on the proper 

 classification, and points of his culture study, of the watermelon 

 fungus, Neocosmospora. Almost two years of " very hard work- 

 unravelling its life history " had not solved all of his problems, 

 although by January 6, 1896, he told Farlow in another letter: 



I have now worked out the whole life history, and a good deal of 

 general interest concerning the physiology of the fungus, and if I could 

 only settle one way or other whether the three forms (on cotton, cowpeas, 

 and watermelon) are identical or different, I should be ready to throw 

 my two years notes into shape for publication. Here the investigation lags. 



Smith continued his cross inoculation experiments during 1896 

 and 1897; and even in 1899 when his bulletin ' on the " Wilt 

 Disease of Cotton, Watermelon, and Cowpea " was published, 

 he did not regard his investigation as completed. He published 

 his " main facts," and expected to extend his ascospore inocu- 

 lations. But his last publishing on this subject took place in 1907 - 

 and represented not his own work but that of a colleague, William 

 A. Orton. 



Early in 1896 Farlow congratulated Smith for his "excellent 

 reviews " of botanical literature in the American Naturalist. In 

 1895 Dr. Edward D. Cope, science editor of the Naturalist, had 

 given Smith " exclusive direction " of a department of vegetable 

 physiology to which he added pathology and morphology. 



Smith told Farlow there were " very few men in the country" 



* 17, Div. Veg. Phys. and Path., U. S. Dept't of Agriculture. 

 ^ E. F. Smith, The parasitism of Neocosmospora — inference versus fact, Science, 

 n. s. 26 (663): 347-349, Sept. 13, 1907. 



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