Ol- 1111: ScUiNClli Ol- Pi ANT HACTliKlOLOGY 301 



Farlow. Galloway told him to continue with his work at Cam- 

 brid£;c and hoped " that nothint; [would] interfere with [his] 

 future investigations in plant patholog)'. The subject,'" he said, 

 " is a broad and £;ro\\ ing one and in my judgment there is abun- 

 dant opportunity for voung men to come to the front in this 

 special field." 



Stewart, after accepting a position with the New York station 

 at Geneva, corresponded on plant diseases with Smith, Waite, and 

 others of the Division. On August 14, 1897, he wrote Woods: 



I wish to corii^ratulate you on your success in ferreting out the true cause 

 of Dr. Arthur's " Bactcriosis " of Carnations. "^^ ... I suspected that you 

 had discovered that the trouble is not due to bacteria at all. . . . One will 

 do well to be suspicious of bacterial diseases in which it is difficult to 

 isolate the germ and which do not respond readily to inoculation. It might 

 be well for me to take my own advice because I am working on a bacterial 

 disease of sweet corn which does not respond to inoculation as readily as 

 I would like to have it. I am also glad to know that you have gotten to the 

 bottom of the lily disease.^' ... In a separate package I send you some 

 geranium leaves which are affected with a spot disease. 



He wished to know whether the disease was of fungous or 

 bacterial origin. 



Three " plant diseases were first defined and brought to the 

 attention of the American scientific public " ^^ by Arthur. Two, 

 " stigmanose of carnation " and " curly top of sugar beet," were 

 admitted by him to have been " erroneously ascribed to bacteria," 

 but the third, carnation rust,^® withheld the test of subsequent 

 investigation. The rusts were his specialty. Between the years 

 1882 and 1916, he published " over eighty papers " on these sub- 

 jects, and much other important work was done by him on the 

 plant rusts which he regarded as his " notable achievement." 



Smith was one who restudied Arthur's " bacterial disease of 

 sugar beet," '" and, although he examined specimens sent by 

 Arthur in 1899, he was unable to obtain any results which estab- 

 lished a bacterial origin. Arthur in 1897 told Woods, " I am 



""Bull. Indiana Exp'l Sta. 59, summary at pp. 37-38, Mar. 1896. 



"'' Bermuda lily disease, prelim, rep't, Bull. 14, Div. Veg. Phys. and Path., 1897. 



** Unpublished memorandum, prepared by Dr. Arthur on February 15, 1916, op. 

 at. Quotations of this paragraph taken from this memorandum. 



"Botanical Gazette 16: 321, 1891; American Florist 7: 587, 1892. 



'* See, E. F. Smith, A bacterial disease of sugar beets (1892) by Arthur and 

 Golden, Amer. Nat. 30: 716-731, Sept. 1896, sub-section 3. Also, Bull. Indiana 

 Exp't Sta. 39. 



