Placi-d on a NATioN-wior. Basis 223 



tion," so valuable, in fact, that he sent for Swindle or Cjalloway, 

 both if possible, to confirm his observations. Smith sent for the 

 noted horticulturist and nurseryman Berckmans of Augusta, 

 Georgia. Discovering a "new fact" — gummosis of the fruit — 

 Smith decided to make some sections immediately, and sent for 

 agar dishes for plate cultures with sterilized media, requested 

 Galloway or Swingle to bring a Hask of sterile gelatine, twent)'- 

 four empty plugged and sterilized tubes, a platinum wire, and 

 agar plates ready for use. Later he sent for a microscope, cedar oil, 

 and other equipment. Swingle arrived and the two men, with high 

 hopes and abundant enthusiasm, went to work, studying not only 

 peach rosette but also other plant diseases, including garden, field, 

 and forest crops. From Canada to Florida and from New England 

 to California, the Department had special agents in the field or 

 cooperative arrangements with experiment station workers study- 

 ing the more serious of the known diseases of agricultural crops. 

 Galloway in his annual report for that year described with justifi- 

 able pride many of the results thus far achieved. The public 

 response to the work was uniformly one of approval. 



Smith's and Swingle's experiments awakened a wide interest 

 among the growers and many visited the nursery at Mr. Husted's 

 place. Smith delivered an address before members of the Middle 

 Georgia Horticultural Society. They recognized that the symptoms 

 of rosette w^re in points dissimilar from those of yellows; and 

 that eradication of affected trees, enforced by law if need be, 

 might prove to be the only solution. They believed that bacteria 

 might cause the malady. This, like peach yellows and another 

 disease which Smith studied later, " little peach," is today believed 

 to be caused by a virus. Scientific knowledge of parasitic organisms 

 in plant diseases, however, had then not progressed much beyond 

 a considerable knowledge of fungi and fungous diseases, and an 

 an initial acquaintance with bacteria and bacterial diseases of 

 plants. Many letters which passed between Smith, Swingle, Gallo- 

 way, and Assistant Secretary of Agriculture Willits have been 

 preserved. These do not say as much as Smith's own final estimate 

 of his accomplishments. He said of his work: "- 



In case of peach rosette, which is more southern in its distribution and 

 swifter in its action and was then a new disease, I showed how it difiers 



Synopsis of researches, op. cit., 19. 



