RECOGNiTiorsi OF Plant Bactlriologv in EUROFr. 337 



to Washington before the end of the niuntli unless you have other plans 

 to be carried out. 



It would i;ive me great pleasure to have an opportunity to visit the 

 Alabama Experiment Station as you sui^gested in your letter of the 8th, 

 but in case you should wish me to go there, I would like to know as much 

 as possible about the experiments which arc to be carried out there, in order 

 to do the work properly. 



By September-October, and probably some while thereafter, 

 Orton was again in Washington and worked at least part of his 

 time in Smith's laboratory. That he advised Smith as well as 

 Galloway of his progress in South Carolina with reference to 

 originating varieties of plants resistant to fusarium-caused disease 

 was shown by his letter to Smith written on April 3, 1900, at Edisto 

 Island, South Carolina: 



I ha\c just come here today from James Island where I had good luck 

 in starting my experiments. ... I find conditions here very interesting. 

 There is a marked increase in the amount of cotton wilt everywhere, but 

 the prospects of securing a resistant variety arc far more encouraging than 

 I hoped for, as we have a considerable number of such plants from which 

 to make selections. 



In his address, " Fifty Years of Pathology," '^ Smith concisely 

 summarized the significance of these and another set of researches 

 having the same fundamental intention: 



Bolley, Arthur's student, studied in 1901 the flax FHsar'nan in North 

 Dakota, and afterwards flax diseases in Europe, with money from my fund, 

 and W. A. Orton, working at first in my laboratory and afterwards inde- 

 pendently, overcame the Fusarium diseases of melons and cotton in our 

 southern states by hybridization and selection (1889-1906). 



Already in this book we have referred to BoUey's pioneering 

 plant pathological work in North Dakota. In the autumn of 1890, 

 visiting at the home of Dr. Otto Lugger at the Farm School and 

 Experiment Station, St. Anthony Park, Minnesota, BoUey's atten- 

 tion was called to a destructive " blight " of flax which required 

 careful study. At once he started 



structural and mycological and bacteriological studies based upon the flax 

 plant, its seeds and soils upon which infection occurred. But slight pro- 

 gress was made during a number of years until the use of the physician's 

 centrifuge was applied to the sedimentation of washings from flax-seed 



" Op. at., 27-28. 



