338 Chief of a Laboratory of Plant Pathology 



in the spring of 1900. Certain conidial spores were quite uniformly 

 observed in the sediment from samples examined. These were none other 

 than the spores of a fusarium often previously observed upon the dead 

 roots and stems of wilted, dead, or dying flax plants and upon harvested 

 flax lying unprotected in the fields. A few days sufficed to produce dis- 

 tinctive cultures upon agar and later but a few weeks were necessary to pro- 

 cure pure cultures from the interior of the fibrovascular bundles of wilting 

 but living plants, and to prove the pathogenic nature of this fusarium to 

 flax seedlings by pure cultures applied to sterilized and virgin soil (Bulletin 

 50). In June of 1900, the regular rotation plot 30 of the department of 

 agronomy was assigned to the department of plant pathology. . . ." 



July, 1900, Bolley took from " Plot 30 " his first pure culture 

 of the flax wilt fungus, Fusarium lin't^ and completed his infection 

 experiments in field and laboratory for purposes of his Bulletin 50 

 in 1901. 



In 1903 he was sent to Europe by the college and the Depart- 

 ment of Agriculture. At various regions of the continent he 

 examined flax diseases, studied their origins, and secured new 

 types of flaxseed for cropping purposes in North Dakota and the 

 northwest. Bolley's bulletin 55, " Flax and flax seed selection," 

 was published that year. Wilt-resistant flax varieties, originated 

 on " Plot 30 " during the next years, included N.D.R.-52, N.D.R.- 

 114, and Bison, Buda, and N.D. Golden.'' 



By 1904 Smith, with Deane B. Swingle of his laboratory, would 

 publish on " The Dry Rot of Potatoes due to Fusarium oxy- 

 sporum." " To his last years the senior author believed this to 

 be the " first good paper on this widely prevalent potato disease." 

 Unfortunately, an old name, Fusarium oxysporum Schlectendal, 

 " practically a nomen nudum," Smith said, was applied to this 

 fungus. But by the bulletin attention was called to 



this black ring disease of the potato tuber which was then a new disease, at 

 least to scientific men, and while infections were not undertaken the 

 Fusarium was demonstrated to be the only organism constantly present 



"' Foreword, Fungi of flaxseed and of flax-sick soil. Bull. 259, N. D. Agric. Exp't 

 Sta., 2, June 1932. See also, North DakoUn 19(6): 7, June 1944. Also, H. L. 

 Bolley, Flax wilt and flax sick soil, Bulletin 50, N. D. Agric. Coll. and Exp't 

 Sta., 36. 



^ H. L. Bolley, Flax wilt and flax sick soil, op. cit., 'hi fir. T. F. Manns, Historical 

 sketch, Fungi of flaxseed and of ^ax-sick soil, op. cit., 3 ff. 



* H. L. Bolley, Flax cropping, Bimonthly Bulletin, N. D. Agr. Exp. Sta. 3(6): 

 9-12, at p. 11, July 1941; Harry R. O'Brien, Plants that resist disease. The Country 

 Gentleman, Feb. 5, 1921; Yearbook U. S. D. A. for 1936: 745-784. 



'"Bulletin 55, U. S. Dep't of Agric, Bur. of PI. Indus., February 16, 1904. 



