Recognition of Plant Bacteriology in Europe 339 



in the diseased blackened vascular bundles and in tlie li,uht of the many 

 successful inoculations previously obtained on melon it was stated to be 

 the parasite (a conclusion since confirmed by the experiments of others).'^ 



Still later. Smith would establish a causal connection between 

 VuSitriuni ctibense EPS and a destructive banana disease of the 

 West Indies. ^- 



L. R. Jones, after his half-year of study in Smith's laboratory, 

 had to devote most of the remainder of 1899 to university matters. 

 On July 1 he wrote to Smith, that he was " beginning to think 

 about bacteria and other work again. ... I am glad that you 

 have decided to print the ' Outline [of Methods.'} Shall try to 

 secure several copies for my students to wear out." During 

 December he wrote that, while he had prepared a paper or 

 Bacillus carotovorus, he was withholding publication until after 

 further culture study had been completed. He was moving into 

 his new^ laboratory which he expected " to use for both plant 

 physiology and bacteriology," three rooms w^ith adequate storage 

 space. During the school vacation, he worked over his cultures 

 and compared organisms obtained since his work on " soft rot 

 of cabbage and soft rot of stored celery. The most active organism 

 I have yet found associated with cabbage rot," he said, " is remark- 

 ably similar to the carrot rot organism and may prove to be 

 identical with it." He sent Smith some agar tubes for transfers 

 from some of the carrot rot tubes left at the latter's laboratory. 



Jones attributed his election to the Society for Plant Morphology 

 and Physiology in part to Smith, and thanked him for his recom- 

 mendation. Either then or later Smith verified most of Jones's 

 statements on Bacillus carotovorus.^'^ In 1902 he described ^* the 

 Vermont botanist's paper on soft rot of the carrot and other 

 plants ^^ as " one of the best " of the recent papers on plant 

 diseases due to specific bacteria. It was this year that Spieckermann 



^^ Synopsis of Researches, op. cit., 21-22; H. W. Wollenweber, Studies on the 

 fusarium problem, Phytopathology 3(1): 24-50, Feb. 1913. 



^- Fifty years of pathology, op. cit., 32. Erwin F. Smith, A Cuban banana disease, 

 Scietjce 31(802): 754-755, May 13, 1910. 



^'Synopsis of researches, op. cit., 4l. 



** Plant pathology: a retrospect and prospect, op. cit., 607; also, Fifty years of 

 pathology, op. cit., 27. 



^° L. R. Jones, Bacillus carotovorus n. sp., die Ursache einer weichen Fiiulnis der 

 Mohre, Centralblatt f. Bakt. etc., II, 7(1): 12-21; (2) 61-68, 1901. See Smith's 

 literature citations and chapter VI, hitro. to bact. dis. of plants, op. cit., 223-252. 



