348 Chief of a Laboratory of Plant Pathology 



have I of making any headway against him unless I can show by an appeal 

 to chapter and verse that he is wrong? This I can do, most thoroughly! 

 (6) My final answer is ready. It is written for Europeans, not for 

 Americans, and that all his colleagues may read it I have put it into his 

 own tongue. It is dignified in tone. It is entirely free from personalities, 

 and best of all it is unansiverable! I wish to use it both for the sake of 

 my own reputation in Europe and for the sake of the dignity and honor of 

 the U[nited} S[tates} Department of Agriculture, and of American 

 workers generally. 



Alfred Fischer never forgave Smith, but Americans were happy 

 to possess such courageous leadership. By letter, June 30, 1899. 

 F. C. Stewart had written Smith: " Yes, I have read your criticism 

 of Fischer and his reply. It is awfully discouraging to have a man 

 of Fischer's standing cast aside so lightly what we Americans have 

 thought to be heavy weight work on bacterial diseases of plants.' 



For several years, Augustine D. Selby, botanist and chemist of 

 the Ohio Agricultural Experiment Station, had been exchanging 

 letters with Smith on problems of plant pathology. Soon after 

 getting Smith's first publication on Bacillus tracheiphilus, Selby, 

 also studying wilt diseases, asked him whether he would " be 

 averse to stating what culture medium or media are preferred 

 from your work on this organism (B. tracheiphilus) ? I am doing 

 some work on a greenhouse micrococcus, and have on hands an 

 investigation of a bacterial tomato disease near Cincinnati." A 

 few days later, June 22, 1897, Selby thanked Smith 



for the suggestions concerning culture media. These will be serviceable 

 indeed. What you state concerning each one's working out his own 

 salvation, has been found true. The methods of manipulation for bacteria 

 pathogenic in animal organisms require a good deal of adaptation in the 

 vegetable world. I have been using beef broth and prune infusions as 

 nutrients for agar and gelatine — also potato and sweet potato slices. 



Later that year Selby informed that he had " fair material " 

 for working out that season " the Calla bacterium." Selby, a 

 graduate in science at Ohio State University, later a student at 

 Washington University, St. Louis, the Shaw School of Botany, 

 and Columbia University, was to deliver on November 29, 1901, 

 an address as president of the Ohio Academy of Science on " The 

 Future of Vegetable Pathology." '" This, together with his work 

 at the Ohio station at Wooster, would place him in the front 



■" Science n. s. 15(384): 736-740, May 9, 1902. 



