376 Chief of a Laboratory of Plant Pathology 



culture was scattered over an area covering several blocks and 

 was housed in several buildings, the most important of which 

 was the Administration Building of red brick which faced north- 

 ward and was surrounded by a beautiful horticultural park called 

 the Agricultural Grounds. Some of the laboratories, including 

 those of vegetable physiology and pathology, had been located in 

 nearby dwellings. 



During the years 1901-1903 several very able plant scientists 

 came into the employment of the Bureau of Plant Industry, and 

 with the selection of some of them Smith had considerable to do. 

 For instance, Rodney Howard True," after an exchange of letters 

 with Smith, was appointed plant physiologist for, among other 

 studies, drug plant, poisonous plant and fermentation investiga- 

 tions. For four years, 1895-1899, True had been a member of the 

 faculty in pharmacognosy at the University of Wisconsin, and 

 from 1899 to 1901 had lectured in Radcliffe College and Harvard 

 University. He hesitated before accepting the position. Plant 

 physiology was his preference, he told Smith in a letter of March 

 12, 1901, but he was not sure that his present interest in toxi- 

 cological science would fit into the work as planned for him. 

 The two men had been acquainted since the Madison meeting in 

 1893 of the American Association for the Advancement of Science 

 and, as True has revealed in his biographical sketch of Smith 

 many years later/* his interest in Smith's work had heightened 

 when at the University of Leipsig he had attended Alfred Fischer's 

 lectures in bacteriology and heard " him mention an American 

 named Smith who claimed that bacteria could grow in plants, that 

 they did so grow and produced diseases in them as in animals. 

 The naturally rather bitter tongue of Fischer," True told, " denied 

 this claim and laid Smith's ' blunder ' to a dirty technique in terms 

 that an American present felt were intended to reflect rather 

 broadly on the state of science in Smith's country. This was an 

 episode in that most significant polemic in which, like Pasteur in 

 his day, Smith fought and fought strenuously for his glimpse of 

 a very important truth." 



"H. L. Shantz, Rodney Howard True, Science n. s. 92(2398): 546-547, Dec. 13, 

 1940. 



'^Rodney H. True, Erwin F. Smith, Phytopathology 17(10): 675-680, quotation 

 at pp. 675-676, Oct. 1927. 



