Florida and Calii-ornia LAiiORATORii'S 26'^ 



Pineapple house and at tlic same time in the open air, so that when I 

 return they will be big enous;h for inoculation? . . . 



Smith sent for the experimental and systematic literature on 

 Tusarium, includint; that of Saccardo. He sterilized his old agar 

 dishes in the kitchen oven of the home in which he was living. 

 Days he sp^ent in the fields studying the vines and evenings he 

 spent with his cultures and drawings. July 15 he announced in a 

 letter to Galloway he had " made some discoveries which throw 

 a flood of light on the nature of the fungus. It is an active parasite 

 when the vines are young, damping them off in large numbers as 

 readily as a Pythium. This was a very unexpected result." 



He explained a long, complicated series of investigation. He 

 was aware of the error of his first belief that " the fungus got in 

 above ground." He now believed that the Fusarium threads grow 

 through the tissues in every direction boring through cells, even 

 the parenchyma cells deep in the tissue, and fruit abundantly in 

 all parts and inside the cells, a dozen spores in a cell sometimes. 

 This discovery, he realized, made the possibilities of treatment 

 complicated. Spraying would not prevent the disease, even if any 

 vines were left for such trial experiments. He became satisfied 

 that the disease gels underground, and that the fungus entered 

 the plant through the root. Bordeaux mixture experiments, later 

 tried, further confirmed this. So, after following up several other 

 hypotheses and gathering together his carefully prepared and 

 saved materials for further work in his laboratory in Washington, 

 he, having spent almost two months in field work, returned to his 

 home. It is not impossible that he had made a hurried trip to 

 South Carolina in 1893. It is certain, moreover, he was to return 

 there in 1895 for extended researches in Fusaria-caused diseases 

 of cotton, cowpea, tomato, and other crops. His visits were 

 memoralized in a poem entitled "A Sunset in South Carolina ' 

 and written in 1926: 



As plain as yestcr-eve, burns through my head 



The flaming glory of a sunset old, 

 Nor will it ever fade till I am cold, 



For thirty years and more since then have fled. 

 At first the whole blue dome was overspread 



With small torn clouds of silver and of gold 

 And then with crimson clouds 'twas flecked and rolled 



In one vast canopy of blue and red. 



