Tloripa and ClAi.iroKNiA Lahokatokihs 267 



development of technical procedures to produce disease-resistant 

 varieties by seed selection experiments, and by hybridization. 



Smith, while in the south during these years 1894-18y'>», must 

 have become acquainted with cotton breeding there. Atkinson, as 

 early as 1892,'"' referred to crossing varieties of cotton at the 

 Alabama experiment station by Mell, botanist and meteorologist 

 in charge of phanerogenic botany. Whether such was aimed at 

 accomplishing directly or indirectly the object of disease resistance 

 cannot be stated with certainty. Galloway urged Smith to visit 

 the Alabama statign and Secretary Morton directed Smith on July 

 31, 189?, to visit points in Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi as 

 part of his study of cotton and melon diseases. Smith's diary to 

 be quoted later shows definitely that on July 24, 1895, at James 

 Island, opposite Charleston, South Carolina, he observed closely 

 cotton seed-selection work practiced over a period of three years 

 by plantation owners to prevent crop deterioration. 



In November 1894 V. M. Spalding, home from study at Leipzig 

 with Pfetter and Detmer and planning to return to Europe soon 

 for further work, regaled him with a letter from Cambridge, 

 Massachusetts: " I feel like shouting vigorously with you," he 

 wrote, " over your discoveries in the case of the watermelon 

 disease. As a matter of fact I might just as well come down to 

 Washington to study fungi as to put in the time with Brefeld, 

 but I want to see how he does it, and then perhaps we can com- 

 pare notes later on." Smith recently had given much of his spare 

 time to reading and criticising Spalding's book then being pub- 

 lished. In reply to some criticisms on matters of plant physiology, 

 Spalding asked: " Is there anything fundamental in plant physiol- 

 og)' that you can think of that is really settled.^" He invited 

 Smith to visit him in Cambridge and together they might examine 

 the laboratories at Harvard and consult some of the distinguished 

 men of the university. 



Smith must have immediately written him of his new inves- 

 tigations of the "germ" of the bacterial disease of cucumber, 

 melon, and squash. In September he had artificially infected 

 squash vines and three weeks later made cultures and found that 

 the organism grew readily in broths of beef, peptonized beef, 



'* Botany at the experiment stations, op. at., Science 20: 329, Dec. 9, 1892. 



