Studios on Crown Gall of Plants 451 



Why can't you qivc us a textbook? Pcrh.ijis llic best ihinn would be to 

 give us an elementary work at first, so as to teach us all what Plant 

 Pathology actually is or should be, and then give us finally another one 

 which goes to the very bottom of things as you are able to sec them. 



An instructor of plant pathology at the university had told 

 Bessev that Smith's two volumes were " the best ever published 

 on plant diseases of any kind." 



In December 1911, in the first volume of Phytopathology,'''' 

 L. R. Jones had reviewed Smith's second volume on Bacteria in 

 Relation to Plant Diseases and concluded that " Certainly nothing 

 comparable to this-as fundamental work in plant patholog)' has 

 appeared in this generation." The following year, also in Phyto- 

 patholagy,'^ appeared an article by H. A. Harding of the New 

 York Agricultural Experiment Station at Geneva, " The Trend of 

 Investigation in Plant Pathology," in which was stated: 



If there is a doubt in the mind of anyone as to the objective point toward 

 which the development of plant pathology is tending let him read the 

 second volume of Erwin F. Smith's " Bacteria in Relation to Plant Dis- 

 eases." There he will find two hundred pages devoted to the presentation 

 of the science of plant pathology and its form of presentation is almost 

 identical with that current in animal pathology. Whenever this is possible 

 the terminology of animal pathology is applied to the corresponding tissue 

 changes in plants. It is entirely natural that this growing correlation be- 

 tween animal and plant pathology should be most evident in the treatment 

 of bacterial diseases since many of the bacteriologists, in the nature of the 

 case, have come into closer touch with animal pathology than have the 

 students of fungi. . . . 



The present trend of investigation in plant pathology may be charac- 

 terized as an effort to follow animal pathology in recognizing the host as 

 the focal point of study and to consider the relation of the host to its 

 environment in a comprehensive way. 



On December 28, 1911, when Smith gave his address as retiring 

 president of the Botanical Society of America, " Some Resem- 

 blances of Crown-Gall to Human Cancer," "^ members of other 

 affiliate organizations of the American Association for the Advance- 

 ment of Science — Section G, the Society of American Bacteriol- 

 ogists, and the American Phytopathological Society — were present 

 by invitation. He had been pleased with the accomplishments of 



'' 1(6): 204, Dec. 1911. 



'*2(4): 161-163, Aug. 1912. 



-■^Science, n.s., 35(892): 161-172, Feb. 2, 1912. 



