396 First European Journey 



bowed. Comes showed him his botanical collections and presented 

 him with almost enough of his papers to make a full set of his 

 writings. He regarded himself as " the earliest man in the field " 

 of plant bacteriology, or at least " as early as any, the contem- 

 porary of Burrill." ' His assistant took Smith through their 

 chemical laboratories where he met Dr. Giacomo Rossi, a bac- 

 teriologist, and his assistant — " younger men," Smith commented, 

 " and better equipped intellectually than Dr. Comes for the solu- 

 tion of problems involving the culture of bacteria. They showed 

 [him] their Bacillus Comes'i which destroys the middle lamella 

 of various plants, leaving only the framework of leaves, etc. It 

 grows copiously on potato as a gray-white, pitted layer. The 

 organism produces spores and some gas. At the end of two years' 

 cultivation it loses its power to disintegrate parenchyma, or at 

 least," he added, " this is what I understood." He then sketched 

 the organism when stained gentian violet and as seen under an 

 oil immersion objective. 



Smith had a slide of Bacterium pruni, a stained section of a 

 green plum. He regretted that he had not brought more slides. 

 But he conducted his conference as best he could, and Rossi gave 

 him reprints. His assistant told Smith that " much gummosis of 

 the vine " could be found on the slopes of Mount Vesuvius. He 

 hoped to get specimens of this disease for " sections and cultures." 



On March 22, at the agricultural school at Portici, he became 

 acquainted with Savastano who was preparing for the Milan 

 exposition an exhibit of photographs on Italian arboriculture. 

 He spent several days with this scientist who reminded him some- 

 what of Dr. G. M. Sternberg and became one of his most valued 

 correspondents. A son of the noted authority on olive tubercle 

 would study in Smith's laboratory at Washington before going 

 to one of the California experiment stations to complete his 

 research training in America. 



At the Naples zoological station, Smith twice encountered some 

 American students, one or two of whom were from Johns Hopkins. 

 He enjoyed meeting members of the staff there, and might have 

 stayed longer at Naples had not Vesuvius erupted and compelled 

 them to move several miles distant to Sorrento. 



^ Facts and quotations taken from Smith's unpublished journal of this trip. 



