400 First European Journey 



material be sent him in August. Marozzi described its symptoms, 

 and Smith photographed one specimen " seriously diseased from 

 the level of the earth to a height of about seven feet. . . . The 

 signs," he wrote, 



are great numbers of rough tubercular swellings accompanied by deep 

 fissures. These are generally first on one side but the vines are finally 

 girdled or otherwise exhausted and killed, death occurring in about four 

 years. ... I searched in vain on many vine stocks for living tubercular 

 tissue. . . . The tubercles when fresh are said to be soft, pale reddish 

 externally and white within. 



Professor Macchiatti showed him slides of mal nero and a rot 

 of grape fruits, and on close study under good light Smith con- 

 cluded that neither malady was a specific disease due exclusively 

 to bacteria, although in mal nero some evidence of " mixed infec- 

 tion " was present and in the grape fruit rot " little oval or ellip- 

 tical red bodies " were " sparingly " seen in various cells. These, 

 he thought, were " possibly proteid bodies . . . normal constituents 

 of the tissue," and " almost certainly . . . not bacteria." Nothing 

 was decided definitely as to any one of the diseases. At the 

 Stazione Agraria, he examined Professor Gino Cugini's " bacterial 

 rot of grape flowers " (1891) and " a bacterial soft rot of fennel " 

 which resembled bacterial celery rot. But he saw no indications 

 of cultures, or inoculations, and, more than discussing these and 

 one or two diseases from materials available with Professor Cugini, 

 no further study was made. 



" The most intellectually active scientific man in Modena," 

 Smith decided, " is the director of the Botanic Garden, the well- 

 known algologist. Dr. G. B. de Toni." He was in Pavia, but a 

 gardener showed Smith about, and late that day Dr. de Toni called 

 at his hotel. He was reading proof on the seventh volume of his 

 Sylloge Algarum, and next morning in his work shop he showed 

 Smith one hundred bound volumes of separates relating to algae, 

 " a rich collection and one any algologist would give much to 

 possess. He has also," commented Smith, 



many other rare and expensive systematic works, and a large herbarium of 

 algae, together with another representing other groups of plants. He works 

 entirely, he said, on " pure science." On leaving he gave me his inaugural 

 discourse delivered at the Royal University of Modena, November 4, 1905, 

 entitled " Di una interessante scoperta del Modenese Giambattista Amici 



