410 First European Journey 



of which Dr. Johanna Westerdijk, a former student of DeVries 

 and Goebel, was director. With pure cultures, by which he was 

 " the first to obtain typical infections," ^° he began to study the 

 blight of lilac caused by Bacterium syringae (C. J. J. van Hall) 

 EFS. 



In 1905 Dr. Went, recently President of the Faculty and then 

 Rector of the University of Utrecht, had told Smith of the Dutch 

 government's plans to open at Wageningen the next year a labora- 

 tory of plant pathology, with Ritzema Bos as director. From Bos 

 he had received another letter of thanks for his " magnificent 

 book " on bacterial diseases of plants. Plant pathology, as a 

 laboratory science, was gaining in importance. Within the past 

 few years. Smith had been consulted with regard to laboratory 

 equipment for work in Mysore, Bangalore, India, and, to supply 

 a trained scientist for the position, he invited into his laboratory 

 Leslie C. Coleman, honor graduate of the University of Toronto 

 and later Director of Agriculture for the government of Mysore. 



Smith probably visited the laboratory at Wageningen. But he 

 did not go again to Utrecht, probably planning this for after his 

 return from England. He may have wanted to study, from Went's 

 materials, two or three sugar-cane diseases. In 1904, reading 

 Smith's article " Ursache der Cobb'schen Krankheit des Zucker- 

 rohrs " in the Centralblatt, Went had written him of this and 

 other diseases of sugar-cane which he had studied in Java: Sereh 

 disease, " top rot," and Cobb's bacterial malady. 



Dr. Went did not return to Utrecht until the last of the month, 

 and on July 30, 1906,, Smith left via Rotterdam for London. In 

 his journal he professed a strong interest in plant breeding, 

 especially in " that phase of the subject which relates to the pro- 

 duction of races of plants resistant to disease." 



On July 30 the Third International Conference on Genetics 

 began, and Smith's address, " Plant Breeding in the United States 

 Department of Agriculture," " was presented at the fourth session 

 on the morning of August 2. Six days later he reported to 

 Galloway: 



"^^ An hitroduction to bacterial diseases of plants, op. cit., 35. 



" Rep't Third Int. Conf. on Genetics, 1906, 301-309, ed. by Rev. W. Wilks, M. A., 

 Sec'y, London, Print, by the Royal Hort. Soc. Also reprint by Spottiswoode & Co. 

 Ltd., London, 1907. 



