4l4 First European Journey 



to a sphere strange but dear in which he was continuing his 

 " experiments in hybridisation." Perhaps Mendel, like others of 

 the science who followed him, was content to explore only the 

 specialized and outlying functions involved in plant hybridization. 

 He may have realized, but not placed in written form, the theory 

 of heredity deducible from the results obtained with his plant 

 hybrids. The body of doctrine was there, however, and great 

 minds of the twentieth century — preeminently, DeVries, Correns, 

 and Tschermak, and also, Bateson and Saunders — gave form to 

 the primary, central, and all-controlling function of heredity on 

 which the specialized and outlying functions depend.-^ Smith met 

 many notable men of the Conference. Tschermak he found a 

 "' very energetic man," and his address on " The importance of 

 Hybridisation in the Study of Descent " pleased him. W. Johann- 

 sen of Copenhagen was also there and read an address, " Does 

 Hybridisation increase fluctuating Variability?" an extension of 

 his famous theory, based on experiments with beans, of breeding 

 pure line species. Smith knew Bateson. Once, when the great 

 Englishman was visiting in America, he and Smith enjoyed a stroll 

 together at Woods Hole. 



Smith followed on the program Miss E. Saunders of Newnham 

 College, Cambridge, England. That he was acquainted with recent 

 progress in plant breeding in America, especially that of the 

 Department of Agriculture, was demonstrated by his address, part 

 or all of which was given from memory. He chose to start with 

 the breeding objective with which he was most familiar and on 

 which he had been a consultant. He illustrated breeding for dis- 

 ease resistance by narrating the story of Orton's (and Webber's) 

 South Carolina work originating " from rare mutations," " seed 

 selection, and/or hybridization, the now famous wilt-resistant Sea 

 Island cotton. Upland cotton, cowpea, and watermelon. Nor did 

 he forget Pierce's earlier California hybrid grape vines resistant 

 to the Anaheim disease so-called, and his crosses of raisin grapes 

 to resist coulure. Breeding for resistance to frost and cold was 



-' W. Bateson, op. c'n., at p. 97. 



■^ W. A. Orton, pathologist in charge of cotton and truck diseases, Bureau of 

 Plant Industry, The development of farm crops resistant to disease. Yearbook of the 

 U. S. Dep't of Agric. for 1908; op. cit., 453-464. A list of examples of disease 

 resistance was given at pp. 463-464; also, a consideration of " Mendelism " and 

 Biffens's discovery at p. 463. 



