Studios on Crown Gall of Plants 421 



Today I m.ulc my first inoculations of the greenish fluorescent organism 

 (which I isolated from the Roozeword lilacs) into leaves and shoots of 

 lilacs in Mr. Scholten's garden using pure cultures grown ^ days in nitrate 

 bouillon. The tubes w^^re inoculated from agar stab cultures made from 9 

 poured plate colonies. Two varieties of lilac were tested but owing to the 

 lateness of the season and to consec]uent inability to find much growing 

 tissue, most of the pricks were made on one plant, Marie Legary. Nine 

 colonies were tested on leaf blades, petioles and soft shoots by a few 

 needle punctures into each. In all about 30 inoculations were made. 



That eveninj^ a distressing telegram from Varesc brought news 

 that Mrs. Smith's condition was "' much worse." Immediately he 

 left Amsterdam for -Italy, and Director Westerdijk reported by 

 various letters on the lilac inoculations, each of which showed a 

 good bacterial growth. Later this work was re-checked by Smith 

 in the United States. Miss Westerdijk expressed her pleasure that 

 he had worked at the laboratory since from him, she said, she had 

 learned much. He found Mrs. Smith seriously ill but recovering 

 from a partial paralysis induced by a small brain clot. 



Weary and worried, Smith wrote to Haven Metcalf, now a 

 pathologist with the United States Department of Agriculture, 

 and he showed Smith's letter to Dr. Woods, who responded with 

 instructions to " let Department matters rest for awhile. . . . Don't 

 worry about things here," Woods wrote, " give your attention to 

 your wife . . . cable us if there is anything we can do. All 

 your friends here love you both dearly and we don't want any- 

 thing to happen to you." 



Metcalf in 1907 was to be placed in charge of forest pathology 

 in the Department but at this time was working in Smith's labora- 

 tory. In 1901- 1902 he, a Brown University graduate who had 

 studied also at Harvard, had taught bacteriology at the University 

 of Nebraska and while a fellow in botany there had secured his 

 degree of doctor of philosophy. Of him Dr. Bessey had written 

 to Dr. Woods in October, 1901, concerning his good training in 

 animal bacteriology and his growing interest in the study of " bac- 

 teria causing pathological conditions in plants." Bessey had 

 suggested cooperative bacteriological investigations in sugar beet 

 diseases. The next year, however, Metcalf had become professor 

 of botany at Clemson Agricultural College, South Carolina, and 

 there, interesting himself in rice and other crops, had learned of 

 several Italian varieties of rice resistant to the disease known as 



