Studios on Crown Gall of Plants 463 



oloi^y of tlic (A)loraJt) A^iKulturc Iixpcrimcnt Station, on the very 

 next day styled the bulletin " certainly a most inspiring treatise, 

 and I," he confided to Smith, " am sure that all plant pathologists 

 envy you the success which you have achieved along this particular 

 line. Vou have opened up a most suggestive field along the line 

 of cancers and tumors, and I sincerely hope that you will be able 

 to connect up the relation between plant and animal Carcinomas 

 in the very near future." Professor T. D. Beckwith of the depart- 

 ment of bacteriology of Oregon Agricultural College and Experi- 

 ment Station characterized the publication as "magnificent"; 

 Hermann von Schrcnk, " a very extraordinary contribution " and 

 he sent his "very best felicitations"; and P. J. O'Gara, now 

 pathologist and entomologist for Rogue River Valley, Medford, 

 Oregon, another scientist who when with the Department of 

 Agriculture had done some work on crown gall, confessed in 1911 

 that if he ever returned to the Department Smith's Laboratory 

 would " probably hold out the greatest inducement." When B. D. 

 Halsted had read Smith's bulletin 213 and his article on crown 

 gall in Phytopathology, by a letter of March 6, 1911, he heartily 

 congratulated Smith " upon reaching, through many years of 

 splendid research work, the clear-cut conclusions set forth in the 

 bulletin. It must be a great satisfaction to be able to so completely 

 settle many of the points of greatest importance concerning the 

 Crown-Galls. If there is more to be done with them," he said 

 complimentarily, " and doubtless you see more unsolved problems 

 than any one else, — the foundations of fact have been so securely 

 laid and the methods so fully worked out, that others can attack 

 them in a rational manner." Halsted, too, had at one time written 

 on crown gall. 



Many other botanists and bacteriologists congratulated Smith. 

 David Fairchild arranged for Smith to prepare for the National 

 Geographic Magazine "" an article on " The discovery of cancer 

 in plants. An account of some remarkable experiments by the U. S. 

 Department of Agriculture." Fairchild wrote to Smith, " I want 

 to congratulate you on the production of such a remarkable piece 

 of work. It has taken a great deal of your life but I am sure 

 the world will be glad to honor you for what you have done." 



'"'24(1): 53-70, 12 pis., Jan. 1913. 



