652 Third European Journey 



he went to his laboratory almost every day for the next three 

 weeks. His comments on the work grew fewer and fewer, although 

 on March 23 he wrote in his diary a paragraph concerning Miss 

 Bryan's studies of the " American and European lilac blight " 

 due to Bacterium syringae. 



Dr. Smith's strength had given out. On March 25 he welcomed 

 Dr. Jaroslav Peklo, professor of applied botany in the Czech 

 Technical University, Prague, to his laboratory and gave him the- 

 work-table which Dr. Nakata had had. Dr. Peklo wanted to " get 

 general information on bacteriology, mycology, plant breeding, 

 etc. Very likely," wrote Smith, ^'^^ " we can do little for him in our 

 laboratory. He has studied with Pfeif er in Germany and Blackman 

 in London." Other well qualified plant pathologists had studied 

 in the laboratory during recent years. 



Among them had been one of America's leading plant scientists 

 today. Dr. Elvin Charles Stakman, a recent president of the 

 American Association for the Advancement of Science. On Janu- 

 ary 26 he had called at the laboratory and furnished Dr. Smith 

 with some conclusions about " sulfur dusting for rust of wheat." 

 This was a subject which interested him. In his address, '" Fifty 

 Years of Pathology," ^^^ he had spoken of the '" great attempt 

 [that had] been made in the United States to control stem rust of 

 wheat (our worst disease)," he said, " in a dozen or more of our 

 western states by a united effort to eradicate all the barberry 

 bushes over a territory a thousand miles square. It is too early to 

 know what the final results will be, but thus far they appear to 

 be favorable. Plant breeding would seem to offer a more effective 

 remedy. This also is being tried. Possibly dusting by airplane with 

 colloidal sulphur is the coming remedy." Smith wrote ^" of what 

 Stakman told him: 



They saved twelve bushels per acre on one field. He thinks more is to 

 be expected from resistant varieties and from barberry eradication than 

 from dusting. If rust were equally bad all years, it would pay but there 

 is only now and then a bad year. It costs six dollars per acre and some- 

 times the crop is injured and sometimes the rust is not prevented. The 

 sulphur prevents the germination of the spores, but if they have entered 

 the plant the mischief is done. 



"^ Diary, Mar. 25, 1927. 



"* Op. cit., 39. 



"' Diary, Jan. 26, 1927. 



