TO DR. POLE EVANS ; j 13; 



111 1905 Dr. role Evans took his research degree at 

 Cambridge and very soon after, on the 28th July 1905 

 took up his appointment in the Transvaal Department of 

 Agriculture, Division of Botany, as assistant for plant 

 diseases. At that time Mr. J. Burtt Davy was chief of 

 the Botanical Division, but in Jan. 1012 Plant-pathology 

 was separated from Botany and Dr. Pole Evans appointed 

 as chief of the new division of plant pathology and 

 mycology. Mr. Burtt Davy resigned in October 1913, the 

 divisions were re-amalgamated and Dr. Pole Evans w^as 

 appointed chief of the two divisions with the title of 

 Chief, Division of Botany. In June 1907 he was elected 

 a Fellow of the Linnean Society of London; during 1911 

 he was President of the T.B.S., and for many years he has 

 been a Fellow^ of the Royal Society of S.A. and a member 

 of Council of the South African Association for the 

 Advancement of Science. In 1918 the Degree of D.Sc. 

 was granted to liim l>y the University of Wales on the 

 strength of his j)ublished research work. In July 1918 

 he was a])])ointed Director of the Botanical Survey of 

 South Africa, nn undertaking which he had been urging 

 on the Government for the last ten years, and which was 

 then put on a working basis. 



When Dr. Pole Evans came to the Transvaal in 1905 

 no phyto-pathological work had been done, and various 

 outbreaks of cotfee rust and other diseases led to his 

 appointment, in order that these might be investigated. 

 The first years of his Avork were consequently mainly 

 devoted to the study of rust fungi, but several other 

 pathological problems were studied at the same time, and 

 the amount of advisoiy and research work increased 

 gradually to such an extent as to necessitate the appoint- 

 ment of first one, and then several assistant mycologists. 

 It is of interest to note, that all these, who are graduates 

 in Botany of the Cape University — now the University 

 of South Africa — were trained in plant pathology by Dr. 

 Pole Evans himself. 



