li:] 



THE INTERNATIONAL PHYTOPATHOLOGICAL 

 CONFERENCE, 1914. 



By a. G. L. ROGERS 



Horticulture Branch, Board of Agriculture and Fisheries. 



The International Phytopathological Conference which was opened 

 at Rome on the 24th February last and was brought to a conclusion 

 on the 4th March, is the outcome of a long agitation. According to 

 the Report prepared by M. Louis Dop, and circulated to the Delegates 

 before the Conference began, the first proposal for international action 

 was made by Professor Eriksson as far back as 1880. Similar proposals 

 were made from time to time at different International Congresses, but 

 with little result, except that at the Seventh Congress of Agriculture, 

 held in 1903, a special Committee on plant diseases was formed, and 

 the Zeitschrift fiir Pflanzenkrankheiten started as their official organ, 

 under the editorship of Professor Sorauer. The publication is, however, 

 international only in the sense that papers from authors of any nation- 

 ality are accepted, and the Governments of the chief states are in no 

 way involved. The first real step towards international action was 

 taken in 1905, when the Institute of Agriculture was founded at Rome, 

 and the subject of plant diseases definitely included among the subjects 

 with which it was competent to deal. Further progress was made when 

 the French Government were invited by a resolution passed at the 

 International Congress for Comparative Pathology at Paris in 1912, 

 to take the initiative by calling an International Phytopathological 

 Conference at Rome. Invitations were sent out for a meeting in 1913, 

 but the notice given was inadequate, and the meeting was postponed 

 till 1914. The Conference which has just been concluded is therefore 

 very largely due to the action of the French Government, and certainly 

 the initiative was taken by the French delegates throughout the pro- 

 ceedings. M. Develle, a former Minister of Agriculture, was elected 



