IN MEMORIAM 



DR. BYRON D. HALSTED. 



L. H. PAMMEL. 



It was my privilege to be called to the chair of botany just vacated 

 by Dr. Byron D. Halsted in February, 1889. It was not my good 

 fortune to meet him until some months later at one of the meetings 

 of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. In 

 those days Doctor Halsted was a familiar figure at the meetings of 

 the American Association and the Society for the Promotion of 

 Agricultural Science, Of this society, he was, I believe, one of the 

 charter members and secretary for some years. Dr. Halsted was 

 also a charter member of the Botanical Society of America. He 

 was, if I am not mistaken, a charter member of the new Iowa Acad- 

 emy of Science. The botanical career of Doctor Halsted has been 

 given in journals of recent date. 



Doctor Halsted was a voluminous writer on a variety of botanical 

 matters. While at Ames he turned his attention to economic botany, 

 especially fungi and the diseases of plants. These subjects too en- 

 gaged his attention for many years, while connected with the New- 

 Jersey Agricultural Experiment Station and Rutgers College. Here 

 he made an interesting study of diseases of vegetables like the egg 

 plant, tomato, sweet potato and bean. Owing to failing health, the 

 late years of his life were spent in a study of breeding of tomatoes 

 and sweet corn. Those who are familiar with this type of botanical 

 work pronounce it excellent. 



His work at Ames, on fungi, embraced studies on the downy and 

 powdery mildews and rust. It was, however, largely fragmentary, 

 consisting of few notes and observations, I do not mean to say 

 that Dr. Halsted's work was of a low order; it was not. For in- 

 stance in the two bulletins issued by him while at Ames, forty or 

 fifty subjects were treated in each of the bulletins. The work could 

 not, therefore, be exhaustive. His papers on some disease treated in 

 one of the Reports of the U. S. Department of Agriculture were 

 much more exhaustive and comprehensive. His treatment of dis- 

 eases of truck plants while in New Jersey indicated that he could 



