270 ERWIN F. SMITH 



of plants. To Burrill and America belongs this honor, whatever 

 other honor belongs elsewhere! Just as Pasteur's contribu- 

 tion to science is more vital than Koch's, because it was earlier 

 and was pioneer work, so Burrill's discovery was more difficult 

 to make and hence more worthy of praise, than anything that 

 has come after. Anyone of ordinary capacity can follow a 

 blazed trail, but only a great man can hew a path through the 

 unbroken wilderness to be a highway for all men who come after ! 



Burrill did not publish on pear blight fully, in the modern 

 sense of that word, for he was a pioneer, but in studying the 

 freshly diseased tissues (and he had the wisdom to select just 

 those) he saw clearly in many sections that fungi were not there 

 and that swarms of bacteria (called by him Micrococcus amylovorus) 

 were always present and were therefore probably the cause of 

 this mysterious disease. Acting on this assumption he took 

 masses of these bacteria which his microscope had shown to 

 be free from fungi (with a multitude of whose forms he was al- 

 ready very familiar) and with them by inoculation reproduced 

 the pear disease, not once but many times. Others, elsewhere, 

 in these same early days made similar announcements, but 

 were less fortunate or less painstaking, since no one in later 

 days has been able to confirm their findings, whereas Burrill's 

 discoveries have been confirmed a hundred times, and relate 

 to one of our most serious orchard diseases, known for a hun- 

 dred years, and for the control of which the nation and the or- 

 chard states are still spending much time and money. 



Professor Burrill was born at Pittsfield, Mass., April 25, 

 1839. He was educated at the Illinois State Normal School, 

 and was always a teacher, and a good one. He held honorarj^ 

 degrees from the University of Chicago (Ph.D., 1881) and The 

 Northwestern University (LL.D.,1893), and was a member of 

 various scientific societies. I remember seeing him first at 

 meetings of the American Association for the Advancement of 

 Science, of which he was long a member, and this year president 

 of Section G (Botany). He had also been president of the 

 American Microscopical Society, 1885-86, and was president 

 of the Society of American Bacteriologists at the time of his death. 



