PROBLEMS AND PROGRESS IN PLANT PATHOLOGY.' 
By L. R. Jonss, 
Professor of Plant Pathology, University of Wisconsin. 
I.—INTRODUCTION. 
It may be assumed, I trust, that I am doing the expected thing in 
choosing the topic of this address from my own field, phytopathology. 
If, however, justification is asked, the answer is clear. Plant path- 
ology is simply a phase of botany. Practically all progress to date in 
its scientific development is owing to botanists. The rapid increase 
in numbers of those engaged upon work in this branch of botanical 
science has, however, naturally crystallized certain tendencies to 
segregation, giving us our independent Phytopathological Society 
with its separate program and its own journal. While this segre- 
gation is, in my judgment, the natural and wholesome result of 
progress, it creates problems and embodies danger to both parties. 
To the parent group, these lie in the loss of close association which it 
has heretofore had with some of its virile younger members; to the 
younger branch, there is the even more serious danger in passing 
from the critical and standardizing influence of the general Botanical 
Society, dominated by maturer minds and broader ideals. 
If we accept as true the statement of one year ago by Dr. Farlow’ 
that America is to-day surpassing other nations in the study and 
applications of plant pathology, perhaps the first phase of biological 
science where this can be asserted, all will agree that much credit 
for this is due to the fact that our methods, ideals, and leadership 
have come directly from botanical circles. Now that these relations 
are becoming less intimate, the responsibility rests upon both parties 
to see that by conscious effort we keep in closest touch, that the 
dangers of mutual loss from segregation be minimized to the utmost. 
I have chosen the combination title ‘‘Problems and Progress,”’ 
because of the necessary relationship of these two ideas. There may, 
indeed, be difference of opinion as to the relative stage of scientific 
progress in plant pathology, as compared with other branches of 
botany. There must, however, be general agreement as to the 
1 Address of the retiring president of the Botanical Society of America, read at the Atlanta meeting, 
Dee. 31, 1913. Reprinted by permission from the American Journal of Botany, March, 1914. 
2Farlow, W.G. The change from the old to the new botany in the United States. Science, N. S. 37: 
79. 1913. 
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