26 PROTECTION OF PLANTS, 1920-21 



applied science. It has not come to be an art yet ! Chemistiy, botany, physiol- 

 ogy, histolog}^, C3"tology and bacteriology are all fundamental to it and we 

 require our graduate students to study them, as a good knowledge of these fund- 

 amentals is necessary for the practice of plant pathology. Plant pathology, 

 therefore, is an economic or an applied science, and this puts us in the position 

 to consider its relations to the subject of agriculture. 



The historj'- of college instruction in agriculture is very interesting. I want 

 to point out to 3^ou the divisions into which agriculture was divided when it 

 first came into our colleges, namely, chemistry, botany, animal husbandry, etc., 

 and also that most directors of agricultural colleges were at first chemists, for 

 chemistry was at first one of the most important divisions in our colleges of agric- 

 ulture. Then we began to have departments such as agronomy or fieldcrops, 

 horticulture, floriculture, pomologj'-, etc. The evident trend now is to go back 

 and recombine departments along the old fundamental science lines. 



Plant pathology is generally looked upon in most agricultural colleges to- 

 day as a division of botam-. Perhaps it was best at first to have plant pathol- 

 ogy a part of the general department of botany, but the conditions under which 

 the work developed at Cornell were not such as favored keeping it in the depart- 

 ment of botany. In the College of Agriculture at Cornell the department of 

 plant pathology was a development from that of botany in the University. It 

 was at Cornell that plant patholog}' had its first separate chair in an American 

 Universit3^ 



Now perhaps I can best illustrate the position of plant pathology in agricul- 

 ture by using mj- own state as an illustration. You will pardon me for bringing 

 my own experience in by way of illustration, but naturally no one else has devel- 

 oped plant pathology as I think it ought to be, and naturally I have to use my 

 own State ! 



It seemed to me from the beginning of my work that since plant pathology 

 is an applied science — an economic science — that it must "dehver goods" of 

 that kind : that it must serve the economic field, and naturally that field is the 

 agriculture of the state or nation, and those lines directly associated therewith 

 It has generally been held to be true that the first obligation of a plant pathol- 

 ogist of a college was to the farmers .and nobody else. I never could quite sub- 

 scribe to that narrow view. The plant pathologist of the state should serve any 

 citizen of that state who had a phytopathological problem to solve on his land, 

 garden, front yard or even manufacturing establishment. All citizens pay 

 taxes and, therefore, all men who have plant pathological problems have a call 

 on his services. So that in developing plant pathology in a college of agricul- 

 ture, the service should be carried to all who may legitimately claim it. 



