18 UNIVERSITY OP WISCONSIN STUDIES 



that had been proposed were far too exacting, that what were 

 being considered abnormal conditions in milk were really 

 normal. The modern views of the significance of the cellular 

 elements in milk were forecast in the papers published in 

 1906 and 1907. 



Another field in which pioneer work was done was that 

 of the relation of bacteria to diseases of plants. The views 

 held by those highest in the field of plant pathology were that 

 bacteria could not be of importance in the causation of disease 

 in plants due to the acidity of the plant juice. It was known 

 that bacteria as a group grow best in nutrient solutions that 

 are alkaline to litmus. Plant juices are usually acid to litmus, 

 therefore the inference was drawn that bacteria could not 

 grow in the plant tissues. Again the structure of the plant 

 did not seem to favor the entrance of bacteria or their spread 

 in the tissues of the plant. The German investigators of 

 1895 in bacteriology were not accustomed to pay much atten- 

 tion to what had been done in America. One of the first 

 bacteriological investigations in this country was that of Dr. 

 T. J. Burrell of the University of Illinois on pear blight. 

 This should at least have indicated to the bacteriologists the 

 possibility of bacterial diseases of plants. 



The training which Dean Russell had received in botany 

 and in connection with the preparation of his doctor's thesis 

 had given him an admirable preparation to undertake an 

 investigation of a disease that was causing great havoc in 

 the cabbage-growing sections of Wisconsin. In 1898 Bulletin 

 65 of the Experiment Station was published. It was entitled 

 A Bacterial Rot of Cabbage and Allied Plants. This work 

 is to be classed as one of the first extensive pieces of research 

 in a field that has assumed so great an importance. 



The period from 1893 to 1907 was crowded with work of 

 instruction and research ; the period from 1907 to 1917, with 

 executive duties whose manifold demands have made im- 

 possible any active continuance in the former lines of work. 

 This condition is to be regretted, on the one hand, for it has 

 robbed the students of the college of an inspiring instructor, 

 of whom there are few, and the world of an able research man, 



