THE KUHNIAN PERIOD 47 



De Bary has been regarded by some as the father of 

 modern plant pathology. Though there can be no doubt 

 of the molding and dominating influence of his work on 

 the plant pathology not only of this but of the succeeding 

 period, still he was a botanist, a mycologist. He did not 

 assume to be a plant pathologist. He did not concern 

 himself extensively with the pathology of the diseases 

 with which he worked, except from the point of view of 

 the physiologist undertaking to discover the nature of the 

 life of the parasite, its mode of attack, its method of 

 feeding, and its life history. With the many other 

 aspects of the disease, especially the economic, he con- 

 cerned himself little. He wrote no books on plant 

 pathology. To Julius Kiihn, a countryman of de Bary, 

 belongs, in my opinion, the title of Father of Modern 

 Plant Pathology. 



Julius Gotthelf Kuhn was born in Pulsnitz, in Saxony, 

 not far from Dresden, in 1825. His father was a land 

 owner and it was the son's ambition to become an expert 

 agriculturist. He received his elementary and gymna- 

 sium education, as well as some technical training, very 

 largely in the schools of Dresden. In 1841 he returned 

 to his father's estate to take up practical training as a 

 "Landwirt." Six months later he became assistant to 

 the manager of a large estate in Saxony. Here he spent 

 two and a half years. The manager was a hard and 

 exacting master but an excellent teacher, and Kiihn did 

 so well that in 1844, after three months as assistant 

 manager on the estate of Graf Kospoth in Halbau, he was 

 made administrator. For the next four years he was 

 manager of different large estates; finally at the age of 

 twenty- three (1848) he took charge as Amtmann (farmer 



