THE MILLARDETIAN PERIOD 65 



where he remained until his retirement in 1899, and 

 where a monument has now been erected to his 

 memory. 



The early years of his professional life were given 

 entirely to pure science. His later years and maturer 

 judgment were devoted to the economic or applied phases 

 of botany. This change in Millardet's line of thought 

 and effort was determined by the introduction into 

 France of two vine pathogenes from America, viz., the 

 phylloxera and the downy mildew fungus, Plasmopara 

 mticola. The former he had early studied to some 

 extent in the laboratories of de Bary in Freiburg. The 

 latter he discovered in France in 1878 at about the same 

 time that a colleague, Planchon, found it in another part 

 of the same country. Both these pathogenes spread 

 rapidly and became so destructive as to threaten the 

 wine industry of France. Millardet, already one of the- 

 most noted botanists of France, was commissioned to 

 investigate and combat these two threatening pests. 

 By the introduction of resistant American vines as stock 

 for the grafting of the European varieties he saved the 

 vineyards from the phylloxera. Accidently observing 

 the prophylactic effects against the mildew of a mixture 

 of copper sulphate and lime sprinkled on grapevines 

 along the road to prevent pilfering of the fruit, he dis- 

 cerned the possibilities of copper as a fungicide. He at 

 once undertook the investigation of this mixture of lime 

 and copper sulfate for the control of the devastating 

 mildew and developed the bordeaux mixture (Lodeman, 

 1896 : 25). This mixture has remained for a quarter of a 

 century the most efficient and most universally applicable 

 fungicide known. 

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