SECTION D PLANT PATHOLOGY 



(Hall 1, September 23, 10 a. TO.) 



CHAIRMAN: PROFESSOR CHARLES E. BESSEY, University of Nebraska. 

 SPEAKERS: PROFESSOR JOSEPH C. ARTHUR, Purdue University. 



MERTON B. WAITE, U. S. Department of Agriculture. 

 SECRETARY: DR. C. S. SHEAR, U. S. Department of Agriculture. 



THE Chairman of the Section of Plant Pathology was Professor 

 Charles E. Bessey, of the University of Nebraska, who opened the 

 Section with the following remarks: 



" It gives me great pleasure to preside over this Section of the Con- 

 gress of Arts and Science, since I have been interested in watching 

 the development of the subject with which it deals from its beginnings 

 in this country. The subject is still so new in American botany that 

 many of us in this room remember when it had no existence. Some 

 of us remember the efforts, about twenty years ago, of a few botanists 

 who felt that the United States Department of Agriculture should 

 undertake a systematic and scientific study of plant diseases and 

 their causes. We recall the formal and informal letters we wrote, 

 and the protesting articles which we published in scientific journals. 

 We remember our gratification, not unmixed with some bewilderment, 

 when the Commissioner of Agriculture acceded to our urgent sugges- 

 tion by appointing a specialist in agrostology to the position of plant 

 pathologist. Although scientifically illogical, this proved to be a 

 fortunate appointment, and good work was at once undertaken, and 

 rapid progress made in the study of certain plant diseases, accom- 

 panied by experiments in regard to the best methods of eradicating 

 them. 



" From this time of small beginnings so much progress has been 

 made that to-day this country stands foremost in this department 

 of botany. In the United States Department of Agriculture the 

 Division of Plant Pathology now commands the services of many 

 trained specialists, and. in addition, more than half of the experiment- 

 station botanists are plant pathologists. 



" Gentlemen, I congratulate you upon the fact that, while you 

 represent one of the most recent developments of botanical science, 

 it is one which you have pushed with such vigor that in the short 

 period of a score of years it has grown from nothing to its present 



