HISTORY AND SCOPE OF PLANT PATHOLOGY 159 



of Researches on the Health and Diseases of Plants/' three of its 

 most active members being now members of this Congress. In 

 April, 1885, the committee addressed a memorial to the United 

 States Commissioner of Agriculture, calling attention to the desira- 

 bility of instituting investigations into the diseases of plants under 

 government auspices. The communication was well received, as 

 were subsequent ones, and in July, 1885, Professor F. L. Scribner 

 of Girard College, Philadelphia, was appointed to begin the work. 

 The first report by Professor Scribner appeared in the Yearbook of 

 the Department for 1886, and amply justified the wisdom of the 

 movement. 



Professor Scribner with wise foresight directed his greatest efforts 

 toward a study of the diseases of the grape, enlisted the interest 

 of many able vineyardists, and became familiar with the great 

 activity then manifested in France. In 1887 the French Govern- 

 ment commissioned Professor Viala, of the National School of 

 Agriculture at Montpellier, to visit the United States and make 

 an extended study of grape diseases throughout our territory, and 

 in this enterprise Professor Scribner cooperated, the field work 

 extending from June to December. 



Thus it came about that the activity in the practical application 

 of all that science had to offer in preventive, palliative, or curative 

 treatment of the diseases of crops, especially of the grape, an activity 

 that had recently attained notable proportions in France and Italy, 

 was transplanted to America at a favorable moment, when the 

 Government began to recognize the important interests to be sub- 

 served by thus protecting and increasing the output of the culti- 

 vator. This movement received another great impetus in 1888, when 

 the state experiment stations were established by act of Congress, 

 many of them including a botanist on the staff of investigators, 

 whose principal duty lay in the direction of the study and dissemin- 

 ation of information regarding plant diseases. It was at this time 

 and during the next few years that many American botanists went 

 to the German universities for longer or shorter periods, and brought 

 back enthusiasm for deep, critical study of difficult subjects. Still 

 another factor which seems to the speaker of immense importance 

 in this connection is the education of the cultivator in the recogni- 

 tion of diseases and in the comprehension of their causes and the 

 extent of the losses that accrue. This has been effected by the bul- 

 letins and other publications issued by the Government and by the 

 state experiment stations, by the return of graduates from the 

 agricultural colleges into the active management of farms, orchards, 



committee was reduced to five members bv substituting the name of C. V. Riley 

 for the last three; and at the next meeting, in 1886, the committee was discharged, 

 having accomplished the particular object had in view when appointed. 



