In Memoriam : George Massec, F.L.S., V.M.H. 1^1 



stay at home on his return. So that we again see him 

 dividing his energies between farming and botanical study, 

 specialising in fungi and plant diseases. On his father's death 

 he came to Kew and worked in the herbarium as a free lance, 

 and in 1893 was appointed Principal Assistant (Cryptogams). 

 During the twenty years that Mr. Massee has spent at Kew it 

 is not too much to say that he has done more than any man 

 towards elucidating mysterious fungus diseases. His name 

 is as familiar and almost as widely known as the nefarious 

 plant diseases of which he has made a special study. He has 

 written books and voluminous articles in the leading scientific 

 journals of the day. Among his most useful works may be 

 mentioned the " Text Book of Plant Diseases," which has been 

 superseded by his " Diseases of Cultivated Plants and Trees " 

 (1910), a work that is necessary for the proper equipment of 

 every gardener, farmer or forester. " British Fungi, with a 

 Chapter on Lichens," is his most recent book, and this is beauti- 

 fully illustrated by Miss Ivy Massee, his talented daughter. In 

 collaboration with Professor Theobald he brought out the book, 

 indispensable to rosarians, entitled the " Enemies of the Rose." ' 



' It is, however, as lecturer that Mr. Massee will best be 

 remembered by those who have had the real pleasure of listening 

 to him. He is a breezy Yorkshireman, and his perorations 

 always ripple with good humour. He is beloved of Kew men, 

 and an appreciation, obviously written by one who knows him 

 well, appeared in the " Kew Guild Journal," 1908, from which 

 the following extract is taken : — " No one who has heard George 

 Massee lecture upon or talk about the department of science, 

 of which he has long been a past master, could think the subject 

 uninteresting ; on the contrary, they would probably say that 

 it was as exciting as romance. . . . His method — if it be method, 

 probably it is the man himself — is not to talk learnedly about 

 things, the common fault of lecturers, but to, as it were, pitch 

 the subject before his class or audience, get them all round it, 

 and then help them by means of comment, explanation, joke 

 and gibe to take in as much of it as their capacity will stand." 

 Few men know better than Mr. Massee how to sugar a pill, and 

 however technical and otherwise uninteresting a subject may be, 

 he has the happy knack of imparting it with good humour. The 

 present writer well remembers a lecture by Mr. Massee on the- 

 diseases of fruit trees, wherein the lecturer impressed his hearers 

 with the importance of keeping a constant look-out for the 

 first signs of attack, concluding his remarks with the appropriate 

 exhortation, " above all, watch and spray." ' 



Accounts of his life and work will also be found in the 

 Kew Guild Journal already referred to, and also in an illustrated 

 memoir issued by the ' Lloyd Library ' of Mycology, in Cin- 

 cinnati, Ohio. 



1917 April 1. 



