PROMINENT YORKSHIRE WORKERS: 
VI.—_GEORGE MASSEE, F.L.S., V.M.H.* 
Born at Scampston, a hamlet in East Yorkshire, in 1850, 
George Edward Massee spent his youthful days on his father’s 
farm. It was at this village where, to use his own words, 
“they attempted to educate me at a private school, but 
failed.’ It was intended that he should follow in his father’s 
footsteps and be a farmer, so that on leaving school we see 
the youthful botanist performing the duties of ploughing, 
sheep washing, threshing, 
milking, and the like. It 
is to this practical routine 
work on the farm that 
Mr. Massee attributes a 
great deal of the success 
that he has achieved in 
plant pathology. Many 
of the so-called plant 
diseases are due to cul- 
tural defects. As a far- 
mer’s son Mr. Massee is 
able to give practical 
advice, and in this respect 
he has the advantage 
over the man of purely 
academic training. 
But as a young man 
George Massee had 
ambitions in life other 
than that of being a 
farmer. He had a great 
liking for drawing and 
nature study. So it 
was that he was sent 
to the York School of 
Art, where he was fortunate in gaining the national medal 
of the year for drawing flowers from Nature. At the same 
time he studied chemistry and physics. . At this time he 
was taken in hand by his relative, Dr. Spruce, botanist and 
traveller, and when not ploughing or working in the sheep- 
fold he worked hard at botany. Massee’s gift of drawing 
from Nature stood him in good stead, and the illustrations 
of Dr. Spruce’s classical work on Hepatics are mostly his 
George Massee, F.L.S., V.M.H. ' 
* Reprinted from The Agricultural Economist and Horticultural Review 
by the kind permission of the Editor. 
1913 Aug. I. 
