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SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XLIX. No. 1267 



in pathology, in horticulture and in other 

 branches of applied botany, but mycology, 

 physiology and other fundamental botanical 

 subjects too often receive inadequate atten- 

 tion. Specialization easily goes too far, and 

 the product is a pathologist who is not also a 

 botanist; he is a specialist with too narrow a 

 training, with a foundation too restricted to 

 permit the breadth of vision and the resource- 

 fulness necessary for the adequate handling of 

 many pathological problems. 



Although these criticisms are not of ujii- 

 versal application, I believe it is in general 

 true that while the colleges on the one hand 

 have been holding aloof a,nd have not broad- 

 ened their courses to include the modern ap- 

 plications of botany, the agricultural institu- 

 tions on the other hand have specialized too 

 strictly and have laid too little stress on the 

 fundamentals of botany. Both tend to dwarf 

 their students and practically restrict their 

 graduates to their own fields, thus increasing 

 the divergence between botanists and path- 

 ologists. In the future we shall need both 

 botanists and pathologists. In addition, for 

 the solution of many disease problems we shall 

 need pathologists with a broad botanical foun- 

 dation. These workers naturally should be 

 trained by the colleges of agriculture. And 

 we shall also need morphologists, physiologists, 

 geneticists and ecologists with extensive knowl- 

 edge of pathology, who naturally should be 

 trained by tlie non-agricultural colleges and 

 universities. When such a corps of workers 

 is at hand, we shall not only have tremendously 

 advanced both pathology and botany, but we 

 shall have obliterated all distinction between 

 the two subjects and made segregation into two 

 groups of workers impossible. 



A second vital force to draw together pa- 

 thologists and botanists is cooperation in re- 

 search work. The study of any plant disease 

 is many sided, involving not only the study of 

 the parasite and its effects upon and relation 

 to the host, but the study of the host itself and 

 of its varied relations to its environment, both 

 in health and in disease. Not all pathologists 

 are equipped to undertake certain of these 

 problems which call for special training. 



Moreover, most pathologists, with manifold 

 demands upon their time, are able to give at- 

 tention only to the more immediately pressing 

 features of the many problems before them. 

 Hence their research work is perforce frag- 

 mentary and few diseases receive full consid- 

 eration in all their phases. This procedure is 

 faulty both from the scientific point of view, 

 and in the end from the economic point of 

 view as w-ell, but it is made necessary by the 

 pressure on the time of the pathologists and 

 by restrictions on the use of public funds. The 

 field of plant pathology is full of problems, 

 morphological, cytological, physiological, eco- 

 logical, genetical, which should receive atten- 

 tion, but whose solution is not in sight ujiless 

 pur botanical colleagues come to the rescue. 



Many botanists in the colleges and univer- 

 sities could profitably take up this work. In 

 choosing their research problems botanists have 

 left the pathological field entirely to pathol- 

 ogists. In their desire not to encroach on the 

 pathologists' domain they have avoided eco- 

 nomic host plants to a large extent, and have 

 turned away from cultivated fields and sought 

 their material in woods and swamps. It is 

 quite possible that by so doing they are some- 

 times passing by the material best suited to 

 their purposes. Why should not geneticists 

 breed economic plants more e:stensively and 

 while determining the laws of inheritance, also 

 produce improved strains of food plants ? Why 

 should not anatomists, cytologists, physiolo- 

 gists and ecologists study the potato or the cot- 

 ton plant in health and in disease, and while 

 conducting researches of fundamental scien- 

 tific importance, be making needed contribu- 

 tions in the pathological field ? Many of these 

 pathological problems are suitable for master's 

 and doctor's theses, and the fact that the prob- 

 lem has an economic flavor will, in the case of 

 many students, give added zest to their work. 



During the past year the pathologists, under 

 the leadership of the War Emergency Board 

 of the American Phytopathological Socielty, 

 have inaugurated cooperation in research work 

 to a degree which had been deemed impossible, 

 so tliat the movement has attracted the atten- 

 tion of other scientific men. The pathologists 



