May 9, 1902.] 



SCIENCE. 



T61 



other, may be successfully cultivated with- 

 out some knowledge of the other divisions 

 of botany and of allied sciences. 



Historically, vegetable pathology has 

 been studied for a long time; at least one 

 work on 'Maladies des Plantes' has a title 

 page date of the early fifties. Of two Ger- 

 man works in the nature of general treatises 

 on this subject, still useful, the first editions 

 were issued in the years 1874 and 1880, 

 respectively: I refer to the handbooks of 

 Sorauer and Frank, both of which have 

 passed through subsequent editions. The 

 lamented AVinter's little work, 'Die durch 

 Pilze verursachten Krankheiten der Kul- 

 tur Gewachse,' belongs to about the same 

 period (1878). These were followed by 

 almost synchronous publication of works 

 by Prilleux, Hallier, Tubeuf, Berlese 

 and Marchal in French, German and 

 Italian, respectively. Tubeuf 's book was 

 soon translated into English by Smith, and 

 its appearance in that dress has been fol- 

 lowed by the handbook of Massee, and by 

 the recent and most excellent work by H. 

 Marshall Ward under the title 'Disease in 

 Plants.' 



There are journals too, including the 

 Zeitschrift fiir Pflmizen-krmiklieiten, ed- 

 ited by Sorauer, now in its eleventh volume, 

 the Zweite Abtheilung of the Centralhlatt 

 fiir Bakteriologie iind Parasitenkunde, now 

 in its sixth volume. The Italians have 

 the Rivista di Patologia Vegetale, of many 

 years' standing, edited by Berlese, and the 

 Dutch the Tidschrift over Planten Ziekten 

 edited by Ritzema-Bos. In England so- 

 ciety proceedings and journals have been 

 the chief avenues of publication for work 

 on plant diseases; while in the United 

 States, a.side from the Journal of Mycology 

 instituted by Dr. KeHerman while in 

 Kansas, now no longer published, the pub- 

 lications of the United States Department 

 of Agriciilture and of the various experi- 

 ment stations in the several states have been 



the chief agencies by which a large and 

 valuable literature on plant diseases has 

 been issued. 



Looking at the subject in this manner, 

 we are led to conclude that plant pathology 

 has possessed a well-arranged and system- 

 atic body of facts bearing upon the sub- 

 ject, during a period of at least twenty 

 years, and that this body of knowledge 

 has been accessible for that length of 

 time in the form of published handbook; 

 and further that it has possessed, and still 

 possesses, a large literature issued in 

 periodical form and covering the multi- 

 tudinoi^s phases of the subject in question. 



Plas jjlant pathology meanwhile assumed 

 the coordinate rank herein indicated along 

 with plant physiology and ecology? I 

 fear we must answer negatively in so far 

 as college professorships and university 

 courses are concerned. Aside from the 

 few universities which offer rather brief 

 undergraduate courses in 'vegetable pathol- 

 ogy' or in 'plant diseases,' most, or I might 

 say all, American university and college 

 courses offered by well developed botan- 

 ical departments, consisting of two or more 

 chairs in botany, are silent on this subject. 



If the elements of the subject are taught 

 at all they are presented imder either plant 

 physiology or the systematic study of 

 fungi, and it is notable that in America's 

 oldest and largest university this division 

 of botany is not recognized as existing. 

 Professor Ward, to whom reference has 

 already been made, responds in a recent 

 letter that his work in plant diseases is all 

 research w^ork and that he offers no sepa- 

 rate course upon the subject. 



It is easy to understand that up to a re- 

 cent time no well formulated call had been 

 made for students equipped in this line, 

 and that therefore no demand existed for 

 courses in plant pathology, but certainly 

 the recent expansion in experiment station 

 work, and in that of the United States De- 



