Through the efforts of the United States Department of Agriculture 

 an arrangement was made whereby Doctor Otto Appel, the leading- 

 authority on potato diseases in Germany, made a tour of inspection of 

 the leading potato growing sections of the northern and western states 

 in the summer of 1914. Doctor Appel was accompanied by Doctor 

 W. A. Orton and Professor William Stuart of the Bureau of Plant 

 Industry and by Director T. C. Johnson of the Virginia Truck Experi- 

 ment Station. For a considerable part of the journey from Michigan 

 to California another foreign plant pathologist of international reputa- 

 tion, Doctor Johanna Westerdijk, was a member of the party. The 

 leading pathologists and potato specialists in each section visited did 

 all in their power to make the visit to their territory instructive and 

 profitable. Thus, through the benefit of the knowledge and experience 

 of many leading experts from abroad and in this country, it was 

 possible in a relatively short time to secure a large amount of reliable, 

 first-hand knowledge of potato growing and potato diseases, under a 

 variety of conditions, which could hardly be obtained in any other way. 



Therefore, as Director of this Station, it seemed wise to comply with 

 the request of Secretary Houston that our plant pathologist be detailed 

 to accompany the party during the entire trip. The following pages 

 represent a partial report of Doctor Morse's observations from Maine 

 to California, presented at the annual meeting of the Maine Seed 

 Improvement Association at Lewiston, December, 1915, and are a 

 reprint (with slight changes) of pp. 265-282 of the Report of the 

 Commissioner of Agriculture, State of Maine, 1916. 



While the Station has found the data secured as the result of this 

 inspection trip to be of much value in the study of local potato dis- 

 ease problems it is not probable that any considerable part of it will be 

 used in any of the regular bulletins. It has, therefore, seemed advisable 

 to reprint the article for general distribution to the mailing list within 

 the State. 



Chas. D. Woods, 

 Director. 



