68 HISTORY OF PHYTOPATHOLOGY 



Although the discovery by the Dutch pathologist, 

 Wakker, of the bacterial nature of the yellow disease of 

 hyacinths was announced shortly after the discoveries of 

 Burrill on the fire blight, it appears to have had little 

 attention from his European contemporaries, and the 

 bacterial nature of plant diseases was an idea long un- 

 accepted and vigorously combated by European botanists 

 (Smith, Bacteria in relation to plant diseases, 2 : 9-22). 

 At the time of his researches and discoveries on the yellow 

 disease of hyacinths, Wakker was a young enthusiastic 

 investigator in the University of Amsterdam. He had 

 been especially employed by the bulb growers' association 

 of Haarlem, Holland, to investigate this and other dis- 

 eases at that time devastating their crops. Later he did 

 some other excellent phytopathologic work, but faihng of 

 expected promotion at the University of Amsterdam, he 

 foreswore botanical science and its devotees entirely, 

 and sought solace in the teaching of mathematics in a 

 secondary school. The loss to phytopathologic science of 

 so briUiant and promising a worker is much to be de- 

 plored. His work, dealing with the yellow disease of 

 hyacinths, has been carefully repeated and reviewed by 

 Dr. Erwin F. Smith, and pronounced accurate and clas- 

 sical to a degree scarcely to be expected of the day in 

 which Wakker worked. (See Smith, Bacteria in relation 

 to plant diseases, 2 : 336-337, and U. S. Dept. Agr. Div. 

 Veg. Phys. and Path. Bui. 26 : 9, 10.) 



Great and epoch making as were these two discoveries, 

 bordeaux mixture and bacterial phytopathogenes, the 

 men who made them contributed but little else to the 

 great progress and development of the science during 

 this period. Millardet made some careful investigations 



