THE MILLARDETIAN PERIOD 69 



on Plasmopara viticola, and Burrill described one or more 

 other bacterial diseases of plants, and made some worthy 

 contributions to our knowledge of fungous pathogenes. 

 Neither his training nor facilities permitted Burrill to 

 develop and lead in the field of research on bacterial 

 diseases of plants. This leadership, as we shall see, soon 

 passed to another American. Moreover, both Burrill 

 and Millardet devoted too great a portion of their time 

 and efforts to teaching and administration to enable them 

 to contribute largely to research in the field which their 

 historic discoveries have so mightily infiuenced. Wakker's 

 early self-elimination from the field we have already 

 noted. These discoveries, however, together with govern- 

 mental espousal of plant disease work inspired and stimu- 

 lated a host of young men both in America and in Europe 

 to take up phytopathology as a life work. The Mil- 

 lardetian period surpassed without doubt all previous 

 periods in the number of workers and in the scope and 

 variety of their efforts. 



In America the beginning of this period found but very 

 few old and well-trained botanists who were at all inclined 

 to phytopathologic research. A few great teachers of 

 botany, like Bessey, in Nebraska, Farlow, of Harvard, 

 Burrill, of Illinois, Spaulding and Beal, of Michigan, and 

 Tracy, of Missouri, recognizing the signs of the times, 

 turned the eyes of their students to the opportunities in 

 this direction. A little later to these were added the 

 students of Atkinson, of Cornell, Thomas, of Wabash, 

 Jones, of Vermont, and others who saw the economic 

 trend and espoused it with enthusiasm. These young 

 scientists with the pioneer spirit and enthusiasm of their 

 fathers plunged into the problems with a vigor and 



