THE PRESENT ERA 109 



in 1901, Frank in 1900, Ward in 1906, Delacroix in 1907, 

 Rostrup in 1907. A few. remain, veterans of the past, 

 living inspirations for the future. Thus did the last 

 decade of the Millardetian period presage the inaugural 

 events of a new. 



The Establishment of Chairs of Plant Pathology in 

 Universities and Colleges of Agriculture.— Until very 

 recent years plant pathology has been considered as 

 simply a phase of botany or as apphed mycology. A 

 brief course in mycology masquerading under the name 

 of plant pathology has in most cases sufficed to dispose of 

 the subject. Even the so-called plant pathologists of the 

 present day are in large part only mycologists with little 

 of the true phytopathologic point of view. The first 

 distinct department of plant pathology to be estabhshed, 

 so far as I know, was the one at Cornell University in the 

 autumn of 1907. Shortly thereafter (1909) the one at the 

 University of Wisconsin, with Professor Jones at its head, 

 was announced. Since that time several other state 

 institutions have established teaching departments of 

 plant pathology either independently or as a division of 

 the botanical department. Minnesota, lUinois, and Iowa 

 are examples of the latter. 



Discovery of the Cause and Nature of Crown Gall.— 

 This disease, so common to our cultivated fruit trees, had 

 long been an object of investigation by pathologists in 

 this country. The cause of the disease remained a mys- 

 tery in spite of the evidence presented by Toumey' to 

 show that it was myxomycetous in nature. It remained 

 for Dr. Erwin F. Smith, as perhaps the greatest single 



I Tourney, J. W.: An inquiry into the cause and nature of crown gall, 

 Arizona .■\gr. Exp. Sta. Bui. 33 : 1-64, 1900. 



