1896.] The Bacterial Diseases of Plants. 633 
modern baeteriologist, sifting as far as possible the wheat from 
the chaff, and arranging all in an orderly way for convenient re- 
ference. The utility of such a piece of work, if well done, can 
scarcely be questioned, since it must set into sharp relief the 
gaps in our knowledge and tend to stimulate further research. 
The work of the early investigators already mentioned was 
done before the perfection of modern methods of bacteriological 
research, and in a time of general scepticism which some of us 
well remember. It is therefore in no way discreditable that 
many of their conclusions should be found untenable when 
tested by the more rigid requirements of the science of to-day. 
They worked under great difficulties and did as well as could 
be expected even of men of genius, better, indeed, than many 
of us would have done. Certainly, as pioneers in a difficult 
field they deserve great credit. 
As much cannot be said for some of the more recent workers 
who with every opportunity in the way of literature, including 
numerous manuals of bacteriology, and with laboratory facil- 
ities for learning the fundamentals of bacteriological research 
on every hand in every land, have been content to publish 
second and third class -work, exactly like that preceeding the 
discoveries of Pasteur and Koch and the development of 
modern methods. One might suppose these people to have 
been in a deep sleep for the last twenty years, they take so little 
note of what has been going on. I shall have frequent occa- 
sion to consider papers of this class in the course of these pages 
and shall not fail to point out their worthlessness, to discour- 
age imitators, if for no other reason. It goes without saying 
that such publications do not advance science, nor in the end 
in any way contribute to the reputation of the individual. 
They are thoroughly discreditable, and in case new species are 
erected, are little less than criminal, considering the present 
overburdened and chaotic state of systematic bacteriology. 
Thanks to the itch for species making, systematic mycology 
is generally cited as the most desperately confused and per- 
plexing branch of natural science, but mycology is a highway 
turnpiked and provided with arc lights in comparison with the 
wilderness of systematic bacteriology. Of the thousand or 
