216 



The Plant World. 



was appointed instructor in botany in the University of Califor- 

 nia in 1896 and later became associate professor in the same 

 institution. 



y The equipment for the work which Dr. Osterhaut will take 

 up at Harvard is well known to botanists in this country. At 

 Johns Hopkins a greenhouse and laboratory for plant physiology 

 were built last year and a good ecological and taxonomic garden 

 has recently been planted. With such standards and with such 

 facilities for work the prospects for plant physiology in two of 

 the great universities of the eastern United States seem partic- 

 ularly bright. 



The call of Professor L. R. Jones from the University of 

 Vermont to the newly created chair of Plant Pathology in the 

 University of Wisconsin is similarly indicative of enlarged ideals 

 and higher standards. The subject of vegetable pathology has 

 been of slow development, owing to a number of causes, not the 

 least of which has been insufficient preparation and too narrow 

 specialization on the part of many w r ho have engaged in it. 

 It is now recognized that no specialty in the whole range of 

 botanical science more imperatively demands a thorough knowl- 

 edge of the normal processes and habits of plants, together with 

 a working use of all the other indispensable tools of modern 

 research. 



The record of Professor Jones in the general botanical work of 

 theUniversity of Vermont for the past twenty years is too well 

 known to call for detailed comment. His special studies in the 

 field of pathology have been conducted both at home and abroad, 

 in part in collaboration with the Bureau of Plant Industry, and 

 are also well known. The action of the University of Wisconsin, 

 which by common consent is representative of the most progres- 

 sive state universities, in establishing an independent chair of 

 plant pathology and calling to it a specialist who is also a botan- 

 ist of wide and thorough preparation augurs w r ell for the scien- 

 tific development of this subject. 



