LIFE AND WORK OF CHARLES EDWIN BESSEY 509 
the American Naturalist in 1880, a position which he held until 
1897 when on invitation he accepted a similar position on the staff of 
Science. 
The crowning scientific honor came at the Minneapolis meeting of 
the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 1910- 
1911, when he was elected president. The following winter (1911- 
1912) at Washington, D. C, he presided over the deliberations of this 
organization. When he returned to Lincoln after the meetings he 
was given an ovation by the students, faculty and the regents in 
the university chapel. The next winter (1912-1913) at the Cleve- 
land meeting of the Association Dr. Bessey gave his address as retiring 
president. The paper which he read at that time was entitled: 
"Some of the Next Steps in Botanical Science." 
Bessey was one of the pioneers who did much to lay the founda- 
tions of the present superstructure of American botany. The training 
with Gray naturally increased his love for taxonomy which is reflected 
in many of his publications. But he was thinking of other phases of 
botany also and some of his early papers show that he took advanced 
ground as to what should constitute the content of botany. In his 
paper on "The Diseases of Plants" (1882) we have abundant evidence 
that he was doing more than recording species and making herbaria. 
At this time the heterecious nature of rusts was not accepted by all 
botanists as conclusively demonstrated but Bessey felt that De Bary's 
conclusions were correct. The comments upon bacteria as disease- 
producing organisms are also interesting. 
When in the early eighties the United States Department of Agri- 
culture was considering the proposition to establish federal aid for 
state agricultural experiment stations he was consulted in regard to 
the wording of a bill for that purpose. He plunged into this work 
with the usual readiness and vigor and he finally wrote the paragraph 
defining the duties of such experiment stations verbatim as it was 
adopted later and became a part of the law known as the Hatch Act. 
He also wrote the first and second annual reports of the Agricultural 
Experiment Station of Nebraska in 1888 and 1889, and from that 
time he did not cease to concern himself actively with the progress of 
these institutions which were to become important seats of learning 
and research throughout the country. 
Much of the time that Dr. Bessey gave to study and writing was 
devoted to a painstaking survey of the structure and evolution of all 
