Prof. Reimer wants, if possible, 100 lbs, of 
seeds of P. ussuriensis and of P. calleryan a 
(nortiiera""f orSy"! I told him that this may 
prove impossible for us to procure; well, we 
have agreed that ten pounds of clean seeds of 
each species should be the lowest limit. Then 
he wants all cultivated varieties pX Chinese 
pears , both seeds and scions, for testing in 
these blight experiments. 
"What a pity that so many of all of the 
cultivated varieties of pears that I have sent 
in have become lost. This disease-testing work 
has opened up an entirely new field for certain 
introductions from abroadl" 
Mr Pairchild wrote Mr. Meyer regarding Prof. Reimer' s work 
on September 29, 1916: 
"I cannot help smiling over your enthusi- 
asm for Prof. Reimer' s work after the difficulty 
I had to convince you that it was important for 
you to see Reimer and get in touch with his ex- 
periments. I was quite convinced that you would 
like Reimer and would see the bigness of his in- 
vestigations, and that was the reason I was 
hurrying you to get through to see him. It is a 
satisfaction to realize that I was not mistaken 
in my estimate of him or his work. 
"VHhat you say with regard to P.vrus ussurien - 
sis and the other fonus of Pyrus which he finds 
resistant to the disease raises in my mind, how- 
ever, a question which has been there ever since 
I saw his exTjeriments; namely, is he positive 
that his experiments are broad enough to prove 
that the resistance of these stocks is of such 
a character that under all conditions they will 
show the same degree of resistance that they do 
in the nursery row? The apparently erratic 
character of that resistance among different 
varieties and different species makes me sus- 
picious that something of the resistance or im- 
munity of these plants may be due to the en- 
vironmental conditions at the time he inoculates 
them. While he may believe that he has ideal 
conditions for the growth of the germ when he 
inoculates his nursery plants, he may not know 
what the ideal conditions are. I think it will 
take a great many thousand inoculations to settle 
for all time the question of the immunity of 
December 31, 1916. 
