98 REPorRT OF DEPARTMENT OF BACTERIOLOGY OF THE 
the soft rots of cabbage and cauliflower has been conducted at 
the New York Agricultural Experiment Station. <A prelimi- 
nary report? of this work was read before Section G of the 
American Association for the Advancement of Science at 
Taba ore, Pa., June 30, 1902, and printed in Science, August 
22, 1902. 
In 1898 Professor L. R. Jones of the University of Vermont 
isolated an organism which produced soft rot in carrots and 
other vegetables and later described this organism under the 
name of Bacillus carotovorus.* In the summer of 1899, being 
convinced that the soft rot of the cabbage was a disease closely 
allied to carrot rot, as to cause and attendant phenomena, he 
started a student assistant, Mr. F. R. Pember, on the study 
of the cabbage rot. Mr. Pember secured three organisms re- 
sembling B. carotovorus and like that capable of producing 
a soft rot of vegetables and made comparative studies of them. 
In 1901 the comparative study, at the University of Vermont, 
of the morphology and pathogenicity of this group of rot- 
producing organisms was assigned to one of us (M) and over 
a score of pathogenic cultures were isolated from various 
sources. Meanwhile Professor Jones was at work upon the 
question of the production and activities of the toxie sub- 
stances and wall-dissolving enzyms which are elaborated by 
these bacteria. 
The fact that these similar lines of investigation were being 
conducted at these adjoining Stations becoming known, a 
conference was held between the representatives of the two 
Stations in July, 1902, and the work of studying the soft rots 
of these vegetables was divided as follows: The determina- 
tion of the mutual relationship of the germs involved was 
assigned to Messrs. Harding and Morse; the study of the 
enzyms elaborated and their relation to the host plants to 
aHar ding, H. A., and Stewart, F. C. A bacterial soft rot of certain eru- 
ciferous plants and Amorphophallus simlense. Science, N. 8., 16: 314-315. 
1902. 
sJones, L. R. Bacillus carotovorus, n. sp., die Ursache einer weichen 
Fiiulnis der Méhre. Centbl. Bakt. u. Par. the 7: 12-21; 61-68. 1901. 
Also, Jones, L. R. A soft rot of carrot and other vegetables. Ann. Rep. 
Vt. Agr. Exp. Station 13: 299-332, 1901. 
