New York AGRICULTURAL EXPERIMENT STATION. 103 
his organism, but in January, 1903, he kindly furnished us 
with a culture which will be referred to in this publication 
as Spieckermann’s Bacillus. 
On May 21, 1902, C. J. J. van Hall presented a doctorate 
thesis to the University of Amsterdam, entitled “ Bijdragen 
tot de kennis der Bakterieele Plantenziekten,”’!® in which he 
included an extended description of an organism producing 
a soft rot in the Iris family and designated by him as Bacillus 
omnivorus n. sp. Dr. van Hall later published a discussion 
of the pathogenicity of Bacillus omnivorus and its manner 
of attack upon the iris bulbs and plants. While the soft rot 
of the iris was outside of the group which we originally in- 
tended to study we obtained a culture of Bacillus omnivorus 
from Kral and included it among the organisms studied. 
-In 1904 Dr. C. O. Townsend?!’ published a description of a 
soft rot. of calla lily including that of the casual organism 
which he named Bacillus aroideae. Through the kindness of 
Dr. Townsend we were given a culture of this organism at 
the very beginning of our work and have made a comparative 
study of it in connection with the germs from the other 
sources. 
In addition to these named cultures we have made a com- 
parative study of 37 others, isolated from various vegetables. 
Pember A and C were obtained from decaying cabbages by 
Mr. F. R. Pember in 1899. In the summer and fall of 1901 
one of us {(M) isolated cultures XXV, XXVI, XXIX and 
XXXI from decaying early cabbages from the Vermont Ex- 
periment Farm garden; cultures XLVIII, XLIX, L, LI, LIT, 
LIV, LV and LVI from a field of late cabbages in South 
Burlington, Vt., and cultures XCIV, XCV, XCVI, XCVIII, 
C, CI, CII, CIII from cabbages in a private storage house 
at Burlington, Vt. In 1903, an organism, designated as Tur- 

Bvan Hall, C. J. J. Bijdragen tot de kennis der Bakterieele Planten- 
ziekten. Doct. Thesis. Univ. of Amsterdam. 1902. 
4van Hall, C. J. J. Das Faulen der jungen Schésslinge und Rhizome von 
Iris florentina und Iris germanica, verursacht durch Bacillus omnivorus. 
v. Hall und durch einige andere Bakterienarten. Ztschr, Pflanzenkr., 18: 
129-144. 1903. 
*See footnote 12, 
