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‘There you have it!’ Krelage must have thought. ‘Why should we do something
with private capital that the government is already planning to do with
public funds?’ But De Vries – who was immediately informed of the content
of this letter by Scholten – did not share Löhnis’s fear of dissipating resources.
‘In my view, this country has room for four or fi ve phytopathology
laboratories,’ he wrote to Scholten, 16 adding, ‘though a sensible division of
labour is greatly to be desired.’ Wageningen could concern itself with direct,
practical work, such as identifying causes of disease, and looking up the answers
in manuals. An institute in a university city could conduct far more
detailed research into obscure or unknown diseases. This would take longer,
but more than one disease could be studied at a time. ‘While this research
would be of less benefi t in the short term, in the longer term it would carry
more weight.’
Ritzema Bos agreed. To Krelage he wrote: ‘In my humble opinion, the
intended Foundation should indeed be set up: fi rst, because it is completely
unclear whether the reorganization of the State School of Agriculture and the
launch of a phytopathology laboratory there will actually happen, and if so,
when; and second, because it is very doubtful whether the Government would
ever tackle this material on the scale that Mr Scholten has in mind; and third,
because I believe that Amsterdam is a better location for a phytopathology
laboratory than Wageningen.’ 17
His letter is ten pages long. Its gist can be summarized in a few words: it
would be far better for a phytopathology laboratory to be set up by private
initiative than by the government, since one would have no patronizing rules
to comply with and no other interests to take into account, and one would be
free to do as one saw fi t.
The best strategy, Ritzema Bos advised, would be simply to go ahead.
‘If he [i.e. Löhnis] is presented with a fait accompli, he may be inclined to cooperate,
to subsidise the institute in Amsterdam by paying for an assistant (which
does not actually seem to me an absolute necessity at the beginning), by providing
an annual sum for travel and accommodation expenses, or by awarding
a grant for the publication of a phytopathology journal or bulletins. … In my
view, if we do not seize the generous opportunity that lies before us, nothing
will happen for many years comparable to what Mr and Mrs Scholten have in
mind.’
16 De Vries to Scholten, 1 March 1894, archives of the wcs.
17 Ritzema Bos to Krelage, 13 March 1894, archives of the wcs.
36 phytopathology: a private or a public institute?