professor of plant pathology, b. near Brandon. He attended Ripon College (1883-1886) and graduated from the Univ. of Michigan (Ph.D., 1889; Ph.D., 1904). From 1887 to 1888 he taught at Mount Morris Academy in Illinois, and in 1889 he became instructor in natural history at the Univ. of Vermont. He was soon promoted to professor of botany, and from 1889 to 1910 was botanist of the Vermont Agricultural Experiment Station. While at the Univ. of Vermont, Jones also worked with the Bureau of Plant Industry of the Department of Agriculture, studied in Europe, and did pioneer work on the nature and cause of bacterial soft rot in vegetables. In 1910 he came to the Univ. of Wisconsin to organize the department of plant pathology; he served as chairman of this department until 1930, and continued to teach part-time until his retirement in 1935. One of the leading plant pathologists in the country, Jones is credited with initiating the modern concept of plant disease as an interaction of plant and parasite under the conditioning influence of the environment. He was one of the founders and first president of the American Phytopathological Society, was the first editor of the Society's journal, Phytopathology, was president of the Botanical Society of America, and editor of the American Journal of Botany. After retiring to emeritus status in 1935, he continued his studies in plant pathology until his death. Who's Who in Amer., 2 3 (1944); M. Curti and V. Carstensen, Univ. of Wis. (2 vols., Madison, 1949); W. H. Glover, Farm and College (Madison, 1952); Madison Wis. State Journal, Apr. 2, 1945.Learn More
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[Source: Dictionary of Wisconsin biography]
