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His Garden His Laboratory
Edwin Butterworth Mains
The Michigan Alumnus 190
The Michigan Alumnus 190
His Own Garden Proves to be Valuable Laboratory
EDWIN B. MAINS, Professor of Botany and Director of the University Herbarium, discovered in his own garden rust-resistant snapdragons from which strains now being developed in marketable quantities by certain of the agricultural colleges have been derived.
He took his Bachelor's degree at Michigan in 1913 and earned his Ph.D. in 1916. Before he came to the University as a Faculty member in 1930, he had been engaged in investigations directed toward the development of disease-resistant plants with the cereals—especially wheat —as his most important "patients." For fungi, edible, like the mush room, or harmless, Professor Mains has but the friendliest feeling. But when they are the parasites, which destroy useful or beautiful plant life it becomes the duty of a good phytopathologist to do something about it, and this one does.
Often his wife assists him, for she too is a botanist. Photography is one of the tools of Professor Mains' pro fession, but he has made it a hobby as well. His studies of plant life— some of them highly magnified—are astonishingly beautiful.