Weed science, the emergence of a vital technology.

President Hay, distinguished officers of the Society, and learned colleagues. Let me express my deep appreciation for the honor you confer on me. It was my good fortune to begin a career in weed control at the point of transition between the modern chemical era and what I have chosen to call the cultural-mechanical era of weed control, which just preceded it. It was, therefore, my privilege to have known and worked with some of the handful of scientists who laid the foundation of weed science. Some are yet with us, but most have passed on to a greater glory. Yet who in this field can't but admire the work of such men as Rademacher in Germany, Blackman and Templeman in England, Pavlychenko in Canada, Kephart, Timmons, Willard, and Robbins of the United States? Nor can we fail to ac knowledge such men as Walter Ball, Alden Craft and Dick Raynor of California, Bruce Thornton of Colorado, Del Tingey of Utah, Clarence Seely and Lambert Erickson of Idaho, and George Hyslop and Linn Harris of Oregon, who laid the foundation for this society when they first organized the Western Weed Conference (1, 7, 10, 27, 29). I am sure that Warren Shaw, Bill Ennis, and others who were instrumental in developing this Society, recognize the importance of the contribution of these early weed workers. The work of many of these early weed workers, extending back before 1920, consisted both in organizing the interest of the few weed scientists of that time, and in making significant scientific contributions as well. One must note the great contributions of Pavlychenko of Canada in understanding the crop-weed competition, Alden Crafts for the role of translocation in chemical weed control (8, 29), and the development of selective use of the dinitrophenol herbicides by Harris and Hyslop (15), following the work of Crafts and Raynor (10). Indeed, it is quite inspiring to go back to the discovery of the selective action of copper sulphate in the 1890's and to follow the work of such people as Bolley (6) in North Dakota, who with great perception observed in 1908, "When the farming public has accepted this method of attacking weeds as a regular farm operation, the gain to the country at large will be greater in monetary consideration than that which has been afforded by any other single piece of investigation applied to field work in agriculture." Perhaps, like many prophets, Professor Bolley may have been a little over-enthusiastic, but in fairness we would have to concede that his observation was reasonably near the mark. It may seem like carrying coal to Newcastle to address the Weed Science Society of America meeting on the emergence