Approaching the Modern Era.

There was a general hiatus in interest in the chemical interaction of plants for at least a decade following about 1910. The reasons for this were twofold: 1) the work of Pickering at the Woburn Experimental Fruit Farm, and the relevant work of Whitney, Schreiner and various associates at United States Department of Agriculture, Bureau of Soils were seen as either unconvincing, unrepeatable, uneven, misinterpreted or biased, and were essentially regarded as best forgotten; and 2) events in Europe, including World War I (1914-1918), and the Russian Revolution of 1917 had farreaching effects on resources, and consequently directions and funding for agricultural and botanical research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]