LOUISIANA STATE UNIVERSITY
BATON ROUGE, LOUISIANA

COLLEGE OF ARTS AND SCIENCES March 29, 1954 AGRICULTURAL EXPERIMENT STATION
BOTANY, BACTERIOLOGY AND PLANT PATHOLOGY
PLANT PATHOLOGY

Dr. Joshua Lederberg
Department of Genetics
University of Wisconsin
Madison 6, Wisconsin

Dear Dr. Lederberg:

Thanks for the reprints and also for your comments on the manuscript.
The points which you raised are well taken.

In my reference to Lilly and Barnett on "mutualistic symbiosis," I did
not intend to imply that they were the first or only investigators to
report this phenomenon. I quoted them merely because I thought that
their work was familiar to most of the people for whom the talk was in-
tended,

I agree that the concept presented could have been documented much more
completely, I avoided doing so deliberately because the time alloted
for the oral presentation did not permit it and I have listened to too
many talks given in a symposium which, when published, bore only the
faintest resemblance to the original material.

I note that you are scheduled to talk at the forthcoming Biology Research
Conference at Oak Ridge. I plan to attend,:so perhaps I will see you
there, I have followed your work on sexuality in the bacteria with great

interest,
Sincerely yours, :
H. & WA
Assoc, Prof. of Botany
HEW/mb