Within a few years of the establishment of the convict settlement at Sydney Cove, the potato became one of the staple crops of the population due to its relatively high yield and the prior experience of the convicts and free settlers with growing the crop. In 1894, Henry Tryon described a new disease in southern Queensland that caused rapid wilting of plants, a ring of slightly translucent tissue just below the surface of affected tubers, oozing of a thick, white fluid from the ‘eyes’, and ultimately rotting of the tubers. It soon became known as ‘Tryon’s disease’. He found that a microbe (bacterium) was always associated with affected tubers and stems, provided a very brief description of the bacterial cells and named the microbe Bacillus vascularum solani. A few years later the American scientist Erwin Frink Smith wrote a paper on a new disease (brown rot) of solanaceous plants including the potato and tomato, in which he called the causal agent Pseudomonas solanacearum, now known as Ralstonia solanacearum. Smith dismissed Tryon’s prior claim to the discovery of the disease with some of his comments being personal and scathing. Tryon had the last word, however, cloaking his response in restrained and somewhat convoluted tones.

在悉尼湾建立囚犯定居点后的几年内，马铃薯因其相对较高的产量以及囚犯和自由定居者种植作物的经验而成为居民的主要农作物之一。1894 年，亨利·特赖恩 (Henry Tryon) 描述了昆士兰州南部的一种新疾病，它会导致植物迅速枯萎，受影响的块茎表面下方有一圈略带半透明的组织，从“眼睛”中渗出粘稠的白色液体，最终导致植物腐烂。块茎。它很快被称为“特赖恩病”。他发现一种微生物（细菌）总是与受影响的块茎和茎有关，并对细菌细胞进行了非常简短的描述，并将这种微生物命名为茄状芽孢杆菌。几年后，美国科学家欧文·弗林克·史密斯（Erwin Frink Smith）写了一篇关于茄科植物（包括马铃薯和番茄）的新病害（褐腐病）的论文，他在文中将病原称为青枯假单胞菌，现在称为青枯菌。史密斯驳回了特赖恩之前关于发现这种疾病的说法，他的一些评论是个人化的、严厉的。然而，特赖恩说了最后一句话，他的回答隐藏在克制且有些复杂的语气中。