Charles V. Riley, France, and Phylloxera

Abstract

In this paper, the authors examine Charles V. Riley's relationship with France and French scientists (1855–1895), with special reference to Riley's role in the Phylloxera campaign (ca. 1869–1885). Riley's French connections represent a significant aspect of a projected full-length Riley biography. Riley was born and reared in England; he made his career as an agricultural entomologist in the United States. Nevertheless, his tenure at a boarding school in Dieppe, France (1855–1857) established Francophile patterns that persisted throughout his life. For example, he entered portions of his personal diary in French, made eight trips to France, and placed two daughters in French finishing schools. Most important, Riley's early French contact prepared him, as Missouri State Entomologist (1868–1877) and Chief U.S. Entomologist (1878–1894), to join with Jules Emile Planchon, Jules Lichtenstein, Victor Signoret, and other French scientists in the historic campaign against the grape Phylloxera in France. Riley's field studies, experiments, articles, illustrations, and American Phylloxera specimens helped establish key aspects of the Phylloxera 's life history. With American data, he confirmed that the American and European Phylloxera were identical and that the species originated in America; he also discovered the previously unknown American root form and demonstrated its polymorphic relationship to the leaf form. Riley was able to explain, on Darwinian grounds, that the consistent failure of European vines in eastern North America was due to their lack of resistance to Phylloxera . Riley's support of Planchon and Lichtenstein—who held that Phylloxera was the cause of the dying vines, and not an effect as maintained by Signoret and other defenders of “pure” French vineyards—helped the “Americanists” prevail in their diagnosis of the problem. His summary of resistant American vines, along with his drawings and descriptions, helped convince French vintners that the eventual solution lay in grafting French vines on American rootstock. Although Riley withdrew from active participation in Phylloxera affairs after the mid-1880s, he returned to France frequently for rest and recuperation. When Riley represented the U.S. Department of Agriculture at the International Exhibition in Paris in 1889, the French government presented him with the Legion of Honor, its highest award, for his assistance in Phylloxera affairs. Official recognition, along with collegial relations with French scientists, and general acceptance and gratitude among the French people, helped compensate for the hostility and conflict Riley frequently experienced among colleagues and superiors in the federal bureaucracy in Washington, D.C. Riley's partnership with the French in the Phylloxera challenge not only allowed him to repay his debt of gratitude to France, but also to demonstrate how the fledgling field of economic entomology could meet a major insect crisis in the international arena.