Cobb, Nathan Augustus (1859 - 1932)

Summary

Nathan Cobb was pathologist in the New South Wales Department of Agriculture 1890-1904, with a period abroad as special commissioner to report upon the agricultural and other industries of America and Europe from 1898-1901. He vigorously tackled a situation where not only was the same name applied to different kinds of wheat, but the same wheat was known under several different names. His paper "Universal nomenclature of wheat", published in the Agricultural gazette in 1901-1904, attracted worldwide interest.

Details

Born 30 June 1859. Died 4 June 1932. Educated Worcester County Free Institute of Industrial Science and University of Jena (PhD 1887). Farm labourer; qualified as a schoolteacher; taught at Spencer ca 1876-77; science teacher, Williston Seminary, Easthampton 1881-86; study in Germany 1887; Naples Zoological Station, British Association for the Advancement of Science 1888-89; arrived Sydney 7 March 1889; various jobs 1889; temporary professor of biology, University of Sydney 1890; pathologist, New South Wales Department of Agriculture 1890-98 and 1901-04, special commissioner to report upon the agricultural and other industries of America and Europe 1898-1901 and possibly attended 1900 Congrès International d'Agriculture, Paris, in this capacity; head, division of pathology and physiology, Experiment Station of the Hawaiian Sugar Planters' Association in Honolulu 1905-07; agricultural technologist (later principal nematologist), Bureau of Plant Industry, United States Department of Agriculture from 1907. Sometime president, American Microscopical Society, American Society of Parasitologists, Washington Academy of Sciences and Helminthological Society of Washington.

Archival resources

Adolph Basser Library, Australian Academy of Science

• Australian Botanists - Biographies, MS 064; Adolph Basser Library, Australian Academy of Science. Details

Published resources

Books

• Cobb, N. A., Letters on the diseases of plants (Sydney: Department of Agriculture, 1904), 131 pp. Details
• Spennemann, Dirk H. R., Nathan Augustus Cobb Plant Pathologist: a Bibliography of his work (Albury, New South Wales: Retrospect, 2003), 114 pp. http://csusap.csu.edu.au/~dspennem/BookStore/CobbBibliography.pdf. Details

Book Sections

• Eisenback, J. D. and Blanchard, F. C., 'The life of Nathan A. Cobb' in Nematology 101 Unit One: introduction and history, Eisenback, J.D., ed. (Blacksburg, VA, USA: Mactode Publications and Amazon Kindle Press, 2022), pp. 128-82. Details
• King, C. J., 'Cobb, Nathan Augustus (1859-1932), plant pathologist' in Australian dictionary of biography, volume 8: 1891 - 1939 Cl-Gib, Bede Nairn and Geoffrey Serle, eds (Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 1981), pp. 39-40. http://www.adb.online.anu.edu.au/biogs/A080042b.htm. Details

Journal Articles

• Blanchard, Frieda Cobb, 'Nathan A. Cobb, botanist and zoologist, a pioneer scientist in Australia', Asa Gray Bulletin, 3 (2) (1957), 205-72. Details
• Cobb, N. A., 'The cause of gumming in sugar-cane', Agricultural gazette of New South Wales, 5 (1894), 683-6. Details
• Cobb, N. A., 'Universal nomenclature of wheat', Agricultural gazette of New South Wales, 12 (1902), 1614-29. Details
• Huettel, R. N., and Golden, A. M., 'Nathan Augustus Cobb: the father of nematology in the United States', Annual review of phytopathology, 29 (1) (1991), 15-27. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev.py.29.090191.000311. Details
• Ryley, Malcolm and Park, Robert F., 'Stem rust of wheat in colonial Australia and the development of the plant pathology profession', Historical records of Australian science, 35 (2) (2024), 83-97, https://doi.org/10.1071/HR23005. Details
• Ryley, Malcolm J., 'The discovery of gumming disease of sugarcane in Australia', Historical records of Australian science, 35 (2) (2024), 151-7. https://doi.org/10.1071/HR23011. Details

Resources

• Wikidata, http://www.wikidata.org/entity/Q1664295. Details
• VIAF - Virtual International Authority File, OCLC, https://viaf.org/viaf/2851361. Details
• 'Cobb, N A (1859-1932)', Trove, National Library of Australia, 2009, https://nla.gov.au/nla.party-584311. Details