Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1926-08-01

balming, but its poisonous proclivities
are SO pronounced that 1t can be
classed as a strong antiseptic. Other
good-bad elements are sulphur. lead.
PHOSPHORUS and potassium. But the
king of them all is arsenic The debt
the United States owes to arsenic. for
eXterminating insects, fighting fungi.
bacteria, rats, mice and gophers, Is
incalculable. 3
One recent year more than l4000.-
600 pounds of arsenic was distributed
to the country III Insecticides and.
fungicides. Yet search the country
over and you viii not find an arsenic
mine in operation although the ele-
ment is common. 1t occurs as con-
stituent of 100 minerals The main
supplies of arsenic are obtained as
hyvproducts of American safety engi-
neering and American mines.
There was a time when the smoke
stack of smeter devastated the
countryside round about like the
wrath OF God. Irate property owners
sought protection of the law and won
damages. Mining companies put EN-
gineers on the problem and devices
have been invented to make a smelter
as harmless as a grocery. The engi-
neers found that in robbing the
smelter smoke of its poisons they coli
lected sulphur, arsenic and conn
pounds which could be marketed.
They feared at first that dumping
quantities of arsenic on the market
would lower the price to Il ruinous
level But about this time the Amer
lean farmer began waking up to the
usefulness of poison in his age-old
fight on insects.
Cotton Fields Big Market.
After 20 years of work Department
of Agriculture experts just had found
the right adjustment of calcium ar
senate to make the boil weevil turn
up its toes Contrary to expectations
American mining concerns could not
even catch up with the demand of
agriculture and within the year~-end~
ing May 3l--the United States im-
ported $4,000, 900 pounds of arsenic.
Copper sulphate, lime and water
mixed together, is death to worms
and a boon to the cabbage crop. the
berry and current crop, and other
crops 1t goes under the name of
Bordeaux mixture, because its useful
ness was discovered by an odd freak
in a. vineyard near the French wine
towns A French yineyardist was
exasperated with thieves who stole his
grapes. So he made up a paste OF
chemicals which he put on the outside
vines all around his garden. Insect
pests were the real thieves of the
Bordeaux grapevines that year, that
is. of most of the grapevines except
the vines I'm the French peasants
poison ring. A young scientist noticed
the phenomenon. 1t gave him an idea.
He experimental with the paste. de
termined the proper proportions, and
the world has been using Bordeaux
extensively ever since.
Paris green, copper arsenate, for
years the best known insectieide, is
being displaced by new and
better workers. There is calcium
arsenate and there is lead arsenate.
More than 100000 pounds of lead
arsenate was>Mixed last year. chiefly
for use in orchards.
Pyrethrum Is Imported. /
simple chemical compounds are |
not the whole story. The benevolent |
poison trade is still dependent on the /
plant world, which was probably the |
original producer of deadly drugs. |
is a product of the rownd, |
hard seeds from the fruit of the nux
tree, which grows in the West |
Indies. Then there is pyrethrum. It |
sounds like a new toorhpaste. Pyre- |
thrum swelled American import fig |
ures by 81 ,46I 900 last year, coming !
from such outlandish places as Kri.
velji and Cittavecchia, I'm Dalmatia, |
and Xii and Mikawar Japan.
In old poison lore there is refer
ance now and then to pyrethrum as