130 STATE POMOLOGICAL SOCIETY, 



could tell for themselves whether this insecticide or fungicide 

 would do what was claimed for it, or was worth what was 

 asked for it. We attempted therefore to get a clause, or an 

 interpretation of the pure food and drugs act which would cover 

 insecticides and fungicides. We found that was not possible, 

 that insecticides are neither a food nor a drug. So after con- 

 ferring with some of the officials in Washington, we decided to 

 try and secure the introduction of a measure in Congress which 

 would secure federal supervision of the purity of insecticides 

 and fungicides, the same as is now exercised with foods and 

 drugs, and to do that it was necessary to introduce a separate 

 measure, which was done last spring both in the Senate and in 

 the House, the bill having been drawn up after consultation with 

 officials in Washington and other people, on much the same 

 line as the pure food and drugs act. 



This measure which is now before Congress provides that all 

 Paris greens and lead arsenates must be up to a certain stand- 

 ard — or specifies only those two insecticides which must be up 

 to a certain standard ; all other insecticides and fungicides must 

 have stated on the label the effective ingredients of the insecti- 

 cide or fungicide, — that is, the arsenic in the insecticide, or the 

 copper sulphate, or whatever is the effective ingredient in the 

 fungicide, must be stated on the label, and what percentage of 

 the material is effective; or the manufacturer can state on the 

 label all the inert ingredients. If he is making a secret com- 

 pound and he has a whole lot of ordinary loam or road dust or 

 something of that kind in it which acts as a carrier for his 

 insecticide or fungicide he can simply state what the inert ingre- 

 dients are, and how large a per cent they are, and leave out the 

 name of the effective element. This measure has been drawn 

 up as carefully as possible so as to meet the demands both of 

 the consumer and the manufacturer. 



After we had gotton this measure drawn up and put before 

 Congress, we found that the manufacturers had various ideas 

 somewhat different from some of the ideas of the entomologists 

 and the chemists, and so we called together all the leading manu- 

 facturers to a conference at New York City, and went over this 

 measure. And we talked a whole day about it and adopted 

 certain amendments, and in- this amended form this measure will 

 be presented to Congress at its coming session. As a result of 



