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Board of Health condemned grapes in the market that showed signs of poison on the 

 stems and had tons of them destroyed," 



" The officials not only had some tons of fruit that has been treated with arsenic 

 in the manner we described seized, but destroyed." 



"It is admitted that the American apple-growers are compelled to depend 

 upon the use of arsenic in solution as an insecticide in their orchards; that this 

 insecticide is used upon the fruit itself until it is completely saturated," 



This last extract is so utterly ridiculous and false that it will be hardly necessary 

 to say so to intelligent people. It is false that arsenic in solution is used by apple- 

 growers ; it cannot therefore be admitted to be the case by any one competent to 

 express an opinion, Paris Green, the arsenite commonly used, being practically inso- 

 luble in water. It is also quite impossible for fruit to become saturated with any 

 poison, however soluble, sprayed on it, while it is growing. In his yearning for 

 notoriety the editor becomes reckless, and prints as a proof of how large his circula- 

 tion is, a perfect refutation of his statements in an excellent article from the 

 Michigan Farmer, where it is shown that the grapes seized and destroyed by ihe 

 New York Board of Trade not only had not been sprayed with an arsenical insecti- 

 cide at all, but with a carbonate of copper fungicide, quite a different thing; and, 

 moreover, it goes on to say, the editor "does not seem to be aware that the United 

 States Department of Agriculture promptly investigated that grape business, that 

 the fruit was analysed by the most eminent chemists of the country, and the conclusion 

 arrived at, that if a man managed to eat a ton of sprayed grapes he could not get 

 enough poison to ensure a funeral, and that under the showing made, the city of 

 New York had to pay for the fruit destroyed in the mistaken zeal of the Board,'' 



The question of the possibility of poisoning the consumers of fruit or plants has 

 BO often come upthat entomologists have fortified their position from time to time by 

 getting analyses made, and these all have failed to show a trace of arsenic in the 

 plants treated. On discussing the matter with Mr, Shutt, the Chemist to the 

 Dominion Experimental Farms, we decided that it would be serviceable and 

 reassuring to Canadian fruit-growers if a new analysis were made of Canadian 

 apples, concerning which undoubtedly true data as to their having been actually 

 sprayed couki be obtained. As a result, the following letter was written to the 

 Canadian Horticulturist for April, 1892. 



" Is Spraying Fruit Trees with Arsenical Poisons a Dangerous Practice ? 

 " Sir, — I have received several enquiries from correspondents concerning the 

 foolish and inaccurate statements made upon the above subject, which you refer to 

 on page 83 of your last issue. I therefore beg a little space to submit a few facts 

 which, although well known to many of your readers, may be reassuring to others. 

 In the first place, spraying with" the arsenites, through the energy and perseverance 

 of Miss Eleanor Ormerod, the Entomologist of the Eoyal Agricultural Society of Eng- 

 land, is now almost as much practised in Great Britain as it is in this country. It is 

 true that it was introduced as a practical method only two years ago, but through 

 the skill of the introducer, and following the publication and distribution of the 

 report of a special committee, composed of leading fruit-growers, and known as the 

 "Experimental Committee of the Evesham Fruit Growers," spraying with Paris 

 Green is now largely adopted in many parts of the British Isles as the best means of 

 keeping down the ravaging hordes of caterpillars which were rendering futile the 

 labours of the fruit-growers throughout many of the most fertile counties in Eng- 

 land, The value of spraying with Paris Green is now fully recognized in England, 

 and will never be given up again for the old methods. As to the possibility of any 

 danger resulting from the practice by the consumption of sprayed fruit, I can only 

 say that entomologists have, with the scientific aid of their colleagues, the chemists, 

 shown over and over again that no danger whatever exists, if only the directions of 

 experienced advisers are cai-iied out. At the meeting of the Dairymen's Association 

 of Western Ontario, held at Brantford on 15th January last, this subject cameup,and 

 the absurdity was pointed out of such ideas as you have referred to as published by 

 your English contemporary. As soon as I returned to Ottawa I endeavoured to 

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