144 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. 84 



related only to Paris green and to the percentage of arsenic contained 

 in this sul)stance as sold— established as a standard that there should 

 be a content of fifty per cent arsenic (prol)ably meaning white 

 arsenic — AsoO.,). In 1898 New York passed a law to prevent fraud 

 in the sale of Paris green. In 1899 Oregon and Texas passed insecti- 

 cide laws or combined insecticide and fungicide laws. The Oregon 

 law named specifically Paris green, arsenic, London purple, sulphur, 

 " or any spray material or compound for spraying purposes, in 

 quantities exceeding one pound." It required a certificate guaran- 

 teeing the quality and per cent of purity of the materials. It provided 

 also a fine' for the violation of the act. The Texas law was passed in 

 1899 a"<^l was entitled "An Act for the better protection of the 

 farmer in the purchase of commercial fertilizers and commercial 

 poisons used for destroying bollvvonns and other pests." 



The history of the Federal legislation has been described competently 

 by Dr J. K. Haywood of the Bureau of Chemistry of the United States 

 Department of Agriculture in his address as President of the Asso- 

 ciation of Official Agricultural Chemists in 1920. It is published in 

 the Journal of that Association, Volume 4, No. i, August 15, 1920. 

 Doctor Haywood, in this address, gives the credit of suggesting Fed- 

 eral legislation on this subject to the Association of Economic Ento- 

 mologists and more especially to Prof. E. D. Sanderson, then Director 

 of the New Hampshire Agricultural Experiment Station. The Asso- 

 ciation of Economic Entomologists had a standing committee on pro- 

 prietary insecticides, and Professor Sanderson was chairman of this 

 committee. The Association instructed this committee to investigate 

 the possibility of securing an interpretation of the Federal Food and 

 Drugs Act which would bring proprietary insecticides and fungi- 

 cides within its scope, and, should this not be possible, to consider 

 the feasibility of securing an amendment to the law so that proprietary 

 insecticides and fungicides would be covered. It was the opinion of 

 Dr. H. W. Wiley, Chief of the Bureau of Chemistry, after consulting 

 legal opinion, that the Food and Drugs Act did not cover insecti- 

 cides, and he reported that there should be a special insecticide law. 

 The committee of entomologists requested Doctor Wiley to formulate 

 a Federal insecticide law. and the task was assigned by Doctor Wiley 

 to Doctor Haywood.. In his draft, the law applied only to insecti- 

 cides. It provided in certain cases larger fines than are provided for in 

 the law which eventually passed Congress. It directed that the Act 

 be inforced by the Bureau of Chemistry. It defined " original un- 

 broken package." It stated that the amount of arsenious oxid in 

 Paris green must be 55 j^er cent. It stated that arsenic in water- 



