360 JOURNAL OF ECONOMIC ENTOMOLOGY [Vol. 5 



mentally when the statement of composition was required. The 

 chief benefit of the requirement of the statement of composition in the 

 proprietary preparations is that the dealer can no longer safely make 

 extravagant and therefore fraudulent claims of the efficiency of the 

 preparation he is offering for sale. Many of the smaller manufacturers 

 have urged that they were being compelled to divulge a valuable trade 

 secret to their competitors but in no case, after the necessary formula 

 was in my hands, did there appear any substance in any of the com- 

 pounds as having insecticidal value which was not already a matter 

 of common knowledge, and the secret, if there was any, lay in the per 

 cent used of the different ingredients, — whether, for instance, A used 

 5 per cent of snuff in his flea powder. 



The only real basis for objection lay in the fear that B could not sell 

 his perfumed pink gasolene for ten times as much as he could charge 

 for the ingredients, or that C could not sell vinegar and water for head 

 lice at twenty-five cents an ounce. 



Such sales border so close to downright frauds that arguments of 

 this character appeal very strongly neither to entomologists nor to 

 consumers, and if one has built up a trade for crude carbolic acid at 

 several times its value by calling it "Lousene" or any other fanciful 

 name, it has been accomplished by leading the purchaser to think that 

 he is getting something better than carbolic acid when he buys the can 

 with the picture label. 



All manufactuers must now sell their insecticides for what they really 

 are and a long step has been taken towards making the entomologist 

 and dealer harmonize their recommendations. 



The knowledge of the practical value of cyanide for orchard fumi- 

 gation dates from a bulletin issued by the California Experiment 

 Station. 



Cyanide constitutes the largest single item of expense for insecticides 

 in this state. None of it is made in California, and practically all of 

 it comes from the firm of Roessler and Hasslacher and Company of 

 New York. This material has varied very greatly in composition 

 during the years fumigation has been practiced in California, and 

 is at present of a higher grade and more uniform composition than in 

 the earlier days. The acid used in generating the gas is all manufac- 

 tured in California and is as large in quantity though cheaper in price 

 than the cyanide. There are two large plants manufacturing the acid, 

 one the American Agricultural Chemical Company near Los Angeles 

 making the acid from crude sulfur, which is peculiar among crude 

 chemicals by being almost chemically pure. The other. The Mountain 

 Copper Company, with a plant near Martinez, that make the acid as 

 a by-product, but produces, nevertheless a very high grade of acid. 



