August, '12] WOODWCRTH: CALIFORNIA IXSECTICIDE INDUSTRIES 363 



same material has considerable use as a tree spray. When prepared 

 and sold as a dip, the regulations of the U. S. Bureau of Animal Indus- 

 try have operated to secure a fairly reliable standard but it has only 

 been since the insecticide law went into effect that dealers have known 

 what per cent of cresylic acid was present, and this has varied from 

 5-40 per cent. 



Under these circumstances it is not at all surprising that experiment- 

 ers have generally considered this material too unreliable to recommend 

 nor that the results last year in the Santa Clara Valley were so irregular. 



There are quite a number of local manufacturers ; (I will not attempt 

 to name them) compounding carbolic insecticides. The crude material 

 and a good proportion of the preparations are shipped from the East, 

 Entomologists have neglected very largely this cheap and efficient 

 insecticide, leaving it to compounders of proprietary dog soaps, dips, 

 sprays and lice killers, both liquid and powders, to exploit its use. 



There is an important and very largely neglected field for the eco- 

 nomic entomologist in the study of the remedies to be used on our 

 domestic animals and in what are known as household remedies. By 

 far the larger number of the California manufacturers of insecticides 

 are compounding these preparations. Many of them admit that they 

 have no practical knowledge of the relative efficiency of their com- 

 pounds, that they are ready and anxious to make any change that 

 experiment may indicate advisable in their formulae. Clearly here 

 is an open field for our efforts of no small magnitude, since the aggre- 

 gate sales of these preparations is much larger than generally appre- 

 ciated. 



We have already made some progress in the study of flea pow- 

 ders, of which scores of preparations are on the market showing a very 

 great variation in efficiency. Most of these powders are compounded 

 in the state. 



Insect powder of the very highest quality is grown and manufactured 

 by the Buhach Producing and Manufacturing Company of Stockton, — 

 all the other insect powders and compounded flea powders are im- 

 ported, or made up from imported ingredients. 



To this class of household insecticides belong the many preparations 

 for lice on human beings which are so much less prevalent than a 

 generation or so ago, due to the almost universal and immediate 

 application of remedies, — for bed bugs, which, though nowhere as 

 prevalent in California as elsewhere, are accountable for a large sale 

 of remedies, — for cockroaches, which are coming to be very annoying 

 about San Francisco, — for houseflies, which are almost omnipresent, — 

 lotions for mosquito and flea bites, — remedies for clothes moths and 

 finally and by no means the least, the ant poisons, which have appeared 



