268 AGRICULTURAL APPROPRIATION BILL, 1924. 



INSECTICIDE AND FUNGICIDE INVESTIGATIONS. 



Mr. Camphkkl. Tlio next is tho item for investigation and develop- 

 ment of methods of manufacturing insecticides and fungicides. The 

 work under this item has been devoted to a study of the conditions 

 found to exist in commercial insecticides and fungicides that are (m 

 the market now. Certain chisses of insecticides and fungicides or 

 disinfectants have been tested against a certain organism, upon 

 which the standard of that product would be gauged. \ ery naturally 

 we have been curious to know whether or not it would be equally 

 effective against other cla.sses of in.secticidal or fungicidal attack and 

 to determine whether or not the standard serving as a basis for the 

 estimate of the value of this product applied with respect to its 

 application to all classes of organisms, and we found that it has not 

 been so in some cases. 



We have also found this, that in the class of nicotine products, 

 for instance, the packao:es containing them seemed after a while to 

 lose their potencv for msecticidal use: after a while they did not 

 seem to possess the strength or the value that they were claimed to 

 have originally, and we found that there was a deterioration in the 

 product itself' under certain conditions, and gave attention to the 

 methods under which the products should be prepared in order to 

 maintain their potent condition for a protracted period of time. 



The work of fundamental importance under this appropriation 

 very naturally is to try to find some type of an insecticide or fungi- 

 cide that will i)e effective in destroying the parasites but at the same 

 time work no injury to the plant itself or to man or animal in the 

 application of them and at the same time have the advantage of 

 being cheap; that is the ideal product. 



Mr. Bl'chanan. It is rather a hard job, too. 



Mr, Campbell. It is rather a hard job. It is something that can 

 not be done in a minute, but, nevertheless, we are working on that, 

 and we do have right now under way the study of certain compounds 

 of a chrtnical kind that bid fair to supplant certain types of msecti- 

 cides we have had, particularly nicotine products, that will have the 

 advantage of being as potent as the nicotine product itself and at the 

 same time very much cheaper. 



After you work things of that sort out on a laboratorj' scale very 

 naturallv you have to determine from the standpoint of the cost 

 involved whether it is a practical proposition to do it on a commercial 

 scale. 



INVESTIGATION OF CALCIUM ARSENATE. 



We have just had this experience recently in connection with work 

 that was done under this fund. Calcium arsenate, you know, is being 

 manufactured and shipped extensively into the South for the purpose 

 of ((inibnling I lie boll weevil and it has l)een found that dilferent 

 shipments acted in dilFerent ways; in other words, the water-soluble 

 arsenic that was found present has been sullicient to burn the plants 

 in a great many rases, and one of our men from the lal)oratorv made 

 a stu<ly of that situation in the South. He f(»und that it was not 

 altogether cliniati*- conditions that were responsible for this excessive 

 water-soluble arsenic, but it appeared that some of the mineral 

 f)roperties which the plant itself had exuih'd and were found to be in 



