FLAVOR AND BENZENE HEXACHLORIDE CONTENT OF PEANUTS 3 



variables that could not be experimentally controlled. For this reason 

 the investigations were continued with collection and examination 

 of samples grown in 1951, which included some lots of peanuts pro- 

 duced with more rigid control of experimental variables. The 

 latter consisted of 9 samples of Virginia Jumbo peanuts grown at the 

 Tidewater Field Station, Holland, Va. Eight were from plots where 

 cotton treated with standard 3-5-40 BHC dust, prepared from 13 

 percent gamma grade of insecticide, had been grown the previous 

 year, and the ninth was from a plot with a history of no prior exposure 

 to BHC. The peanuts were field cured in stacks in the usual manner. 

 Because the preceding cotton experiments were planned with other 

 objectives than that of providing plot pretreatments for the 1951 

 peanut studies, applications of insecticide to the cotton in 1950 

 (3.8 to 5.1 pounds per acre of gamma BHC) were 2 to 3 times the 

 rate of application recommended for practical control of cotton 

 insects. 



Samples from 1 1 fields of commercial peanuts were also collected by 

 the Bureau of Entomology and Plant Quarantine in 1951. Eight were 

 from fields where growers reported that cotton treated with standard 

 3-5-40 BHC dust had been grown during one or both of the im- 

 mediately preceding years, and 3 were from fields reported as pre- 

 viously not exposed to the insecticide. These samples, all grown in 

 South Carolina, consisted of 2 lots of Spanish and 9 of Virginia Bunch 

 peanuts. 



Soils. — Soil samples were taken from the 9 plots on the Tidewater 

 Field Station at the time the peanuts were harvested in the fall. 



1952 Samples 



Peanuts. — Because the trend in BHC insecticides is toward the 

 use of grades containing higher concentrations of gamma isomer, 

 experiments were set up to obtain information on the flavor and 

 BHC content of peanut butter made from peanuts following cotton 

 on which dust made from a BHC containing 36 percent of the gamma 

 isomer was used. These experiments were started in May 1951 on 

 plots not previously treated with BHC located on two farms near 

 Florence, S. C, and at the Pee Dee Experiment Station. Cotton 

 growing on 13 plots at the experiment station and at the 2 farms 

 nearby (Hill farm and Turner farm) was treated with dust made from 

 36 percent gamma BHC. Five additional plots were left as untreated 

 controls. 



Analyses made by the Pennsylvania Salt Manufacturing Company 4 

 and in the laboratories of the Bureau of Entomology and Plant 

 Quarantine, Beltsville, Md., indicated that the gamma BHC content 

 of the dust was approximately 3.0 percent, provided by 8.3 percent 

 of mixed isomers containing 36 percent of gamma BHC. The ap- 

 proximate isomeric composition of the technical BHC was gamma, 

 36; alpha, 29; delta, 31; and epsilon, 4 percent. The insecticide was 

 applied to the cotton plants at rates providing total gamma BHC 

 dosages ranging from 1.3 to 5.0 pounds per acre. 



In the spring of 1952, the plots described above were planted to 

 Virginia Runner peanuts. On April 18 before the peanuts were 



4 Gamma BHC, 3.08 percent; other BHC isomers, 5.25 percent; diluent, 91.67 

 percent. 



