NICOTINE : ITS USE AND VALUE IN HOETICULTURE. 53 



Tobacco impregnated with saltpetre — burning, in fact, in any way in which 

 direct flame is brought into contact with the nicotine or Tobacco — is to be 

 strongly deprecated. There are only two efficient methods of using 

 nicotine — by vaporising the compound and by direct application in a 

 liquid form. I have been in large houses in the Channel Islands, and 

 was surprised to see a tremendous quantity of blight, and also to hear 

 that sometimes they get a perfect plague of various kinds of blight. 

 However when I heard how they fumigate a great many houses both in 

 Jersey and Guernsey, I knew the reason why they were so dirty. 

 Tobacco is to be obtained duty free on the islands, and the method that 

 was adopted was this. Dry Tobacco leaf was obtained and either burnt 

 in a brazier or else saturated with saltpetre and lighted. No wonder the 

 blight was not properly killed ; no wonder that the plants so treated did 

 not look fresh and healthy after fumigation. It was simply a case of 

 sacrificing efficiency upon the altar of cheapness. Tobacco used in this 

 way will never give satisfactory results ; nicotine used properly will not 

 fail to give them. Go through any large houses where nicotine is 

 judiciously used as an insecticide, and what do you find? Clean, healthy 

 plants, free from blight, all tending to success and profit. 



I regret to say that even to-day in England there are many horti- 

 culturists prejudiced against the use of nicotine ; but as time goes on, and 

 they see the splendid results obtained by its use, their number is rapidly 

 decreasing. Prejudice cannot stop scientific and economic progress; 

 prejudice only recoils upon the people who indulge in it. In nicotine the 

 horticulturist has a means ready to hand with which he can successfully 

 fight against the ravages of blight in his glasshouses, only let him see 

 to it that the compound is used properly. Abolish all rule-of-thumb 

 methods. My own short experience has taught me that rule-of-thumb 

 methods are useless in practical work. We must be in either an experi- 

 mental stage or a practical stage, and we may be quite sure that the old 

 truism still holds good — practice makes perfect. 



At this point I should like to say a few words about the purchase of 

 Nicotine or fumigating compound for use as an insecticide. First and 

 foremost there is the question, where can we buy it ? Now the law as it 

 stands says you must buy it from a chemist. The Pharmaceutical 

 Society of England claims the monopoly of retailing poisons both for 

 industrial as well as for medicinal purposes. This ought not to be : the 

 law is distinctly hampering an important branch of manufacturing 

 chemistry. All respectable nurserymen, seedsmen, drysalters, &c. should 

 be licensed to sell poisons for agricultural, horticultural, or industrial 

 purposes. If a person requires a little advice as to which insecticide to 

 use, or as to what is the best substance to kill some fungoid growth, and 

 how much to use, and how to use it, is he likely to go to the same 

 shop from which he obtains his cough mixture, pills, or teething 

 powders ? No, a man may be very clever in compounding potions that 

 will ease or cure certain diseases of the human body, and yet be absolutely 

 ignorant at curing diseases common to plants. Every man to his trade 

 or profession. It is rather annoying if one goes to a pharmaceutical 

 chemist and asks for something to kill green fly and is recommended 

 to use Bunkum's fly papers ; or complains that he is troubled with 



