INSECT POWDER 9 
Chrysanthemum cinerarizfolium has been successfully cultivated 
at Madison, Wis., and at the Arlington, Va., Experimental Farm of 
the United States Department of Agriculture. Halsted (112, 113) 
has grown hybrids of i roseum and the field daisy (C. leucanthemum) 
in New Jersey. California, however, is the only place in the United 
States where the cultivation of Pyrethrum has continued on a 
commercial scale. 
SUMMARY 
Insect flowers are cultivated commercially in Dalmatia, Monte- 
negro, Japan, France, Australia, Algeria, and California. The 
first three countries produce nearly all the flowers that enter into 
international trade. In 1907, 2,882,000 pounds, and in 1908, 
2,615,000 pounds of insect flowers were exported from Austria (165). 
Japan, in 1913, exported 349,225 pounds of imsect flowers and 
211,012 pounds of insect powder, and in 1914, 819,612 pounds of 
the flowers and 256,567 pounds of the powder (25/7). Exportations 
from Japan have increased greatly since 1914. Montenegro seems 
to be the only country where wild insect flowers grow abundantly 
enough to be of commercial importance. Even there the quantity 
is small, as, according to Jiittner (150), the whole Montenegrin pro- 
duction of wild flowers amounts at most to 15,000 kilograms (33,000 
pounds) each year. 
PREPARATION OF INSECT POWDER 
One of the earliest accounts of insect powder (4) states that the 
dried insect flowers are rubbed to a coarse powder with the hand, 
and then ground fine inasmall mill. Willemot (294) gives directions 
for pulverizing insect flowers in a mortar by simply rubbing them 
with a pestle. 
Coquillet (65) describes the manufacture of Buhach from the 
flowers of Carysanthemum cinerarixfolium in California as follows: 
Arriving at the mill the flowers (which have been thoroughly dried) are fed toa 
set of burr millstones, just as wheat is handled in making flour by the old process. 
The grist is carried by an elevator to a separator which, by proper sieves, separates 
the coarser particles of the grist, allowing only the finest, dustlike powder to pass 
through. This powder is carried by an elevator to an adjoining building, where 
it is put up in tin cans for the market, while the coarser particles thrown off by 
the separator are returned to the millstones. 
The flowers become heated while being reduced to powder, but the latter, in 
passing through a large series of elevators, loses its heat to a great degree before 
it is put into the cans for the market. 
Slaus-Kantschieder (261), in 1913, described the preparation of 
insect powder in Dalmatia as follows: 
The flowers are prepared as powder in Dalmatia, as well as in Trieste. The 
largest Dalmatian mills, located in Sebanico, are driven with electrical power 
from ‘‘Krkafallen.’’ Further, several smaller concerns in Zara, Ragusa, and 
upon the islands of ‘‘ Mittel-Dalmatiens”’ carry on the grinding of the flowers. 
In Trieste the grinding of the chrysanthemum plants is carried on in about 10 
mills, and this is the place where most of the adulteration occurs. 
_ In the United States, in addition to Stockton, Calif., where Buhach 
is manufactured, insect flowers are ground on a large scale in Balti- 
more, Peoria, and New York, and to a smaller extent in Philadelphia, 
St. Louis, and other places. In most cases the older firms still use 
stone “chaser” mills, while the newer firms employ steel disk mills. 
A “chaser” mill consists simply of a pair of millstones joined by a 
horizontal axis, which is connected with a vertical shaft. By means of 
