EXPERIMENTS WITH INSECTICIDES 
INTRODUCTION. 
There are a Dumber of remedies against insects, ^vliicli have been pro 
posed from time to time, and which have been publislied without any 
definite record of experiment, their reputation resting upon hearsay 
evidence. The lisc of such remedies is growing longer every day, 
and with a view of testing some of those which are most frequently rec- 
ommended, in order to enable us to speak with difiniteness concern- 
ing their value, we prepared a list early in the summer and sent dupli 
cates to two of our agents, Prof. H. Osborn, at Ames, Iowa, and Mr 
F. j\I. Webster, at La Fayette, Ind. At the same time, being desirous of 
testing the infusions and decoctions of certain plants popularly" sup- 
posed to have insecticide properties, we engaged ^Ir. Thomas Bennett, 
of Trenton, N. J., a practical gardener of manj' years' experience, to ex- 
periment in this direction. The reports of these three gentlemen are 
subjoined, ami their results, thouiih in the main negative, are neverthe- 
less of considerable interest and value. 
KEKOSENE WITH MOLASSES. 
It will be noticed that the kerosene emulsion used by IMessrs. Web- 
ster and Osborn was made of equal parts of kerosene, molasses, and 
water. Tiiis method of making an emulsion was first suggested to us 
by i^Ir. E. S. Goff", of the New York agricultural experiment station at 
Geneva, N. Y., early last August. Mr. Gofif had made what he thought 
a tolerably perfect emulsion with these substances by using a crude 
sorghum molasses, and his experif^nce at once interested us on account 
of the fact that the mixture was made without heat, and because of the 
probability that the molasses would render the dilute emulsion more or 
less adhesive. After a long series of experiments, however, ^Ir. Gofif 
came to the conclusion that he had overestimated thc^ value of the prep- 
aration. We quote from his last letter on the subject: 
*'l write to say that after abundant experimenting with the molasses- 
kerosene emulsion, of which I wrote to you in August last, I fail to find 
it equal to the soap emulsion. By boiling the molasses and water and 
