JOURNAL OF ECONOMIC ENTOMOLOGY 
[Vol. 17 
238 
A fternoon Session , Tuesday , January i, 1924 
The session convened at 1:30 o’clock. 
President A. G. Ruggles: The first paper on the program is by 
V. I. Safro. 
THE PRICE OF INSECTICIDES 
By V. I. Safro, Clarksville , Tenn. 
Abstact 
A practical discussion from the standpoint of the salesman and manufacturer 
designed to assist the purchaser and aid in producing more satisfactory conditions, 
When fruit growers demanded that the economic entomologist in¬ 
clude with his spraying directions for insect pests information covering 
applications for fungus diseases, the Plant Pathologist and the Chemist 
were called into collaboration with the result that the day of spray 
combinations arrived and today the grower can obtain full directions 
for an entire season’s spraying. Combinations and compatibilities are 
authoritatively recommended as a result of competent investigations. 
This development may, perhaps, be considered the greatest recent step 
in the progress of entomological economics. 
It may now be considered proper to suggest that the time has arrived 
when the economic entomologist can profitably take counsel with the 
business economist. Large numbers of publications are appearing with 
the express purpose of teaching the grower cheaper methods of controlling 
insect pests. The entomologist, notwithstanding his sincere desire to 
improve the farmer’s economic condition, very often proceeds to violate 
those very principles of economics that he should carefully observe. 
Investigators who carefully weigh every entomological fact and 
word before they permit its publication will too often give voice quite 
thoughtlessly to economic opinions—and it is the object of these remarks 
to call attention to this situation—though in doing so, portions of this 
discussion must necessarily be elementary. 
Often the term “prohibitive” appears in publications relative to a 
consideration of costs of insect control. There is no clear understanding 
among entomologists of the meaning of this term. When does the 
cost of insect control become prohibitive to the grower? The writer 
in a paper in the Journal of Economic Entomology some years ago 1 
indicated that under certain conditions the total expense of a spraying 
’Journal of Economic Entomology, Vol. 10, No. G p. 521—Dec. 1917. 
