STORED-PRODUCT INSECT INVESTIGATIONS 
BE. A. Back, Senior Entomologist, in Charge 
Each month some questions are received in correspondence that are dif- 
ficult to answer. One drug company in Tennessee, which had found living der- 
mestids in an "air-tight" bottle of cantharides, asks, "Do insects or animals © 
live after death"? 
Information has been received in the past month that Farmers! Bulletin 
* 1353, "Clothes Moths and Their Control," has passed through five editions, 
totaling 240,000 copies. "Insect Control in Upholstered Furniture," published’ 
in the magazine of the National Furniture Warehousemen's Association, has 
been printed as a separate, in an edition of 12,000 copies, and the Bureau 
has been presented with a supply to assist in its correspondence. 


Experiments were completed in March which indicate that the East Indian 
woods known as "kamfer" and "lagan," when made into chests have no value as 
protectors against clothes moths. A supply of these woods was sent to the 
Bureau from Batavia by N. V. Houthandel Singkel, of Holland. 
Congressman Clay Stone Briggs, of Galveston, Tex., has been requested 
by the Galveston Chamber of Commerce to express its appreciation of the prompt 
manner in which the Bureau of Entomology responded to its call for assistance 
in connection with insect infestations, and has also spoken highly of the 
Services rendered by C, P. Trotter, Assistant Plant Quarantine Inspector, of 
the Federal Horticultural Board, in connection with the inspection and fumiga- 
tion of ships carrying export flour. | 
| 
Samuel C, Prescott, Professor of Industrial Biology, Department of 
Biology and Public Health, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, has been 
§00d enough in the past month to furnish this Bureau with a copy of his re- 4 
port upon experiments with one of the well known mothproofing solutions now 
on the market. Several years ago Professor Prescott visited the Bureau to con- 
sult with specialists about rearing stored-product insects needed for the ee 
conduct of investigations for private business firms. It is interesting tO 
note that private business, by paying for such investigation, can have experi- 
ments conducted at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology that have a 
Special bearing upon their problem, and can obtain an official report signed 
by Professor Prescott, | 
Instead of Federal inspection and certification of flour entering into | 
export trade, a private enterprise known as the Millers! Export Inspection Bu- © 
reau has been formed by Joseph V. Lane, of New York, and R. W. Lightburne, 
of Kansas City, These men are in the flour-insurance business. Insurance com- 
panies that have been insuring export flour have included in their policies, 
among other things, a so-called "bug clause" that has covered losses due to 
the development of stored-product pests during transit and storage, from the 
time the flour leaves the flour mill until it is accepted by the purchaser, 
The recent heavy claims against insurance companies resulting from insect at- 
tack have brought home to these companies the fact that heretofore they have 
been insuring flour against damage by insects without having the slightest 
knowledge regarding the insect sanitation of the establishments or warehouses 
from which the flour started on its journey, or of the condition of the rail- 
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