56 
Castor  Bean  Losses. 
f  Am.  Jour.  Pharm. 
January,  1919. 
certain  of  the  big  profits  to  be  made  out  of  the  crop  that  they 
deprecated  any  appeal  to  patriotism  in  asking  farmers  to  plant  them, 
urging  that  at  the  price  offered  the  growers  would  make  so  much 
money  that  there  could  be  no  credit  given  them  for  patriotism. 
"  Officers  of  both  the  war  department  and  department  of  agri- 
culture represented  castor  beans  to  be  a  crop  that  could  be  grown 
almost  anywhere,  on  any  kind  of  soil,  without  difficulty.  One  state- 
ment given  the  O.K.  of  these  officers  was  that  '  Castor  beans  will 
grow  on  any  dry  land  in  Florida.'  Another  statement  similarly  ap- 
proved was  that  '  Any  soil  may  be  expected  to  produce  20  bushels 
per  acre.' 
"Army  officers  who  inspected  the  crop  required  farmers  to 
fertilize  heavily  and  give  expensive  cultivation.  In  many  cases  the 
yield  will  not  pay  for  the  fertilizer.  A  bulletin  issued  by  the  de- 
partment of  agriculture  announced  that  castor  beans  had  '  no  known 
insect  or  disease  enemies.'  As  a  matter  of  fact,  army  worms 
devastated  thousands  of  acres ;  a  hundred  other  kinds  of  bugs  and 
worms  have  caused  havoc,  and  thousands  of  acres  have  been  ruined 
by  a  single  fungus  disease  supposed  by  some  pathologists  to  have 
been  brought  into  the  United  States  with  the  Indian  seed.  Thou- 
sands of  acres  of  the  beans  failed  to  germinate  because  planters 
followed  government  advice  to  soak  the  seed  in  hot  water,  and  large 
acreage  was  a  failure  because  of  other  mistaken  government  advice 
concerning  planting  and  culture. 
"The  present  price  makes  it  worth  while  for  the  farmers  to 
pick  their  castor  beans,  but  in  many  cases  there  will  not  be  enough 
beans,  even  at  the  higher  prices,  to  pay  the  cost  of  producing  the 
crop,  and  in  cases  where  there  are  no  beans  to  show  for  large 
expenditures  by  the  grower  in  money  and  work,  no  price,  however 
high,  will  compensate  the  cost. 
"  It  has  been  the  policy  of  the  government,  in  purchasing  war 
supplies  generally,  to  guarantee  the  manufacturer  his  cost  and  a  fair 
margin  of  profit.  Wages  of  war-workers  have  been  generally  high. 
There  seems  no  good  reason  why  a  discrimination  should  be  made 
against  castor  bean  contractors  and  growers.  It  does  not  seem  fair 
to  ask  them  to  bear  the  heavy  burden  of  an  unsuccessful  experiment 
in  growing  a  new  crop  from  government  seed,  under  government 
direction  and  supervision.  We  believe  that  the  same  liberal  principle 
and  policy  should  be  applied  to  the  castor  bean  crop  that  has  been 
applied  generally  to  other  government  contracts,  and  that  where 
