The Insecticide Industry of Today Seed Production in Various States Has Comprises More Than 50 Basic Producers Doubled the Yield
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put nearly 2 million dollars extra in the growers' pockets. In Mississippi at least 75 percent of the 1950 cotton crop The Insecticide would have been destroyed were it not for the control of insects through the Industry use of the industry's products. Insecti- cides applied in Nebraska to control Lea S. Hitchner grasshoppers in 1949 resulted in savings estimated at 2 million dollars. Insecti- cidal treatment of alfalfa raised for The insecticide industry of today seed production in various States has comprises more than 50 basic producers doubled the yield. or manufacturers and more than 500 One factor among others responsible formulatorsj xemixers, and processors. for the high productivity of American From their plants throughout the coun- agriculture is the cooperative attack try comes a great variety of insecticides that is waged on insects and other pests. and related products. The agricultural chemicals industry The products, except those derived has welcomed the opportunity to co- from botanical sources, have their ori- operate with Federal and State agen- gins in the basic chemicals on which cies and with farm organizations in this the industry is founded, but the proc- important work and to carry the re- esses that turn the raw materials into sponsibility for developing, producing, the finished products applied by farm- and delivering the necessary pesticides. ers are long, highly scientific, and ex- Such a responsibility is a heavy one pensive in capital. investment and even in normal times. It becomes operating costs. acutely heavy in times of national The industry employs thousands of stress, when shortages of raw materials, scientists in the fields of entomology, containers, personnel, and transporta- plant pathology, botany, toxicology, tion may hamper production and dis- medicine, chemistry, and chemical en- tribution. gineering; thousands of skilled and The industry has come a long way semiskilled workers in the manufactur- since the i88o's, when its development ing plants; and thousands of men re- began to have a real impact on Ameri- sponsible for sales, either as employees can agriculture. To be sure, the use of industry or dealers who sell directly of chemicals to control insects goes to farmers and other consumers. back at least a century, and long before Demand for the products has that, man had declared war against the climbed to the point where annual sales insects that had plagued him from total at least 200 million dollars, the time beyond memory. sum paid for the hundreds of products Among the earliest records of insect that industry has developed, produced, control is the Biblical story of the and distributed to agriculturists in prophet Amos, who was a "dresser of every State and many foreign lands. sycamores." He was one of many who The products include insecticides, fun- regularly climbed sycamore trees to gicides, weed killers, rodenticides, de- pinch off the ends of the young fruit, foliants, and plant hormones. Never which resembled figs, hoping this before has the farmer been so well would destroy the insect usually found armed to fight insects and other pests. there. For thousands of years the con- Some examples of the effectiveness trol of insects and diseases was almost of the products: Growers of peas in entirely guesswork or practically non- Wisconsin in a recent year achieved a existent, with the exception of mechan- return of 6 dollars for each dollar ical control, like that carried on by invested in insect control. The insecti- Amos, supplemented by a rather hap- cides boosted the yields 15 percent and hazard system of crop rotation. 450 The Insecticide Industry The first record of effective chemi- boll weevil was not yet the serious pest cal control dates from 1882, when a it became later in the South. Frenchman, Millardet, accidentally Supplies of calcium arsenate were discovered what is now known as bor- also sent to potato growers in Virginia deaux mixture. Sixty years ago most of and to apple growers in Nova Scotia. the materials applied for pest control On the basis of results obtained by the were chemicals^ such as paris green Virginia growers, Piver began selling and london purple, used primarily in calcium arsenate to potato men in New other industries but accidentally dis- Jersey. Not all the early results were covered to be effective against insects. good. In 1915, Piver's company had 21 PROBABLY THE FIRST insecticide re- customers; in 1916, 55 customers. By sulting from deliberately planned man- then the boll weevil was serious in cot- ufacture was calcium arsenate, des- ton. Entomologists accepted the chal- tined to become one of the most widely lenge by carrying on extensive experi- used materials throughout the Nation ments with calcium arsenate. In 1918, and to play a special role in the control on the basis of Government tests, a of the boll weevil in the South. Federal entomologist telegraphed Piver William G. Piver was typical of the for 40 tons of calcium arsenate—the enterprising young businessmen in the largest single order he had ever re- industry. Within the first 5 years after ceived and a third larger than his high- his graduation from the University of est yearly production. The order nearly North Carolina, Piver took part in an floored him. He had to get special per- early campaign to promote lead arse- mission from his company's board of nate. He conceived the possibility of directors to make up so large a single producing calcium arsenate for use as batch because factory production at an insecticide. He reasoned that the that time produced so many failures arsenical insecticides then in use were that the factory back yard was knee effective primarily because they con- deep with the discarded mixes run out tained arsenic—yet the paris green was from the tanks and dried in the sun. expensive because it also contained He was "wasting assets of the com- copper and a large share of the cost pany," they said, but he won his point. for lead arsenate was because of its The shipment was made up and sent lead content. He therefore set out to south. Professional entomologists were find a way to combine the arsenic with quick to realize the potentialities of a readily available and inexpensive calcium arsenate as an insecticide* base, such as lime. About the time Fiver's company Piver's first experimental apparatus started to manufacture, W. D. Hunter, was hidden under his bed in a board- in charge of southern field crops inves- ing house because his landlady wanted tigations of the Department of Agri- no poisonous or explosive chemicals in culture, and B. R. Goad, in charge of her house. He worked at night, and his the laboratory in Tallulah, La., began progress was slow. He found practi- extensive studies on the use of calcium cally nothing in the technical litera- arsenate for cotton insects. The experi- ture to guide him. But he persevered mental work continued many years, and he finally produced laboratory and much of the development and use amounts of calcium arsenate—but only of calcium arsenate may be attributed in pound lots. Then followed further to their efforts. study and research, until in 1912 the first commercial batch of calcium ar- TYPICAL OF THE DEVELOPMENT of senate was produced and shipped in other products by industry is the re- powdered form to a dealer in Houston, search in the early 1920's that led to Tex. The shipment was intended for the commercial sale of summer spray the control of the cotton leafv/orm ■ the oils, now widely used on fruit crops. 452 Yearbook of Agriculture 1952 The late William Hunter Volck is con- efficient agriculture. Among the early sidered by many as one of the greatest pioneers were A. P. and David Ans- contributors to this field. He first bacher and Fred L. Lavenburg, who started work on spray oils in 1902 in worked with paris green; James A. collaboration with G. W. Wood worth, Blanchard, also with paris green ; B. G. of the University of California; from Pratt, miscible oils ; and Thomas Gras- then on he continued to study petro- selli, Arthur Kent, Frank Hemingway, leum oil products. Volck developed a G. D. Vrecland, and George A. Martin, series of spray oils^ including in 1924 lead arsenate. Besides Pi ver, Theodore the summer oils, which can be used on Dosch, Ernest Hart, and Fred Moburg foliage. He also developed quick- were identified with the development breaking emulsions and, in collabora- of calcium arsenate; George F. Leon- tion with Hugh Knight and others, ard and Charles Taylor, with nicotine summer oils plus poisons and emulsive sulfate; William Rose, Edward Mech- oil products. ling, Herbert Dow, Gerald Cushman, To list all the names of industrial R. W. Scott, Arthur Stern, and others, companies, scientists, and university with arsenicals and other products. and Government workers who have The second phase sometimes is called contributed to the development of the era of organic insecticides. It was petroleum oil pesticides would be to stimulated by wartime research and list the names of many of the leaders of necessity and resulted in a tremendous research development in the United increase in the number of products States. Today approximately 85 mil- available to growers. lion gallons of petroleum oil products The development of DDT exempli- are used in agriculture to control pests fies the telescoping in a short time the and weeds. research that might well have taken years. Some authorities have said the THE GROWTH OF THE INDUSTRY can major discoveries in curative and pre- be divided into two periods—the first ventive medicine during the war were dates from the development of calcium DDT, plasma, and penicillin.