Abstract
Insecticides are the foundations of most insect control strategies in agriculture, particularly in the industrialized countries. Their present status as an integral part of agricultural technology reflects many successes in the invention and development of particular compounds for use by the farming industries. Moreover, reliance on insecticides presupposes a stable chemical industry to manufacture, formulate, and market the toxic materials. This chapter outlines the major events in the invention of insecticides and the development of the insecticide industry.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
Reference Notes
L. O. Howard, A History of Applied Entomology (Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Inst., 1930), p. 64 (hereafter cited as Howard, History).
Walter S. Hough and A. Freeman Mason, Spraying, Dusting and Fumigating of Plants (New York: The Macmillan Co., 1951), pp. 3–9 (hereafter cited as Hough and Mason, Spraying).
Harold H. Shepard, The Chemistry and Action of Insecticides (New York: McGraw-Hill Book Co., 1951), pp. 15, 21 (hereafter cited as Shepard, Chemistry).
Adelynne Hiller Whitaker, A History of Federal Pesticide Regulation in the United States to 1947, Ph.D. Thesis, Emory Univ., 1974, p. 101.
Ibid., pp. 1–7.
Ibid., pp. 7–10.
Ibid., pp. 81–102.
36 Stat. 331, Sect. 7.
Williams Haynes, American Chemical Industry (New York: D. Van Nostrand Co., Inc., 1945), Vol. 3, p. 112 (hereafter cited as Haynes, Chemical).
Ibid., p. 115.
B. R. Coad, Recent Experimental Work on Poisoning Cotton-Boll Weevils, USDA Bull. No. 731, July 19, 1918, 15 pp.
J. Douglas Helms, The Cotton Boll Weevil in Texas and Louisiana, 1892–1907, M. A. Thesis, Fla. State Univ., 1970, 127 pp; Howard, History, pp. 124–132.
Shepard, Chemistry, pp. 25–26.
Haynes, Chemical, Vol. 3, pp. 209–215.
Ibid., p. 110.
Hough and Mason, Spraying, pp. 11–12. E. B. Blakeslee, Use of Toxic Gases as a Possible Means of Control of the Peach-Tree Borer, USDA Bull. No. 796, Oct. 21, 1919, 23 pp.
Shepard, Chemistry, p. 272.
Hough and Mason, Spraying, p. 12.
Haynes, Chemical, Vol. 4, p. 332; Vol. 5, pp. 315–316.
Haynes, Chemical, Vol. 5, pp. 316–317.
Andreas Buxtorf and M. Spindler, Fifteen Years of Geigy Pest Control (Basel: Buchdruckerei Karl Werner AG, 1954) (hereafter cited as Buxtorf and Spindler, Fifteen Years). This book was originally published several years earlier under the title 10 Jahre Geigy Schädlingsbekämpfung. Although it is a company-sponsored, enthusiastic history, it contains a thorough review of the Geigy company’s efforts to discover, test, manufacture, and market DDT insecticides.
Insecticides are frequently classified as stomach or contact materials. The former must be ingested by the insect before poisoning occurs. The latter can kill merely by contacting the outside of the animal. An obvious advantage of contact poisons is that killing may be affected before the insect dines on the protected woolen textiles, while a stomach poison could begin to protect only after damage is done to the cloth. Some materials such as DDT possess both stomach- and contact-killing properties.
Paul Herman Mueller, Histoire du DDT (Alençon: Maison Poulet-Malassis, 1948). I thank Christine Newman for translating the article.
H. Mooser, Schweiz. Med. Wochenschr. 74 (1944): 947
T. F. West and G. A. Campbell, DDT (London: Chapman and Hall, 1950), pp. 3–4 (hereafter cited as West and Campbell, DDT).
Victor Froelicher, The story of DDT, Soap and Chemical Specialties 20 (1944): 115, 117, 119, 145 (hereafter cited as Froelicher, DDT); quoted in West and Campbell, DDT, p. 6.
Buxtorf and Spindler, Fifteen Years. There is some ambiguity about what type of information was given to the Germans. Mueller implies that the information was delivered only to the U.S. and the United Kingdom, but Buxtorf and Spindler imply that the information was also given to the Germans. The latter authors display a picture of a patent from the Deutsches Reich along with patents from France, the U.S., Switzerland, and the United Kingdom.
Froelicher, DDT.
Henry A. Wallace to Chiefs of Bureaus and Officers, Aug. 23, 1940, Record Group 7 (Records of the Bureau of Entomology and Plant Quarantine), National Archives (hereafter records from this group are cited as RG7NA).
Claude R. Wickard to Chiefs of Bureaus and Heads of Offices, Dec. 14, 1941, RG7NA.
Walter E. Dove, “Historical References to Man and Animal’s Contribution to War Effort,” n.d., RG7NA. Knipling assumed the directorship of the laboratory in June 1942 and guided it for the duration of the war years. He later wrote that the real moving influence in getting the laboratory started came from Col. William S. Stone and Gen. J. S. Simmons (U.S. Army), who sat on committees of the National Research Council. According to Knipling’s estimation, the Office of Scientific Research and Development gave the Orlando facility $815,000 between March 1942 and October 1945. In addition, the laboratory received from other agencies equipment, aircraft, personnel, and administrative supervision.
The total cost of operating the research station was estimated to be approximately $1 million [Edward F. Knipling, “Insect Control Investigations of the Orlando, Florida, Laboratory during World War II,” in Annual Report of the Smithsonian Institution, 1948 (Washington, D.C., 1948), pp. 331–348] (hereafter cited as Knipling, Insect Control).
Knipling, Insect Control.
Ruric C. Roark to Percy N. Annand, Aug. 27, 1942, RG7NA.
W. H. White to Percy N. Annand, Jan. 28, 1942, RG7NA.
Ruric C. Roark to Percy N. Annand, Jan. 2, 1942, RG7NA.
Avery S. Hoyt to Morse Salisbury, July 2, 1942, RG7NA.
Ruric C. Roark to Percy N. Annand, Jan. 6, 1945, RG7NA.
Knipling, Insect Control.
Walter E. Dove, “Contributions to War Effort: Summary of More Important Developments to January 24, 1945,” n.d., RG7NA.
Fred C. Bishopp to D. L. Van Dine, Sept. 2, 1943, RG7NA.
Annonymous, DDT not recommended for agricultural use, Oil Paint Drug Rep. 146 (Nov. 6, 1944): 4.
Agricultural Association discusses DDT, ibid., Vol. 146 (Oct. 30, 1944): 3.
Report of Special Committee on DDT (S.A. Rohwer, Chairman) J. Econ. Entomol. 38 (1945): 144.
S. W. Simmons, “The Use of DDT Insecticide in Human Medicine,” in DDT, Paul H. Mueller, ed. (Basel: Birkhäuser Verlag, 1959), pp. 264–265. Gordon Harrison discussed the frustration of the Sardinian Campaign because it failed to eradicate the malarial vector. Anopheles labranchiae, even though transmission of malaria was halted, in Mosquitoes, Malaria and Man (New York: E. P. Dutton, 1978), Chap. 24.
Production and Marketing Administration, The Pesticide Situation for 1952–53 (Washington, D.C.: USDA, 1953), p. 4 (hereafter cited as Production and Marketing Administration, Pesticide Situation).
Ibid., pp. 4–5, 16.
Samuel A. Graham, Forest Entomology, 3rd ed. (New York: McGraw-Hill Book Co., 1952), p. 10.
D. Price Jones, “Agricultural entomology,” in History of Entomology, Ray F. Smith, Thomas E. Mittler, and Carroll N. Smith, eds. (Palo Alto, California: Annual Reviews, Inc., 1973), pp. 326–327.
E. Dwight Sanderson and Leonard Marion Peairs, Insect Pests of Farm, Garden and Orchard, 2nd ed. (New York: John Wiley and Sons, 1921), p. 144.
Roscoe E. Hill, Ephraim Hixson, and Martin H. Muma, Corn rootworm control test with benzene hexachloride, DDT, nitrogen fertilizers and crop rotation, J. Econ. Entomol. 41 (1948): 392–401.
Velmar W. Davis, Austin S. Fox, Robert P. Jenkins, and Paul A. Andrilenas, Economic Consequences of Restricting the Use of Organochlorine Insecticides on Cotton, Corn, Peanuts, and Tobacco, Agricultural Economic Report No. 178 (Washington, D.C.: USDA, 1970), p. 14.
John H. Berry, “Effect of restricting the use of pesticides on corn-soybean farms,” in Economic Research on Pesticides for Policy Decision Making, proceedings of a symposium, Apr. 27–29, 1970 (Washington, D.C.: USDA, 1971), p. 139.
C. L. Metcalf, W. P. Flint, and R. L. Metcalf, Destructive and Useful Insects (New York: McGraw-Hill Book Co., Inc., 1951), p. 354.
Gordon Harrison, Mosquitoes, Malaria and Man (New York: E. P. Dutton, 1978), Chap. 25.
Buxtorf and Spindler, Fifteen Years.
Agricultural Research Administration, USDA, “Producers of DDT and DDT Insecticides,” mimeo, 1945.
Production and Marketing Administration, The Pesticide Situation, p. 7.
Economic Research Service, DDT Used in Farm Production, Agricultural Economic Report No. 188 (Washington, D.C.: USDA, 1969).
Bureau of the Census, U.S. Department of Commerce, Census of Manufacturers: 1954, Vol. 2, Pt. 1 (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1957). The figures quoted are for firms classified in Standard Industrial Code 2897.
Anonymous, Merck means over 1200 fine chemicals, Fortune, June, 1947, pp. 104–111+.
Anonymous, The chemical surge, Business Week, Mar. 18, 1950, pp. 117–118 (hereafter cited as Chemical surge, Business Week).
S. B. Self, Chemists goal, Barron’s Jan. 7, 1946, pp. 9 +.
Anonymous, The chemical century, Fortune, Mar. 1950, pp. 68–76 +.
J. V. Sherman, New Products assure growth in chemical industry, Barron’s, Feb. 19, 1945, pp. 9–10.
Chemical surge, Business Week.
For DuPont, see Annual Report 1946 and Annual Report 1948 (Wilmington, Del.: E. I. DuPont de Nemours and Co., 1947, 1949). For Monsanto, see Report of 44th Annual Meeting of Stockholders, Mar. 27, 1945
Monsanto, Report of 45th Annual Meeting of Monsanto Stockholders, Mar. 26, 1946
Monsanto, Prospectus, Apr. 8, 1946; all published by Monsanto Co., St. Louis, Mo. The entry of DuPont into DDT production was noted in Oil, Paint, and Drug Reporter, Jan. 24, 1944, p. 37. Monsanto’s activities with DDT were reported in ibid., Aug. 21, 1944, p. 40.
Alfred D. Chandler, Jr., The Visible Hand (Cambridge: Harvard Univ. Press, 1977), pp. 374–375, 473–476.
Harold H. Shepard, The Chemistry and Action of Insecticides (New York: McGraw-Hill Book Co., 1951), p. 18. Shepard notes that in 1941,56% of the lead arsenate produced was used on apples.
R. M. Smock and A. M. Neubert, Apples and Apple Products (New York: Interscience Pub., Inc., 1950), pp. 1–3 (hereafter cited as Smock and Neubert, Apples).
J. C. Folger and S. M. Thomson, The Commercial Apple Industry of North America (New York: The Macmillan Co., 1921), p. 3 (hereafter cited as Folger and Thomson, Apple Industry).
Joseph W. Ellison, The beginnings of the apple industry in Oregon, Agric. Hist. 11 (1937): 322–343.
Chester C. Hampson, “Trends in the apple industry,” Wash. Agric. Exp. Stn. Bull. No. 277, Feb. 1933, p. 9 (hereafter cited as Hampson, Trends).
Hoyt Lemmons and Rayburn D. Tousley, The Washington apple industry. I. Its geographic basis, Econ. Geog. 21 (1945): 161–182 (hereafter cited as Lemmons and Tousley, Apple industry, I).
Willard V. Longley, Some economic aspects of the apple industry in Nova Scotia, Nova Scotia Dept. of Agric. Bull. No. 113, Nov. 1932, pp. 1, 7.
Hampson, Trends, p. 8.
Folger and Thomson, Apple Industry, pp. 10–15.
Rayburn D. Tousley and Hoyt Lemmons, The Washington apple indsutry. II. Economic considerations, Econ. Geog. 21 (1945): 252–268 (hereafter cited as Tousley and Lemon, Apple indsutry, II).
C. H. Zuroske, Washington Apple Production Costs and Labor Requirements, Wash. Agric. Exp. Stn. Bull. No. 644, Oct., 1962, 16 pp. (hereafter cited as Zuroske, Washington apples).
Joseph Waldo Ellison, Cooperative movement in Oregon apple industry, 1910–1929, Agric. Hist. 13 (1939): 77–96
Joseph W. Ellison, Marketing problems of northwestern apples, 1929–1940, Agric. Hist. 16 (1942): 103–115
C. Brewster Coulter, The big Y country: Marketing problems and organization, 1900–1920, Agric. Hist. 46 (1972): 471–488.
Zuroske, Washington apples.
Tousley and Lemmons, Apple industry, II.
“Royal Commission Investigating the Apple Industry of the Province of Nova Scotia,” Report (Halifax: Minister of Public Works and Mines, King’s Printer, 1930), pp. 10–11.
G. P. Scoville, Fruit Farms Analysed: 36 Years of Farm Business Records in Niagra County, Cornell Univ. Agric. Econ. 769, Feb. 27, 1951, 38 pp.
Tousley and Lemmons, Apple industry, II; Lemmons and Tousley, Apple industry, I.
The average figure of $5948 comes from Scoville, Fruit Farms. Data on Niagra County growers come from G. P. Scoville, Apple Costs, 1943, Cornell Univ. Agric. Econ. 509, Feb., 1945, 20 pp.
Tousley and Lemmons, Apple industry, II.
Ibid.
Van Travis and B. F. Stanton, Costs and Use of Labor in Harvesting Apples for Fresh Market, Hudson Valley, New York, 1959 and 1960, Cornell Univ. Agric. Econ. Res. 63, Apr. 1961, 13 pp.
Washington State Apple Commission, Apple Research Digest, No. 4, Nov., 1946, p. 3.
Washington State Apple Commission, Apple Research Digest, Nos. 1–84 (Nov., 1946-Dec, 1953), constantly advocated ways to reduce packing costs and bruising. Tousley and Lemmons strongly recommended a renewed effort to establish cooperative marketing for Washington apples, in Apple industry, II.
Edward H. Forbush and Charles H. Fernald, The Gypsy Moth (Boston: Wright and Potter Printing Co., State Printers, 1896), pp. 142–143, 473.
C. L. Metcalf and W. P. Flint, Destructive and Useful Insects, 2nd ed. (New York: McGraw-Hill Book Co., Inc., 1939), pp. 244–245 (hereafter cited as Metcalf and Flint, Destructive). In 1941, 55.6% of the lead arsenate used in the U.S. was on apples (Shepard, Chemistry, p. 18).
Metcalf and Flint, Destructive, pp. 599, 594.
Calculated from figures in W. M. Bristol, Washington Apple Production Costs for the 1944–45 Season, Wash. Agric. Exp. Sta. Bull. 474, June, 1946, 24 pages
M. T. Buchanan, Washington Apple Production Costs During the 1943–44 Season, Wash. Agric. Exp. Stn. Bull. 446, July, 1944, 14 pages
M. T. Buchanan, A. W. Peterson, and G. A. Lee, “Washington Apple Production Costs, 1939–43,” Wash. Agric. Exp. Stn. Bull. 429, May, 1943, 11 pp.
Tousley and Lemmons (Apple industry, H) analyze comparative cost changes between Washington and New York. See M. T. Buchanan, Washington, for Washington State figures; Scoville, Apple costs, for New York data.
Walter S. Hough first studied Colorado codling moth larvae resistant to lead arsenate in 1928 [Relative resistance to arsenical poisoning of two codling moth strains,J. Econ. Entomol 21 (1928): 325–329].
Lemmons and Tousley, Apple industry, I.
Howard Baker, “Spider mites, insects, and DDT,” in Insects: The Yearbook of Agriculture, 1952, p. 562 (hereafter cited as Baker, Spider mites).
Ibid.
J. H. Newton and George M. List, Codling moth and mite control in 1948, J. Econ. Entomol 42 (1949): 346–348.
Calculated from Zuroske, Washington apples.
For an early review of the airblast machines, see O. C. French, Spraying equipment for pest control, Calif. Agric. Exp. Stn. Bull. 666, May, 1942, pp. 34–38
James G. Horsfall, Fungicides and their Action (Waltham, Mass.: Chronica Botanica Co. 1945), p. 78.
Calculated from Zuroske, Washington apples.
Arthur D. Borden, Control of codling moth on pears with a DDT spray, J. Econ. Entomol. 41 (1948): 118–119.
Zuroske, Washington apples.
Recommendations for Codling Moth, Orchard Mite, and Scale Control in Washington for 1942, State Coll. of Wash. Ext. Bull. 279, Feb., 1942, 12 pp.
Spray Programs for Insects and Diseases of Tree Fruits in Eastern Washington, State Coll. of Wash. Ext. Bull. 419, Feb., 1950, 29 pp (herefater referred to as Spray programs, Ext. Bull., 1950).
S. C. Hoyt and J. D. Gilpatrick, “Pest management on deciduous fruits: Multidisciplinary aspects,” in Integrated Pest Management, J. Lawrence Apple and Ray F. Smith, eds. (New York: Plenum Pub. Co., 1976), pp. 133–147.
Baker, Spider mites; E. J. Newcomer and F. P. Dean, Studies of orchard acaricides, J. Econ. Entomol. 41 (1948): 691–694.
E. J. Newcomer and F. P. Dean, Effects of xanthone, DDT, and other insecticides on the Pacific mite, J. Econ. Entomol. 39 (1946): 783–786.
Newcomer and Dean, Studies.
Spray programs, Ext. Bull., 1950.
Baker, Spider mites.
B. A. Croft, “Tree fruit pest management,” in Introduction to Insect Pest Management, Robert L. Metcalf and William H. Luckmann, eds. (New York: John Wiley and Sons, 1975), p. 481.
B. F. Stanton, B. A. Dominick, Jr., and S. C. Fan, Variability in Apple Production Costs and Returns, Cornell Univ. Agric. Econ. Res. 17, May, 1959, 35 pp.
C. G. Garman, How to Increase Efficiency in Spraying Apples: Some results of a study made by K. L. Robinson of 56 fruit tree farms in New York State in 1946, Cornell Univ., Agric. Econ. 654, Jan. 1948, 11 pp.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 1982 Plenum Press, New York
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Perkins, J.H. (1982). A New Technology. In: Insects, Experts, and the Insecticide Crisis. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4684-3998-4_1
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4684-3998-4_1
Publisher Name: Springer, Boston, MA
Print ISBN: 978-1-4684-4000-3
Online ISBN: 978-1-4684-3998-4
eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive