THE SPRAYING OF GARDEN CROPS AND THE PUBLIC HEALTH

Modern agriculture has come to depend more and more extensively on the use of insecticides and fungicides in combating some of the menaces that arise in the growing of farm products. These weapons against the enemies of agriculture include, in addition to poisons of organic nature, salts of lead, arsenic, and copper. The spraying of growing forms of vegetable life with solutions of such poisonous substances at once suggests the possibility of danger not only to live stock which may eat grass on which the spray has dropped, but also to the human consumer of garden products that have been subjected to remedial treatment. The list includes some of the common vegetables, fruits and berries which have been sprayed either to overcome an insect enemy that attacks them or some organism that infests vegetable life in their vicinity. Cabbages and lettuce, for example, may be sprayed to protect them from