On Monday, January 7, 2002, at 06:02 PM, Anonymous wrote:

cubic-brain drooled:

...

Herbicides have existed a hell of a lot longer than 50 years, even so-called modern chlorinated herbicides have been around since the late 1800s.

Total, absolute, unadulterated bullshit! You must work for the feds to be able to lie that baldfacedly. There were no agri-chemicals before WWII. They tried using asenic as an insecticide early on, but gave up on it rather quickly. At any rate, there were certainly no herbicides before WWII. Sounds like the chem lab experiments you did in high school did a number on your forebrain. Or maybe you can give us a cite?

Google turns up many cites for the existence of both agri-chemicals and herbicides before WWII. http://www.pestmanagement.co.uk/culture/history.html is one such cite. Some excerpts from a timeline: 1890's Introduction of lead arsenate for insect control 1893 Recognition of arthropods as vectors of human diseases 1896 First selective herbicide, iron sulphate, was found to kill broad leaf weeds 1901 First successful biological control of a weed (lantana in Hawaii) 1899-1909 Breeding programme that developed varieties of cotton, cowpeas and water melon resistant to Fusarium wilt 1915 Control of malaria and yellow fever carrying mosquitoes allowing completion of the Panama Canal after its abandonment in the late 1800's 1920-1930 More than 30 cases of natural enemy establishment were recorded throughout the world 1921 First aerial application in insecticide against Catalpa sphinx moth in Ohio, USA 1929 First area-wide eradication of an insect pest against Meditteranean fruit fly in Florida, USA 1930 Introduction of snythetic organic compounds for plant pathogen control 1939 Recognition of insecticide properties of DDT 1940 W.G.Templeman observed the amazing selectivity of the herbicidal activity of 7- naphthalacetic acid. The subsequent development of this compound led to 2,4-D in 1944 and MCPA which revolutionized weed control in cereals. Use of milky disease to control the Japanese beetle as the first successful use of an entomopathogen

--Tim May "If I'm going to reach out to the the Democrats then I need a third hand.There's no way I'm letting go of my wallet or my gun while they're around." --attribution uncertain, possibly Gunner, on Usenet