[PW] Carter's wormkiller, 1902

[Adrian Smith]

Patents - free database: esp at cenet

http://ep.espacenet.com/

Adrian, Leeds UK


-----Original Message-----
From: project-wombat-fm-bounces at lists.project-wombat.org
[mailto:project-wombat-fm-bounces at lists.project-wombat.org] 

On Behalf Of Peter Macinnis
Sent: 28 February 2007 23:39
To: list at project-wombat.org
Subject: [PW] Carter's wormkiller, 1902


This is for me.  I am looking into the monomania of a lumbricophobe.

In his 1931 'The Book of the Lawn', Reginald Beale (also the author of 
"Lawns for Sports") refers to Carter's wormkiller, invented in 1902. 
Beale was by 1931 a director of James Carter & Co., Raynes Park, S. W., 
a UK company that supplied all sorts of lawn needs.  I suspect the 
wormkiller *might* have been a secret recipe, but more likely, it was 
patented.

The wormkiller, he explains, tastes bad, but will not harm animals or 
birds, though it kills fish, and so should not be used on lawns draining

to fishponds.  Other treatments are dismissed as being poisonous.

The application required to ensure that ". . . worms, large and small, 
struggle to the surface in thousands to die" is half a pound per square 
yard.

I am curious to know what the powder may have been, given the suggested 
level of application (though I have seen suggestions for the use of two 
pounds of lead arsenate per hundred square yards, and the use of carbon 
disulfide and ethylene dibromide in pursuit of the Beautiful Lawn.

Any hints, clues or suggestions as to what Carter's powder might be? 
Are British patents from circa 1902 available online?

-- 

   _--|\    Peter Macinnis, Manly, the birthplace of Australian surfing
  /     \   Purveyor of pressed frogs and other amphibian novelties,
  \.--._*<--President, Papuan Bandicoot Hound Breeders of Australasia,
       v    http://members.ozemail.com.au/~macinnis/index.htm
_______________________________________________
Project Wombat
list at project-wombat.org
http://www.project-wombat.org