[PW] Carter's wormkiller, 1902

[Charles Early]

Peter:

May one ask why a gardener or groundskeeper might wish to kill worms, and 
which kinds of worms he/she might wish to kill?  Aren't earthworms 
essential to the health of a lawn?

At 06:39 PM 2/28/2007, you wrote:
>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
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Charles Early
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