lower South. In the nineteenth century, European and American chemists
combined arsenic with various solvents—Paris Green was a favorite in the
United States—to kill pests in crops. During the s, Central Valley, Cali-
fornia and Mississippi Delta cotton ‘‘ranchers’’ and planters hired daring
pilots to spread dried arsenic and other toxic pellets on fields from the air,
and the dangerous profession of crop dusting was born. One young pioneer
out of Sacramento reportedly guided a World War I trainer plane with his
knees while heaving a lead-based pesticide out of his cockpit with a coal
shovel.^28 Shortly, in both agribusiness regions, aerial application would be-
come rather less haphazard and dangerous to pilots. Later, too, special-
ized aircraft would spray liquid treatments from tanks, a mode that con-
tinues today. While pilots still encounter utility poles and wires in their
tight maneuvers, it is those on the ground beneath powders and sprays—
worms, insects, fishes, reptiles, amphibians, and mammals—who are in
more danger.
If arsenic and lead were not sufficient as toxic drift, the new, post–World
War II generations of pesticides were crippling and lethal. Egregiously ag-
gressive spraying of the agent parathion (especially during the s) devas-
tated wildlife populations and produced numerous human complaints of
serious illness. As evermore, the corporate makers of pesticides steadfastly
maintained the safety of their products, attributing mishaps to errors in
application and/or failure to read simple warning labels. The’s Agri-
cultural Research Service () had (and has) statutory authority to grant or
to refuse permits to market, but instead of conducting thorough indepen-
dent testing, thepersistently cheered the corporations’ contributions
to American and world food production. The federal Public Health Service
and professional groups such as the American Medical Association and the
American Chemical Society were also firmly lodged within the brotherhood
of chemical solutions with acceptable risks. For a long while the chemical
companies not only conducted virtually the only research on their products
but wrote labels that the bureaucrats ofroutinely accepted. Organized
and politically articulate agribusiness, meanwhile, encouraged ever-larger
spraying programs at taxpayer expense. Theand the rest of the
were eager collaborators.
In , for example, theannounced an ambitious (and expen-
sive) campaign to eradicate fire ants in the entire South by spraying the
latest pesticide from the air. The ants won the war and live on, especially
in sandy fields and suburban yards (such as my own). Pesticide makers