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Show INSECT POWDER GROWN HERE. Americans Lost N Time In DeveN oping Industry Once the Secret Was Discovered. In our grandfathers,' 9ay the so-called so-called Persian insect powder (commonly (com-monly sold nowadays under the nama -of "jpyrethrum") cost $18 a pound. Pretty dear fqr a bug-killer. The stuff was a mystery. Beyond the fact that it was of a vegetable nature, na-ture, nobody knew what It was, As a mattT of fact, It came from Transcaucasia, where Its production was a very Important industry. For centuries it had been widely used in Asiatic countries, and the source of the material was s secret carefully kept. ' Eventually the secret was revealed by an Armenian merchant, who, traveling trav-eling through Transcaucasia, discovered discov-ered that the Insect powder was simply sim-ply the ground-up flower-heads of a plant nearly related to our own field daisy. Later on, attempts were made to introduce in-troduce the plant in the United States, but the seeds refused to sprout. This (as finally ascertained) was due to tha circumstance that the. persons from whom they were bought had baked them. j At the present tlms wo grow all out own Insect powder In California, , |