In response to a photo of grain in a box car, Red Battreall commented that he worked at an elevator in the early 1950s. He stated, ..."after we filled the car to the proper height we would dump gallon jugs of some kind of pungent liquid that would take your breath away. I assume it was to fumigate the grain."
Does anyone know what this liquid was? If so, was this a common practice?
There were/are lots of liquid grain fumigants applied as you describe,some brand names were Weevil-Cide, Phostoxin and many others. Application of these fumigants was more common many decades ago. Some elevators would almost automatically apply fumigant to virtually every load to assure no infestation, others were more judicious in their use only applying when they knew they had a bug problem. In part the extent of fumigant use depended on the aggresivnes of the fumigant salesman.
