Vintage Pesticide Advertising Round Up

It’s so safe and easy, that I can wear my white dress while I spray insecticide, to “get rid of any moving flies”.

A couple of weeks ago, while searching through my collection of plant society journals (circa 1940 – 1960), and vintage 1950’s and 1960’s Horticulture magazines, I was struck by the number of pesticide ads ( and fertilizer ad’s which I will save for another post). Here is just a sampling, with little comment from me – since I am working on making the final changes to the spring issue of Plant Society Magazine, which I plant to publish on Magcloud later next week.

Yo, you betta getta





A gun always means protection.
A special injector….cool.
Kill, Kill, KILL ( for better flowers)
 Now!
Vith a name like Zehrung Blitz, ze slugs have a vay of being dealt with.
When you can’t decide … should you spray, or dust?
Organic? Mmmmm. Vapotone.
Carco x is Safe. Besides, who wants weepy trees?

How many times do they need to say “Kills”?

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Comments

  1. Would be interesting to compare the imagery and language in current herbicide/insecticide campaigns to the ones you included in this post.

  2. I love these posters! Matt where did you get them and please can you tell me so I can use them in my hortic classes? I grew up on a NATO base with lots of Americans and we had Ritchie Rich cartoon magazines – I'll never forget the one when Ritchie Rich went on a picnic and they had to spray the whole area for bugs before he could sit down! Vintage – I wish I had kept it, but I was a mere slip of a lass… great blog, thanks! I came via W & Cowparsley. a good recommendation

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