"Franz Heymann" wrote in message ...
"Rodger Whitlock" wrote in
message ...
On Tue, 12 Aug 2003 15:39 +0100 (BST), Steve Harris wrote:

In article ,
(Alan Gould) wrote:

A few fag ends infused in water overnight would make a very
effective insecticide, but it caused a lot of health and safety
problems.

But surely this insecticide is pretty organic? :-)

Please dismiss the word "organic" from your vocabulary as regards
both gardening (and farming) and chemical identity.

Technically speaking, any chemical compound that contains at
least one carbon atom is "organic". The category embraces
everything from carbon dioxide and sugar (both lethal in large
enough doses) to virulent poisons of which small doses can kill
you in a few seconds.

Nicotine, the active insecticidal compound found in tobacco, has
a very high level of toxicity for mammals. You are a mammal. It
is much less safe for you than the usual non-organic (sensu
confusu) insecticides.

The fact that it is derived directly from a natural source in no
way makes a solution of cigarette butts a safe insecticide.

To replace "organic" in reference to horticulture goings on, use
the phrase "free of petrochemical derivatives not occurring in
nature" and you will be more accurate and focussed in your
objections -- which, I might add, I am in reasonable agreement
with.

At last someone has said it straight out in this ng. Folk should realise
that it is quite silly to use the term "organic" versus "inorganic" in the
contexts in which they are commonly used in agri- and horticulture. The
more sensible dichotomy is between *beneficient* and *deleterious*
substances. Both "organic" and "inorganic" substances in use in
horticulture have examples in both camps.

If a chemical does a lot of good and a minimum of harm, I will gladly use
it, whether it is correctly or incorrectly classified as "organic" or
"inorganic".

Well, that's perfectly sensible. But if you have a problem with the
way the various words are used and abused, the Soil Association is a
rich source of information.

I'm not a member, but I know the Association has for decades been
working on all the problems this thread has been nibbling at, and has
answers to most of them.

It isn't silly to use "organic": it just happens to be the nearest we
can get to a single word covering a particular system. The word has a
large number of meanings (nearly 20, I think: see Oxford Dictionary if
necessary) many of which are completely unrelated; this meaning (which
is nothing to do with organic chemistry) is as good as any of the
others. We may safely ignore anybody who thinks it should have only
one meaning: he hasn't done his homework, and shall go to the bottom
of the class.

Mike.