Carson's Letter to Reader's Digest

The following is a paraphrase of an excerpt from the letter Rachel Carson sent to Reader's Digest in 1945 offering to write an article about the dangers of DDT:

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The experiments at Patuxent have been planned to show what effects DDT may have if applied to wide areas: how it will affect insects, waterfowl, or birds that depend on insect food, and whether the use of DDT may upset the whole delicate balance of nature * (Stwertka, p. 37).