From Paul Blay
Michael Roe wasn’t the first to think of using tomato extract as a bug repellent (June 22, p 21). Those of us who remember the sequential biography of that great statesman, philosopher and scientist Babar the Elephant, already know that if you rub tomato leaves around a door, the tomato scent will deter ants from coming in through the gaps.
Perhaps Babar never patented the invention because the Celesteville patent office had a policy of allowing inventions of the greatest importance to be free to humankind. Or elephantkind.
Oxford
