78 AGRICULTURE OF MAINE. 



Mr. Sweetser: May I ask what is the equipment from the 

 machine — do you carry the dust through hose and extension 

 rods and nozzles as we do the spray ? 



Mr. Mitchell: No, the equipment is simply this: Here 

 is an iron hopper which comes as far as this flexible joint. 

 Now the ideal duster has a flexible joint made with little short 

 sections of tin — just as they used to make armor in the old 

 days, little pieces of tin lapped over each other, covered with 

 a piece of bagging. The Niagara people put on a big rubber 

 hose there. This outlet pipe is made of corrugated iron, and 

 that corrugated iron is from six to eight feet long, in two 

 heavy sections. You can make it just as near as you want. 

 Where the trees come close together I cut it down to four or 

 five feet ; when trees are high, sometimes ten or twelve feet, 

 simply point it at the trees, wave it as you pass. You may be 

 ten feet away from the tree, five or ten as the wagon goes by ; 

 you sweep the dust all over the tree, and then down through it, 

 and then underneath, so that it goes up under. 



Mr. Sv/eetser : Do you calculate in that way you can cover 

 the tree as thoroughly as we deem it necessary to cover with 

 spray ? 



Mr. Mitchell: In my experience we cover it better. 



Question : We have been practicing going clear round the 

 tree, following out every limb with the spray nozzle, especially 

 spraying for serious infestations of scab. 



Mr. Mitchell: It has been my experience that you get a 

 more even distribution with the dust than you can with the 

 spray even by going over every limb, and it has been the ex- 

 perience of the Cornell sprayers. I might say that in western 

 New York, a great many men are disappointed with the dust, 

 but I will venture to say for every man disappointed in results 

 with dust, there are one or two hundred disappointed with 

 the results of their spraying, and unless you get data from 

 carefully conducted experiments by some of the stations or 

 colleges, nothing can be taken as accurate. Those sources of 

 opinion, the experiment stations and the colleges, are reliable 

 and you can bank on what they put out, because it is pretty 

 carefully worked out. My experience has been very successful. 

 I might add this, that this year it was simply a question of the 



