108 AGRICULTURE OF MAINE. 



SPRAYERS. 



No farmer who has an acre or more of potatoes can afford to 

 get along without the use of a four rowed horse sprayer, and the 

 best of these are made here in our own state. I want to give a 

 word of warning against getting a low pressure or cheap 

 machine. A poor sprayer is one of the meanest implements a 

 man ever owned. Spraying, to be effective, must be done thor- 

 oughly, especially in a season like the past, and it cannot be done 

 thoroughly with a low pressure sprayer. As perhaps some of 

 you do not understand the principle of spraying for blight, I will 

 try to illustrate. If you could take a hill of potatoes and dip it 

 into Bordeaux mixture four or five times during its growing 

 period, that hill would never be struck by blight, or its tubers by 

 rot, as you would have coated leaf, stem and stalk with the 

 Bordeaux. Now we cannot hope to do as good work as this with 

 a sprayer, but we must come as near to it as we can, and we can- 

 not begin to do this with a low pressure machine. If we have 

 a high pressure machine, of perhaps sixty pounds, and use a fine 

 nozzle, we will get our spray like a jet of steam from a boiler, 

 forcing it among the leaves of the plants, coating the stems and 

 stalks and to a large extent the under side of the leaves. A barrel 

 of mixture with a high pressure will go farther and do better 

 work than in a low pressure machine. 



A very good pump sprayer, all fitted for work, can be bought 

 at retail for thirty-five to forty dollars, while the power sprayer 

 will cost from sixty to sixty-five dollars for the one horse 

 machine. The hand pump machine will do good work if you 

 have a good man on the pump, but it is hard work to keep the 

 pressure up where it ought to be, and the power machines are 

 much more satisfactory. Do not buy a sprayer without first 

 looking at the agitator, as this is one of the most important parts, 

 and be sure that it extends across the barrel or nearly so, whether 

 the barrel is upright or on its side, and that it plays close to the 

 bottom. In no other manner can the mixture be kept perfectly 

 stirred and even work with Bordeaux mixture ensured. 



