88 Report of the Botanist of the 



Table Showing Cost of Spbaying Cucumbers. 



a poo <mrav«rl Cost of Number Cost per acre 



Location of experiment. ,°J £? y ' spraying per of applica- for each appli- 



ui-res. acre. tions. cation. 



Greenlawn 1.5 ?23 74 7 $3 39 



Deer Park 2 22 10 8 2 76 



Mattituck 2 15 60 5 3 20 



Smithtown Branch 2. 15 17 03 7 2 43 



The differences may be due in part to variation in thoroughness 

 of spraying. The more thorough the spraying the greater the 

 amount of labor. The facilities for obtaining water also have a 

 bearing on the cost of spraying. 



Spraying was most expensive at Greenlawn, where each appli- 

 cation cost $3.39 per acre, and least expensive at Smithtown 

 Branch, where it cost $2.43 per acre. The greater expense at 

 Greenlawn is explained in part by the following: Both at Green- 

 lawn and Smithtown Branch each application spoiled a half day, 

 and consequently a half day's labor was charged, although the 

 acreage at Smithtown Branch was more than one-fourth greater 

 than at Greenlawn. 



In all of these experiments one-half day was allowed for each 

 spraying, while in no case was a full half day required to do the 

 work. Sometimes the work was completed within two hours. 

 Consequently, the actual cost of spraying was less than it is given 

 in the table. 



The cost might also have been lessened if the fields had been 

 planted in such a way that a one-horse cart could have been used 

 to haul the outfit. Such an outfit can be easily handled by one 

 horse provided the field is not hilly, but there is a difficulty to 

 overcome — either the cart must have a tread of sufficient width to 

 cover two rows (which requires the wheels to be nine or ten feet 

 apart) or else special roadways must be prepared for the passage 

 of the cart. In a former bulletin 24 we suggested that the cucum- 



2* N. Y. Agrl. Expt. Sta. Bui. 119: 180. 



