72 STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



and so they sent me two 100-gallon tanks and had them coupled together, 

 stating they would be just as good, and it would balance up the wagon 

 better, be more convenient to use two tanks on the wagon than to use the 

 one ; but I had not used the two tanks on the wagon more than half an hour 

 before I found they would not stay coupled together, and we had a little 

 difficulty along that line. I telephoned Mr. Brown, the man who had 

 guaranteed they would work, and he came up and tried it, and he said, 

 "I guess they won't work on your place;" and so he took one tank and 

 sent it back, and I kept the 100-gallon tank in place of the two on the one 

 wagon. 



C. E. Bassett: The Niagara gas sprayer is simply a heavy steel tank, 

 galvanized with a lining of some kind, which is supposed to be impervious, 

 so that the acid mixtures will not have an effect upon the iron. Attached 

 to that is a gas tube which comes from the Liquid Carbonic Acid Gas Com- 

 pany, from Chicago. They furnished that formerly at six cents a pound, 

 and later five cents, and now for four cents; so that one tank, which weighs 

 55 pounds, costs about $2.20. You pay the freight one way, and they pay 

 the freight on the empty tank going back. When this comes, you simply 

 attach this steel tube, which contains the gas under immense pressure, 

 to your tank which contains the mixture; simply turn the stop cock and 

 allow the gas to go over into the tank ; and as soon as you have the pressure 

 you wish you stop the gas from passing over, and you start to spraying. 

 It merely blows it out, presses it out, same as you blow soda water; it is the 

 same thing exactly they use in forcing soda water. And I will also say I 

 am informed it is the same thing they use in blowing beer. No one here 

 of course would understand anything about that. A 55-pound tube of this 

 carbonic acid gas costs, you see, S2.20, plus the freight, which will make 

 it say $2.50 altogether. This 55-pound tube we found, in using warm hme 

 and sulphur would spray in the neighborhood of 900 gallons — 850 to 1,050 

 gallons. But when we came to use it on cold Bordeaux mixture we did not 

 see as we got quite as much effect ; and we figured that it was the expansive 

 force of the heat — the heat of the liquid we were spraying, the lime and 

 sulphur, that caused the gas to expand still more. They caution you about 

 allowing this tank to get hot. If the sun comes out bright and hot and shines 

 upon the tank, it will immediately raise your pressure. 



It is more expensive; possibly, when you get right down to the point, it 

 is the most expensive in the outlay of any spray machine on the market. 

 But after all, results are what count; and I believe that when you come to 

 buy anything, the best thing is the cheapest there is. Spraying is insurance, 

 isn't it? It is a preventive, not a cure. And if you go to buy insurance 

 on your buildings, or on your life, you want something you know your family 

 can draw on, or you can, in the case of fire insurance; in case you have a loss, 

 you want something you are sure is going to do the business. If it were true 

 that spraying could be done like thrashing and go from one orchard to the 

 other and spray any time you got ready, I do not see that this machine 

 would cut much figure. But the importance of spraying is to spray on the 

 moment, the exact time when it must be done; if you have got to do it on 

 a day's or minute's notice, or a special day, it is absolutely necessary you 

 should have a machine which can be depended on to do it at that time. 

 Really, if you saw the number of gas engines that have been drawn into 

 Fennville past my place from time to time, and see them shipping them back 

 and getting them repaired, and all that, you would know that man, when 

 he had to lay off and could not spray when he ought to, is possibly losing 



