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in a shorter time than we could possibly do with liquid 

 spray. Our team moved quicker and more steadily — no 

 more stops for adjustment than usual with the spray rigs — 

 stops to fill the hopper with dust were no more frequent 

 than for filling the tank. But for filling up there was the 

 very essential difference that dusting material for half a 

 day's work was carried on the wagon on which the dusting 

 machine was mounted, which eliminated for us the waste of 

 a long haul empty to the water supply and the equally long 

 heavy haul of the filled tank back to the orchard. This dif- 

 ference accounts for a large part of time saved in dusting, 

 and this saving of time means much better protection for 

 the fruit, because the fungicide and insecticide is really ap 

 plied at the time it should be, with the consequent largo pro- 

 portion of quality fruit for the market. 



The comparative cost of dusting and spraying will nat- 

 urally suggest itself to you at this point. It would require 

 the combined efforts of a proper Philadelphia lawyer and a 

 group of chartered accountants to determine the real differ- 

 ence in actual cost of dusting and spraying operation. And 

 when such figures were obtained as to one orchard, then 

 would come the hitch of applying them to others with vastly 

 different local conditions. So our views as to the cost of 

 dusting must be understood to apply to our own orchards, 

 where conditions as to distant water supply, grades, isola- 

 tion of blocks of trees of the same variety, spring, summer and 

 autumn mud, and other local variants, possibly make our 

 costs greater than they would be imder better conditions. 

 We found under our conditions that we effected a saving in 

 dollars and cents by using the dusting method — a staving in 

 the cost of what we may call the mechanical phase of the 

 work — embracing first cost of material, hauling, labor in 

 preparation, team time used in actual work, and team and 

 man time used in refilling. It is a close thing, this question 

 of cost of dusting versus spraying, and the factor which 

 turns the scale with us in the favor of the higher priced 

 dusting material is the saving in teaming and man labor in 



