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MONTANA EXPERIMENT STATION BULLETIN 294 



than farms in the more heavilj- popidated states to the east of us. 

 And so, with necessity being the mother of invention, it was in Mon- 

 tana that the first successful mechanical devices for spreading grass- 

 hopper bait Avere developed. Of course end-gate seeders have been 

 used for many years but most of these seeders were not satisfactory 

 and very few of them were ever available. 



^i^ 



Figue 4. — A mechanical gi'asshopper-bait spreader mounted on a truck 

 and operated by belt from rear Avlieel. 



Credit should go to some Hill County farmer (or farmers), who, 

 in 1933, rigged up a combine straw spreader for distributing grass- 

 hopper bait. There have been dozens of variations in the design of 

 this type of spreader but the general idea of all of them is shown 

 in figure -1. Fed from a hopper, or by hand, on to a revolving plate 

 possessing four baffles, the bait is thrown out into a swath some 30 

 to 50 feet wide. In the true straw spreader type the plate does not 

 revolve but only the four paddles. The onh' essential mechanism, 

 which can not be made bj^ the farmer himself, is a set of beveled 



