CHAPTER XLVI 

 SPRAYING MACHINERY 



Successful fruit growing at the present time depends 

 largely upon an intelligent and skillful fight against fungous 

 diseases and injurious insects. Even the small orchardist 

 finds that he cannot afford to overlook the spraying of his 

 trees at the proper time. Field spraying has been introduced 

 recently to exterminate also certain noxious weeds, such 

 as mustard in grain fields. 



Hand Sprayers. There is a multitude of hand sprayers 

 or syringes upon the market, but it is not the purpose to take 

 up these. The use of these appliances is limited to the 

 greenhouse or to shrubbery. The bucket sprayer is one step 

 in advance, and may be used quite successfully on a few trees 

 if they are not too large. Most of these sprayers throw the 

 spraying solution up above the trees in such a way that the 

 spray falls upon the foliage. In many cases this is undesir- 

 able. The spray should be driven into the foliage in such 

 a way that the underside of the leaves and the inside of the 

 flowers will be reached by the spray solution. A liberal use 

 of brass in the construction of the small sprayers is one of the 

 features which indicates quality. 



The Barrel Spray Pump. The smallest and cheapest 

 machine for spraying small orchards is the barrel pump. 

 Where a few trees are to be sprayed, this is undoubtedly the 

 machine that should be selected. 



The pump may be mounted on either the end or the side 

 of the barrel. If located on the side, the pump will more 

 nearly remove all of the solution from the barrel, as the 



303 



