308 EEPORT 4, UNITED STATES ENTOMOLOGICAL COMMISSION. 



Joseph, Mo., is a pair of sifters for two rows and carried suspended bj 

 a bar across the shoulders. Each sifter is a powder-box with semi- 

 cylindrical perforated base, in which a brush is rotated to grind the 

 powder through. 



In Plate LYIII, Fig. 7, is seen the neck-yoke above, from which two 

 adjustable bars hang, Avith forks suspending the cylinders which are 

 I)erf orated beneath. An adjustable slide can be set to cover more or 

 less of the perforated area to regulate the amount to be sifted. Eotary 

 brushes inside the cylinders are turned around, or with reciprocating 

 motion, to work the poison through the fine holes. This is probably the 

 best way to prevent clogging or cause a sieve to sift regularly, and this 

 same principle seems to have been adopted in Mr. J. S. Smith's machine 

 described in what follows. 



Mr. J. W. Young, of Saint Joseph, Mo., has also devised a sieve-ma- 

 chine for powdering six rows at each drive, consisting essentially of a 

 trough-shaped hoi^per about 27 feet long and haviug a concave perfor- 

 ated bottom, with a rotary stirrer operated therein. This is attached to 

 a frame upon a pair of wheels which straddle a pair of rows. One of the 

 draft wheels bears a band or chain wheel with a belt or chain driving a 

 pully opposite the same and fast upon the axis of the stirrer, which is 

 provided with a large number of radiating paddle- shaped teeth. When 

 these are rotated by the belt, their ends pass through the poison in the 

 hbpper, and close to its perforated base, causing the powder to sift 

 through upon the vegetation over which it is hauled. Not having seen 

 the full-sized machine, but having examined a model and description of 

 it, the impression produced is that the machine, if not made so long as 

 to be too heavy, must be a good sifter for poisoning the upper surfaces 

 of i)lants. 



The following machine and the one preceding the last differ from 

 the latter chiefly in the fact that bunches of brush-material are used in- 

 stead of stiff stirrers, and it remains for the future to decide by experi- 

 ence which, if either, will prove best. The stiff stirrers promise to be 

 the most durable, and my experience is that such usage of bristles 

 causes them to become permanently flexed in one direction or too weak 

 to give satisfaction. The plan of a stiff rotary stirrer is well calculated 

 to cause the powder to sift out regularly. 



The J. 8. Smith Sieve machine^ patented in 1881 (No. 247124), works 

 the poison out through perforations, in one side of a cylinder, by means 

 of a spiral brush rotated therein. This device appears in Plate LYIII. 

 In fig. 5 is shown his small hand-machine for poisoDing a single row. 

 One side of the cylinder is seen to be perforated with the powder sifting 

 out therefrom. The opposite half of the cylinder is covered by a hori- 

 zontal hopper carried with one hand and a loop over the shoulder, while 

 it can be tipped at will enough to make a portion of the powder feed 

 into the cylinder to be worked out therefrom by the spiral brush turned 

 inside the same by means of the gear wheels and crank. 



