ARSENICAL COMPOUNDS DRY APPLICATION. 
141 
hand, be used as a diluent, but that it is a poor substitute for flour. Its 
chief demerit is its greater weight, which renders the application both 
inconvenient and wasteful. 
Before applying any poison in powder form it must be mixed with 
some of the diluents already mentioned. This mixing, generally done 
by farmers in a most primitive way by simply stirring the poison into a 
kettle or wooden box full of flour or other diluent, is a matter of no 
small importance, as the success or failure of the application largely 
depends on the way in which the mixing has been done. 
Mr. George Little, of Columbus, Tex., has constructed a very simple 
and useful contrivance for mixing the ingredients. It consists of a bar- 
rel which has a longitudinal wooden axle projecting somewhat at each 
end. Five or six staves run through the barrel longitudinally, but do 
not project at either end, and on one side is an aperture large enough to 
admit the ingredients. When they are in, the aperture is closed and the 
barrel is placed over a large open box. or fixed in any way so that it can 
be revolved by means of a handle attached to the projecting axle. By 
this simple and Cheap contrivance much labor is saved and a thorough 
mixing assured, while all possible danger which might be inclined by 
hand-mixing is avoided. Large spikes driven through the sides so as 
to project inwardly will add to the efficacy of the device. 
In the matter of applying the powder, many planters prefer simply 
to scatter it by hand, after the manner of seed-sowing, as being more 
economical and rapid than any other method in use. It has. moreover, 
the advantage that, if the plants are high enough, the unison can be ap- 
plied to the under side of the leaves. Planters who use this method 
assert, upon inquiry, that no evil consequences have ever followed their 
handling of the mixture in this way, but it strikes us as being altogether 
too unsafe to be recommended, and cannot compare on a large scale 
with the devices described in the ensuing chapters. 
The principal expense in the dry application, as hitherto practised, 
consists not so much in the cost of the poison as in that of the diluents, 
and it occurred to us to try and reduce the amount of these diluents to 
n minimum or to dispense with them altogether by applying the re- 
quired amount of poison unmixed. The experiments made in this di- 
rection have not been satisfactory for want of suitable machinery, the 
amount of poison used for each plant being always too large and not 
evenly distributed. They prove, however, that with our improved blow- 
ers much may be done in the direction of reducing the diluent. 
In the application from above it has been found useful to add a cer- 
tain amount of finely-powdered substances of still greater adhesive 
qualities than is possessed by any of the diluents mentioned, in order 
to prevent the poison from being washed away by the rain. Such sub- 
stances are dextrine, gum arabic, slippery-elm bark, or rosin. In very 
rainy weather it is better to add a larger proportion of them than in dry 
