American Agriculturist, July 14,1923 
23 
Save the Potato Crop 
Spraying or Dusting as Necessary as Cultivating 
I T is not a question 
of “shall I dust” or 
“shall I spray my potatoes”; but it is 
a question of fighting bugs and plant 
disease or taking a chance on losing 
the whole crop. I have known farmers 
who have, in the past, hit it “lucky” 
by making a guess at the beginning of 
the season that there would be few if 
any bugs and no blight. However, for 
every one who has made that guess and 
gotten away with it, there are hun¬ 
dreds who have been caught and lost 
the better part of their crop. 
Whether we use liquid spray or dust, 
to fight bugs is mighty good as insur¬ 
ance, and most successful growers con¬ 
sider it that way these days, especially 
in times like the present when a short 
crop is in prospect. Of course it costs 
money, but year in and year out, the 
costs of buying poisons and fungicides 
is more than counterbalanced by in¬ 
creased returns. Fundamentally, the 
same fungicides and insecticides are 
used in dusting as in spraying. The 
copper lime dust is identical to Bor¬ 
deaux and water is merely a carrier of 
arsenate of lead powder. 
Bordeaux is made by mixing copper 
sulphate or bluestone and burnt lime. 
For the grower who has only a small 
patch, the most favorable method is to 
dissolve five pounds of copper sulphate 
in five gallons of water. Lime is also 
diluted at the same rate, five pounds 
in five gallons of water. But these 
By F. W. OHM 
tions spray. Their 
claim is that they tried 
it once and the “danged stuff wouldn’t 
work.” Of course it wouldn’t work 
when new foliage was coming on all the 
while and no spray was applied to pro¬ 
tect it from diseases. Spray should be 
applied every ten days at least, and it 
should be applied in such a manner 
that the entire leaf surface, on top and 
underneath, is covered with a thin film 
of mixture. That is why a “three noz¬ 
zle to a row” machine is best. It is pot 
possible to cover the plant properly by 
merely squirting or sprinkling the ma¬ 
terial on the plant, although recom¬ 
mendations are published to the effect 
that in the absence of a spray outfit, it 
is ppssible to use a whisk broom to 
very good affect. Good spraying de¬ 
mands lots of pressure, enough to 
create a fog, rather than a spray— 
the higher the pressure, the better the 
fog and the better distribution of 
liquid. 
Dusting Methods Much Improved 
There is nothing new in the practice 
of dusting except that the methods of 
application have been developed to a 
higher degree. Dusting apparatus is 
being perfected every year and the me¬ 
chanical condition of dust is likewise 
being improved. The big talking point 
in favor of the duster is that it elimi¬ 
nates the handling of so much water 
and is consequently much more rapid. 
The “three nozzle to a row” arrangement makes it possible to hit 
every part of the potato vine with the spray material 
concentrated solutions are not mixed 
directly. Each is poured into a fifty- 
gallon barrel which contains forty gal¬ 
lons of clear water. This makes fifty 
gallons of spray material known as a 
5-5-50. In order to fight bugs, two 
pounds of arsenate of lead powder are 
added to this fifty gallons of Bordeaux. 
Down on Long Island, where it is 
common for a grower to have seventy- 
five or one hundred acres of potatoes, 
a great deal of spray material is used 
and consequently much larger batches 
must be mixed. It is common for big- 
growers to have a platform built high 
enough to back the spray rig under. 
On the platform are two barrels, one 
containing the copper sulphate solu¬ 
tion and the other containing the lime 
solution. Between the two there is a 
large reservoir of water. When the 
spray tank is to be filled, it is backed 
under this reservoir and the water is 
piped directly into the spray tank and 
the copper and lime solutions are added 
in the proportions just mentioned. 
Sometimes the field that is being 
sprayed is considerable distance from 
the house. In order to eliminate loss 
of time, the barrels of chemicals and 
the water reservoir are loaded on to a 
wagon kept in the field. A one-horse 
water cart keeps the reservoir filled. 
There are two factors that practical¬ 
ly measure the success or failure of 
liquid spray materials to fully control 
plant insects and disease. They are 
regularity of application and pressure. 
I know of some potato growers who 
start cussing as soon as anyone men- 
Men using dusters claim they can cover 
a field many times quicker than they 
can with liquid spray apparatus. This 
is obvious, for they do not have to 
stop to fill up with water after every 
few bouts” of the field. It is possible 
to carry enough dust material on the 
rig to treat an entire field without 
making a single stop. 
I was talking to a big potato grower 
from the eastern end of Long Island 
leeently about dusting and spraying. 
He spoke very highly of dusting as far 
as results were concerned. However, 
he is well equipped with modern spray- 
mg apparatus and has his spray ma- 
teiial or stock solution barrels so con¬ 
veniently arranged that it would not 
pay him to junk this equipment to 
buy a duster. I called his attention to 
the potato-’growing fields of such New 
York counties as Franklin, Clinton, 
Steuben and the southern ends of Liv¬ 
ingston and Ontario, where very often 
potato growers have to climb steep hill¬ 
sides to get up to their fields, much 
in contrast to the level stretches of 
Long Island. The man from Suffolk 
County said: “If I were growing po¬ 
tatoes in that section I doult if I would 
even try to use a sprayer. It must bi 
terrible work for those fellows to try 
to get water u P> on top of the hills 
and it must be time-consuming. That 
is where the duster serves a real pur- 
pose. No doubt, they will come in a 
whole lot faster as soon as the price 
ot dust comes down to a more rea¬ 
sonable figure, which is another one of 
(Continued on page 30) 
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