Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 92.djvu/759

 Killing Bugs with Dust

This new way of exterminating insects in orchards is fast superseding the old spraying method

���Dusting machines in use in peach orchard. The powder is contained in the hopper and a blower forces it through the feed pipe under pressure by air blast, thoroughly dusting the trees

��IT was formerly the custom to mix the poisons intended to kill orchard in- sects with water. A new method is now employed. The trees are dusted with the powdered mixture.

The tremendous advantages of the dusting method, and its success in con- trolling the insect pests and diseases have led to its adoption by many growers of fruits, especially in New York. A man living at Middleport, New York, has recently perfected a high-power machine which pumps the dust on the trees.

Dusting is twenty-five per cent cheaper than spraying. Orchards which it former- ly took three men and a team two days to spray may be given the same protection against most insects and diseases with two men and a team in three hours time. The total weight of the dusting machine complete with gasoline is less than one thousand pounds. Wet seasons, soggy or rough land in no way interfere with dusting.

��The dusting mixture is placed in a hopper. A blower, which rotates at ap- proximately 2,500 revolutions per minute, forces a current of air through the air chamber at the bottom of the hopper. The dust is sifted through a slide feed and carried with great velocity through the outlet pipe. At the mouth of the pipe the flow is broken and the dust particles burst into a dense smokelike cloud, which will cover thoroughly a large apple tree almost instantly.

Beneath the plate at the bottom of the hopper is a slide feed regulator consisting of two diagonally slotted slides which work over each other. The position of the slides is controlled by a small hand lever conveniently located at the end of the hopper near the discharge pipe. The operator is thus permitted to regulate the amount of material to be discharged, which may be of one amount for apple trees, another for cherry, and so on.

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