Fighting Plant Enemies: Part 2 — Chemical Protection
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The devices and implements used for fighting plant enemies are of two kinds:
- those used to provide mechanical protection; and
- those used to apply insecticides and fungicides.
This second of two parts, covers the latter.
Home gardeners have a variety of chemical protection available to keep their gardens healthy — powders, wet sprays and more — as well as tool with which to apply them.
For applying poison powders, you should have a powder gun. If one must be restricted to a single implement, however, it would be best to get one of the hand-power, compressed-air sprayers. These are used for applying wet sprays, and should come with one of the several forms of mist-making nozzles. The non-cloggable automatic type being the best.
For more extensive work, a barrel pump, mounted on wheels, is desirable, but one of the above will do a great deal of work in little time. Extension rods for use in spraying trees and vines may be obtained for either.
For operations on a very small scale a good hand-syringe may be used, but as a general thing it will be best to invest a few dollars more and get a small tank sprayer, as this throws a continuous stream or spray and holds a much larger amount of the spraying solution.
Whatever type you choose, get a brass machine — it will out-wear three or four of those made of cheaper metal, which succumbs very quickly to the, corroding action of the strong poisons and chemicals used in them.
