WATCHING AND SPRAYING.
Now suppose you have prepared your soil properly, and planted your seed
carefully; that your transplanting has been done, and your crops are
growing; do you think your work is done, and you have only to wait for
sun and rain to do the rest? If that is your idea, you are not cut out
for a farmer. Get out of the business as soon as you can. There are
no “soft snaps” in farming or gardening, on either a large or a small
scale. But the man in love with his job, no matter what it is, is not
looking for soft snaps, nor does he find his work hard. There is a
reward in tilling the soil and in watching “the green things growing,”
as Riley has it, that is not excelled by the rewards of any other
calling.
It is absolutely necessary that you should watch your growing crops,
for only in that way can you keep in touch with their needs. The parent
who neglects to watch his children and to look out for their physical
needs, generally has doctors’ bills and anxiety. A little watchfulness
would have revealed the first stages of decay in the teeth; the early
signs of adenoid growths; the symptoms of eye-strain, or the irritable
state of the digestive organs, and the trouble could have been stayed.
To be sure, the ounce of prevention costs something, but not nearly
so much as the pound of cure. It is a question of business foresight,
as well as parental affection, to watch the child, and the crop, and
forestall disease.
Crops need careful watching, and to forestall most diseases there is
nothing better than spraying. Once upon a time the man who sprayed his
crops was a rarity, and his neighbors were not sure that he had not
taken leave of his senses, but now the man who does not use the spray,
is the notable exception—a monument of foolishness.
If you take the pains to find out what your soil will grow, you will
know what insects and diseases are likely to attack your crops, and you
can plan your campaign against them with intelligence.
Begin at the beginning, which is in the winter. First find out what
spraying mixtures are best for dealing with the pests you are to meet.
This can be done by writing the Department of Agriculture or by the
study of books. Then study agricultural papers and Department bulletins
as to the best spraying machines or nozzles on the market, and buy what
you need.
Where any doubt about the quality of seed exists, it is often a wise
precaution to spray it before planting, but you must spray your growing
crop on the very first sign of insects or diseases. Remember that bugs
do not like poison, and will not go where it is; therefore, you must
take it to them in good quantities. Partial spraying is little better
than none. Do the job thoroughly, when you start in to do it at all.
See that the whole plant from root to top is thoroughly saturated—stem,
branches and leaves. One spot untouched by the spray makes a sure
refuge for the bug. Don’t sympathize with his homeless condition at the
expense of your crop.
Bordeaux mixture is a cure for almost every variety of plant disease.
It consists of sulphate of copper (blue vitriol) and lime, diluted
with water. The principal use of the lime is to make the mixture stick
to the plant and to render the copper sulphate less caustic, and
one thorough spraying, if rain does not come for a day or two, will
cling to the plant for a couple of weeks. This mixture can be safely
used even before there is any sign of disease, and it then acts as
a preventive. But where disease is severe, apply it every few days,
because the new leaves and shoots offer so many breeding places for the
disease spores.
To make 12 gallons of Bordeaux, use one pound of copper sulphate and
one pound stone lime. Be sure to use wooden vessels, as vitriol eats
tin; an oil barrel, sawed in halves, makes good tubs for dissolving
the vitriol and slaking the lime. Put one to one and a half gallons
of water in the tub and hang the vitriol over night in a piece of
burlap, which just touches the water. Slake the lime in the other tub
by adding water as fast as the lime takes it up, and no faster. When
both are properly dissolved, fill the spray barrel about one-eighth
full of water and add the solution of vitriol. Add enough water to the
lime barrel to make 2½ or 4 gallons and then strain the slaked lime
into the spray barrel through a wire fly-screen or two thicknesses of
potato burlap. Fill the barrel with water enough to make 12 gallons of
mixture, and stir thoroughly for some minutes. If your spray has an
“agitator” attachment, you need not trouble further, but if not, you
must stir the mixture thoroughly every few minutes while spraying.
Bordeaux mixture should be made fresh for each spraying, but the
vitriol and lime may be prepared ahead in large quantities, if they
are not mixed, and are kept covered to prevent evaporation. Thus forty
pounds of vitriol may be dissolved in 40 gallons of water, and forty
pounds of lime slaked in 40 gallons of water. Four gallons of each
will make a basis for 50 gallons of Bordeaux mixture.
The only disadvantage to Bordeaux mixture is that it discolors the
plant, it being a “blue whitewash”; and those who object to the
discoloration often use the ammoniacal carbonate of copper, rather than
the sulphate. But this is not so sure a remedy, neither does it stick
so well. It is made by dissolving an ounce of carbonate of copper in a
pint of water and adding it to a quart of ammonia. If the ammonia is
strong, use only enough to thoroughly dissolve the copper, otherwise
it will injure the plants. Cork the mixture tightly and when wanted
for use, add from 8 to about 20 gallons of water to each ounce of the
copper. This is used principally on fruit that is nearly grown, or upon
purely ornamental plants, to avoid discoloration.
Bordeaux cannot cure internal diseases of the plants. These may be
caused by insect borers at the roots, or by some incurable bacterial
trouble, and in this case there is nothing you can do but root up
the affected plants and destroy them, and then study out how you can
prevent its happening again.
Sprays for insects usually consist of some form of arsenic or of
kerosene emulsion, and occasionally whale-oil soap is used. The most
common form of arsenical poison is Paris green, of which about 2000
tons are used annually in this country; this is mixed in the proportion
of one-half pound of Paris green to 100 to 150 gallons of water and
one-half pound of fresh burnt lime.
However, where the insects are very bad, as potato bugs often are, the
same amounts of Paris green and lime may be mixed with only 50 gallons
of water. Paris green is too caustic to apply stronger than that,
except in very rare, specified cases. The Paris green should be mixed
with a little water till it is smooth, before it is added to the larger
quantity of water. Sometimes it can be sprinkled on, but the only sure
results are secured by using a spray, either hand or power.
Sometimes Paris green is added to the Bordeaux mixture, and the crops
sprayed for insects and diseases at the same time. When this is done,
you regard the Bordeaux as water, and add the Paris green in the same
proportion as you would add it to water. In this case you need not add
the lime, because the lime in the mixture is sufficient. London purple
is sometimes used in place of Paris green for the same purposes, and in
exactly the same proportion and ways, but it is not so easy to know
how strong it is as with Paris green, and it is being used less and
less each year.
Another preparation is arsenite of soda, which is made of white
arsenic, two pounds; carbonate of soda (washing soda) eight pounds;
water two gallons. These must be boiled in an iron kettle, which should
not be used for any other purpose, for about fifteen minutes, or until
the arsenic dissolves. Some water will evaporate during boiling, so,
before bottling, add enough to make the full two gallons. This will
keep a long time if tightly corked. To make a spraying solution add
one-half pint to 25 gallons of water. The quantity given is, therefore,
enough to make 8 barrels of 50 gallons each. Unless mixed with
Bordeaux, add two pounds of slaked stone lime to each barrel. Be sure
to mark your bottle of solution plainly, “POISON.”
Arsenate of lead clings to foliage better than any other arsenical
poison, and since it does not burn foliage it can be used alone, in the
proportion of from one to five pounds to 50 gallons of water. It was
first used in 1892 against the gypsy-moth and is annually growing in
favor.
All insects which feed on the outside of plants are divided into two
classes—the chewing or biting insects like beetles and larvae (worms),
and the sucking insects, which include the various scales, plant lice,
and squash bug. The chewing and biting kinds are killed with the Paris
green solution, but the sucking sort need kerosene and preparations
which kill by contact.
There are many ways of making the standard kerosene and soap emulsion,
but Bailey recommends the following method as the best:—Put one-half
pound of hard soap into a gallon of boiling soft water; as soon as
the soap is dissolved, add two gallons of kerosene or coal-oil. This
mixture should be of a milk-like consistency, which can only be secured
by running it through a pump vigorously for fifteen minutes or more.
For use on plants or trees, it is diluted with ten to fifteen times
its bulk of water. It can be used stronger than that on trees in the
winter. It is sure death to scales and plant lice if applied early
enough; this is another proof of the value of watching your growing
crops.
Within a few years, pumps have been invented which will perfectly blend
water and kerosene without the addition of soap, and this is by far
the better remedy. Without soap, the proportion of kerosene can be
increased to even one-fourth the quantity of water, without injury to
the plants, if the application is made while the sun is shining. This
emulsion is fatal even to the dreaded San José scale. As experiments
are constantly going on along this line, the up-to-date farmer or
gardener will keep in touch with the latest discoveries.
Whale-oil soap, one pound of soap to four or five gallons of water,
used to be a popular remedy, but it is rapidly giving place to kerosene
emulsions, which are more easily prepared and less offensive. Tobacco
dust will drive away cucumber and melon beetles, if liberally applied,
and will lessen the ravages of the flea-beetle. But Bordeaux mixture
well applied will do the same.
For treating cabbages or other crops late in the season, white
hellebore is often substituted for Paris green, which is a deadly
poison. It may be applied dry, alone or mixed with half as much flour;
or in solution, one ounce to three gallons of water.
Spraying enormously increases the yield of any crop, and indeed
sometimes makes all the difference between good crops and no crops.
So long as insects and diseases exist, any patch in any part of the
country is liable to attack. Because you have escaped so far is not
to say that you always will escape, so be ready for emergencies.
Timeliness and thoroughness are two essentials, and these can only
be secured by combining watching with spraying. It pays. Six years of
potato spraying at Geneva, N. Y., increased the yield 122 bushels to
the acre when sprayed five times during the season. Where only three
sprayings were given, the increase was 93.6 bushels per acre.
You may be discouraged by these infinite details of care and
management: but if you have not the time or the inclination to attend
to them, that is not a reason for neglecting the study of Intensive
Farming.
It is a reason for not undertaking a greater variety of crops than you
can master; a succession of well-chosen plants will fill all the time
you choose to give. I am showing how the best results can be obtained,
but the most ordinary farmer will find his returns vastly increased by
applying as much of these methods as he can manage.
For instance, at the South, the uneducated negro finds that his cotton
crop is often increased, from half a bale per acre to two bales on each
acre, by merely putting in a clover crop before the cotton.
Apply what you can learn, as far as you can: the power to learn more
and to use it will come by use.