Defending Plants

The devices and tools utilized for battling plant foes are of 2 sorts:

 

(1) Those utilized to yield mechanical protection to the plants; 

(2) Those utilized to utilize insecticides and antifungal agents.

 

Of the first the most valuable is the covered frame. It consists commonly of a wooden box, a few 18 inches to 24 inches square and about 8 high, covered with glass, protecting fabric, mosquito webbing or mosquito wire. The first 2 coverings have, naturally, the extra advantage of holding heat and protecting from low temperature, making it conceivable by their use to plant earlier than is otherwise safe. They're used extensively in attaining an extra early and safe beginning with cucumbers, melons and the additional vine vegetables. 

 

Simpler devices for protecting newly-set plants, like tomatoes or cabbage, from cut-worms, are stiff, tin, cardboard or roofing paper collars, which are made numerous inches high and big enough to be place around the stem and infiltrate an inch or so into the dirt. 

 

For utilizing poison powders, the home gardener ought to supply himself with a powder gun. If one must be limited to a single tool, it will be better to get one of the hand-power, compressed-air sprayers. These are utilized for using wet sprays, and should be furnished with one of the many forms of mist-making nozzles, the non-cloggable automatic type being the most beneficial. For more extended work a barrel pump, put on wheels, will be suitable. Extension rods for utilization in spraying trees and vines might be obtained for either. For processes on a very little scale a good hand-syringe might be utilized, but as a general thing it will be most beneficial to invest a couple of dollars more and get a small tank sprayer, as this casts a continuous stream or spray and holds a much greater amount of the spray solution. Whatever sort is procured, get a brass machine it will outlast 3 or 4 of those made of cheesier metal, which gives in very rapidly to the, corroding action of the strong poisons and chemicals utilized in them. 

As a concluding word to the intending buyer of garden tools, I'd say: 1st exhaustively investigate the different types available, and when purchasing, don't forget that a great tool or a well-made machine will be giving you satisfactory use long, long after the cost is blanked out, while a poor one is a ceaseless source of irritation.