. Cotton or boll weevils. Boll weevil; Cotton. 12 MISC. PUBLICATION 4 84, U. S. DEPT. OF AGRICULTURE like the cart machine, but has a gasoline motor on the platform to furnish the power. Another kind of power duster is bolted on the rear of a tractor and is operated from the power take-off of the tractor. The power-operated dusting machines are best suited for large farms, with 100 to 300 acres of cotton. Since about 1922 the airplane, too, has come to be used as a dusting machine (fig. 9). Of course this does not mean that any airplane can be used for this work. The low flying that is done in
. Cotton or boll weevils. Boll weevil; Cotton. 12 MISC. PUBLICATION 4 84, U. S. DEPT. OF AGRICULTURE like the cart machine, but has a gasoline motor on the platform to furnish the power. Another kind of power duster is bolted on the rear of a tractor and is operated from the power take-off of the tractor. The power-operated dusting machines are best suited for large farms, with 100 to 300 acres of cotton. Since about 1922 the airplane, too, has come to be used as a dusting machine (fig. 9). Of course this does not mean that any airplane can be used for this work. The low flying that is done in cotton dusting is more dangerous than that done high up in the air. The plane has to be flown so close to the ground that it almost touches the cotton plants, and it cannot be flown so fast as those high up in the air. S. Figure 9.—Calcium arsenate dust being applied to a field of cotton by airplane. Fortunately for this kind of work there are specially built planes that can stay in the air while going much more slowly than ordinary planes. The dusting planes must also have special machinery for carrying and releasing the poison dust. There is a little door to the dust compartment that can be opened when the airplane pilot is ready for dusting work. This opening can be so regulated as to let out just the quantity of calcium arsenate needed and then closed when no more is necessary. When the door is opened, a stream of dust falls through and is violently driven backward and downward by the current of air from the airplane propeller. Gradually the dust cloud spreads outward to each side of the plane and drifts in very fine particles to all parts of the cotton plants (fig. 9). One airplane will dust as much cotton as 50 cart dusters. Airplanes for cotton dusting are not owned by individual planters, as is the usual dusting machinery, for they are far too expensive for most farmers to own. Instead, they are owned by commercial com- panies that do the work for the planter at a de
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