IMPROVEMENTS IN APPARATUS FOR TREATING VINES OR OTHER PLANTS WITH INSECTICIDE LIQUID OR OTHER SUBSTANCE
Year: 1884

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COMPLETE SPECIFICATION.
I, EDMUND EDWARDS, of the firm of Edwards and Co., Patent Agents and
Engineers, of 35, Southampton Buildings, Chancery Lane in the County of
Middlesex do hereby declare the nature of the Invention for "IMPROVEMENTS IN
APPARATUS FOR TREATING VINES OR OTHER PLANTS WITH INSECTICIDE LIQUID
OR OTHER SUBSTANCE" and in what manner the same is to be performed, to be
particularly described and ascertained in and by the following statement:-
This Invention relates more especially to the Invention for which I obtained
Her Majesty's Royal Letters Patent dated March 15th, A.D. 1883, and numbered
1382, for "An Improved Apparatus for Injecting Insecticide Liquid or other
Substance into Vines or other Plants."
In the accompanying Drawing which is in illustration of the present Invention,
Figure 2 shows a double apparatus in which instead of filling directly the elastic
balls described in the Specification of the said former Letters Patent, india rubber
tubes quare used the ends of which can be provided with different devices by which
the diseases or affections of vines or other plants can be prevented or removed.
cc.is a single vessel divided into parts by a partition. The first of these parts
is used exclusively for liquids, whilst in the other gases or vapours may be used.
The arrangement however of the supply and delivery pipes and reservoirs is nearly
similar in both parts, except that one is operated by a lifting and forcing pump,
whilst the other is worked by an air pump of any suitable kind.
The air pump & serves for treating the plants with dry sulphur by means of the
instruments or appliances shewn in Figure 4, and at d in Figure 2.
That shewn in Figure 4 represents a box ordinarily used having small holes
through which the sulphur falls by its own weight upon the plant, with a
consequent great loss of sulphur. By the instrument shewn at din Figure 2 a
communication is made by means of the pipe q with the air pump, the pipe. which
brings the air passing. through the instrument into a conical part soldered or
otherwise fixed to its end as shewn. When the instrument is shaken the sulphur
falls through the holes and into a nozzle pipe at the end of the cone, whence the
current of air ejects it in a cloud of dust greater or less according to the degree of
violence with which. the instrument is shaken.

page_text: The air pump also serves to operate the instrument r, which consists of a metal
or other box containing corrosive liquid or other suitable chemical re-agents not
in contact with the conducting pipe. It will be easily understood that when the.
box is filled with the liquid the latter will be projected upon the plant by the
pressure of the air, as shewn in a somewhat different form of arrangement in
Figure 1.
In this Figure and in Figure 3 the box is shewn so that it can be readily carried
upon a man's shoulders.
Supposing it is to be used to destroy the eggs of insects or insects themselves
upon the plant, the apparatus may be made capable of rotation as shewn, the box
being filled with corrosive or other suitable liquid and the discharge pipe being
made sufficiently long to allow the free movement of the instrument and being
furnished at its extremity with a brass nozzle or an india rubber pipe. The man
who carries the apparatus takes the instrument in his left hand by the handle p¹
and having regulated the force of the jets from the curved nozzle u by the cock 71,
he turns the handle v with his right hand, following the contour of the plant so as
to drench it above and below and all round without leaving a single spot
untouched. Instead of liquid, an inflammable gas may be used such as ordinary
coal gas, which escaping from the curved perforated pipe u forms a ring of flame.
Or a single large flame may be used as shewn at a¹ in Figure 2.
If, on the other hand, it is desired instead of corrosive liquids or inflammable gas
to use boiling water, it is only necessary to adapt a flexible pipe to an ordinary
boiler, preferably mixing salt with the water in order to raise the temperature of
ebullition, and with a slight pressure of steain the water will traverse the apparatus
and will be discharged through the curved perforated pipe in small jets sufficiently
hot to destroy insects in the bark of the plant. For the jets entering into every
fissure and running out in every direction the action of the hot water is perfectly
effective. Not more than half the water ordinarily used will be required and the
operation will be effected in a fourth of the time, as the workman will not have to.
be constantly refilling his vessels with hot water from a boiler, and by simply
turning a handle the plants are perfectly saturated.
Instead of treating plants with dry sulphur as already described, it may be used
in a liquid form by mixing with a quantity of water sulpho-carbonate of potash
and using it with a rose or with a simple jet as shewn at in Figure 2. The leaves
and fruit of a plant thus treated are covered with a-film-of-sulphur_of_infinitesimal
thickness, and oidium is thus cured and the generation of fungoïd growths
prevented.
For mildew and other ailments, the proper chemical combinations may be used.
with the same instrument.
With the small instrument r, Figure 2, and air under pressure from the pump s
a sulphur injection may be used to destroy oïdium.
In the instrument shewn in Figures 4 and 3 when a corrosive liquid is used for.
destroying insects or eggs in the bark, it is introduced into the vessel t, whence it
is forced by the pressure of air from the pump 8 into the pipe t¹ and thence to the
curved pipe the interior circumference of which is finely perforated. By the
handle and the endless chain the curved pipe u can be turned round.
At 6' is shewn a device by which the hollow elastic balls already referred to may
be filled with liquid under pressure at each plant as required, instead of it being
necessary to take them to the machine.
The .pumps shewn in Figure 2 are used to obtain the desired results, the
apparatus being placed at one end of the rows of trees and the flexible pipes
extending on both sides; whilst two men are sufficient to move the apparatus by
means of barrow handles, and one of these men always remains with it to work
the pump, the other attending upon the workmen who dress the plants, to whom
he brings the liquid or the sulphur, and in this way many rows of plants may be.
treated and a great deal of work done with but little work of the pump.

page_text: It will be easily understood that under a strong jet of sulphur water the webs
or envelopes with which insects cover the fruit are carried away and the insects
if not killed are driven away from it. With the apparatus described the necessary
quantity of water can be easily supplied for watering any number of vines or other
plants. For supposing (in the case of a vine) that 33 units of water daily are
required, then if one of the elastic balls already referred to be filled with 1000 units
of water and supposing that in the driest times night dews and moisture from the
soil supply to the root 15 to 18 units, then the excess of 15 units daily required for
the proper development of the plant will be automatically and constantly supplied
by the apparatus for as many days as 15 are contained in 1000.
When the apparatus is applied to a vine the latter will always remain green ;
and when the phylloxera commences to attack it and the leaves, turn yellow they
resume their greenness under this treatment.
When, at the return or rise of the sap, certain chemical combinations are effected
by the diffusion of liquids and gases in the plant by means of the apparatus, the
vine becomes covered with fruit and it is of little consequence whether or not the
phylloxera is destroyed, and new roots are formed where the old ones have been
injured by insects.
By burning with a flame, chemical substance, or hot iron, the extremities of the
shoots, the spring sap and the gases or vapours which circulate in the plant are
prevented from escaping, and at the same time the liquid, solid, or gaseous matters
which have been forcibly introduced as described are retained in the body of the
plant.
I do not claim the precise form and method of arrangement of the several parts.
of the apparatus described and shewn, which may be varied to suit varying
circumstances, but having now particularly described and ascertained the nature
of the said Invention and in what manner the same is to be performed, I declare
that what I claim is the portable apparatus for treating vines and other plants
by means of liquid, solid, or gaseous substances, arranged and operated substantially
as described and shewn in the Drawing.
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