Early 20th Century Wheelbarrow Sprayer

Throughout the late 1800s and early 1900s, many North American prairie farmers used insecticides to protect their crop fields, orchards, gardens, and livestock from unwanted insect pests.  They applied some insecticides in powder form and others in liquid form, mixing the powder compound with water or another liquid.  If applying an insecticide in liquid form, farmers turned to a sprayer like Stuhr Museum’s wheelbarrow sprayer to distribute the insecticide solution.
At the time this sprayer was made in the early 1900s, insecticide sprayers and containers were made in a variety of sizes and styles.  The size and style depended often on the needs of the farmer.  Some sprayers and containers, especially ones used for gardens, were smaller and carried by hand.  Others roughly the same size as Stuhr’s sprayer were strapped to people’s backs like a backpack or knapsack and used to spray larger areas such as an orchard.  Sprayers and containers larger than Stuhr’s example were often pushed or pulled around on a cart or a wagon by people or horses, enabling a farmer to spray a larger crop field.  The wheelbarrow pump sprayer here at Stuhr Museum was reportedly used to spray livestock and fruit trees.

A wheelbarrow pump sprayer made by the Hayes
Pump & Planter Company of Galva, Illinois.

In terms of the insecticides used, prairie farmers from the mid-1800s through the early 1900s had a variety of chemical solutions from which to choose.  During the late 1800s, farmers often used chemicals called Paris green or London purple to kill unwanted insects.  Paris green may have been first used on the American prairie in 1867 to combat the Colorado potato beetle.  London purple was a by-product of the fiber dyeing industry and was a finer powder than Paris green, more easily mixed with water for spraying.  Although farmers continued to use Paris green and London purple in the early 1900s, many farmers began to turn to lead arsenate, including Swift’s Arsenate of Lead, as their insecticide of choice.

Some of the unwanted prairie insects in the late 1800s and early 1900s were the Colorado potato beetle (Leptinotarsa decemlineata) which attacked potatoes; the Plum Curculio (Conotrachelus nenuphar), a weevil that laid its eggs inside apples and other fruits; the chinch bug (Blissus leucopterus) which consumed wheat and corn; the wheat stem maggot (Meromyza americana Fitch) which consumed wheat; the fruit tree bark beetle (Scolytus rugulosus Ratz) which lived underneath the bark on trees, especially oak trees; and the codling moth (Cydia pomonella) which consumed fruit.