Out of all evil must come a little good. So it is that one form of "buzzing," known as bug-bombing or crop-dusting, is paying handsome dividends to the nation's farmers. the pilots who fly the dusters aren't losing anything either.

As far back as 1918, the boll weevil was taking a $600,000,000 annual bite out of the cotton crop. This makes Petrillo look like a second-rater in his racket. But by 1923 agricultural experts had tried the first airplane, borrowed from the air force, in an effort to eradicate the costly nuisance. That's more than anyone has been able to do with Petrillo. (He's cutting me out of my phonograph records, and I'm sore!)

One ground duster could spread poison over 75 to one hundred acres per day. One airplane can dust from 200 to 1,000 acres per hour---and at less cost. Some difference, hey?

These early crop-dusters tried their hands at other air-borne farm chores. In one hour and 55 minutes a single airplane dusted 10,000 peach trees, including stops to re-load with bug dust.

Out in California, they are planting rice by airplane, easier, faster and more uniform than ever before. In Indiana, the large tomato fields of the central portion of the state are dusted each year by these hardy crop-dusters.

For commercial jobs, such ships as the Stearman P-17, Travelairs and Wacos are used. However the Piper Cub has been found to be an excellent crop-duster for smaller jobs. Cubs are converted to dusters by removing the rear seat and controls, building in a hopper which will hold from 200 to 400 pounds of insecticide. It has been further found that more of the dust is actually utilized, landing on the plants or trees, where it will do the most good, when spread from the air than by another way.

The action of the powerful slipstream in breaking up the dust and swirling it ground ward, plasters the leaves on the underside and more completely than can be accomplished by a ground duster. The plants themselves are not disturbed by the plane, as is the case when the ground-duster travels over them.

Crop-dusters put on a thrilling show when flying a job. They sweep across a field, only a few feet off the ground, trailing their swirling mass of insecticide dust. At the end of the run, an experienced duster zooms upward, falls off on one wing and returns almost on the same line across the field. He uses every effort to make no waste motions with his plane. Time is money to the duster.

He can dust only in the early morning and late evening when there is no breeze, so his work-day is short. If you watch him fly his field, doing a dusting job, you can appreciate why his rates are high per hour.

And yet, in one hour's time, he can do the work of many days by other methods. He is a real "buzz-boy" with a worth-while purpose. Actually, a good crop-duster looks the terrain over before commencing a job, like a general planning a war, as truthfully hi is. Crop-dusters to date have saved the nation's farmers millions of dollars and untold hours and days of back-breaking work.

Helicopters are being widely used for dusting too. Ideally suited for the job, their powerful rotors force 70,000 cubic-feet of air per minute downward, carrying with it the needed bug-killer. Again, Bell Aircraft is the leader in this field, with the first commercial helicopter especially designed for crop-dusting. I believe the Kaiser-Frazer distributor of Indianapolis owns one of these $25,000 babies. That is too much money for any private owner to think of putting up for crop-dusting, but spreading its services over the thousands of acres of Hoosier-land on a rental basis, it makes the duster money and saves Mr. Farmer money.

Fertilizer is also spread from the air in the same manner as insecticide. It does the most even job possible. Any flying farmer, if he has the skill and the tummy for it (I've watched dusters work. Count me out), could dust his own crops, fertilize his own fields.

While on that subject, 55 percent of the aircraft owners in the United States are farmers.

Only last year, Reid-Murdoch at Pierceton ---the big canning factory---hired a duster to powder insecticide over the tomato fields near here. You may expect to see more of this type of operation in Kosciusko county.

There are already several commercial dusting concerns in Indiana. How many do you want?

Warsaw Daily Times, Jan. 7, 1948