Allotments 4 All

Was raking through the garage this morning and found these tools.

Many years ago I looked after a garden for an elderly lady after her husband died, then when she died, her son said I could help myself to any of his dad's gardening tools so I took these with a view to taking them to our local museum.

They are now in the car to be delivered the next time I am passing the museum.

Copper & brass pump spray;



Stirrup pumps with different nozzle attachments to give varying spray patterns;



Stirrup pump lance to get to the parts the spray couldn't;



Finally a  powder spray for products such as derris dust or lime;



Note; the brick courses in the background will give you an idea of their size.

An interesting collection, but I would point out that they are not stirrup pumps. Stirrup pumps were the water pumps used by ARP/Civil Defence personnel to fight small fires. The stirrup pump was used with a bucket and had a footplate (or stirrup) to keep it in place with the foot, whilst you pumped with the right hand and directed the jet/spray with you left (or vice versa if left handed).

The ones shown were horticultural sprayers of various types.

I remember my father having one of the ones in the second picture.  Does that mean I should be in a museum??? Don't feel that old.

We had one of the ones in the second picture - I think it came from my father.  I wonder if we still have it ??? ???

Have they got HOZELOCK stamped on them Tee Gee

;D ;D ;D

They turn up on eBay all the time. Speaking of museums, which I was about three, my mother nearly burnt the caravan down with a gas iron. I remember a tray of plastic-handled cutlery bursting into flames; we had cutlery with badly burnt handles for years afterwards. In the mid-70's, I went round a small museum in Glencoe, on a day when the weather was too vile to climb. There was one in there, just like the one she had.

Thanks for the correction Larkhall and of course you are correct.

As I recall you stuck these in a bucket of what ever you intended spraying with, and sucked in the liquid then pushed in the handle to spray with it.

Wheras a stirrup pump was a vertical pump with one tube in the liquid and the other was used for spraying. It was a bit of an art standing on the feet of the pump, pumping and spraying at the same time.

Ah! those were the days :) but give me my modern pump spray any day!

The way you folks are talking anyone would think these items are antiques.  I have in my garage versions of all those items, as well as a double action Solo Sprayer, 2 `Flit` sprayers (used for spraying finely powdered insecticides), and a genuine Stirrup pump which my father had on his Firewatching duties during the 2nd World War, and which we subsequently used for washing the upstairs windows.

I would hasten to add that none of them are now used for their original purposes, but it`s surprising how often they `come in` for something

The horticultural sprayers always intrigued me as a youngster, they had so many nuts and bolts attached to them. Although I've seen many of them I've never seen them used. I wondered if there were attachments to screw on to them such as cans of insecticide, etc? I won't say what us kids used the Flit sprayers for, but it's good our parents never caught us with them  ;D

Some of the "nuts and bolts" were in fact alternative forms of nozzles or sprays which could be swapped over as occasion demanded, but others, as with the Solo Double Action were, or could be, used with a suction pipe going directly from an inlet connection on the sprayer to the bucket of whatever you were spraying so that you had continuous spraying instead of having to keep filling the sprayer.

They weren`t very efficient, and apart from the pressurised back-pack tank sprayers there was no such thing as a fine mist spray, and most of the nozzles gave a very coarse spray.  I well remember that to spray 100 roses with derris used to require at least 2 two gallon bucketsful of the mix whereas a modern knapsack sprayer would do it with 2 or 3 pints.   They were bloody hard work as well.