The museum has two orchard sprayers on display, this one being the newer of the two by 20 or 30 years. It was likely made in the 1940s by the Bean Spray Pump Company. By the 1940s The John Bean Company was making tractor drawn sprayers utilizing the tractor's PTO for power, making the sprayer a formidable foe against the insects and fungi trying to destroy all the orchardist's hard labour.
Early History of the Bean Spray Pump Company
Mr. John Bean, the original inventor of the Bean Spray Pump, began his work in the early 1850's and enjoyed the distinction of being the inventor and patentee of the first double-acting force pump for well purposes.
On account of ill health, Mr. Bean moved to California in 1883. His orchard there was soon infested with San Jose scale. Only little squirt gun pumps were then on the market, so he put his ingenious mind to work, and soon had built the first high pressure spray pump with air chamber, ever made. This pump was shown in the California Fairs in 1884 and created such a demand that Mr. Bean started a factory. Our Company is this year celebrating its thirty-first anniversary in the spray pump business. Mr. D. C. Crummey, son-in-law of John Bean had been President of the Company since 1888.
Mr. Bean's fertile mind continued its work of inventing and perfecting spray pumps and spray nozzles, until he died in 1908, at the age of eighty-eight years. Only five years before this, he invented our famous Magic pump, which is now by far the most popular, as well as the most practical hand spray pump made.
The third generation of the family is now actively engaged in the business, and they, together with several of the trained experts that now form a part of our large organization, have continued the work so ably begun by Mr. Bean.
Our company adheres very closely to the sterling principles of this pioneer New England pump man, and they are constantly endeavoring to build goods a little better than anyone else. Fruit growers can depend that "the Bean is the best" and will be kept so.
We outgrew the factory in Los Gatos, California, and moved to San Jose, in 1903, and in 1908 built the largest exclusive spray pump factory in the world, to which several additions have been made since. In 1909 we established a factory in Berea, Ohio, with branch office at Cleveland. The business here grew rapidly and in 1914 we discontinued at Berea and built a new modern and up-to-date factory in Lansing, Michigan, where the manufacturing and shipping facilities are much more favorable.
Our outfits can be purchased anywhere in America and can also be readily shipped from one factory or the other to any foreign country.
From Rusty Iron