Photograph of a 1947 Crop Sprayer at the Brown Fruit Farm

Pictured here is a pesticide sprayer at the Brown Fruit Farm. The handwritten caption reads “The Speed Sprayer—new 1947.”

The Brown Fruit Farm operated north of Worthington for nearly fifty years, from around 1912 to 1958. The farm sold grew and sold apples and apple products such as juice, candy and apple butter, as well as cherries, plums and honey. As of 1925, the farm encompassed 100 acres planted with 4000 fruit trees and was the largest fruit farm in central Ohio. Owned by Frame Brown and later his daughter Molly, it was renowned not only for the quality of its produce, but also for its innovative roadside marketing, including signs telling motorists how many miles they were from the farm.

In “An Orchard Romance,” an article published in the September 1931 issues of the magazine “Columbus Today,” Frame Brown explained that apples were sprayed with pesticide seven to nine times a year, spraying 150,000 to 200,000 gallons of pesticide throughout the apple orchard each growing season. Spraying was frequently done continuously, day and night.