“Es Spritze-Heisje”
Every community in Rheinhessen had, in some cases until the 1960s, a central point in the village for mixing sprays to control pests and leaf diseases in the vineyards. In Harxheim this place was located in the Spritze-Heisje.
A small building, which is only known to the old-timers in Harxheim, was the “Spritze-Heisje”. This simple little house with a brick ground floor stood on what is now Messigny-et-Vantoux Square and could only be approached from Bahnhofstrasse. In it was mixed the “Spritzbrie”, in Hashem dialect the general term for the liquid insecticides and pesticides used in agriculture. Characteristic of the color scheme of the interior walls and concrete floor were the ubiquitous copper-green paint splashes or surfaces. These were created by mixing the copper vitriol used until the end of the 1950s as an all-round spraying agent in viticulture.
“Es Spitze-Heisje” (second building from the right), Helene Knußmann with daughter and friend, 1959
Image source: Helene Knußmann
On the ground floor were three large concrete vessels, each with a capacity of a large bathtub. In one vat, the copper salt of sulfuric acid (vitriol) was dissolved in water; in the other, a milk of lime was prepared, which was combined in mixture with the first liquid to form a pH-neutral spray. The third vat was kept as a water reservoir. The mixture had to be Ph-neutral so as not to burn the foliage of the vines when spraying against foliar diseases such as peronospora.
Mixing was done while filling the “Spritzbrie” drums located on the pre-driven carts, adding appropriate amounts of water to produce the finished spray mixture. Litmus strips were used to control the mixture to a neutral ph. For the filling process, a small piston pump with a flow meter was used to register and account for the quantities of spray agent collected.
The vitriol was purchased collectively from the country store (“beim Kunsum”) operated by Friedrich Ackermann in Untergasse. A “Spritzbrie officer” had sole access to the chemical feedstocks and their use. This person had to ensure that sufficient liquid plant protection product was made available to all winegrowers belonging to this syndicate on the specified “spraying days” and that the spraying barrels were properly filled. Part-time winegrowers who needed only small quantities by handcart were supplied just as much as winegrowers who needed several hundred liters. If grape growers found infestations of sourworm or hayworm, the notorious E605 was added to the pesticide. Thus, without much effort, but with resounding effect, the preparation became an insecticide. The vineyards were sprayed up to five times, depending on the weather and demand, before the harvest began.
“Until well into the 1950s, the ‘Spritzbrie’ was applied manually using large pressurized backpack sprayers with a capacity of 10 or 15 liters. This was real back-breaking work for the pest controllers,” says Walter Frieß. “The men or we women walked with the ‘Wingertsspritz uff’m Buckel’ zeilauf and on the other side zeilab, until the syringe was empty and had to be filled again at the ‘Spritzbrie-Fass’,” adds his sister Elli Böll.
Types of different vineyard sprayers as well as a sulfur sprayer (left), Frieß Winery Collection
Image source: Irmgard Kaiser-Vreke
“Es Spritze-Heisje” in view of Wickgarten, around 1960
Image source: Unknown
Depending on the size of the plant, entire columns were occupied with this work for days on end. It was not until the 1960s that more modern sprayers (small self-propelled sprayers) came into use, making this step of vineyard work much easier.
With the use of modern crop protection products, the “Spritze-Heisje” became obsolete and orphaned at the end of the 1950s. It was demolished in the early 1960s when the current Messigny-et-Vantoux Square was first redesigned.
So, in conclusion, there remains one marginal note:
It is said that in the 1950s an old-established Harxheim citizen used the concrete vats, which were empty between the spraying dates, for the Saturday bath from time to time.
References:
Eyewitness reports
Own research
