Mountain Home maverick. [volume] (Mountain Home, Idaho) 1906-1911, 1910-01-13
SMUDGING TO SAVE FRUIT
By ". C. HOWE
Read Before Horticultural Association

these distributed in the spring and
ready, so that when / see we are
going to have frost all l have to do
is to light the piles, which I can then
do in a very few minutes. ] usually
use wisp Of paper under each pile
for starting it, If the manure is in
proper condition, these piles will
make a dense smoke without replen-
ishing for about 3 hours, so in an or
binary bad night they would have to
be leplenished about once during the
! night. In my orchard l have small
fruit among the trees, so l have
about four large piles scattered
around the orchard, and replenish
the smudges with a wheel harrow.
and find that there is more WORK
than just good exercise to keep me
awake and warm On a larger or
chard, one would want a team and
wagon and drive around from pile to
pile. In this way one man would
tend to quite a large tract. OF course
the great trouble would be where
there are many large orchards to get
sufficient material, so / have been
watching with great interest the ex-
periments at Grand Junction, Colo,
with oil. But oil is so expensive mere
now that under present conditions
IL is best, if possible, to get a cheaper
fuel. However as they are finding
oil in this vicinity, l hope the same
may be successful for many reasons,
not the least of which is that | be-
lieve it will furnish us a cheap and
much more practicable fuel for
smudging
l observe many think the success
at Grand Junction was from the
heat produced by the burning oil, and
while | do not question that the heat
thus produced was a great aid. / am
firmly convinced that the main
benefit was from the smoke. for /
learn that in all cases, in addition
to the heat, they produced very
dense smoke. some times so dense
that they had to lie down to get
good breath. And while combina-
ton of heat and smoke | believe
would be preferable, as between two
materials, one producing a great deal
OF smoke and little heat and one
producing more heat and less smoke
would take the one with the greater
volume Of smoke and less heat
Where you have nothing to conane
the heat it rises and the cold air
surrounding rushes in. so the heat
alone would be of little use. but the
smoke confines the heat something
like the ceiling and walls of room.
and you doubtless know the differ
ence in trying TO heat a room and
trying to heat all out doors. especial
ly IT you have been out camping in
cold weather. Besides. there is al
ways heat radiating from the earth.
and If there are no clouds this
radiates into space, but when there
are clouds that confine the heat
hence the reason it never frosts of
a cloudy night SO the cloud of
smoke will retain the heat that is
radiating from the earth in your
orchard and lower the temperature.
even though you produce no artificial
heat. And from what / learn of the
results of the use of the so-called
orchard heaters, it seems l make al
most as good a record with my me-
thod, which produces but very
little heat, and tina further convinces
me that the main thing needed is
wall of smoke to conhne the heat
that naturally radiates from the
earth. Then If you can add to that
some artificial heat so much the
better
The great trouble l found was to
know when it was going to frost
for while after a little observation
could always know pretty accurately
when there were frost conditions
For instance, may know that there
are frost conditions, but it is
cloudy or the wind is blowing, and
will know that it will not frost if
it stays cloudy or the wind keeps up.
but should it clear up or the wind
cease blowing during the night. l
would know it would frost. and so to
be sure that that did not happen. /
would set an alarm clock to wake me
at different intervals during the night
and would go out on my porch to
see what the conditions were. But
as there would probably be 20 or
more nights in the spring when there
were frost conditions and probably
but couple of nights of actual frost
found that was breaking into my
sleep too much. So on my sugges.