Mountain Home maverick. [volume] (Mountain Home, Idaho) 1906-1911, 1910-01-13

not believe them, so proceeded 70
demonstrate that we could raise
fruit here ] bought an acre and
a half in the town and proceeded
to plant an acre and quarter of that
to fruit. have now over 20 diff
ferent kinds Of fruit and about 100
varieties. my orchard being intended
for a family orchard. and. inciden-
tally. for demonstration, and not a
market orchard. / have Of the more
tender fruits, sweet cherries, peaches.
apricots grapes, etc. / soon learned
that my worst enemy was the late
frosts. and that If l was to have any
degree of success 1 would have to
conquer that difficulty. So / began
Immediately to try to find some me-
thod to combat the frost. / had been
raised on farm and knew that these
late spring frosts never came on
cloudy nights, just as every farmer
Of experience and observation can te
you, so ! concluded the best way was
10 create an artificial cloud. for I
AHOQEnt " neat Ill ONi uOOIo WAS
too big a task to undertake. l knew
clouds were a species of steam. but
concluded it impracticable 10 try to
get up steam enough to create
cloud over my orchard. so concluded
20 try and see if smoke would not
do the same thing, and began ex-
perimenting along this line and soon
demonstrated to my own satisfaction,
at least. that l could protect againts
frost by creating cloud of smoke
over my orchard, and that it was
very simple and practicable. I have
had so great success that for the
past ten years l have not had total
failure of fruit, while at that time
there have been many total failures
of fruit by those who did not smudge.
except this year and the reason of
my failure this year was that
was badly crippled up with the rheu.
matism during the spring and did
not dare to expose myself. so did not
smudge at all, and while I have had
partial failures. | never have lost any
fruit that it was not my fault. and
] knew when | was ioosing it that it
was my fault because l could not
properly attend to it, Law is my
business, by which earn my living.
while my orchard is a mere side
issue and recreation. and whenever
the care of my orchard conhicted
with my law business. my orchard
had to suffer, and every time ! have
lost any fruit during that time it
has been when the frosts came when
urgent law business prevented my
giving my orchard the proper at
tention. While / knew all the time
that I was making a big dinerenc
in my orchard by my smudging..
never knew till few years ago just
what the difference was. as my Their
mometer was affected by my smudg-
ing, and there was no one else keep
ing a record few years ago
government thermometer was placed
with a family little over a quarter
Of mile from me. and where the
same conditions obtained as at my
place. and since then have been
able to judge approximately what
am doing, and | find that by my me-
1hods 1t is not at all difHcult to make
a difference of six degrees in my
orchard, and that will easily protect
against almost any late spring frost.
The spring of 1908 one night the
government thermometer registered
"a degrees. and on another night %
degrees, and both nights ! kept my
thermometer up to 30 degrees, but
the last night / had excellent ma
terial and, knowing it was a very
severe night did the very best
could My method is to create as
dense a cloud of smoke as possible.
J aim to have the cloud started by
the time the thermometer gets down
TO ia degrees and keep it up till
the sun warns the atmosphere in the
morning. After j became satisfied
that it was practicable to prote,t my
orchard in this way, I next began
10 experiment with different sub
stance to produce the smoke. and my
hest success has been with mix
ture Of horse manure and Straw or
hay the best material being that
which I get from the stables where
the horses have been well deded and
or straw mixed through it, And
this dry enough that it will smudge
freely and make a dense smoke and
just damp enough not to blaze. I
also md that it does much better to
have many small piles scattered
through the orchard than a few large
piles. as the smoke is then better