The Delta independent. [volume] (Delta, Colo.) 1886-19??, 1912-02-02

erly pTuueu ana tnlnneQ 1Or num-
Der of years, it will have much to
| do to make it bear full bloom ev-
cry year. When tree is allowed
to over bear one year there is a ten
dency for it to become a shy"
bloomer the next season. Props have
no place in an orchard and when
used are sign of misguided orchard
management. Timing will do away
with props and will help the tree
to form more fruit buds for the next
years bloom.
Careful observances of the wealth
er conditions and study of the U.
S. forecast should be made before
and during the period when spring
frosts are expected. There should
be good government tested thermom
eters in the orchard. as well as on
the outside and note made of the
readings. If this is kept up for a
number of years by each orchardist
there will accumulate a lot of data
which will become valuable for use
in the future
There is no doubt but what the
earth stores up certain amount of
heat during warm day and that
this heat is given off in some guam
tity during the night and that cloud
of smoke over any given area will
act as a blanket and cause the heat
to be radiated off more slowly, but
when cold spell is preceded by
several cold, cloudy days, there is
much less heat stored up in the
soil and therefore the blanket of
smoke does little good in this in
stance. Smoke, however, does much
to retain the heat from the heaters
and also helps to prevent the froz-
en- fruit from thawing out too soon
after the sun has risen in the morn
ing.
There are several good orchard
heaters on the market, although it
is probable that none of them have
reached the highest degree of per-
lection. Be sure that the kind to
be bought will meet the individual
requirements and then do a little
experimenting with regard to how
to light and extinguish them, also
try to find out how many degrees
the temperature can be raised with
them. The number of heaters need
ed Will vary with conditions, but
one will not miss it very far if there
is one heater to the tree. 1t is bet
ter to have a few more than will be
used than to have too few. Heat
ers which will burn from six to
eight hours will not, as a rule, re-
quire refilling in the night. The re
filling of heaters in the night is
rather expensive and the refilling
of coal heaters when they are burn
ing is apt to lower the tempera-
ture. as it takes some little time
for them to recover
If the temperature on the outside
of the orchard falls to much below
10 degrees F. there is not much use
to maintain the fires unless one
has sufficient number of heaters
to keep the temperature at about
80 degrees. In few rare instanc-
es the temperature has been raised,
where few trees were heated, about
4 degrees F., but as a rule it TAX
es very good equipment using fuel
literally to raise the temperature
10 degrees F. The degree of tenn
perature damaging the fruit depends
largely upon the stage of growth of
the fruit bud. The amount of dam
age done to the fruit will depend
age done to the fruit will depend
great deal upon the number of
thrifty buds.
During the last spring G91D
there were orchards in certain local
tiles of Colorado where if they had
used orchard heaters, there is no
doubt that the fruit crop could have
been saved. In one of these locali-
ties one nights work with the heat
crs would have saved the apple crop
and two or three lights work would
have saved the peah crop, which
were both total failure in some
orchards. In another locality one
nights work would have saved the
apple crop. 1t was the May frost
which did the damage in these To-
calities and in both places the Their
mometer registered only a few de-
grees below the freeing point. Be
sides these there were sections in
other fruit districts of Colorado
which bore very good crop of ap-
pies and pears where orchard heat
ers were not used and where the
temperature fell below 20 degrees