The Olneyville times. (Olneyville [Providence, R.I.]) 1887-1917, 1916-10-27

temperature of a 2OO-acre orchard ten to hf-
teen degrees with as much certainty as the
janitOr can heat the city mans flat. 1t takes
what more labor than the last mentioned process,
but the satisfaction and the profits of cheating all
outdoors" are surprisingly greater. Frost insur-
ance for the fruit crop is just practicable,
just certain, and vastly more profitable for the
money expended than either fire or life insurance.
Insurance by fire for the fruit grower makes
vastly greater profits at Il much smaller expense
than insurance against fire does for the merchant
or manufactures. The little outdoor oil stoves and
coal furnaces that have been sold by the millions to
orchard owners in the last year and half have
banished from the fruit grower that annual early
spring nervous prostratiOn from fear of FROST that
periodic, paralyzng fear that he may go to bed at
night and awaken TO find his whole years labor
chilled to death bX-s sudden frost The cumulative
despair of losing three or four fruit crops in
cesson that has put fruit growers out of business
and made them dependent on charity or day labor
Is past An orchard with reasonably industrious
and prOyidcnt owner can be made to yield aver
age crop every season far the frost is
cerned. Scientific frost fighting with fire is as
much n fact aS seed testing, irrigation fcrtzing
spraying or pruning Ii is the last and greatest
advance in systematic horticulture, and has placed
the fruit grower abreast of the scientific farmer
Since the beginning of commercial horticulture
the fruit grower has been at the mercy of the clc-
ments He made all his calculations, all his plans,
Il
hone that the frost would miss him. And before
the development of orchard heating the chances
against him getting worse in the frost belt.
in the modern commercial orchard, the land, ma
chinery, labor spraying equipment and cultivation
total as heavy an investment as many manufacture
ing enterprises. And when two or three crops in
succession wiped out by frost, the average
grower was completely bankrupt.
Smudging or the formation of dense blanket
of smoke over the orchard, had been praCtiCcd with
varying degrees of success in some parts of Europe.
Orchard heating proper first used in Cator-
MIA, and the original California Smudge pot is still
successfully employed i'm many orchards. I'm the
spring of 1910 several growers in the Grand valley
Of Colorado Experimental with the burning of oil
In simple pots of the lard pail" type, with the
result that they saved their entire crop on the heat
ed areas and lost il on the uuhcatcd tracts. The
spring of 1911 the adoption of the smudgc pots
every fruit section of the state, and they
reached the experimental stage in several other
states. In the spring of 1912 there not fruit
growing state without them and many sections
of several states were rs fully equipped as Colo
RADIO.
Frost fighting is not an easy job. 1t is neccS-
sary to have n force of men, industrious and care
full and observing TO the last degree. And IL Is no
pleasant task To rush out into the still cold dark
ness to drudge the better part of the night to
your own or your neghbor's orchard In the early
days of orchard heating man detailed To
watch the tested thermometers that were hung In
different parts of the orchard and at the farm
house some distance away from the fruit trees.
If the temperature was not sinking fast, perhaps
the rancher went to bed for brief nap setting his
alarm clock To wake him at intervals through the
night Nowadays ne can go To bed with n feeling
OF security leaving the frost alarm thermometer
40 watch for him. This electric watchman has for
It's business end in the orchard specially made
thermometer, with fine platinum wire fused into
the mercury at the freezing point or at whatever
SIS considered the danger point. AS soon as the
mercury sinks below this wire the circuit is broken
and the alarm at the head of the orchard boss
bed rings out its warning. Any interruption Of
che current causes the bell to ring so that If the
apparatus should be put out of order 1t automat-
icaIly tells on itself
But the orchardst is usually forewarned. even
before he goes To bed. and makes ready for the
fray. Late In the afternoon he notices great eecy