The L'Anse sentinel. (L'Anse, L.S., Mich.) 18??-current, 1916-11-04

temperature of n 200-acre orchard ten to ff-
teen degrees with much certainty the
janitor heat the city mans fiat. 1t takes some
what more labor than the last mentioned process,
but the satisfaction and the profits of heating all
outdoors are surprisingly greater. Frost insur-
ance for the fruit crop Is now just practicable,
just as certain, and vastly more profitable for the
money expended than eithef fire or life insurance
Insurance by fire for the fruit grower makes
vastly greater profits ut 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 a half have
banished from the fruit grower that annual early
spring nervous prostraton from fear of frost that
periodic, paralyzng fear that he may go to bed ut
night and awaken to find his whole years labor
chilled to death by sudden frost The cumulative
despair Of losing three or four fruit crops in sue
cesson that has put fruit growers out of business
and made them dependent charity or day labor
is past. An orchard with a reasonably industrious
and provident owner can be made to yield
age crop every season far the frost Is con-
cerned Scientific frost fighting with fire is
much fact as seed testing, irrigation, fertizing
spraying or pruning 1t 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 ele
ments. He made all his calculations, all his plans,
all his business arrangements contingent on the
hope that the frost would miss him. And before
the development of orchard heating the chances
against him were getting worse In the frost belt.
in the modern, commercial orchard, the land ma
chnery, labor, spraying equipment and cultivation
total as heavy an investment many manufacture
ing enterprises And when two three crops in
succession were wiped out by FROST the average
grower completely bankrupt.
Smudgng, or the formation of dense blanket
of smoke the orchard, had been practiced with
Syor yip ocnfcu i, nua no af
Orchard heating proper first used in Califor-
MIA, and the original California smudge pot is still
successfully employed in many orchards. In 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 the heat
ed areas and lost 1t on the unheated tracts. The
spring of 1911 saw the adoption Of the smudge pots
on every fruit section of the state, and they
reached the experimental stage in several other
states In the spring Of 1912 there was not fruit
growing state without them, and many sections
of several states were as fully equipped Colo
RADIO.
Frost fighting Is not easy job 1t is neces-
sary to have force of men, industrious and
full and observing to the last degree. And 1t 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 neighbours orchard. In the early
days of orchard heating, man was detailed to
watch the tested thermometers that were hung In
different parts of the ORCHARD and at the farm
house some distance aNky 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 ut intervals through the
night Nowadays he can go to bed with a feeling
of security leaving the frost alarm thermometer
to watch for him. This electric Waterman has for
Yts business end in the orchard specially made
thermometer, with fine platinum wire fused into
the mercury at the freezing point or at whatever
ts 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 warming. Any interruption Oh
Lho current causes the bell to ring so that IL the
apparatus should be put out of order 1t automat-
hcay tells on itself.
put the orchardist is usually forewarned. even
before he goes to bed. and makes ready for the
FRAY. kts In the afternoon he notices great heecy