The Monticellonian., 1916-10-26

<.>. Scientific orchard heating has - made t possible to raise the temperature of 200-aere orchard ten to ff teen degrees with much certainty as the janitor can heat the city mans flat. Ii takes some what more labor than the last mentioned process, but the satisfaction and the profits of heating all outdoors surprisingly greater. Frost insur- ance for the fruit crop is now just as practicable, just certain, and vastly more profitable for the money expended than either fire life insurance.
 Insurance by fire for the fruit grower makes vastly greater profits at much smaller expense than insurance against fire does for the merchant or manufacturer. The little outdoor oil stoves and coal furnaces that have been sold by the millions to orchard owners in the last yea and half have banished from the fruit grower that annual early spring prostration from fear of froSt that periodic paralyzing fear that he may 20 to bed at night and awaken to find his whole years labor chilled to death by Il sudden frost. The cumulative despair of losing three four fruit crops in sue cession that has put fruit growers out of business and made them dependent charity day labor is past An orchard with reasonably industrious and pfosident owner can be made to yield aver age crop every far the frost is cerned Scientific frost fighting with fire is much fact as seed testing, irrigation, fertilizng, spraying pruning It 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 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 chinery, labor spraying equipment and cultivation total as heavy an investment many manufactur- ing enterprises. And when two three crops in succession wiped out by frost. the average grower was completely bankrupt.
 Smudging the formation of dense blanket of smoke the orchard, had been praetieed with varying degrees of success in some parts of Europe Orchard heating proper first used in Cafor- nia 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 experimented with the burning of oil in simple pots of the lard pair type, with the result that they saved their entire crop on the heat ed areas and lost it on the unheated tracts. The spring of 1911 the adoption of the Smudge pots every fruit section of the state, and they reached the experimental stuge in several other states. In the spring of 1912 there not fruit growing state without them. and many sections of several states were as fully equipped as Cole rado.
 Frost fighting is not an easy job. It is neces- sary to have force of men industrious and care fu and observing to the Inst degree. Aud it k no pleasant task rush into the still, cold dark ness to drudge the better part of he night 10 save your own or your neighhatas orchard. In the early days of orchard heatas, naa WAS detailed 10 watch the tested thermometers that were hung in different parts of the orchard aad at the farm house some distance awav frem tne fruit trees If the temperature was pot =il&ing fast. perhaps the raneher went To bea for 's.ef uap ,ettiag his alarm clock to wake him fer5uiS through the night. Nowadays he can go fo= .,5 with feeling of security, leaving the frost aat .H thermometer to watch for him. This eleet6e Natrhm0n has for ifs n ftp rE tll aup thermometer with fine tlatiuEHi wiri= l~s I into the mercury at the freezing point or at whatever is considered the dan4ee point. As Seon as the mercury sinks below this wire the circuit k broken and the alarm 1t the had et the orchard boss bed rings out ifs warning, Any interruption of the current causes the bcH te ring so that if the apparatus should be put out of order it automat- ieally tells on itself.
 But the orcbardist is usually forewarued, even before he goes to bed. and makes ready for the fray Late in the afternoon he notices great heeey