The Monticellonian., 1916-10-26

clouds hurrying from the northwest chased by bitter wind which seems to have been intended for January, rather than this April night He goes the post office for tl.e days mail and in every window sees the warning of the dflgent local gov ernment weather forecast: Freezing temperature tonight" By o'clock the government ther- mometer is at 37 and falling fast. As 30 o'clock he telephones the weather man and gets the reply: Bitter cold all over the country temperature is already down to thirty-seven in many parts ef the valley and will drop twenty degrees on the western slope of Colorado tonight By eight o'clock fl has fallen to 32 his alarm begins to ring and he knows that King Frost with his iey-fngered warriors is marching on the camp. Steam whistles are beginning 10 shriek all through the valley to the growers of the all-night siege. Farm wagons laden with coal and oil rattle past giving evidence that the laggardS who have been hoping to the last, beginning to get their heating ma chnery into action. Already the early ones are firing heavily. Clouds of smoke hang low the trees and the little spots of fire beneath punctuate the hlackness with rays of hope.
 The orchard fremen dash for the trees torch in one hand. and gasoline to aid in quick lighting In the other. DashiHg few drops of gaSo- line the oil, they apply the torch and the blaze K Ut work The lighting is done fast as the men can walk through the orchard, leaving trail of smoke and fire behind them In fifteen min utes each man has his tract of orchard transformed into sea of flame under cloud of smoke
 Then comes the first period of rest. The men gather in the packing house or barn, for lunch CT smoke making occasional trips to the thermome- terS to see that the fire s doing it's work. By 9;30 o'clock the thermometers outside the orchard reg iSter 2S and those in the area of heat show com fortahe 37. Then the frost fighters know that the battle is half won, for keeping up the temperature k q good deal easier than raising il when it has once reached the limit The rest k a matter of vigilance If the heater k of the regulated type, with enough fuel to burn through the night or longer Il few men are left watch and open the burners wider if later sudden full of tempera
 ure shows that more fire k needed. If the heaters are of the uniform snsle-burner type, they may need to be FeiiiFd when they nearly burned out, if the frost battalion Shoud come back for another charge. The outside thermometers drop Fl and ttase in the orchard stand at 30 the danger mark ot the orchard frost fighter. The heaters opened wider. or reiiled if burning low, and the mercury shoots up to B The eight degrees of frost has been driven away, and if the oil supply is plentiful, and the labor unnugging the orehardst may HON consider the battle won. When the has shed hS rays over the trees long enough to make fhe outside temperature more nearly that of the orchard, the heaters are shut off by merely putting the covers.
 Heating in the spring of 1911 much easier than that of the year before, and proved more con clusiyely than the effectiveness of the fires The crop in the Colorado fruit area for 1911 aver aged about D per cent The unheated orchards