Eagle River review. [volume] (Eagle River, Wis.) 1890-1927, 1916-10-27
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clouds hurfying from the northwest chased by
bitter wind which seems to have. been intended
for January rather than this April night. He goes
to the post office for the days mail and in every
window sees the warning of the diigent local gov
eminent weather forecast: Freezing temperature
tonight" BY seven o'clock the government ther-
mometer is at 81 and falling fast. AS 80 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 of the
valley and will drop to twenty degrees on the
western slope of Colorado tonight" BY eight
o'clock it has fallen to 49, his alarm begins to ring
and he knows that King Frost with his icy-fngered
warriors is marching on the camp Steam whistles
are beginning to shrek all through the valley to
warn the growers of the al-night siege. Farm
wagons laden with coal and oil rattle past, giving
evidence that the laggards who have been hoping
the last beginning to get their heating ma
chinery 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 blackness with rays of hope
The orchard firemen dash for the trees a torch
in one hand, and gasoline can to aid in quick
lighting in the other. Dashing few drops of gaso-
line on the OIL they apply the torch and the blaze
is at work. The lighting is done as fast as the
men can walk through the orchard, leaving trail
of smoke and fire behind them. In fifteen min
utes each has his tract,of orchard transformed
into sea of flame under a cloud of smoke.
gather i'm the packing house barn, for lunch or
smoke, making occasional trips to the thermome-
to that the fire is doing it's work By $3.50
o'clock the thermometers outside the orchard reg
lister %, and those in the area of heat show
Portable 81. Then the frost fighters know that the
battle is half won, for keeping up the temperature
is good deal easier than raising it when it has
once reached the limit. The rest is matter of
vigilance. IL the heater is of the regulated type.
with enough fuel to burn through the night or
longer, few men are left to watch and open
the burners wider if later sudden fall of tempera-
ture shows that fire is needed If the heaters
are of the uniform single-burner type, they may
need to be relied when they nearly burned out
if the frost battalion should come back for another
charge. The outside thermometers drop to "A, and
those in the orchard stand at 80, the danger mark
of the orchard frost fighter. The heaters
opened wider or reflled if burning low, and the
mercury shoots up to 80. The eight degrees of
frost has been driven away, and if the oil supply is
plentiful and the labor unfagging, the orchardist
may now consider the battle won. When the
make the outside temperature more nearly that of
the orchard, the heaters shut off by merely
putting on the covers
Heating in the spring of 1911 much easier
than that OF the year before and proved more con-
clusively than the effectiveness of the fires.
aged about 55 per cent. The unheated orchards