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Show 1 I HORTICULTURE I I SAVING THE FJRUIT CROP I FROM FROST. H Mr. Hamilton Tells His Experience H in Orchard Heating. , K The question of protecting the or- B chards from the late frosts should M they occur, by means of smudge pots H is at this time of the utmost import- H ancc to the orchardists of this valley. H Therefore, anything bearing on this M subject will be read with interest by H all. The following article on orchard H heating appeared in the last issue of B the Denver Field and Farm. It was M written by J. L. Hamilton, who gives H his experiences of last season in the H use of oil smudge pots in saving his H crop of fruit on his plaice near Grand H Junction. Mr. Hamilton 'writes: H "The results of my worlc were of H such a nature as to leave no doubt m as to the effectiveness of this sys- H tern. My orchard is made up of tyenty acres of bearing trees, principally prin-cipally apples, trees about fifteen years old, of good size and uniform, they arc but twenty feet' apart and the branches arc very close overhead, which made an ideal condition for smudging with heat. Late in the day of April 25th, I was very busy preparing pre-paring to save my crop from the freeze the weather 'bureau had warned warn-ed us was approaching and was due that night. Pcvious to that time no preparations had been made by anyone any-one in the Grand valley for smudging, as the winter had been cold, and the" spring ideal' in every respect. The" growers felt secure so far as any possible damage from frost might occur. oc-cur. This was my condition, but immediately imme-diately upon receipt of the warning I felt that to sit by and watch Us old Hun of the skies invade my orchard orch-ard and destroy my crop with no cf- fort on my part to interfere would end with results that I would not relish re-lish and I might feci that 1 could at least tried something. This I concluded con-cluded to do, and at once secured several hundred gallons of kerosene oil, cheaper oil not to be obtained at that time, and with this equipment set in the orchard and the pots filled' with oil, wc waited for the temperature tempera-ture to reach the danger point. In this wc had but a short time' to wait after preparations had been completed complet-ed and when the thermometer showed thirty degrees wc began firing. The entire field of pots was fired in about fifteen minutes, after which I care- fully noted the temperatures and made readings from five thermometers. I located two thermometers outside the heated zone and well away from any possible effect of radiation and three inside the heated zone, one in the middle and two near each edge or about the second tree row inside the heat. Within ten minutes after the pots were fired the mercury went up to 32 while on the outside the reading read-ing showed 29. At this time wc were burning but forty pots to the acre, and a reading made an hour later I I showed the outside temperature to be w 27 while inside it was 33. The pos ( M were lighted at 10:45 p. m. and burn- , I cd until about 6:45 a. m., or eight ! hours. The thermometer had ibeen 'n active on the outside going as low i as 23 for two hours and for thirty - I minutes it reached the low mark of 1 21. Wc had filled pots and refilled l pots during he night and consumed ! about 1,000 gallons of kerosene oil. Owing to the supply running low I. wc abandoned all but ten acres and on this plat wc made our stand for a finish fight. i 'Wc maintained a temperature all night in the heated area of 30 and J above excepting the 30-minutc per- 1 iod when the temperature outside ; reached the 21 mark it also went down in the heated area and1 reached ( j 28 for thirty minutes. All the damage I received on this ten acres was ac j this period and probably represented many hundred boxes of apples. The filling process was a vcry tedious and f-tiresome f-tiresome task and had my force of men been any other than, neighboring fruit growers bent on seeing the ex- II periment carried to success I would . J have lpst the entire force. The sun I rose on a vcry tired crew but also I on a good crop of fruit that had been saved from the frost. It had been a 1 hard task and had cost considerable 1 but the mark had been sot and the impossible thing had been accomplished. accom-plished. The next day I secured more pots and more oil and this same fight was maintained for six nights. jf "Three nights the pots were burn- m ctl for eight hours and the others JM for, shorter periods. The coldest time I; was always the hour just previous to I sunrise and the severest period' jus- I fifteen minutes before the sun cam, i I over the hill, and these were the pcr I iods we. most dreaded and fought th j hardest to overcome. Let it be borne j in mind that each and every point must be kept burning at this maxi- mum. It was one place where lag- j gards were not welcome. This re- j suit was attained only by constant and careful watching on the nights j we burned kerosene. . For the last I j three night I had a car of crude oil which relieved our work very much. The oil would burn from four to five I hours and I had provided an extra I set of pots so that in the event the first set of pots fired did not burn out the desired period, the second was lighted. I had this arrangement only with the crude oil and we had ; no night filling of pots." |
