Evening Republican, Volume 20, Number 270, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 10 November 1916 — Page 3

SAVING FRUIT FROM FROST

How up-to-date orchardists protect their crops and laugh at Vie ghost of bankruptcy by using smudge pots to drive. away killing cold during the blossoming period : : : : •

By Robert H. Moulton.

ITHIN the last two yeayrs another and a greater triumph of scientific horticulture has arrived; another natural enemy of the things that grow and bring forth fruit has been vanquished. Jack Frost, long king of the fruit crop, has been dethroned. Fruit growers have literally built millions of fires under him, and burned him out. Scientific orchard heating has made it possible to raise the

temperature of a 200-acre orchard ten to fifteen degrees with as much certainty as the janitor can heat the city man’s flat. It takes somewhat more labor than the last mentioned process, but the satisfaction and the profits of ’’heating all outdoors” are surpassingly greater. Frost , insurance for the fruit crop is now just as practicable, just as certain, and vastly more profitable for the money expended than either fire or life Insurance. Insurance by fire for the fruit grower makes vastly greater profits at a 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 year and a half have banished from the fruit grower that annual early spring nervous prostration from fear of frost; that periodic, paralyzing fear that he may go to bed at night and awaken to find his whole year’s labor chilled to death by a sudden frost. The cumulative despair of losing three or four fruit crops in succession that has put fruit growers out of business and made them dependent on charity or day labor is past. An orchard with a reasonably industrious and provident owner can be made to yield an average crop every season so far as the frost is concerned. Scientific frost fighting with fire is as much a fact as seed testing, irrigation, fertilizing, spraying or pruning. It is the last and greatest advance in systematic horticulture, and has placed < the fruit grower abreast of the scientific farmer. J Since, the beginning of commercial horticulture, the fruit grower has been at the mercy of the elements. He ipade all his calculations, all his plans, all his business arrangements contingent on the hope that the frost would miss him. And before the development 01 orchard heating the chances against him were getting worse In the frost belt. In the modern, commercial orchard, the land, machinery, labor, spraying equipment and cultivation total as heavy an investment as many manufacturing enterprises. And when two or three crops in succession weie wiped out by frost, the average grower was completely bankrupt. Smudging, or the formation of a dense blanket of smoke over the orchard, had been practiced with varying degrees of success in some parts of Europe. Orchard heating proper was first used in California, 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 pail” type, with the result that they saved their entire crop on the heated areas and lost.it 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 a fruit growing state without them, and many sections of several states were as fully equipped as Colorado. Frost fighting is not an easy job. It is necessary to have a force of men, industrious and careful and observing to the last degree. And it is no pleasant task to rush out into the still, cold dark* ness to drudge the better part of the night to save your own or your neighbor’s orchard. In the early days of orchard heating, a man was detailed to watch the tested thermometers that were hung In different parts of the orchard and at the farmhouse some distance away from the fruit trees. If the temperature was not sinking fast, perhaps the rancher went to bed for a brief nap, setting his alarm clock to wake him at 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 watchman has for its business end in the orchard a specially made thermometer, with a fine platinum wire fused into the mercury at the freezing point or at whatever is 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 warning. Any interruption of the current causes the bell to ring so that if thd apparatus should be put out of order it automatically tells on itself. But the orchardlst is usually forewarned, even before he goes to bed, and makes ready for the fray. Late in the afternoon he notices great fleecy

clouds hurrying from the northwest, chased by a bitter wind which seems to have been Intended for January, rather than this April night. He goes to the post office for the day’s mall and in every window sees the warning of the diligent local government weather forecast: “Freezing temperature tonight.” By seven o’clock the government thermometer is at 37 and falling fast. As 7:30 o clock 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 32, his alarm begins to ring and he knows that King Frost with his icy-fingered warriors is marching on the camp. Steam whistles are beginning to shriek all through the valley to warn the growers of the all-night siege. Farm wagons laden witjh coal and oil rattle past, giving evidence that the laggards who have been hoping to the last, are beginning to get their heating machinery into action. Already the early ones are firing heavily. Clouds of smoke hang low’ over 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 a gasoline can to aid in quick lighting in the other. Dashing a few drops of gasoline 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 a trail of smoke and fire behind them. In fifteen minutes each man has his tract of orchard transformed into a sea of flame under a cloud of smoke. Then comes the first period of rest. The men gather in the packing house or barn, for lunch or Asmoke, making occasional trips to the thermometers to see that the fire is doing its work. By 9:30 o’clock the thermometers outside the orchard register 28, and those in the area of heat show a comfortable 37. Then the frost fighters know that the battle is half won, for keeping up the temperature is a good deal easier than raising ItT when it has once reached the limit. The rest is a matter of vigilance. If the heater is of the regulated type, with enough fuel to burn through the night or longer, a few men are left to watch and open the burners wider if a later sudden fall of temperature shows that more fire Is needed. If the heaters are of the uniform single-burner type, they may need to be refilled w’hen they are nearly burned out, if the frost battalion should come back for another charge. The outside thermometers drop to 24, and those in the orchard stdnd at 30, the danger mark of the orchard frost fighter. The heaters are opened wider, or refilled if burning low, and the mercury shoots up to 33. The eight degrees of frost has been driven away, and if the oil sppply is plentiful, and the labor unflagging, the orbhardist may now consider the battle won. When the sun has shed his rays over the trees long enough to make the outside temperature more nearly that of the orchard, the heaters are shut off by merely putting on the covers. Heating in the spring of 1911 was much Easier than that of the year before, and proved more conclusively than ever the effectiveness of the fires. The crop in the Colorado fruit area for 1911 averaged about 55 per cent. The unheated orchards

THE" EVENING REPUBLICAN, RENSSELAER, IND.

yielded from 20 to 75 per cent of a crop, while the yield of the protected orchards was from 95 to 100 per cent, so heavy that thinning was necessary in many of them. Individual testimony to the efficiency of rrchard heating in every fruit growing state cduld be rtiultiplied indefinitely. Fruit crops valued at $250 to $750 an acre were frequently saved at a cost of seven to ten dollars an acre. One Colorado grower, for Instance, with 50 heatens to the acre raised the temperature of his 40-acre orchard from 18 to 28 degrees and produced 41 carloads of apples. One of the most remarkable stories of heater success comes frond Missouri. A 240-acre orchard located in a deep valley had suffered severely from frost every year and had not produced a full crop for 14 years. Against the advice of all wise-acres, tw’O brothers from Kansas City bought it, and equipped it with 5,000 heaters of the controlled or graduated type. With 35 or 40 pots to the acre, the firing was done for four nights at the time the apples were in bloom. They harvested a crop of 15,000 barrels, valued at $45,000, and it was the only crop in that fruit-growing territory. The net profit on each acre approximated S2OO. The first cost of installing an oil-heating plant is higher than for a coal or w’ood outfit, but the results in time saved and efficiency gained have made it the most popular fuel. Oil can be obtained in quantity at prices ranging from four to seven cents a gallon, and it makes a quick, strong and easily controlled heat. One man can care for from three to five acres of orchard for four or five hours and this is about as long as it will be necessary to burn under ordinary frost conditions. The prices of the oil heaters range from twelve cents for a simple “lard-pail” type to 45 cents for one of the controlled fire-area type, holding there gallons and burning at full capacity for ten or twelve hours, or even longer if regulated for a smaller blaze.

MONKEY FLESH HIS ONLY MEAT.

Too proud to beg, and finding himself on the verge of starvation because of the impoverishment of his noble family in Europe, Count Franz Lazarinni, a remittance man well known in Central America, went to a jungTe near Managua, Nicaragua, and kept himself alive for five months by eating monkey flesh and roots and berries, according to reports to marine corps headquarters there. A party of United States marines while on a big game hunting expedition discovered the titled foreigner and took him back to the Nicaraguan capital. The count, half starved and nearly mdd I e cause of the privation he had suffered, fought h>.s rescuers and begged them to let him remain in ths jungle, the reports say. The marines overpowers him, however and are now attempting to nurse him back to health and reason at their commodious bar racks in the American legation.

Tree Stump as Lamp-Post.

In a Pasadena, Cal., front yard there stands an old sycamore stump about ten feet high. Near the top are the stubs of two branches. The owner of the property lately conceived the idea of using the stump for a lamp-post, and in the top at the end of each Pranch hejhas placed electric light bulbs, connected with the powerhouse in the usual way. The, result has been picturesque in the extreme, especially on a very dark night

Life's Little Worries.

Life is a tender thing and is easily molested. There is altgays something that goes amiss. Vain vexations —vain sometimes, but always vexations. The smallest and slightest impediments are the most piercing; and as little letters most tire the eyes, so do little affairs moat disturb us.—Mon< talgne. -

TRAINING TODAY’S BOYS AND GIRLS

Children. Are Neither Angels Nor the Opposite. THEIR IS IMITATIVE At First, Whatever They Do Is Quite Without Any Moral Blflnlflcanco ' and Often Results From Purely Instinctive Impulses. By SIDONIE M. GRUENBERQ. DONALD and Louise, cousins sevt eral times removed, were becoming acquainted for the first time while Donald was visiting the city with his mother. They were getting along beautifully, Louise’s mother observed. They were playing railroad with the chairs and hassocks. “Don’t move that!” shouted Donald, “You’ll get right in front of the train I” Louise continued to push the chair against which she was leaning. "Don’t do that!” repeated Donald, with a little more warmth. The chair moved over about half a yard. Bang! Louise rolled over as if struck by an automobile. She had been struck by Donald Instead. Up jumped the mothers. “You naughty boy!” came from both, as though they had rehearsed for the chorus. Louise did not make a demonstration of severe, suffering, so they were able to give all of their attention to the naughty boy. “Who would ever have thought it of him?” asked the girl’s mother, not expecting any one to answer her. And Donald really did not look very vicious, with his pale hair and eyes, and soft voice and shrinking manner. Certainly his mother had never thought him capable of so violent and so ungallant a deed. But there could be no mistake; he had pushed Louise over very roughly, very unkindly, almost -cruelly, And Louise, standing by her mother’s side, a picture of injured innocence, was absorbing the warm sympathy of The elders and gloating in the discomfiture of the naughty boy. Her mother already knew how angelic she was, and now Donald’s mother w’as finding out.

Donald’s mother had always supposed that her child was an angel too, and she could not understand what had happened to change him. A prestige of primitive superstition popped into her head, and she reflected that having been “too good” for so long, he was about to even things up by giving the devil the upper hand for a while. Louise’s mother did not seem to wonder at all. She knew that her child was one of the angelic kind, and now she saw that Donald was

tl}e other kind. The fact is that Donald was just as angelic as Louise, and just as angelic as he had ever been. Louise explained that she had only moved the chair; yet Donald had not only told her —at least twice—not to do So, but he had very good reason on his side. “She put that pile of wood right in front of where the train was coming, and it would have been wrecked and all the people killed.” Any boy who would

Goes Through the Motions of Lighting a Pipe and Puffing Clouds of Smoke. hesitate to use violence In such an emergency is not quite enough of a boy for the practical affairs of life. When all the facts in the case are ‘considered one is tempted to suspect that Louise was actuated by the imp of perversity and that Donald was moved by a finer spirit. However, his conduct was unbecoming a gentleman, and Louise had only moved the chair. It is still the usual thing to look upon children as embodiments of one or the other of the two conflicting spirit of right and wrong. Too many of us think that a child is either an angel or a devil, and that our chief concern in life is to adore these of the second. One thing that modern studies In child nature has taught us is that young children are neither virtuous nor wicked; they are not moral, and they are *pot “immoral.” They do many things that are quite acceptable to older people, and even pleasing. And they do many things that are decidedly objectionable. But whatever they do is—at least at first —without any moral significance. / Much of the young child’s conduct is Imitative. When a boy goes through the motion of lighting a pipe and puffing clouds of smoke toward the gelling you cannot believe that he has

begun his descent to perdition, no mat* ter what you think of smoking in gate* eral or of your curtains in particular. On the other hand, when a little girt begs for pennies -to give to the blind to the grind-organ man you have n'o warrant for assuming that site Is a natural-born philanthropist, no matter what your views on charity. Much of the young child's conduct results frdm purely instinctive impulses. “So every child will He under suitable provocation, without thereby indicating a streak of untruthfulnes*; or Louise may do just what she is told not to do without yielding altogether to the demon of unrighteousness. A woman recently asked: "Do you believe In the spiritual Interpretation of child nature, or In the scientific interpretation?” This question assumes that there is a conflict between scientific truth and spiritual truth. It is a mistake to assume that the lack of certain “spiritual” qualities is a “spiritual” explanation of a child’s conduct. The scientists have shown that the ability to choose one’s actions, and the consciousness of purpose and of consequences, develop very slowly in the child’s mind. Until there is consciousness of right and wrong, and until the child is quite able to choose what he does and what he does not do, it useless to speak of the moral qualit of his acts, no matter what their ao-

When a Little Girl Beg* Pennies for the Grind-Organ Man, ft Does Not Mean She Is a Natural-Bom Philanthropist. tual consequences maybeorhow they harmonize with our notion of what ought to be done. To say that a child’s conduct is unmoral does not take from him the possibility of spiritual development On the contrary, the assumption that the child is a moral being would seem to leave nothing for growth. The sense of righteousness and the feeling of guilt are not born in the child; they have to be achieved through trial and suffering.

HER MOTHER LOVE SUPREME

Aged Woman's Pathetic Defense es Worthless Son a Miracle of Loyal Affection. Joe had violently quarreled with a woman, the proprietor of the house in which his disreputable wife lived, because she withheld from him a part of his wife’s earnings, and in the altercation had killed her —a situation, one would say, which it would be difficult for even a mother to condone. But not at all; her thin gray face worked with emotion, her trembling hands restlessly pulled at her shabby skirt as the hands of the dying pluck at the sheets, but she put all the vitality she could muster into his defense. She told us he had legally married the girl who supported him, “although Lily had been so long in that life that few men would have done it; of course such a girl must have a protector or everybody would fleece her; poor Lily said to the day of her death that he was the kindest man she ever knew, and treated her the whitest; that she herself was to blame for the murder because she told on the old miser, and Joe was so hot-headed she might have known that he would draw a gun for her.” The gasping mother concluded, “He was always that handsome and had such a way. One winter when I was scrubbing in an office building I’d never get home much before twelve o’clock, but Joe would open the door for me just as pleasant as if he hadn’t been waked out of a sound sleep.” She was •so triumphantly unconscious of the incongruity of a sturdy son in bed while his mother earned his food, that her auditors said never a word, and iiL silence we saw a hero evolved before our eyes; a defender of the oppressed, the best beloved of his mother, who was losing his high spirits and eating his heart out behind prison bars. He could well defy the world even there, surrounded as he was by that invincible affection which assures both the fortunate and unfortunate, alike that we are loved, not according to our deserts, but in response to some profounder law. —Jane Addams, in the Atlantic.

Definite.

Stranger—How many machines pass here a day? Farmer —I couldn’t tell ye, exactly, sir! Tourist—Oh, about how many? Farmer —It all depends. Tourist—Well, on the average? Farmer—Well, stranger, the average varies.— 9

Another Objection.

“Then you didn’t take the house?’* “No." “But I thought it just suited you, had enough closets, bright rooms and all.” “It did, but my wife thought It was too far from a movie theater.” —Louis* ville Courier-Journal. ■-