PREVENTING INJURY FROM LATE SPRING FROST 



BY SMUDGING. 



By A. H. Carson, Commissiorier of tke State Board of Horticulture, 



Third District. 



There are a few fruit-growers yet who have not faith that fruit can 

 be saved from a late spring frost during the blooming period by building 

 fires in the orchard during cold nights. 



The success had in and about Medford, Grants Pass and Roseburg 

 the past three seisons by fruit-growers in using smudge-pots to save 

 their fruit from frost has been so sure that one without faith in their 

 virtue should surely become convinced by this time. In all cases where 

 the grower has used the smudge-pot, and fired his orchard at these 

 places he has preventecl ir.jury and had a crop, while his neighbor 

 without faith or who has neglected to smudge has had severe losses 

 from freezing. 



The writer has had some experience in smudging on frosty nights, 

 and it is my purpose in this article to give that experience and Observa- 

 tion had during the spring of 1887. In 1885 I had several acres in 

 peaches that bloorned heavily, and during the latter part of April of 

 that year, after the young peaches had shed the calyx, a heavy freeze 

 occurred on April 28th, and every peach in the orchard was frozen. 



In 1886 the same climatic conditions existed, and again I lost all 

 my peaches, on the morning of May 2nd, that year. This was dis- 

 couraging — my year's labor with this fine young orchard blighted in 

 a night by frost. I resolved that the next year, 1887, if my peach 

 trees bloorned and it proved a frosty spring, to try and save the crop by 

 smudging. This was long before oil-pots were thought of. 



In the spring of 1887 my peach trees bloorned freely as well as 

 early, I having made a record for that year of noting the first bloom on 

 March lOth. This was a frosty year, and I got ready to smudge my 

 peach orchard by getting up pitch wood, hauling coarse barnyard litter 

 into the orchard, and saving the prunings from the orchard in case 

 I had to fire. During March, after I noted the first bloom, the month 

 remained moist and warm, and these conditions continued until the 

 lOth of April, when it cleared up with the wind in the north-west, 

 promising a sharp frost that night. I was prepared to smudge. I set 

 the alarm clock for 2 a. m. and at that time went out to note weather 

 conditions and the temperature given by several thermometers I had 

 in various parts of the orchard. On the lowest level in the orchard I 

 found the temperature to be 33 degrees, while one thermometer, about 

 100 feet higher, recorded at that hour 34 degrees. This was getting to 

 a very dangerous temperature, as ice forms at 32 degrees. I carefully 

 watched the thermometer for quite a while, and noted that it did not 

 rise or fall, but seemed to be on a stand. I walked from this thermometer 

 to the one on the lower level and read it. I noticed it had gone up a 

 shade since first reading it at 2 a. m. The mercury rising at this time 

 indicated a change, although the stars overhead, and in the east were 



