APPENDIX. 273 



tematie attention mui^t be given to this as to other subjects, in order to 

 secure success. However, the following suggestions may be of value : 



Irrigation should be resorted to wherever possible. The water should be 

 turned on during the day preceding the night when frost is anticipated, and 

 continued until the ground is thoroughly saturated. 



In all sections it is recommended that either coal baskets or some method 

 for causing a wet smudge be used, or a combination of both. The coal 

 baskets will be found the more useful the drier the air and the greater the 

 excess in temperature thirty or forty feet from the ground, and near the 

 surface, as previously explained. For the purpose of determining this dif- 

 ference a pole forty or fifty feet long, with halyards, like a flagstaff, should 

 be erected in the orchard. Two thermometers should be attached to the 

 halyards, so that as one thermometer is at the top of the pole the other is 

 live feet from the surface. Leavu one thermometer at the top of the pole for 

 live minutes-; read the one near the ground, and then quickly lower and 

 read the one which has been at the top of the pole. 



When coal baskets are used there should be from twenty-five to fifty of 

 them used to the acre, depending on the intensity of cold, as described in 

 the reports of the Horticultural Club of Riverside. When the wet smudge 

 is used probably better results would be obtained from a combination of the 

 portable and stationary smudges. About one wagon or sled, arranged for 

 carrying an evaporating fire, should be provided for each fifty acres. In 

 addition, stationary smudges should be used. The material for these should 

 be prepared at the beginning of the frost season, and kept in readiness for 

 immediate use. Sacks filled with wet manure or bales of wet straw should 

 be distributed throughout the orchard. The sacks should be placed about 

 seventy-five feet apart each way, at the intersection of the rows. A smaller 

 number of bales of straw is necessary. Hollows should be dug a few inches 

 deep about each sack, and, if the sack becomes dry before being used, a 

 pailful of water should be poured upon it, which will remain in the hollow 

 near the sack .until absorbed. Whenever it is necessary to protect, an 

 effort should be made to determine the' direction in which the air drifts 

 across the orchard. And the sacks should be fired in rows running across 

 this draft, beginning at the windward side of the orchard. Every sack 

 should be ignited in the row, but only every third or fourth row need be 

 burned the first night : the remainder being available for succeeding nights. 

 In setting fire to the sacks, one man goes ahead with a pail of coal oil and 

 pours about a pint on each sack ; and another, following with a torch, ignites 

 them. In the meantime, portable smudges should be put in operation. 

 They should be driven forward and back between the rows and across the 

 drafts of the orchard. It is very desirable, if not essential, that the super- 

 intendent take a position on the most elevated point at his command, as the 

 top of a house, barn, water tank, or wdudmill, from which he can observe 

 the drift of the smudge and direct the movement of the teams so as to secure 

 the best results. 



It would seem that these precautions should be sufficient to prevent injury, 

 unless it be in the case of narrow valleys, where the cold air from the uupro- 

 18 



