116 ON THE POSSIBILITY OF PREVENTING DAMAGES BY FROST. 



Recognizing the importance of drainage as diminishing the 

 danger of frost, the Government has set apart funds from 

 which cheap loans are given for the special purpose of giving 

 the farmers an opportunity of getting their fields properly 

 drained. 



In Sweden the Government has taken similar steps. Last 

 year for instance a sum of £23,000 was voted by the Riksdag 

 for the current year for loans to be used for draining purposes, 

 and for diminishing the frost danger, and every year a sum of 

 £56,000 is placed to a fund from which small farmers get 

 loans at 3 per cent, interest, and to the amount of 70 per cent. 

 of the value of the proposed improvements. 



For nearly a century the Finnish Society of Science has 

 through interested persons in every part of the country been 

 making phenological observations which are of great impoTtance 

 in connection with the frost question, as showing the season of 

 growth and the effects of the climate not only on the indigenous 

 vegetation but also on the cultivated plants. In Sweden too 

 similar phenological data have for a long time been available. 



A co-operative company was established a few years ago in 

 Stockholm insuring against damages by frost, and this has 

 proved ta be a thorough success. 



SUGGESTIONS. 



As far as is known to the writer very little has been done in 

 Australia in connection with the study of frost phenomena or 

 with regard to practical attempts to prevent damages by night- 

 frosts. Last year the late manager of the Biggenden State 

 Farm, Mr. H. A. Tardent, strongly advocated in the papers the 

 use of smoke as a frost preventive, and experiments were subse- 

 quently made on the sugar fields of the Isis district. However 

 lack of confidence in the method and insufficient co-operation 

 between the neighbours seemed to have caused, if not a failure, 

 at least not a satisfactory result. 



Co-operation is the great word in all matters connected 

 with modern agriculture. If all the farmers in a neighbourhood 

 combine, and after getting sufficient information from a meteor- 

 ologist make up their minds to fight their common enemy, the 

 frost, there is no doubt they could with a very small outlay save 

 a considerable sum. But without co-operation, no success. 



In the future we shall have legislation to the effect that 

 nobody must neglect his duty if he thereby injures his neighbour, 



