SOUTHERN HORIZONS 



The ruddy-faced octogenarian, Harry Bennett, again 

 steps forth spryly as leader of the frost fighters. During 

 the 1939 bloom, when his radio warned him of a killing 

 frost, he flew a plane low over his groves, stirring up the 

 currents so that the cold air could not settle. He saved 

 his crop amid heavy losses among his neighbors. He 

 could not stave off the 1943 frost this way because the 

 Army, reasonably enough, had prohibited night flying 

 by civilian planes; but Bennett has other ideas. 



"Why can't we lick the weather?" he asked me de- 

 fiantly. We were breakfasting in the cheery, bright- 

 colored dining room of his modernistic bungalow at 

 Tung Acres. He drained his third big cup of black 

 coffee and went on, "The plant experts are breeding 

 trees that bear more nuts and are more resistant to 

 frost. This will help. Why not steal an idea from the 

 Chemical Warfare Service and use some of their smoke 

 screens to dispel frost? What's the matter with spraying 

 the blossoms with a wax solution or some other chem- 

 ical frost preventive?" Having asked these questions, 

 Bennett is backing experiments to find the answers. 



"What a healthy, happy, prolific tung tree needs is no 

 longer a matter of by guess and by gosh," summed up 

 this energetic veteran. "All that expensive, discourag- 

 ing trying is done; proved in the grove. More nuts per 

 tree is also a demonstrated fact. Twenty years ago, one 

 thousand pounds of nuts per acre was good; today, the 

 target is a ton." 



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