HOW TO GROW AND MARKET FRUIT 



the orchard will save much fruit. Elevate the material on 

 screen wire and build the fire on a layer of earth in the bed 

 under it. Where the heating has to be done for several nights 

 in succession a mixture of tar, straw and sawdust will be found 

 good. The ingenuity of the man whose crop is threatened 

 can save him more dollars in this situation than in almost 

 any other which comes up. Things have to be done quickly, 

 and for every hour of time there are four hours' work. 



Orchard heaters, made of sheet iron, in various forms, 

 which burn coal, wood, or oil, always should be installed if 

 heating has to be done each year. The study of heating by 

 this method would make a book in itself. Get the catalogues 

 of heater manufacturers, compare their products, then buy 

 fifty or sixty or eighty heaters (one hundred or more if oil 

 heaters) for every acre you have to protect. Get more heaters 

 than you ever will need in one night. Put all the heaters in 

 position long before the time they will be needed. Have fuel 

 and everything else ready, then you can make your work effect- 

 ual. Tanks, sheds, fuel, buckets, torches, etc., also are needed. 

 It will cost from $500 to $800 to install and run for one year 

 a heating equipment for ten acres. 



A final word on artificial heating is this: With half-hearted 

 preparation you cannot save the crop, and you will be out 

 both the value of the fruit lost and the cost of the attempt 

 to save it. Remember that you cannot raise the temperature 

 of the air much by supplying actual heat because, however 

 hot the fire is, the heat from it will rush up above the trees 

 and will be replaced by colder air pushing in from the sides. 



Ninety-five per cent of the influence you can exert on the 

 temperature will come from supplying moisture to the air, which 

 lowers the danger point, and from covering your trees with 

 dense smoke, thus preventing quick thawing. These two pro- 

 cesses will accomplish the purpose if given a chance, but do 

 not imagine that you are "warming all out-of-doors," as a great 

 many people say. In some parts of the West a light spraying 

 of water while fires are burning helps to protect trees. Spray- 

 ing trees with whitewash in winter helps protect trees against 

 sun scald, winter damage and spring frosts. 



The mulching of trees while snow still is on the ground, 

 to delay blossoming, is advised sometimes. A mulch that is 

 thick enough will keep the ground frozen as long as two weeks 

 after grass gets green on sunny places, but the leafing-out and 

 blossoming of the mulched trees will not be delayed more than 

 three or four days. The reason is that the first growth in spring 

 the first leaves and blossoms is not fed from the roots, but 

 comes directly from food stored in the wood of the trees. 



You can prove this by pulling into a warm room in mid- 

 winter a branch of a tree which stands close to the window. 

 Stop up the hole around the limb. In a week or two buds will 

 begin to swell on the part of the branch inside, and in a month 

 blossoms will open, even though the snow may be four feet 

 deep outside. Or break off a twig bearing fruit buds, in winter, 

 and put it in water in a warm, light room. It will bloom. 



52 



