118 The Principles of Fruit-growing. 



vision for joint action and quotes a letter from 

 their treasurer, in which it is stated that the cost 

 of guaranteeing two million vines for a year was 

 one and a quarter francs (twenty -five cents) per 

 thousand vines. He gives a letter from another 

 syndicate of sixty proprietors at Saussac, in the 

 Medoc, describing a successful attempt to keep the 

 frost from their vines on April 27, 1888. The wires 

 attaching the vines were coated with ice. It was 

 decided to light the smudges at two o'clock in 

 the morning, when one hundred and thirty were 

 lighted, placed at a distance apart of twelve meters 

 (a little under forty feet), thus extending along a 

 line one thousand five hundred and fifty meters (not 

 quite a mile) long. The report states that not only 

 the vineyards, but everything that frost ordinarily 

 destroys, fields of clover, potatoes, peas, everything, 

 in fact, covered by the cloud, from the line of 

 smudges extending back to a depth of three thou- 

 sand meters (say two and three -fourth miles), cover- 

 ing a surface of five hundred and fifty hectares (one 

 thousand three hundred and seventy -five acres), was 

 saved, while the fields not covered by the cloud suf- 

 fered from the effects of the frost on that same day. 

 The one hundred and thirty smudges were only two- 

 thirds burnt, and the cost was estimated at thirteen 

 centimes (less than three cents) a hectare (two and 

 one-half acres). Some of Lestout's correspondents 

 express the hope that a law will be passed pro- 

 viding that when two -thirds of the proprietors of 

 a district elect to form a syndicate, they will be 



