GIVE MORE ATTENTION TO FRUIT 173 



are not frosted while budding. A cheap oil heater is 

 made for this work. The total expense of providing 

 heaters for an orchard of ten acres would not exceed 

 $300. They would not be used more than two or three 

 nights in the year, and therefore the outlay for oil would 

 be trifling. 



Another excellent plan that I have tried is to raise the 

 temperature on a cold night with smudge fires. This 

 is only necessary when a freeze sets in after the trees 

 have shown their blossoms. A little ridge of dry manure 

 or rubbish should be placed around the orchard, or at 

 least on the windward side, with possibly a line or two 

 of it through the center, in case of a sharp frost. The 

 material to be burned is to be almost covered with dirt, 

 in order to make a slow flame. In the evening, if it looks 

 like a frosty night, start the fires and keep the tempera- 

 ture up to the point of safety. This may be a sort of 

 mean job for a night or two, but the result will justify 

 the effort — and it is a job that may not have to be per- 

 formed more than once in five years. Keep a thermome- 

 ter in the orchard. 



Frost is so apt to come during the budding period, that 

 farmers and orchardists have a keen appreciation of the 

 danger which confronts them, and yet few have any 

 definite method of guarding their interests in this par- 

 ticular. Thousands of neglected and worthless orchards 

 in the middle west, particularly in the lake regions, show 

 that owners have become discouraged through periodical 

 losses. When we consider that an acre of fruit is worth 

 from $200 to $400, the trouble of keeping up a few little 

 fires around the orchard for six or eight hours seems 

 trifling. 



Spraying the trees in October and during the budding 

 period in the spring is necessary to keep the orchard free 

 of insect pests, which are ruinous if allowed to work. 

 Pruning is another essential to give the trees uniformity 



