FLORIDA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY 
67 
the sheet; my understanding is that it is 
a (slot piece) and wherever there is a 
seam, you get rust. And where you get 
rust, there is trouble with the heater sys¬ 
tem. 
I do believe that no man who has money 
invested in a grove can afford to take a 
risk and do without insurance of every 
kind. 
In my neighborhood, a man and his 
family worked all night long protecting 
their grove, and saved it only by their ef¬ 
forts. That was the turning point of that 
man’s life. If he had lost his grove, he 
would undoubtedly have been a poor man 
all the rest of his days; as it is, he has 
been a wealthy man ever since. You 
couldn’t tell him that orchard heating 
does not pay. 
Mr. Weeks: One other point ought 
to be brought out with regard to these 
heaters, and that is the covers. We have 
had some experience with heaters, we 
have had something like 20,000 of them. 
We have had more or less trouble with 
covers blowing off. We went to the ex¬ 
pense of having new covers made weigh¬ 
ing a little over a pound, yet we find there 
are currents of air that will blow those off, 
sometimes ten feet away from the fire. 
This new heater Mr. Skinner speaks of, 
there is a possibility of the cover being 
blown off. 
We have had to resort to the practice 
of putting dust on them; first we get 
bricks and put them around the trees, but 
they were distributed and scattered, so 
now we have men g'o around and put dirt 
on the covers. This has worked very nice¬ 
ly. Of course, it is a little more trouble, 
perhaps, but it serves the purpose. 
Mr. Skinner: They will send you 
another cover two inches longer, if you 
kick on it. I think it is one of the best 
fire pots I ever saw. 
Mr. Waite: We purchased National 
heaters about a year ago. Speaking of 
the value of fire in a grove, I think it was 
in 1905-06, we had a very cold winter and 
Mr. -conceived the idea of pro¬ 
tecting his grove with fire, and that winter 
he saved the trees. It would have taken 
us four years to grow the wood, if it had 
been lost, and get back that 32,000 boxes 
of fruit we saved. 
