58 
FLORIDA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY 
middle of November and taken down the 
middle of March, opened on all pleasant 
days. They were only closed up five times 
during the season. 
Mr. Mann—Can anyone explain to us. 
why it is, as seems to be a fact, that the 
temperature inside of a tent with the 
lamp is lower than it is outside at the 
same time ? 
Mr. Butler—I don't know about the 
tent business, but the first year we had 
sheds up I never found a single night in 
which the thermometer was not 30 de¬ 
grees in it, or lower. In many instances 
I found that the thermometer was as low 
inside as outside, and one night I found 
that it was a little lower. That is the 
way we stand with the thermometer. 
Those variations occur to a less or great¬ 
er extent. 
Mr. Mann—The tents were put on 
every alternate tree, and of course they 
could not test all of the grove; they 
could only test part of it. The trees 
outside of the tents were not injured; 
those inside of the tents were almost 
ruined. 
(Note by Secretary—The following re¬ 
marks were made later in the day, but 
are placed here in order to preserve con¬ 
tinuity of the discussion.) 
Mr. Hubbard—This afternoon I re¬ 
ceived corroboration of the statement 
that I made in regard to the 10th of 
April frost in 1835. It seems that one 
of the oldest inhabitants of St. Augustine 
—Mr. John Masters, who lived here all 
his life—was here at the time of the Sem¬ 
inole war, and died about a year ago 
over 90 years of age. He had a grove 
right north of the town and he told my 
informant a number of times that there 
was a second frost in 1835, in April, 
which did most damage to the orange 
trees which were full of sap and growing. 
Of course, with everything lush and 
growing, a heavy white frost, say 28 de¬ 
grees or even 30 degrees, would kill the 
sprouts and young trees. I thought it 
would be of interest to the Society to 
know that there were two freezes in 
1835. 
Mr. Mann—I would like to ask Mr. 
Hubbard if he learned in any of his in¬ 
quiries whether the winters following 
1:835 were cold winters as we have had 
for the last four or five years? I have 
been told that the freeze was followed 
by a series of cold winters. 
Mr. Hubbard—Well, I don’t remem¬ 
ber. There are several gaps in the rec¬ 
ords. Mr. Mitchell, the weather bureau 
director in Jacksonville, has compiled 
records from all the information he could 
get as to frosts, and I don’t remember 
now just how that was. By reference 
to the 1899 report of the Society, which 
contains the weather map of the historic 
freezes, and those records of Mr. Mitch¬ 
ell’s, one could follow it up pretty well. 
But there have been cold winters at in¬ 
tervals of five or six years since records 
have been kept. In a recent article in 
the Florida Agriculturist I showed the 
connection between cold winters and 
sun spots which have periods of five to 
six years. 
(Note—The article referred to by Mr. 
Hubbard is as follows:) 
SUN SPOTS AND FREEZES. 
Sir Norman Lockyer, the eminent as¬ 
tronomer, in a recent article, quotes the 
following table that has been prepared 
by meteorologists who have been study¬ 
ing the effects of the eleven-year periods 
