The Rhode Island Republican

A method to preserve fruit trees from the effect of frost.
The chevalier de Bierenberg, of Prague, we are told, discovered a method of effectually preserving trees in blossom, from the fatal effects of those frosts, which sometimes in the spring destroy the most promising hopes of a plentiful crop of fruit. This method is extremely simple. He surrounds the trunks of the trees in blossom, with a wisp of straw or hemp. The end of this he sinks, by means of a stone tied to it, in a vessel of spring water, at a little distance from the tree. One vessel will conveniently serve two trees. Or the cord may be lengthened, so as to surround several, before it is plunged into the water. It is necessary that the vessel be placed in an open situation, and by no means shaded by the branches of the neighbouring trees, that the frost may produce all its effects on the water, by the cord communicating with it. This precaution is particularly necessary for those trees whose flowers appear nearly at the same time as their leaves; which trees are peculiarly exposed to the ravages of the frosts.
The proofs of its efficacy, which he had an opportunity of observing in the spring of 1736, were remarkably striking. Seven apricot espaliers in his garden, began to blossom about the first of March. Fearing that they would suffer from the late frosts, he surrounded them with cords as above directed. Pretty sharp frosts took place six or eight nights. The apricot trees in the neighbouring gardens were all frozen, and none of them produced any fruit; whilst each of the chevalier's produced fruit in abundance which came to the greatest perfection.