Singed to the Tip

The cold wave hurt most in Florida, frost-singed nearly to its tip. Since December, southern Florida has had six freezes (three more than in any year since records began some 90 years ago), and weathermen are marking this as the state's worst winter.

With an estimated 75% of their midwinter vegetable crop irretrievably gone, Dade County farmers ruefully reckoned losses at $25 to $30 million, hoped that the remaining 25% would not be lost. The effect was quickly felt in scanty offerings, high prices at fresh-vegetable counters in the North and East. In January a year ago, 1,787 railroad carloads of Florida-grown fresh beans, spinach, corn, new potatoes, tomatoes and other vegetables moved to market. Last month the flow was 736 carloads.

Smoke for Heat. Many fought back at the cold. Around the Lake Okeechobee area, vegetable growers tried desperately to warm the land by raising the level of water in the canals, or plowing soil loosely over young tomato plants for insulation. Citrus growers, their groves all but stripped of fruit and leaves, lit smudge pots, and when these gave out, blackened the sky by burning old auto tires. Preliminary estimates of the citrus-crop loss, on the low side, showed that the expected 142,500,000-box yield of oranges, grapefruit and tangerines has been cut back to 119,400,000 boxes. Federal and state laws prohibit selling as fresh any fruit that falls to the ground, but some growers hid damaged fruit under a layer of good fruit to smuggle it past inspectors and take advantage of premium prices farther north.

Cattlemen also were hard hit. In recent years Florida's year-round pasturage, which normally eliminates the need of laying by hay and feed for winter, has helped make the state an important beef producer. Last week Florida's 1,400,000 head of Brahmas, Santa Gertrudis, Herefords and Aberdeen-Anguses were so weakened by malnutrition and weeks of slushing around in soggy pastures that cattlemen feared deaths would reach 270,000. Deaths already had decimated Collier County's 25,000 herd, and the area's spring calf crop was expected to be only 10 to 15 liveborn calves per 100 cows, v. 75 in normal years. A pilot who flew over the ranch area said he saw dead and dying cattle "in every direction. It is a field day for the buzzards."

Thicker than Salve. In Miami, the gloom was thicker than the anti-sunburn salve of good years. With many a smaller hotel discreetly advertising steam heat, the bigger hotels plugged morning movies and bridge tournaments for guests unable to stay outside, reported business off 20% to 30%. But some hotelmen quickly slashed rates, even offered free airline transportation for wives. Miami hoped there might still be a long late season, if the weather should moderate. But last week the new 30-day long-range weather forecast predicted subnormal temperatures through mid-March.

"We may keep on getting one cold spell after another for a long time," warned Miami's U.S. Weatherman Leonard Pardue. "The cold air is piled up a mile high in Canada, and it can keep right on coming down here. The best we can hope for for a while is a couple of sunny days at a time."

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