Great Freeze

Temperatures had been low for a fortnight in Southern California when one afternoon last week the Federal Fruit Frost Service sent out a warning that during the night the mercury would dive farther below freezing than it had for 24 years. Frantic men with torches went rushing through the citrus groves lighting great smudge pots, from which billowed smoke to protect the trees from frost. Before morning, temperatures in many places had fallen through the 18DEG mark set by the 1922 freeze which ruined half the citrus crop. A temperature of 16DEG was reported near Los Angeles, of 12DEG in the Imperial Valley. Los Angeles awoke under a pall of smoke from millions of smudges. It was so dark that lights were burned till afternoon. San Diego had its first snowfall in history (the Government meteorologist described it as "soft hail"). A second night of low temperatures followed. Traffic crawled and tangled on the darkened roads, while hundreds of oil trucks were given the right of way, carrying fuel to the smudges. All this meant industrial tragedy to California's citrus fruit industry (save for oil, the biggest business in the State). The crop destruction had only one peer, the Great Freeze of 1913-In that year, according to tradition, "practically the entire crop" was destroyed. Actually, fruit shipments from California fell about 60%. Last week first guesses were that the Freeze of 1937 had ruined at least half the crop.

On the basis of a $112,000,000 crop last year, the Press talked of a $60,000,000 loss, overlooking the fact that a small crop brings higher prices, that a 60% crop loss in 1913 resulted in only a 20% dollar loss to the industry. But today the citrus crop is six or seven times as great as 25 years ago. One small freeze early in January caused damages estimated at $20,000,000, as much as the entire normal crop was worth in 1912. The Great Freeze of 1937 would probably go down in Southern California history as about equal to 1913 in severity, vastly more costly.

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