In 1957 the state paid an Avon Park grower $5,000 for citrus trees its own inspectors had wrongly pushed and burned
Florida’s answer to the burrowing nematode in the 1950s was the “spreading decline” program: inspectors from the State Plant Board marked infested trees, and crews pushed them out with bulldozers, burned them, and treated the ground. A relief act of 1957 shows what happened at Avon Park when the inspector got it wrong.
Chapter 57-995, House Bill No. 1222, became a law without the Governor’s approval and was filed on 29 June 1957. Its preamble tells the whole story:
WHEREAS, C. E. Crews of Avon Park requested that the state plant board push and treat an infested citrus grove in the burrowing nematode program, and WHEREAS, an inspector of the state plant board through error marked non-infested trees of an uninfested grove for destruction, and WHEREAS, an agent of the state plant board pushed and burned non-infested trees belonging to C. E. Crews, NOW, THEREFORE,[lof-1957-995]
Section 1 appropriates $5,000 “from the spreading decline funds of the state plant board, to pay C. E. Crews for damage done to non-infested citrus trees by an agent of the state plant board.” Section 2 directs the Comptroller to draw the warrant.[lof-1957-995]
What it tells us
The spreading-decline campaign reached Avon Park’s groves by 1957, and the town’s growers were taking part in it voluntarily — Crews asked for his infested grove to be pushed. That a healthy grove of his was destroyed instead, and that it took a private act of the Legislature to make him whole, is a measure of both how drastic the program was and how a citizen of a small town got redress from the state in the 1950s: through his representative, by name, in a bill of his own.
$5,000 in 1957 for a grove’s worth of mature trees is a real sum, and it dates the loss to about 1955-56.
C. E. Crews is a new name to this project. Whether he is related to the Crews family found elsewhere in Highlands County, and where his groves were, is not known.
References
- lof-1957-995 — Legislature of the State of Florida. Chapter 57-995, Laws of Florida 1957 (House Bill No. 1222): An Act for the relief of C. E. Crews. 29 June 1957. https://edocs.dlis.state.fl.us/fldocs/leg/actsflorida/1957/LOF1957V1Pt2Ch426-740and840-1115.pdf
Related
Where this comes from
- Evidence
- single-source — One source. Treat as reported, not established.
- Review
- unverified — Drafted from sources but not yet checked by a volunteer.
- Rights
- society
Sources
- Legislature of the State of Florida, Chapter 57-995, Laws of Florida 1957 (House Bill No. 1222): An Act for the relief of C. E. Crews (1957)
Something here wrong, or incomplete? The Society would rather know. Tell a volunteer.
Have a question about this record?