The Princeton union. [volume] (Princeton, Minn.) 1876-1976, 1895-02-28
PRINCETON FEB 2s 1895
WINTERS GRIP.
An Entertaining Letter from
Mrs. l.. III. Pratt, Of -.
Yt Florida.
TheEOrange Belt in the Arms Of
= 3 a the Ice King Causing
:, 2 :. Heavy Losses.


y \ CRoMANToN, Fla, Feb. II.
+ Florida has received black
eye.L Fair, beautiful, warm, sunny,
tlowPry, perpetual summary Flor
ida has had a genuine snow storm!
Differing from the regular Mime
sofa blizzard only in the degree of
cold ness. We have had unusually
cold weather ever since the freeze
of the latter part of December.
Then we said goodbye to all our
young orange trees, lemons, ba-
nanas, pine apples, garden vege-
tables, etc., but as that has hereto
fore only happened oncein a dozen
yea IS. or SO, and as the ''oldest
settler' said that snow had never
bee B seen here only in the air, and
had always melted before reaching
thef ground, and as in our five win
ters' experience here we had seen
nothing to the contrary, we were
not quite disheartened but planted
new seed and commenced over
again, thinking that the worst was
probably over and all would now
be well. But the wind continued
to blow from the north and the
CLOUDS remained SO thick that the
sur could not possibly penetrate
them, and it rained so often that it
see ned as if we might almost as
we i be living on the Pacific coast
whore they say that it rains so
much that the. people begin to
grow web footed in a year or two
after having settled there. Finally
about a week ago we had another
freeze, as hard as the first, and
now to cap the climax, on the
18th inst, all the Valentine We
have received was a snow storm
which fell thick and fast to the
depth of about two inches, when
it commenced to rain and snow to-
gether and freeze as it fell. It
loaded the trees so heavily that
such evergreens as the Wits,
magnolia, etc., touched the ground,
while a great many fine branches
being so much taller and more
brittle fell crashing to the ground
with their loads of ice, and now all
through the fine woods the ground
is strewn with branches in conse-
quence of the storm. It COM
menced to snow at about four
o'clock P. NJ. The ground not be-
ing frozen at all, most of the snow
melted the next day, but up on
the tall pine tops where the at
mosphere was so much colder on
account of the north wind which
continued to blow, some of the ice
remained for forty-eight hours.
Orange trees, large enough to bear
fruit, being perfectly dormant at
the time of the first freeze, were
not injured; they only shed their
leaves entirely which is not COM
mon. But they had commenced
to grow again and some had bud
ded to blossom when the second
freeze struck them. Now it re-
mains to be seen what the effect
will be. At any rate the roots are
not killed and if the trees are killed
they can be cut off at the ground
and will sprout up and bear fruit
in couple of years. But Florida
doesn't want to 60 without oranges
for two years. The young trees
are killed to the ground, but we
hope the old trees, being a good
deal tougher, are not damaged.
Peaches, pears, grapes, mulberries,
plums, apples, etc., are not hurt.
Our strawberry bed had just COM
menced to bear before the first
freeze: OF course all the fruit,
ripe and green as we'll as the BIOS
SONS, we're killed. They bios
somed again, then froze again.
Now they will try it the third time.
awberries usually bear here