Plow It Under

Up & down the Rio Grande Valley, Texas truck farmers were destroying most of the biggest vegetable crop they had ever raised. The losses were figured in millions.

P: In Willacy County, Farmer Felix Burns figured he had turned under 5 1/2 million heads of cabbage on the 75 acres he had planted, had lost $3,000.

P: Farmer Jimmy Wood drove his plow through 200 acres of mustard, spinach, turnips and cabbage.

P: In Hidalgo County more than half the acres planted to vegetables, including 15,000 acres of cabbage, 6,000 acres of broccoli, were turned under.

P: In Cameron County, 3,500 acres of vegetables, in San Patricio County on the Gulf, more than 2,000 acres of spinach, 25% of the onion crop, were destroyed.

But in San Antonio housewives could get no onions except at 30-c- a Ib. in the black market. And all over Texas, winter vegetables were scarce and high-priced in the cities.

The farmers had no choice. The whole intricate system of food distribution from one of the richest U.S. agricultural regions had collapsed. In other years the bulk of the Rio Grande Valley crops had been shipped to market in trucks that swarmed the highways. (There are few railroads.) But this year only dozens of trucks--not hundreds--appeared. Truck drivers and owners are in uniform, or working in war plants. And many trucks are laid up for lack of tires and parts.

Some disheartened Rio Grande farmers declared they would rather give the vegetables to the Government than plow them under. But they said the Government would have to do its own hauling and harvesting.

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