Miami
Florida Commissioner of Agriculture Doyle Conner was attending a meeting of Southern farm officials in Baton Rouge, La., last week when he got the news. He left immediately for Miami. There, in a sour-orange tree in the backyard of a home in the Little Havana district, a state agriculture inspector had discovered one female and three male Mediterranean fruit flies in a trap. The medfly, as it is known, is a dreaded pest that could devastate Florida's billion-dollar citrus and vegetable industry if allowed to spread. Said Conner: "We're very concerned. This is obviously an...