Florida State Live Stock Association

“ Nature has been very kind to Florida, providing delightful climate, fertile lands and adequate rainfall for farming purposes; broad prairies, carpeted with succulent grasses and watered by running streams for live stock raising; timber galore for sawmills, and countless beauty spots beckoning to tourists. But the citizens of that State have been slow to take advantage of their opportunities. Agriculture in many sections has been a neglected art. ”

“ Only an unusually favorable season can produce for us as much wheat as last year. Our meat and forage supplies are low, because in times of food scarcity, grass crops are necessarily sacrificed. Gentlemen, you can do much to help increase the meat supply. In developing your ranches to increase your output, I want to urge as a patriotic duty that you increase your good pasturage and your winter feed supply as rapidly as you can. I could not urge this in peace times, because rapid development is never the most economical. ”

“ In Texas we have bears and sundry pests to prey on our live stock. The prairie dog infests a great many of our ranches, destroying the grass, digging holes in the ground, and making it dangerous for the cowboy to ride over in the pursuit of his range endeavors. We have wolves of all species. In Texas we have also the screw worms that are a tax on the live stock producer to the extent of from two to five per cent of the calves born on his ranch, and I am sorry to say that worst of all we have periodical droughts. None of these adverse conditions I find prevail in Florida. ”

“ I made the statement when I was here in the summer that I believed a man could fence up a range of ten or twenty or thirty thousand acres in Florida, stock it with cattle and stock it with hogs, and that I believed the hogs would pay the overhead charges of running the ranch, and my observations here for the past thirty days traveling over the State have convinced me that that statement was not very much exaggerated.
There is no reason why cattle men should not make dividends on investments while breeding up the quality of their herds, for this is a great cattle country. ”

“ And for this industry, which we may perhaps properly call the most ancient, fundamental, necessary, stable, wholesome, honorable and delightful of all the occupations in which men are engaged, Florida has advantages of soil, climate, rainfall and location greater, on the whole, than those enjoyed by any other state of the American union. This is being recognized in increasing measure, far and wide. The eyes of discerning and experienced men are being turned this way as never before. ”

“ The only trouble you have in Florida, Nature has been too good to you. If it had done half as much for Texas the Government officials would not now be worrying about the future meat supply for the United States and our Allies. I have seen Texas when the cattle were no better than the grade I have seen on this trip. We started twenty-five years ago to improve our herds and stayed with it, until today we furnish some of the best breeding and feeding cattle for the Northern States. ”

“ I am led to the belief that the Florida cowmen have been lulled to sleep, as it were, by the fact that they haven't been bothered by any outside influences. In discussing the breeding up or improving of the cattle with a good many breeders whom I have met in this State, I find that all voice the sentiment that they would like to raise better cattle; that the State ought to produce better cattle; and that it is a good cattle country. ”

“ Never before have we met in circumstances so extraordinary and under the stress of thoughts and emotions so many, so various, so conflicting and perplexing as today. Our minds are engrossed and appalled by the world catastrophe into which we have been plunged. Since our last meeting, life for every man and woman of us has been changed in all its major aspects and fallen into disorder. All the peaceful routine of our thoughts and habits has been upset. ”

“ Fencing means that an area may be developed to its capacity. For instance, on your ranges fire kills the various varieties of the carpet or blanket grass and kills the little blue cane, as well as any number of other grasses, all of which, however, come back where an area is protected, and as they are among your very best feeds, the carrying capacity of a pasture is materially increased.
Water may be developed through the windmill process directly in proportion with the needs of the cattle and concentrated to them as against any water development on the open range. ”

“ There was never any marked development or marked improvement in the live stock industry in the State of Texas as long as the cattle ranged on the free grass, but in 1884 the Legislature passed what was known as a Lease Law. Then it was, gentlemen, that the fencing up of the State of Texas began in earnest. No man was willing to pay lease on land and let somebody else's cattle graze on it. And that is the first step needed to be taken in the evolution of better cattle in Florida. ”

“ The process of culling will not be extravagant, because looking to the next few years it would seem that canner cattle will probably be as strong as any other branch of the industry, and these culls are usually not only splendid canners, but furnish quite an element of cutters, which means cattle producing very fair meat for regular consumption. I believe, too, that on any range of appreciable dimensions you will find it an economy to produce your own bulls, and in starting any good sized property I urge that you keep that in mind. Get your cows just as good as you can get them ”

“ Your range will carry from three to ten times as many cattle per section as the Texas land in a normal year. And when I say normal year I want you to remember that sometimes the rain clouds forget all about Texas for months at a time, and then our ranges suffer from drought, as large sections of them are doing at this time.
"You have a sheep country as good as exists, and a goat country better than any other. It is too bad that you do not raise more sheep on your ranges, for they do not hurt the cattle pastures, eating only the tender blades down under the more mature grass. ”

“ The beans grow very rank, producing an abundance of good hay, and beans which are high in feeding value. The beans may be left on the vines for pasturage, or gathered and ground into bean meal, which is excellent for cattle feeding. Japanese cane resembles our Texas ribbon cane. It makes good silage, keeps well and is highly relished by cattle. The Florida beggar-weed grows as a volunteer in old fields of a light sandy soil. If cut at the right time it makes good hay, and, while it is rather bulky for silage alone, it is said to add greatly to the fattening value of silage. ”

“ I am sure that good cattle can be raised in Florida because I have seen them. I am sure that good hogs can be raised in Florida because I have seen them, and on the question of the hog, I wish to state that on the open range country of Florida, especially the southern part in the prairie country, where there are hard wood and cabbage hammocks, is the ideal country in which to grow hogs. ”

“ The importance of the velvet bean to the live stock industry now developing in the South can scarcely be over-estimated. Grown with corn, it increases the corn crop year after year, [Pg 23] and besides furnishes a large amount of nutritious feed to be eaten by the animals when the grass pasture season is over. It reduces greatly the cost of finishing of beef animals for market. This year the velvet bean has been no small factor in helping out the great shortage of foodstuffs, quantities of them having been shipped to Texas. ”

“ We know that under normal conditions the beef production of America has not kept pace with the population, and [Pg 7] that even without the influence of war values of beef, stock cattle values have shown a steady increase for the past ten years. There is, therefore, every reason to believe that for a very long period in the future, even taking into consideration reduced beef consumption as the result of substitutes or every other influence, there is a reasonable expectation for strong values and a profit on production under normal expense. ”

“ Perhaps it will be most helpful in discussing the forages adapted to Florida to proceed from the viewpoint of the man starting a cattle ranch. The basis, of course, of any profitable cattle ranch is permanent pasturage, the cheapest of all feeds, and, to supplement this, a supply of feed, which may be hay, ensilage, or in Southern Florida, green feed, to bridge over the season of short pastures. If one is to produce highly finished beef, grain feeds and other concentrates must be raised or purchased. ”

“ But disquieting as are the times, the business of the stock raiser in America, and particularly in Florida, was never on so sound a basis as today, never so full of promise. The exhaustion of domestic animals throughout Europe and the increasing shortage in our own country are creating a demand which will insure for many years to come a profitable market for all the beef, pork, mutton and dairy products which we can supply. ”

“ Colonization companies have devoted their energies to boosting orange orchards and truck gardens (the "poker game of agriculture") , and little organized effort has been made to attract farmers and stockmen of tireless energy—the backbone of any community.
Among the neglected industries, none stand out more conspicuously than stock raising. The native cattle, inbred, stunted specimens of doubtful origin, have been turned loose on the free, open range to rustle for themselves, and little effort has been made in most sections toward breed improvement. ”

“ Florida today, as never before, is attracting national attention as a possible beef-producing state. The eyes of the investing public are turned toward Florida, and it is my judgment that within the next five years Florida will make greater strides in the development of the live stock industry than it has ever made before. ”

“ Mowing with the stumps on the land is impracticable, as the weeds conceal many of the stumps.
Whether it is practicable to establish good permanent pastures without stumping and plowing the land is yet an unsolved problem. About every Florida settlement where the town cattle graze, there is good pasture, commonly carpet grass. You will find just this on the outskirts of Jacksonville. Such pasturage has been established by heavy continuous grazing, under which conditions the broom sedge and wire grass are exterminated, while the creeping carpet grass comes in and persists. ”

“ To give you an idea, we are buying $50,000 worth of feed to winter a herd of 25,000 head of cattle. While your season here will permit you to get through with very little extra cost, if any, I think that you should make a provision for some concentrate, so as to have it. In Texas, when the grass is all gone, the use of cotton seed cake is limited when not taken in conjunction with a good filler, and there is never a time when you at least don't have a good filler. ”

“ With the magnificent start that has now been made in live stock farming in the South, we may hope for much more generous support to live stock and forage investigations, but this hope will be realized only if we are insistent in our demands. The knowledge thus to be obtained is fundamental, and the progress that is made in live stock raising will be conditioned in an important measure on the accurate investigations that can be conducted only at properly equipped experiment stations. ”

“ I think, too, that in every possible way you should encourage the breeders of full-blood cattle in all of these breeds, and that you give them every encouragement in purchasing their progeny.
The introduction of good bulls is a comparatively simple matter, because they can be purchased, but a great cow herd can only be produced by accumulation, probably by a culling of at least ten per cent of all females every year during the process of up-grading. The yearling heifers should not be bred. We always cull them when about eighteen months old, cutting them ten per cent. ”

“ Packers have immense contracts, and if the war continues they must have lots of tinned beef. On the other hand, if the war stops the world must stock up again with tinned beef. We know that they expected to pay an average of at least one cent per pound more for their canners the past year, but that the great drought has forced so many cattle in, the owners were very thankful to take what they got and the packers were forced to their capacity to attempt to handle them in such quantities. ”

“ Let the people not only of Florida, but the people outside of the State of Florida, know that they can come to Florida and at a small rental cost, lease as many acres of good grazing land as they have money to get cattle with which to stock it, assuring the prospective lessee that they will fence the land according to his desires and will build him a ranch house to live in ”

“ Here, where the grass was very luxuriant, resembling a hay meadow, we saw several hundred more of the small native cattle, followed by the common scrubby bulls. The fat four-year-old steers weighed around 550 pounds, and are valued at $30 per head. The cows weighed around 500 pounds. The range herds of mixed ages and classes are valued at $20 per head. We soon left the public highway, circling marshes and dodging palmettos. Our next stop was on Gum Slough Ranch, where we were told that on a pasture of 10,000 acres there were 6,000 cattle. ”