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.
Definitely, I think it can be said that there can be no danger of overproduction in these lines for a long time to come. 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. Inquiries by mail and visits of exploration from the North, the West and the Southwest have never before been so numerous as during the year which we are reviewing, and our own people are awakening to the opportunities which lie all about them, unused and inviting.
There are vast areas of cheap and hitherto waste lands in every part of the State, lying open the year round to the genial and fructifying rays of a semi-tropical and sub-tropical sun, which need only the expenditure upon them of money and labor to fit them for the support of herds and flocks greater than any other region can maintain. We have every reason, as we face the new year, to take courage and to gird ourselves for the task of turning into reality these gracious possibilities which nature has spread about us with a lavish hand.
The past year has been signalized by one great achievement, carrying two others in its train. The great achievement to which I refer, the greatest by all odds ever accomplished in this State, is the creation by the Legislature of a State Live Stock Sanitary Board and the appropriation of public monies for the carrying on of its work; and the two consequent achievements are the beginning of definite, determined, statewide, co-operative and adequately supported efforts to eradicate the pestilent cattle tick from all our borders and to control hog cholera. * * *
And I venture now to say—and I say it with pardonable pride and great pleasure—that no state in the Union has a more carefully considered, better balanced and guarded, and more rigid and effective law, covering the matter of live stock sanitation, than has Florida. Perhaps a detail here and there needs to be amended and strengthened, but, on the whole, the measure was a good one and is working well. * * *
I may add, finally, that the State Live Stock Sanitary Board, in the two great undertakings to which, for the present and the immediate future, it will, of necessity, chiefly devote its energies, the eradication of the cattle tick and the control of hog cholera, we are leaning heavily on two co-operative agencies. The first of these is the Federal Government, through its Bureau of Animal Industry, and the States Relations Service.
In Dr. E. M. Nighbert, inspector in charge of the work of tick eradication; Dr. A. H. Logan, inspector in charge for hog cholera control; Dean P. H. Rolfs of the University, director of the Experiment Station, in charge of the work in Florida of the States Relations Service, and the numerous assistants placed by the Federal Government, under the direction of these three gentlemen, we have a large body of capable, trained and energetic experts, whose co-operation with our Board is of inestimable value to the State, and whose maintenance costs us nothing.
The members of the State Live Stock Sanitary Board serve without remuneration, so that we have in Florida approximately thirty men who are engaged in promoting the work of live stock sanitation without expense to the taxpayers of the State. It is fitting, I think, that this Association should be reminded of this very great and very costly, but nevertheless wholly gratuitous, service which is being rendered to the interests which we represent. * * *
So much for the past year; now for a glance forward.
What I have just been saying indicates clearly the special work to which we ought, in my judgment, to devote ourselves in the immediate future—I mean the complete and final eradication of the tick in every county in Florida and the largest possible measure of control of hog cholera. If we see clearly, we see that these tasks are preliminary to all others. * * *