Florida: An Ideal Cattle State

by Florida State Live Stock Association

We know that under normal conditions the beef production of America has not kept pace with the population, and 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. I think that we may go beyond the favorable general market and say that there will be a better market in proportion for the intermediate grades of beef, for grass produced beef, than for the very extreme corn-fed finish, and that in the evolution of the Florida beef problem, the grades produced will at least be in as great demand, and probably greater demand, than the ultra finished class.

It is, therefore, fair to argue that the market is with the producer.

You are singularly fortunate in having a Legislature which seems in every way disposed toward doing everything in its power to help develop the resources of the State.

The Government believes that live stock production is its second greatest problem, and in every possible way that it can give co-operation is pledged to do so. In fact, I do not think that I would have been here at all unless a high official in the Bureau of Animal Industry had not urged me to come, in line with their work of general development throughout the South.

Another thing, I find that Florida is very much in the public eye, and that all the live stock journals are anxious to have anything which touches upon increased beef production anywhere, but in the South particularly.

With the knowledge that I might be here some time this winter, I talked to two of the great packers about the development of the beef industry in the South, and they both said that they thought the South was going to come to the front very rapidly, and that either they or some one else would undoubtedly keep pace with the development by enlarging their present facilities or building new packing houses.

In that connection a packer loves a hog country to work in conjunction with cattle. Without giving the topic any more than this general statement, I can see where hog production is going to be one of the great things in Florida, and that while in Texas we do not attempt to produce any hogs along with our cattle, that hogs will be to some extent a part of the great pasture problems.

In a general way, conditions are very similar in Florida now to those of some thirty-five years ago in Texas, at which time that State was an open range proposition. Today, with the exception of a very small strip along the Gulf Coast, the entire State of Texas is under fence, and in a general way has been under fence for nearly twenty years.

There has never been a time in the State of Texas in the past twenty years when practically all of the grazing area of the State has not been occupied, and as against the cattle carried on the open range with practically no water development, the pastures of Texas, which are known as the range (but the word range in Texas means large bodies of inclosed land), are carrying several hundred per cent more cattle than at that time.

The thing which in Texas led to great hardships alike to the large pasture owner and to the settler himself was the fact that so much of the land did not lie in solid bodies. I judge that in the main there is much less of this in Florida than in Texas, and that either by partition, or purchase, or auxiliary lease, the great bulk of that complication can be handled.