Florida: An Ideal Cattle State

by Florida State Live Stock Association

As a summary of your breeding problem, I regard it as the simplest thing you have to deal with. There seems to be a sure result by comparison with other countries; there can be little argument as to its economic value, and it is simply a matter of disposition and making the proper investment in inclosures, in bulls and water development to accomplish a good business result.

I only want to add this fragment as to breeding. Since dictating this section I chanced to meet at lunch today Mr. Will Goodwin, for thirty years one of the officers and managers of the Breeders' Gazette and one of the best authorities in the world on cattle. His winter home is near Ocala, Florida, and he has seen enough of your ranges to convince him of their great utility in beef production. He agrees with me that the evolution of your cattle is simply a matter of disposition. I find, however, that he has no use for the Brahma bull, although he joins me in the belief that you can not do anything to hurt the present breeding process, and he rather grudgingly admits that the Brahma bull may have a place in scale. I reviewed with him at some length what has preceded and asked him what he thought about my comparison with the Texas primitive cattle as to having more scale. He thinks I am right in that connection, but says that he believes the Florida cow is more shapely; that she has a better hindquarter than the old Texan cattle, and is, in a sense, a miniature Shorthorn, and that he believes that a cross between a Shorthorn and a primitive Florida cow will give you the best basis.

I called his attention to the fact that in range experience neither the Blacks nor the Shorthorns seem to be able to make their own living as well as the Herefords and do not get the calf crop, and he was quite free to say that it had a little force. On the other hand, he confirms fully my belief that where a better class of protection can be offered than the vast ranges, the Shorthorn cross and the cross with the Blacks either on primitive cows or their cross will have splendid results.

He also called my attention to the prominence that Blacks are getting in Florida.

There is, therefore, a very wide range of possibilities in your breeding problem, all of it pointed upward, and there may be something in your experience here which will show that the Shorthorn and Black have a greater mission on the open range than they had in Texas. There certainly can be no question about the value of the blood.

And here I might add that the Government is not asking any one to increase beef production from a patriotic standpoint, but rather that it offers a splendid investment. And perhaps I might add that when our boys who have gone into the army come back again they will practically all be trained athletes; men seasoned to the out-of-doors and loving it; men who have obtained an earnestness in life and a new vision as to usefulness, and when you stop to reflect that we have been sending the flower of the world to the front, when it comes back to us we will not only have the attributes I have described, but the flower of the world to apply them, and I look for an increased interest in all of the out-of-door lines of business such as America has never seen before.

I thought I knew something of my own country and something of the possibilities of land available for cattle production, but seeing your ranges has been a revelation. They are off the track of the tourist. There is sparse settlement, and they are known to very few. In fact, they might be, in a sense, called a hidden country, but the whole of America is interested in everything that offers a good agricultural or stock-raising possibility, and when our boys come back, not only the boys of the South, but the boys of America are going to investigate your properties.

I promised to come back to water development. Practically every question that I have asked in the main about water has been covered by the reply, "Water everywhere." Much of your area is watered by rivers and lakes, and where good surface water is not easily available for stock, your well water is so easily obtainable and at such small investment you can afford to have it every two miles over the entire country.

I am told that the windmill will furnish ample production, and at that narrow depth the light mills, which go well in a light wind, are available. We have found it very valuable, however, to use the one and a half horsepower gasoline engines, and from that pumping supply as our live stock demanded, because you must keep water constantly before the cattle. Cattle become accustomed to watering at one place, and if there is no water they will stand around and wait for the mill to pump.

Without attempting to go into details, you should have a proper water storage at each mill. It is small expense, and with a storage tank and a windmill it would be cheaper than a gasoline engine.