Florida: An Ideal Cattle State Part 2

The future development and prosperity of this industry must rest upon a thorough knowledge and proper utilization of the forage crops adapted to the region. In very large measure these forages are quite different from those used in the portions of the United States where animal husbandry is most developed. From a practical standpoint we cannot use in the South the forages of the North and West, with the important exception of corn. The other great forages--timothy, red clover, alfalfa, blue gra.s.s and white clover--can never become important in Florida. This fact needs emphasis, because the newcomer in Florida is often carried away with the idea that these forages may be made to succeed.

In the beginning of this active live stock development it is unfortunate that there is not a larger body of exact data concerning both the culture and feeding value of the more important forages available. There is a large amount of such information concerning corn, timothy, red clover, alfalfa, blue gra.s.s and white clover, not only in America, but also in Europe. Furthermore, countless live stock farms exist where the practical utilization of these forages has been worked out in detail. In comparison, our stock of knowledge concerning Southern forages, both from experimental investigations and from practical experience, is relatively small. This is not surprising, because the experiment stations have very properly been compelled to devote their energies mainly to a.s.sisting agricultural industries in proportion to their existing importance, rather than to industries in which there was relatively little interest. In this matter of Southern forages I have long advocated much more generous support on the part of the State and Federal agricultural agencies, because I have great faith in the future possibilities.

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.

One other angle of these general considerations must not be overlooked.

The northern or western man who may be considering developing a live stock ranch in the South naturally wants to see developed ranches in which the practical problems have been worked out. In all the South there are very few cattle ranches which have reached a finished state of development--where the concrete demonstration exists of a type of management that can be duplicated.

Now, of course, I am fully aware that Florida and all the South has long had an extensive cattle industry based on the natural gra.s.ses of the prairies and of the piney woods. In general, this has been a profitable industry, especially on free range. Without hurting anyone's feelings, we will, I think, agree that this has not been a very high grade of live stock ranching. Indeed, the ordinary Northern or Western man, who is, of course, a superficial observer, has gotten the idea from the scrub cattle and razorback hogs that he saw, that there is something in the South that is inimical to good live stock. Usually he has decided it is the climate. Fortunately we know from the work of every Southern experiment station, as well as of a few good live stock ranches, that the South can raise just as good cattle and hogs as the North. It isn't a matter of climate, at all, but purely one of _breed_ and _feed_.

I have spoken thus candidly because I feel that I am a friend among friends, and because I have very much faith in the industry you represent. If I were not so optimistic as to the future of the live stock industry in Florida I should be afraid to lay bare any weak factors that exist. I believe with Huxley in the wisdom of facing things as they are, rather than indulging in make believe.

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.

In discussing pasturage it will be convenient to recognize three types of lands, namely, piney woods, prairie, and mucks, realizing, of course, that this is a very rough cla.s.sification.

Piney Woods Lands.

In the piney woods the natural pasturage is composed mainly of broom sedge and wire gra.s.ses. During the growing season, from spring till late fall, these gra.s.ses furnish fair pasturage, but through the rest of the year they merely enable animals to exist. What can be done towards converting these poor native pastures into good permanent pastures?

There are three possibilities in the light of our present knowledge. On better soils good Bermuda pastures can be developed, or where the lands are moist, as on most flatwood areas, carpet gra.s.s may be used. On the drier and poorer soils, Natal gra.s.s is the only one that has given much success.

How can Bermuda or carpet gra.s.s pasture best be established? The sure method is to stump your land and plow it, and then plant the Bermuda by the vegetative method in spring, or any time thereafter in summer, during the rainy season. At the McNeill station in Mississippi, located on land much like that of the northern tier of counties in Florida, they have developed the following method: Plow furrows about ten feet apart between the stumps in spring, and stick in a root or sprig of Bermuda about every ten feet. At McNeill it is found necessary to use a little fertilizer to insure the growth of these Bermuda plants. During the following winter the stumps are removed, and then in spring the land is plowed and Lespedeza seed sown. Enough Bermuda has grown in the furrows to insure a stand of Bermuda, and this is supplemented by the Lespedeza.

Indeed, the first season the Lespedeza will furnish more pasturage than the Bermuda. Lespedeza is rather a tricky plant in Florida and is hardly worth consideration except in the northern part of the State.

On most of the Florida flatwood soils carpet gra.s.s is much more aggressive than Bermuda, and in time will, if left alone, completely replace the Bermuda. To a large extent this can be obviated by plowing the pastures whenever the carpet gra.s.s seems to be obtaining the upper hand. Unfortunately, we do not know the relative values of equal areas of Bermuda gra.s.s and of carpet gra.s.s where the latter is most aggressive. Carpet gra.s.s does not grow so tall, but is green for a longer period. It may, indeed, be found more economical not to try to save the Bermuda after the carpet gra.s.s crowds it. From observations, I am inclined to believe that neither the carrying capacity nor the feed values per acre of the two gra.s.ses is greatly different on most flatwood soils. If this be true, it would not be economy to go to any particular trouble to retain the Bermuda instead of the carpet gra.s.s.

At McNeill the pasturage on areas that have long been closely grazed is carpet gra.s.s. Unfortunately, no experiments have been conducted to compare these two gra.s.ses as to ease of establishment and as to carrying capacity. Carpet gra.s.s produces abundant good seed, and therefore spreads much more rapidly than Bermuda, which rarely produces seed in humid regions.

It is found necessary to remove the stumps at McNeill, because for the first year or two on the plowed ground, weeds, especially "fennel" or "Yankee weed," appear abundantly, and must be mowed or they will kill the gra.s.ses by shading. 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 gra.s.s. 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 gra.s.s are exterminated, while the creeping carpet gra.s.s comes in and persists. It may be that the manure of the animals is also a factor, and there can scarcely be a question that the trampling helps. As an example of this kind occurs about nearly every Florida town, it would seem as if it could be duplicated on cattle ranches. I have suggested to several cattlemen that it is worth trying on a scale by three methods: (1) Simply burning the native gra.s.s in winter; (2) burning, followed by disking or harrowing; and (3) plowing among the stumps.

If possible, carpet gra.s.s seed should be scattered on each area, and in all cases close grazing should be practiced. Unfortunately, carpet gra.s.s seed cannot be secured commercially, except in small quant.i.ties at high prices, but it is easy to cut the mature carpet gra.s.s in fall from a pasture and cure the hay. The carpet gra.s.s can then be sown simply by scattering the hay. Whether any of these schemes will work out satisfactorily still remains to be determined.

As to Natal gra.s.s, I have already mentioned that this succeeds better on the poorer and drier pine lands than any other gra.s.s yet introduced.

Thus far it has been exploited purely as a gra.s.s for market hay. On this basis many hundred acres were planted in Lake County and elsewhere.

Gra.s.s culture purely for market hay is a very precarious proposition.

The proper agricultural economy is gra.s.s for live stock, selling only the surplus to the market. Notwithstanding the very large acreage planted to Natal, I have been quite unable to secure satisfactory data as to its value for pasturage, measured in carrying capacity and satisfactory gains. It seems to me, from the slender data I have been able to secure, fairly probable that Natal will prove a valuable gra.s.s for combined hay and pasture on the soils to which it is so well adapted, but of course it can hardly be expected to yield enough to justify the extravagant prices paid for land planted to Natal.

Prairie Lands.

On the prairies of Florida there is much better natural pasturage than in the piney woods, and, indeed, it is on the prairies that the old type of cattle industry reached its highest development. The prairies are in reality wet meadows. Their gra.s.s cover is due to water relations, most of them being periodically overflowed--conditions that are inimical to pines and palmettos. On the other hand, the period of overflow is too brief to meet the conditions necessary for cypress and other swamp trees. These prairies stretch from the border of the pine woods and palmettos on relatively high ground to permanently wet swamps. The best natural pasturage consists of various species of paspalum and related flat-leaved gra.s.ses on the soils fairly moist during a large part of the year; and maiden cane on still moister land, or even in shallow water.

Generally speaking, the moisture relations of the more extensive prairies are nearly ideal for continuous pasturage in the varying seasons. There is grave danger in any extensive drainage operations, as palmettos and pines will quickly invade such drained land, and thus destroy the gra.s.s.

For improved pasture on these lands, particularly on those reasonably moist, Para gra.s.s offers great possibilities. The remarkably rapid growth and high yield of this gra.s.s, combined with its palatability and nutritiousness, make it of prime importance in connection with better live stock. Para succeeds well also on the better uplands, but, generally speaking, it is a gra.s.s for moist lands. The farther south, the more valuable it is, as after frost it is of little value.

Another gra.s.s that is likely to be very valuable on the prairies, and, indeed, on the flatwoods and better uplands, is _paspalum dilatatum_, native to Argentina. This is perhaps the best of the paspalums, and it is now widespread in the Southern States. Unfortunately, with us the seeds are largely destroyed by a fungus, but good commercial seed is obtainable in quant.i.ty from Australia.

Muck Lands.

On the muck lands the problem of pasturage is easy. At least four gra.s.ses, namely, Para, Carib, Rhodes and Bermuda, especially Giant Bermuda, yield wonderfully. The enormous area of muck lands in Florida, especially in the Everglades, can, it would seem, be utilized only with the aid of livestock. While there may be some fairly difficult problems to solve in handling live stock on muck soils, especially in the wet season, there can be little doubt that gra.s.s and live stock will insure the permanency of these lands. Under continuous cultivation there is a constant shrinkage in muck soils, but with gra.s.s and live stock this is nearly, if not quite, counterbalanced.

Carib gra.s.s on muck soils is, from limited data, superior to Para gra.s.s both in yield and quality. On other types of soil Para will outyield Carib. Rhodes gra.s.s does wonderfully on muck soil, and, indeed, on most rich soils. Giant Bermuda is far coa.r.s.er and more vigorous than ordinary Bermuda. It will succeed wherever ordinary Bermuda will grow, and, in addition, seems much better able to withstand flooding.

Temporary or annual pasture crops are mainly important in connection with swine raising. Various systems of such crops have been devised to furnish successive pastures. Florida has a long list of such crops that can be utilized. Among them are oats, rye, rape, sorghum, peanuts, cow peas, chufas, sweet potatoes, corn and velvet beans. Under certain conditions the cattleman may have to utilize one or more of these crops, but corn and velvet beans is the one that is the most important.

The story of the velvet bean is really one of the romances of agriculture. Introduced into Florida about 1875 from some unknown source, it first attracted attention as a forage about 1890. Until 1914 it was but little grown outside of Florida. In 1915 the crop was certainly less than 1,000,000 acres. In 1916 it had increased to 2,500,000, and in 1917 to about 6,000,000 acres. The explanation of this remarkable increase was the finding of earlier "sports." Three of these appeared independently--one in Alabama, two in Georgia. These early varieties immensely increased the area over which the velvet bean can be grown, so that now it embraces practically all of the cotton belt. These early sports of the old Florida are most grown, but the Chinese velvet bean, introduced by the Department, and the hybrids developed by the Florida Experiment Station, are important. In spite of vigorous search, the native home of the Florida velvet bean yet remains unknown, but it is probably in the Indo-Malayan region of Southern Asia.

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, and besides furnishes a large amount of nutritious feed to be eaten by the animals when the gra.s.s 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, quant.i.ties of them having been shipped to Texas. Finally, it has resulted in a new industry for the South, namely, the manufacture of velvet bean meal, which has already won for itself a large demand.

Hay Plants.

The problem of producing hay in Florida is made particularly difficult by frequent rains, except in the fall of the year. The bulk of the hay now produced is from the crab gra.s.s that volunteers in cultivated fields. In recent years much Natal hay has been grown for market. Para gra.s.s hay is of good quality, and Rhodes gra.s.s of very fine quality.

Other hays are made from cow peas, cow peas and sorghum mixed, Mexican clover, beggar-weed, oats, millet, etc.

The subject of hay, however, is vital only to the city market. To the live stock man it is of minor importance, as silage furnishes so satisfactory a subst.i.tute.

Ensilage Crops.

Corn is, of course, the standard crop for ensilage, and its relative importance in Florida is not far different from that in other States.

Under certain conditions sorghums will yield greater tonnage than corn, and the resulting silage is but slightly inferior.

Florida possesses, in addition, a unique silage plant in j.a.panese sugar cane. The perennial nature of this plant and its high yielding capacity make it a cheap fodder to grow. It may be utilized as green feed, as silage, as dry fodder, or for pasture. Your own experiment station has published the best information we have on this forage. As a feed for dairy cows there can be no question of its high value, either green or as silage. There still seems to be question, however, as to the relative value of j.a.panese cane silage as compared with corn silage. In Southern Florida the cane stays green all winter, as a rule, so that there is no necessity for ensiling it for winter feed. It may well prove, however, that a supply of j.a.panese cane silage will prove good insurance against periods of shortage even in South Florida.

You may have noted that all the pasture plants I have mentioned are gra.s.ses. Very unfortunately we have not as yet any good perennial pasture legume adapted to Florida. I say "unfortunately" because, as is well known, the true gra.s.ses are nutritious in proportion to the fertility of the land. That is, the better the land the more nutritious the pasture. But with legumes no such relations exist, because legumes are not dependent on the soil for their nitrogen supply.

While we have no satisfactory perennial pasture legume, we have one summer annual, lespedeza, that helps to some extent in North Florida.

There are also two winter annuals that reproduce themselves in which I have considerable confidence, namely, burr clover and narrow-leaf vetch.

I believe that on many of the better pasture soils, especially in North Florida, that these legumes can be established and that they will re-seed themselves year after year. Of course due care must be taken to secure inoculation, preferably by the soil method.

The Outlook for New Forages.

What the future may hold in store for us in the way of new forages does not a.s.sist at the present time, but it is worth considering. It is well to bear in mind that the agriculture of the North, with the single important exception of corn, is mainly a direct inheritance from European agriculture. Subst.i.tute root crops for corn and you have in essence the European practice. Southern agriculture, on the contrary, is almost purely an American development--cotton, corn, tobacco, sweet potatoes, from the American Indian; cow peas, Rhodes gra.s.s, Natal gra.s.s and sorghum from South Africa; soy beans, lespedeza, j.a.panese cane from j.a.pan; carpet gra.s.s and Para gra.s.s from the West Indies; Bermuda from India; velvet beans from Southern Asia.

Northern forage plants have been pretty thoroughly studied both in Europe and America, because European conditions are fairly like those of our Northern States. But there yet remains hosts of gra.s.ses and legumes adapted to sub-tropical climates concerning which we know practically nothing.

Out of very numerous gra.s.ses and legumes at present under test are several that possess promise, and these I shall discuss briefly.

Kudzu.

Kudzu is not particularly new, but it seems to me destined to a much greater importance than at present. It is the only perennial forage legume that has in any sense made good in Florida. It is much better adapted to clayey soils than to sandy soils, but it also succeeds remarkably well on the limestone soils about Miami. On the better sandy soils it would also seem to be valuable, but on the poorer sandy soils and poorly drained lands it is doubtful if it has a place. On clay soils at Arlington Farm, Va., we have consistently gotten two cuttings, totaling five tons of hay per acre--double what we can get from cow peas or soy beans. I believe kudzu is ent.i.tled to a fair trial by every Florida cattleman.