Florida: An Ideal Cattle State Part 3

Napier Gra.s.s.

You have doubtless seen some of the numerous references recently in Florida papers to "j.a.panese bamboo gra.s.s" or "Carter's gra.s.s" as grown about Arcadia. These names rest upon a misconception. The gra.s.s is a native of South Africa, properly known as Napier gra.s.s, or _Pennisetum macrostachyum_, introduced by the Department in 1913. This is a perennial much like j.a.panese cane, and in our tests is found hardy as far north as Charleston. It does well on rather poor soil and yields heavy crops. In chemical a.n.a.lysis it is richer than corn in protein and carbohydrates, but also contains three times as much fiber. It is this high fiber content or woody character that makes me dubious about its silage value, in which opinion Professor Rolfs concurs. When two or three feet high it is greedily eaten by animals, and so may be a pasturage possibility. As a green feed crop it could be cut three or more times each season, when three or four feet high, and I am sure will prove a very valuable forage for the man with one or two cows. Whether it is a crop for the stockman is still doubtful.

In 1916 we introduced a very similar species, _Pennisetum merkeri_, which is perhaps a little superior, though it is hard to tell the two apart.

Metake.

The name "j.a.panese bamboo gra.s.s" leads me to mention a true j.a.panese bamboo, the _metake_. This is a bamboo that spreads by rootstocks and forms dense thickets ten to fifteen feet high, much like cane brake, and, like our native cane, a valuable winter pasture plant. Mr. P. K.

Yonge has grown it with marked success about twenty miles north of Pensacola. It seems to me a valuable plant to furnish a supply of pasturage in winter, when pasturage is practically gone. It is worthy of careful trial on all well-drained Florida soils.

Tripsac.u.m Laxum.

Last year we secured from Guatemala a new perennial gra.s.s which, if it proves winter hardy, will, I am certain, be of enormous value to South Florida. This gra.s.s grows much like teosinte, but is stouter and very much more leafy. The stem is tender, sweet and juicy, and all the leaves remain green. It is an ideal silage plant. So far as I am aware, our trial at Miami is the first time this gra.s.s has ever been cultivated.

The few live stock men who have seen it went into ecstasies. It may prove valuable, however, only for frostless regions.

Creeping Pasture Gra.s.ses.

At the present time we have under trial five creeping pasture gra.s.ses, more or less like Bermuda in a general way. You are, of course, aware that a pasture gra.s.s to be valuable should be able to spread naturally and must be able to hold the ground. Naturally it takes time to determine all these facts. The five gra.s.ses I refer to are as follows:

Blue Couch (_Digitaria didactyla_). This is much like Bermuda, but produces abundant good seed. For lawns and pastures it promises to be about equally as valuable as Bermuda.

Manilla Gra.s.s (_Osterdamia matrella_). This is especially adapted to rather moist sandy lands. It grows very dense, and where it thrives should be valuable.

Lovi-lovi (_Chrysopogon aciculatus_). This furnishes much pasturage in India, the Philippines, and South China. The seeds are very abundant, and each sticks into the clothing like a pin. But about Hongkong it is used generally as a lawn gra.s.s. It is well adapted to dry sandy soils.

If it proves well adapted to Florida we can, I think, chance its becoming a nuisance, because if it does thrive it will give much pasture.

Nilghiri Gra.s.s (_Andropogon emersus_). This is the only creeping gra.s.s of the genus Andropogon (which includes our broom sedges) that we have yet found. I secured it in the Nilghiri Hills of South India. It looks promising.

Kikuyu Gra.s.s (_Pennisetum sp._). This is native to the highlands of Uganda, in British East Africa, and in South Africa has created great interest. It looks much like St. Augustine gra.s.s. At Biloxi, Miss., it has succeeded well. It looked very fine at Arlington, Va., but could not stand the winter. This gra.s.s is said to be very nutritious, and I believe that on the better soils of Florida it will prove a real acquisition.

I mention these new things to give you some idea of what we are doing. I might mention several others that look good to us, but it will be time to speak when we have tried them further. In brief, we are scouring the earth to find gra.s.ses and legumes to meet Florida's needs. We have faith that the gra.s.ses and legumes exist, if we only can find them.

Gentlemen, in closing I must say one thing more. Our country is at war--a war that will tax our energies and resources to the uttermost. No more dangerous idea can be entertained than to minimize the task, or to delude ourselves with the prospect of an early peace.

One important factor is food, especially meat and wheat. 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, gra.s.s 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. But in this time of stress you cattlemen can help the nation most by increasing your output to the maximum. There is no other way for you to give to the nation that will count so much. I therefore urge that you brush aside all questions as to the economically best method of increasing pasturage and forage, and to devote all your capital and all your energy to doing this along any lines that are sure.

FLORIDA AS SEEN FROM A TEXAS STANDPOINT.

_Address by W. N. Waddell of Fort Worth, Texas, before the Florida State Live Stock a.s.sociation, January 9, 1918._

_Mr. Waddell started to working cattle on the Texas ranges in 1875, and has been in the cattle business for himself since 1881._

_He was chairman of the Live Stock Sanitary Commission of Texas for four years, and for a number of years has been the Texas representative of the Live Stock Exchange National Bank of Chicago, and of the Chicago Cattle Loan Company._

_After spending a week in Florida during August of 1917, Mr. Waddell returned to the State in November and spent considerable time investigating the opportunities for raising cattle. This address gives his views on the advantages Florida possesses as a cattle-producing state._

In order to understand or to be able to appreciate a proposition of almost any character it is necessary to approach it by comparison, and in making comparisons touching Florida I wish to state that I have traveled over the range of the five northern states of old Mexico; I have traveled over the southern part of the range belt of Arizona; I have traveled over about half of the state of New Mexico and virtually all of Texas, and I find in Florida conditions favorable to the production of live stock that do not exist in any of the states I have named, which const.i.tute the great range belt of the Southwest. In Mexico there is very little water, and water is very hard to get by digging, the wells averaging from 150 to 1,000 feet deep, and in a great many instances no water at all. In Mexico they also have a great many animals that prey on the live stock, such as panthers, lobo wolves, bears, as well as the common, ordinary coyote. None of these have to be contended with here.

In Arizona and New Mexico about the same conditions prevail as do in northern Old Mexico. 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 gra.s.s, 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.

Here I find the country covered with a thick, heavy coat of gra.s.s, streams running with plenty of water and I understand where natural water is not available that it is only about from twenty to one hundred feet to an abundant supply of water under the ground, making the proposition of watering the ranches in Florida, where artificial water is necessary, a very simple matter. The climate in Florida is temperate and mild, rainfall is regular and abundant, and, so far as the production of forage for live stock on the range is concerned, your rainfall and your soils all seem to combine in favor of the producer of live stock.

I never was more amazed in my life than I was last summer, when, in company with a committee of other cattle men from Texas, I visited this state. At that time I was shown over the southern middle part of Florida; was shown a great domain of country lying out of doors, as it were and as we term it in Texas, furnishing free range for hundreds of thousands of cattle. I did not believe my ears when I was told those conditions existed here, and I can't understand yet why a state as old as Florida, with as many surface indications of possibilities for the production of live stock, should remain unfenced, unoccupied, and non-revenue producing to the men who own the land.

Another surprise that met us when we came to Florida in the summer was the absolute lack of any improvement in the live stock that we found here. In fact, it is my judgment that the cattle in Florida today, from what I have read of the history of Florida, are not as good as they were thirty years ago, and I am surprised, when I think of the facilities furnished the cattle men of Florida by the land owners for the grazing of their cattle, that they haven't taken any more interest in their cattle than they have and tried to improve them.

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. And I want here and now to issue a warning to you gentlemen who are running your cattle on the open ranges of Florida that you had better get busy and get control of what land you expect to use as a cattle ranch, for if I mistake not, outsiders are coming into this state who will buy or lease these lands, put them under fence and inaugurate a system of live stock production on an improved basis as compared to the present methods being pursued in this state.

And in this connection I wish to state that I have discussed this open range proposition with some of the largest land owners in Florida. They tell me that they want to see Florida developed; they tell me they are in line to lend their energies, their time and their money to anything that will develop the State of Florida. After listening to them talk this line of earnest progressiveness, I have put the proposition to them just like it was put to us in Texas, and that is, formulate an equitable leasing proposition, one that will safeguard the interests of the land owner, and at the same time lend protection to the vested rights of the lessee, and advertise that to the world. 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, a.s.suring the prospective lessee that they will fence the land according to his desires and will build him a ranch house to live in; that they will fence him a horse pasture to keep his saddle horses in; will build him a dipping vat on the land, and where necessary will bore wells and equip them with windmill and pump sufficient to furnish plenty of water for the live stock on the land so leased.

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 gra.s.s, but in 1884 the Legislature pa.s.sed 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 land owners should fence up their lands, cut them up in pastures to suit the men who want to run their cattle on them, making the lands of Florida revenue-producing, instead of being a liability, and put the cattle of Florida under fence and under control wherein individual effort may develop in a desire to excel. I can not stress this proposition too strongly. I haven't the language to express the importance of putting the lands of Florida under fence and the cattle under control in order that better cattle and more cattle may be raised. The most important step looking to better cattle in Florida has already been taken in the creation of a Live Stock Sanitary Board and the work incident thereto of tick eradication. This work and the efforts of the Florida State Live Stock Sanitary Board will be much more effective and easier of accomplishment when you get the ranges of Florida fenced and the cattle under control.

It seems to me that Florida has been overlooked. 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.

Florida is wasting approximately enough good pasture to produce a meat supply sufficient to feed several states by confining the quality of the herds to the little native cattle we saw on the ranges. True, we saw lots of cattle, more than I supposed existed in the entire State, but the opportunity before the cattle men is to breed up the quality and size. That this can be done was demonstrated by some herds we visited, and the reports on those herds show that this is a better cattle breeding country than Texas, for your owners are branding a larger proportion of calves to breeding cows in herds than we are able to get.

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. 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.

I am very much surprised to find that sheep are not more generally handled on the ranges with the cattle. The absence of coyotes make sheep raising particularly attractive, and they will not injure the cattle pasturage if properly proportioned. There ought to be several hundred thousand sheep on the Kissimmee River Valley ranges. We handle large numbers of sheep and cattle together, although our ranges are not nearly so good as those in Florida.

In conclusion, I will state that I think Florida offers the best field for live stock production along improved lines of any State in America.

That is, cattle can be raised here cheaper and with less uncertainty than any place I know.

A GLANCE BACKWARD AND FORWARD.

_Annual Address before the Florida State Live Stock a.s.sociation, January 8, 1918, by Dr. W. F. Blackman, President of the a.s.sociation._

Never before have we met in circ.u.mstances 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. Our sons and neighbors are on their way to the hideous and heroic and b.l.o.o.d.y work abroad to which they have been summoned. * * *

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.