Part 3

I find that there is some prejudice against the Hereford in Florida, but as far as I can follow it they apparently got a very low grade of bulls--I am inclined to think not over half-breeds, and then, too, they found they didn't get any more at that time for the better grades than they did for the others.

The limitation of the Hereford is that in the first cross between a pure-bred and any of the primitive cattle ninety per cent will show white faces or dominant characteristics, and just so in the use of bulls, the animal may not have the intensification of blood that he should have simply because he has a white face, and the bull peddler has, as a proposition, bought something that he could sell at a profit, rather than in following out any visions of cattle improvement.

I can not urge you too strongly to know absolutely the breeding strength of anything you buy, and that means in a general way that you must buy known cattle. I realize, too, that there is a great shortage of bulls, and probably the only way that you can get what you want, because it goes without saying that you can not afford to pay the price for registered bulls in all your work, is to work in some way through a central community of interests, go to Texas and buy the bull calf crop of some herd of cattle that will show fifteen-sixteenths or better breeding. I urge this freely, because you must go below the line and none of our own cattle are available. I believe that if you bring these calves over here, say in November at weaning time, at the age of about six months, and give them some good winter help, that they will acclimate quickly, and will give you very fair returns in the yearling period, although, of course, you can not expect from them a real usefulness until the two-year-old period.

While the Hereford has been the redeemer of the ranges, practically every ranch man in Texas has felt that an undercurrent of Shorthorn is of the greatest advantage. We have used it persistently in our own work, and feel that it has given a most appreciable contribution to the weight and general quality of our cattle.

In the last few years the Brahma cattle have come into prominence, and every investigation that I have made shows that they will undoubtedly prove a great factor in the evolution of Florida cattle. They seem to be immune to most of the pests and do not require as much in the way of acclimatization. They show a wonderful growth in yearlings and they mark their progeny with size and distinct characteristics in a most decided way. The packers seem to like them; they kill out a large per cent of beef, and while I have never had any experience with them, all my observation has been in their favor, and I urge you to go as far as you can in utilizing them in Florida.

I am, however, convinced that you are going to need both the Shorthorn and the Hereford to combine with them. I am also convinced that both the Shorthorns and the Black cattle are going to prove very valuable adjuncts in your eventual work in the State, particularly as applied to small areas where the cattle are not asked to live as much upon their own resources. The experience, however, in Texas has been that the calf crop is not as great from either of these breeds as from the Herefords.

For your information, on the S. M. S. Ranch we have averaged better than eighty percent calf crop for the last ten years. I think that perhaps you will find the Brahma cattle even more prolific than the Herefords. I think, too, that in every possible way you should encourage the breeders of full-blood cattle in all of these breeds, and that you give them every encouragement in purchasing their progeny.

The introduction of good bulls is a comparatively simple matter, because they can be purchased, but a great cow herd can only be produced by accumulation, probably by a culling of at least ten per cent of all females every year during the process of up-grading. The yearling heifers should not be bred. We always cull them when about eighteen months old, cutting them ten per cent. Culling should be done both from an individual standpoint and from the standpoint of "Get." The culling process is the most important element in beef evolution.

The process of culling will not be extravagant, because looking to the next few years it would seem that canner cattle will probably be as strong as any other branch of the industry, and these culls are usually not only splendid canners, but furnish quite an element of cutters, which means cattle producing very fair meat for regular consumption. I believe, too, that on any range of appreciable dimensions you will find it an economy to produce your own bulls, and in starting any good sized property I urge that you keep that in mind. Get your cows just as good as you can get them; of course pure-breds will be better, and then use only the best registered sires in that herd.

I think advisable, too, in your branding, to put the year brand on all heifers, as it will be of material assistance to you in the matter of knowing the intensification of blood during the early process. It will not be so important later on when the cattle are all very high grade.

The use of the scrub bull is an economic crime; therefore no matter what you use in the way of a sire you are pointed upward, but I feel that it will be a distinct economy to try to get seven-eighths, or at least fifteen-sixteenths sires.

Another thing which offers a great economy in your country is the possibility of dropping calves an average of about two months earlier than they do in Texas. We do not like to have a calf come before the 1st of April. I believe that you can drop yours during January and February without any trouble, judging from the average condition of your cattle in a winter said to be from early October, the most severe you have ever had. Dropping a calf at that time will have him old enough to eat your young grasses when they begin to come. He will have a two months' pull over the Texas calf; will have at least two months longer to combine nursing and grazing to deliver him the first of November.

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.

It is always customary in our country to put salt around the water holes. I find, as a proposition, your cattle do not have salt at all, and it is very much needed in their development. Over some areas there is no lime, and there it would probably be wise to combine salt and lime, which can be very easily done by using a compressed cake, not rock salt. It may take these primitive cattle some time to learn how to lick the salt, but the next generation will be there all right, and it will have its influence in their development.

It is my observation that under a proper development of water, a fenced area and proper subdivision fences permitting the protection of one pasture for winter purposes, forcing the cattle out in summer upon areas best adapted to that season, that Florida lands will carry from two to three times the number of cattle that the average Texas range does.

I find, too, that a great deal of the range offers a splendid hog feed from the cabbage palm, the seed of the palmetto and from the mast found in the shinnery. It would seem, therefore, that an appreciable number of hogs may be produced without extra cost on most Florida ranges. While they will not sell for the top prices unless fattened on some concentrate, they bring a very fair figure as against combined result and overhead charges, and should be a big factor in revenue and one that we do not have in Texas.

Your lands are singularly free from pests. To illustrate, it cost us something over $75,000 to kill prairie dogs on about 450,000 acres of Texas lands, and outside of the shinnery lands the great bulk of Texas lands have been populated with prairie dogs, which in bad times take at least one-third of the grass. You do not seem to have the screw worm, which bothers us a great deal in very wet weather.

You can own your posts at a comparatively small cost and with normal prices of wire I should say could construct your fences for three-fourths of what it costs us. You have no very long drives for your cattle when shipping them, and in the matter of winter help to your cattle it will cost very little as compared with what we have to spend in Texas. To give you an idea, we are buying $50,000 worth of feed to winter a herd of 25,000 head of cattle. While your season here will permit you to get through with very little extra cost, if any, I think that you should make a provision for some concentrate, so as to have it. In Texas, when the grass is all gone, the use of cotton seed cake is limited when not taken in conjunction with a good filler, and there is never a time when you at least don't have a good filler. It is simply a matter of getting a little concentrate on it and cutting out the weak cattle and concentrating them to such winter help.

You are right where we were in '82--large areas of land, in which our problem was to make them carry themselves without cost, or pay a small interest until such time as they would sell at good value. We had very low values on cattle, long distances from the railroads--in fact, every possible disadvantage, but these lands have always paid for taxes and overhead expenses and have always given us a little something in addition, and are at a point now where they pay us a very good net interest on $10.00 land and $70.00 cows. We probably could sell every acre that we own at a price which would give us more net money than we get from the cattle business, but our people consider it a mighty good back-log to have lands which were almost without value brought up to that value and to their earning capacity.