Florida: An Ideal Cattle StateFlorida State Live Stock Association
History
Florida: An Ideal Cattle State
Florida State Live Stock Association
Cattle -- Florida
A new era is dawning for the cattle business of Florida. The war has
forced a reduction in the exports of turpentine and rosin, and the large
land owners are turning their attention to improved stock raising. A
packing house has been erected at Jacksonville. Systematic tick
eradication is being carried on. Large tracts of land have been fenced
and stocked. Hundreds of well-bred Texas cows and registered Hereford,
Angus, Shorthorn and Brahma bulls are being purchased, and the work of
breed improvement is growing in popularity.
Good feed and forage crops can be grown in most sections, and with this
new movement for improved live stock will come deeper interest in
agriculture. The chief forage crops now produced in that State are corn,
velvet beans, Japanese cane, sorghum, cow peas and beggar-weed. The
first three perhaps take the lead. The corn and velvet beans are planted
together, in rows from four to six feet apart. The beans grow very rank,
producing an abundance of good hay, and beans which are high in feeding
value. The beans may be left on the vines for pasturage, or gathered and
ground into bean meal, which is excellent for cattle feeding. Japanese
cane resembles our Texas ribbon cane. It makes good silage, keeps well
and is highly relished by cattle. The Florida beggar-weed grows as a
volunteer in old fields of a light sandy soil. If cut at the right time
it makes good hay, and, while it is rather bulky for silage alone, it is
said to add greatly to the fattening value of silage. Corn and cow peas
need no introduction to our readers.
The most common grasses are several varieties of paspalum or carpet
grass, switch grass, wire grass, little blue maiden cane and Bermuda.
Crab and Natal grass are volunteers which follow crops on sandy soils.
Both Guinea and Para grasses thrive in South Florida, where less liable
to injury by frost. Fort Thompson grass, which resembles giant Bermuda,
with larger joint, stem and leaf, is a native of Florida, which will
some day be recognized as one of their very best pasture grasses.
With their open range and native cattle--a poorer grade than our
old-time longhorn--the cattle business of Florida today may be compared
to that of Texas twenty years ago. What they need is more bulls and
experienced cattlemen who will apply the intelligence, energy and
persistence that know not failure.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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