g 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
Association, January 8, 1918, by Dr. W. F. Blackman,
President of the Association._

Never before have we met in circumstances 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