the improvement of our
native stock.

Where are the necessary funds coming from for the financing of those
enterprises? Perhaps the large ranch owners can take care of themselves,
but what our State needs above all things else is thrifty farmers by the
thousand, now on the ground or drawn from other states by our surpassing
advantages of soil and climate; where shall these secure the funds
necessary for the development of their more modest holdings?

Florida is a relatively new and scantily populated State; there are here
no great reserves of cash and securities, accumulated and bequeathed by
generations of toiling and thrifty ancestors, as in some parts of the
country. Many of the banks are doing their best to care for our live
stock interests, but the ability of our local banks--and I speak now as
a banker--is strictly limited in this direction.

What we need in Florida, in my judgment, as the very next step to be
taken, is one or more strong cattle loan companies, such as flourish in
the West, whose sole business it will be to provide the funds necessary
for the developments which I have mentioned, so far as cattle are
concerned. This is a matter which will occupy us during one entire
session of this meeting, and I need not, therefore, deal with it further
now, except to say that the present time seems especially propitious for
the securing of such funds as we need for this business.

Men are asking how they may make safe investment of their savings in
these troubled times; the future of the railways, now under Government
control, is uncertain; industrial enterprises have been largely thrown
into abnormal condition by the war; stocks, bonds and other similar
securities have in them today a considerable speculative element which
gives pause to conservative investors. But amid all this flux and
uncertainty, here lies the land, as from of old, unchanging, peaceful,
fruitful, a mother's full breast, and upon the land feed and grow,
enriching and renewing it forever even as they feed upon it, the
friendly animals, whose flesh and milk support our life from the cradle
to the grave.

There is nothing speculative here, and I am confident that investors,
perplexed now by the unheard of aspect of the world's affairs, will be
disposed to put their funds more and more into the soil and its
products, if they are shown the way; and the cattle-loan company,
organized and administered by experienced and careful men, can show t