go into details, there has been a very material decrease in it during the past ten years. We know that Europe must be re-stocked after the war, and that the American supply is freer from disease than that of any other country.

We know that under normal conditions the beef production of America has not kept pace with the population, and that even without the influence of war values of beef, stock cattle values have shown a steady increase for the past ten years. There is, therefore, every reason to believe that for a very long period in the future, even taking into consideration reduced beef consumption as the result of substitutes or every other influence, there is a reasonable expectation for strong values and a profit on production under normal expense. I think that we may go beyond the favorable general market and say that there will be a better market in proportion for the intermediate grades of beef, for grass produced beef, than for the very extreme corn-fed finish, and that in the evolution of the Florida beef problem, the grades produced will at least be in as great demand, and probably greater demand, than the ultra finished class.

It is, therefore, fair to argue that the market is with the producer.

You are singularly fortunate in having a Legislature which seems in every way disposed toward doing everything in its power to help develop the resources of the State.

The Government believes that live stock production is its second greatest problem, and in every possible way that it can give co-operation is pledged to do so. In fact, I do not think that I would have been here at all unless a high official in the Bureau of Animal Industry had not urged me to come, in line with their work of general development throughout the South.

Another thing, I find that Florida is very much in the public eye, and that all the live stock journals are anxious to have anything which touches upon increased beef production anywhere, but in the South particularly.

With the knowledge that I might be here some time this winter, I talked to two of the great packers about the development of the beef industry in the South, and they both said that they thought the South was going to come to the front very rapidly, and that either they or some one else would undoubtedly keep pace with the development by enlarging their present facilities or building new packing houses.

In that connection a packer loves a hog country to work in conjunction with cattle. Without giving the topic any more than this general statement, I can see where hog production is going to be one of the great things in Florida, and that while in Texas we do not attempt to produce any hogs along with our cattle, that hogs will be to some extent a part of the great pasture problems.

In a general way, conditions are very similar in Florida now to those of some thirty-five years ago in Texas, at which time that State was an open range proposition. Today, with the exception of a very small strip along the Gulf Coast, the entire State of Texas is under fence, and in a general way has been under fence for nearly twenty years.

There has never been a time in the State of Texas in the past twenty years when practically all of the grazing area of the State has not been occupied, and as against the cattle carried on the open range with practically no water development, the pastures of Texas, which are known as the range (but the word range in Texas means large bodies of inclosed land), are carrying several hundred per cent more cattle than at that time.

The thing which in Texas led to great hardships alike to the large pasture owner and to the settler himself was the fact that so much of the land did not lie in solid bodies. I judge that in the main there is much less of this in Florida than in Texas, and that either by partition, or purchase, or auxiliary lease, the great bulk of that complication can be handled.

And that brings me to the principle of fencing, which I think may be covered under the general heading of Control. First, it means defined ownership, which is always recognized. It means fire control, because it eliminates the wantonness which we now find all over your open range, each man working out his problem and firing the range for various causes.

Fencing means that an area may be developed to its capacity. For instance, on your ranges fire kills the various varieties of the carpet or blanket grass and kills the little blue cane, as well as any number of other grasses, all of which, however, come back where an area is protected, and as they are among your very best feeds, the carrying capacity of a pasture is materially increased.

Water may be developed through the windmill process directly in proportion with the needs of the cattle and concentrated to them as against any water development on the open range.

It is a scientific fact that eradication of the tick may be accomplished by resting a pasture for a certain time. Fencing means the concentration of that area to the best bulls as against not only their mixture with the scrub bulls on the open range, but the fact that the old Spanish fighting blood in the scrub bull materially reduces the effectiveness of the higher class bull. Fencing means that if on any favorable areas you wish to introduce any of the wonderful grasses which the Department of Agriculture is showing can be spread very rapidly, it can be done concentrating to ownership.

Fencing means that lands which are now being occupied by some one else without revenue, but at an expense, may be made to either pay a fair interest on the investment of land, improvements and cattle, or at least a rental revenue which will take care of taxes, interest on improvements and become a net economy, as against the open range.

I believe, too, that the principle will stand that a property defined by fences immediately takes on increased value; that the buyer would pay more for it per acre defined than looking at it in the abstract as part of the open range.

I do not think that in the whole State of Texas you will find a single land owner, who has fenced his ranches, who does not know that it has been done at a splendid profit.

You begin your problem with a tick-wide eradication law, which Texas has only had a very short time. You begin it at a time when the Government and most of the tick-infested states are releasing thousands of square miles every year, and at a time when both science and every practical observer understands it as an economic measure, which may be pursued with practically no detriment or danger to the cattle. I think that we probably dipped in the neighborhood of a million cattle, considering the number of times that they were dipped, and we did not lose a total of fifty head from all causes.

Eradication means larger cattle in better condition on the same feeds and a less mortality. It means that they can go anywhere in America without restriction; or, in other words, a broader market and no punishment just before shipment. I do not think that the perpetuity of the tick can be defended from any economic standpoint.

I want to take up the breeding section, first with reference to what your cattle represent and a comparison with primitive cattle in other countries. I am advised on reliable authority that forty years ago the only ready money in this country came from the cattle men who either topped their bulls and took them to Cuba, or the Cubans came here and topped them, taking the very best sires that you produced for sport and slaughter. You have, therefore, for forty years been grading down, as far as the sire is concerned.

In the matter of the cows, there has been no culling, added to which there has been in-breeding, and on both the sire and dam side following out the law that evil qualities intensify in posterity, the tendency has been down instead