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 and habits has been upset. Our sons and neighbors are on their way to the hideous and heroic and bloody work abroad to which they have been summoned. * * *

But disquieting as are the times, the business of the stock raiser in America, and particularly in Florida, was never on so sound a basis as today, never so full of promise. The exhaustion of domestic animals throughout Europe and the increasing shortage in our own country are creating a demand which will insure for many years to come a profitable market for all the beef, pork, mutton and dairy products which we can supply.

Definitely, I think it can be said that there can be no danger of overproduction in these lines for a long time to come. And for this industry, which we may perhaps properly call the most ancient, fundamental, necessary, stable, wholesome, honorable and delightful of all the occupations in which men are engaged, Florida has advantages of soil, climate, rainfall and location greater, on the whole, than those enjoyed by any other state of the American union. This is being recognized in increasing measure, far and wide. The eyes of discerning and experienced men are being turned this way as never before. Inquiries by mail and visits of exploration from the North, the West and the Southwest have never before been so numerous as during the year which we are reviewing, and our own people are awakening to the opportunities which lie all about them, unused and inviting.

There are vast areas of cheap and hitherto waste lands in every part of the State, lying open the year round to the genial and fructifying rays of a semi-tropical and sub-tropical sun, which need only the expenditure upon them of money and labor to fit them for the support of herds and flocks greater than any other region can maintain. We have every reason, as we face the new year, to take courage and to gird ourselves for the task of turning into reality these gracious possibilities which nature has spread about us with a lavish hand.

The past year has been signalized by one great achievement, carrying two others in its train. The great achievement to which I refer, the greatest by all odds ever accomplished in this State, is the creation by the Legislature of a State Live Stock Sanitary Board and the appropriation of public monies for the carrying on of its work; and the two consequent achievements are the beginning of definite, determined, statewide, co-operative and adequately supported efforts to eradicate the pestilent cattle tick from all our borders and to control hog cholera. * * *

And I venture now to say—and I say it with pardonable pride and great pleasure—that no state in the Union has a more carefully considered, better balanced and guarded, and more rigid and effective law, covering the matter of live stock sanitation, than has Florida. Perhaps a detail here and there needs to be amended and strengthened, but, on the whole, the measure was a good one and is working well. * * *

I may add, finally, that the State Live Stock Sanitary Board, in the two great undertakings to which, for the present and the immediate future, it will, of necessity, chiefly devote its energies, the eradication of the cattle tick and the control of hog cholera, we are leaning heavily on two co-operative agencies. The first of these is the Federal Government, through its Bureau of Animal Industry, and the States Relations Service.

In Dr. E. M. Nighbert, inspector in charge of the work of tick eradication; Dr. A. H. Logan, inspector in charge for hog cholera control; Dean P. H. Rolfs of the University, director of the Experiment Station, in charge of the work in Florida of the States Relations Service, and the numerous assistants placed by the Federal Government, under the direction of these three gentlemen, we have a large body of capable, trained and energetic experts, whose co-operation with our Board is of inestimable value to the State, and whose maintenance costs us nothing.

The members of the State Live Stock Sanitary Board serve without remuneration, so that we have in Florida approximately thirty men who are engaged in promoting the work of live stock sanitation without expense to the taxpayers of the State. It is fitting, I think, that this Association should be reminded of this very great and very costly, but nevertheless wholly gratuitous, service which is being rendered to the interests which we represent. * * *

So much for the past year; now for a glance forward.

What I have just been saying indicates clearly the special work to which we ought, in my judgment, to devote ourselves in the immediate future—I mean the complete and final eradication of the tick in every county in Florida and the largest possible measure of control of hog cholera. If we see clearly, we see that these tasks are preliminary to all others. * * *

Fortunately the tick is a very weak and vulnerable enemy, though so mischievous. Put all the cattle of Florida through the dipping vat once a fortnight for five or six months, and there would be no more ticks left in this State than there are snakes in Ireland. Let us consecrate ourselves here in this meeting to the doing of this thing, and doing it soon.

Hog cholera is not so simple and manageable an affair. In the micro-organism which causes this disease, we face an enemy far subtler, more cunning, more elusive, more persistent and more swiftly fatal than is the tick. It escapes observation by the most powerful microscope; it laughs at quarantine lines; it flows in the stream; it lurks in the pool; it rides upon the foot of beast and bird, the shoe of man, the wagon's wheel; it soars aloft on the buzzard's wing; you can not catch and dip it.

I earnestly advise the formation of local live stock associations throughout the State, at least one in each county affiliated with the State Association, and having special committees on Tick Eradication and Hog Cholera Control, composed of the ablest, the most energetic and the most influential men in the various communities. Let these associations hold meetings at regular intervals for the free exchange of views and experiences; let expert and interesting speakers from abroad bring to these meetings fresh information and impetus; let there be added such social and entertaining features as may be available—music, barbecues, moving pictures, boat excursions, what-not—to attract the multitude, relieve the monotony of farm life, and increase neighborliness and good community feeling. Let the co-operation of the banks of the region be secured, for the generous financing of pig clubs and corn clubs. * * *

There is one other matter of prime importance to which I invite your attention. If the live stock industry of Florida is to be put on the most stable basis and developed with reasonable rapidity, immense sums of money will be required. Fences must be built; drainage canals and ditches must be dug; improved and more nourishing grasses must be introduced over vast areas; other great areas must be planted with forage crops; silos must be built; plows, harrows and other expensive implements must be purchased; horses, mules and tractors, herdsmen, farmers and laborers must be secured and put to work in great numbers; a multitude of pure-bred bulls and cows, boars and sows, rams and ewes, stallions, jacks and mares must be imported for 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 them the way and lead them safely in it.

And now, gentlemen, we will proceed to the program our Executive Committee has provided. I hope that our meeting together, the messages which will be brought us from abroad, and the various discussions in which we ourselves shall engage, will serve to hearten us for our work and help us to feel, amid the toil and perplexities of our daily task, that in providing a more copious supply of food for the world, in causing two blades of grass to grow where one grew before, and in transforming these blades of grass by the mysterious and wonderful processes of nature into the thoughts and loves of men and women, the orator's speech, the poet's song, the statesman's wisdom, the soldier's fierce energy, the mother's brooding care, and the babe's new life, we are doing our part to support and render more rich and worthy this wondrous human drama and are partners with God in the work of his earthly kingdom.