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