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,