The Florida agriculturist. [volume] (DeLand, Fla.) 1878-1911, 1879-04-23

"The right way!" "How to find
It'll" Shut our eyes !? Ignore the
practical, patient, experimental,
scrutinizing, scientific method which
is leading to such wonderful success
in SO many things at the present day,
which has made agriculture, in the
northern states, and in many of the
states of Europe, what it is, actually
a century, yes, IN many things, two
centuries ahead of us
Let us see if we are not this far be-
hind. / take the following facts
from an excellent article by Charles
Flint in the Report Of the Depart
nsent Of Agricitxaere for 1872:
In regard to stock and feeding.
The first cattle imported into Vir-
ginia and Massachusetts, were brought
mostly from England, in the early
part of the seventeenth century.
" And it is a historical tact that the
OK of that day was small and ILL
shaped" Such is ours to-day.
Throughout the earlier1 part of the
last century the average gross weight
of the neat cattle sent for sale to the
Smithfield, England, market, did not
excede three hundred and seventy
pounds.t This excedes our average
The cattle OF the colonies were
poor of their kind as compared with
our ideas of the quality of similar
animals in the northern states, though
precisely like ours in Florida. "In
addition to this the means of keep
ing stock Of any kind, in such a man
ner as to secure sgy improvement in
1t we're Iot sCsdanu 80 with us
"The early colonists had no notion
of raising grass and hay for their an
imals by artificial means" They re-
lied chiefly and almost from necessity
upon the production of natural mead
ows and the grasses along the sea
Shore" "The cattle, like their own.
ers, had to browse for their lives"
How like us "Death, from starva.
tion and exposure, was not uncom-
mon, and sometimes an entire herd
fell victims to the severity of the
season." "The most terrible drouths
were of frequent occurrence and
caused great distress. The Indian
corn and grasses perished to such an
extent, that both grain and forage for
stock, at times, had to be imported
from England to keep the people from
starving and to keep the cattle alive
so late as $780," This is Florida to-
day, in every particular. But We
can carry the comparison further. In
the Virginia colony, Mr.. Clay ton, a
contemporary, says:
They neither housed nor MIXED
their COWS in Winter, having notion
that it would kill Them" Kahn, a
Swedish traveller in Virginia says
"lThey make scarcely any manure for
their corn fields, but when one piece of
ground has been exhausted by con-
tinued cropping they clear and cult
vate another piece of fresh land and
when this is exhausted they proceed
to third. Their cattle are allowed
to wander through the woods and
uncultivated grounds where they are
half starved This was Virginia
$50 years ago and Florida to-day.
Hon. James Garnet, in 1912, said
Previous to our revolutionary
war, as I have been told by our farm
ers of that day, no attempts, worth
tCOmpare this weight with the follow
ing: G. H. Farnum, Concord, N. H., 1876,
killed q steer, g months old, that weighed,
when dressed. 522 pounds. He sold another
for 5000. This, dressed, March LIST, 1877,
weighed 902 pounds. The meat alone
weighed 748 pounds. This steer was Just
| one year old. Such remarkable CroWths
| are now becoming frequent in all the
northern and western states and in Eu-
rope. How long are we to remain where