240 HOME LIFE IN FLORIDA. 



calves in a small inclosure, devoid of tree or grass, keep- 

 ing them all through the long summer months without 

 shade or water, and without food as well, except a scanty 

 supply of milk morning and evening ? 



Yet this is w^hat nearly all the old-style Florida popu- 

 lation do! The older "Cracker" portion, because their 

 fathers did it before them ; and the less intelligent of tlie 

 new-comers, because "it is the custom of the country ; " 

 and so they suppose it to be all right, until they find their 

 calves dying off and their cows — w- ho persistently hold 

 back their milk until coaxed by the gentle lips of their 

 offspring — "drying up," as a consequence of the cruel, 

 short-sighted policy pursued toward the latter. 



The W'Onder is that a single calf survives such an ordeal. 

 We have often looked into pens on a hot summer's day 

 and felt our blood rise to boiling heat, not from the rays 

 of the sun, but with a fierce accession of wrath at behold- 

 ing the helpless, patient little calves lying close to the rail- 

 fence, seeking what scant shade might be found, their sides 

 panting, their tongues hanging out, not a particle of food 

 or shelter or water within their reach from the rising to 

 the setting of the sun ! 



Give the Florida calf a good pasture lot ; fence in a por- 

 tion of your piney woodland, if you can do no better ; 

 keep water and salt within reach ; give an occasional 

 bucket of mixed bran and meal, some chopped-up sw'eet 

 potatoes, raw, and an occasional feed of hay or fodder ; 

 put up a rough shed that w ill turn water, surround it by 

 a light railing, so that the calves may be shut in there and 

 prevented from lying on the wet ground on rainy or cold 

 nights, which are sure to come, especially toward fall, and 

 rest assured that the Florida calf thus treated will aston- 

 ish its owner by declining to die, or to do any thing else 

 but grow up fat and healthy. 



