Four Centuries of Florida Ranching by George H. Dacy

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


This book was published in 1940 before two significant happenings took place. One was World War II which led to the other, the Florida Legislature in the 1950s aiding realtors and builders by raising property taxes of land not available for residential construction for all of the former WWII military wanting to move to Florida. Both undermined the cattle industry that, author, Dacy could not have foreseen.

So Dacy lays out the history and conditions of the Florida cattle industry through 400 years and writes of only success in the future. Most of his focus is the 50 years prior to 1940. That 50 years saw a cattle industry in Florida take off like a rocket with few sputs and sputters.

With that in mind Dacy’s overall chronicle is the best written with an enormous amount of details that i’ve read. I love Joe Akerman’s books of Florida’s cattle industry, but his are much more exhaustive into vast information. Dacy’s is more concise and focused full of wonderful details and insights.

The book is broken into chapters. The problem is that the chapters are not all logical with Considerable space is used about the tick problem left without conclusion as the legal battles continued after publication of the book.

Dacy is also a very good writer. This book has a lot of life in many parts.

Bottom line:I recommend this book. 9 out of ten points.



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