New book offers colorful pictorial history of Florida's cowboys

"FLORIDA COWBOYS: Keepers of the Last Frontier." Photographs by Canton Ward Jr. Publisher: University Press of Florida. $45. There are 232 pages in this handsome book about cowboys and the cattle country they work and protect. There are twice that many full-color photos by Canton Ward Jr., who founded the Legacy Institute for Nature and Culture - all of this in one of the most extraordinary books ever published on the Florida cowboys. You will want to frame nearly every photo - especially the close-up of the rugged sunburned faces of these men and women to whom we owe so much. According to Patrick D. Smith, author of "A Land Remembered," Florida is this country's first cattle state - not the Southwest or West, but here. There are still, large and small, about 15,500 cattle ranches in Florida. One of them is the largest beef producer in the nation, and six are in the top 10. One can read and read and marvel at the many ranches and the people who work them - the owners and their hands. To name a few, there is the Lykes Ranch in Glades County, the Duda Farms of Hendry County, Two Rivers Ranch in Hillsborough County, the Lightsey Cattle Company in Polk County, Strickland Ranch in Manatee County, Clay Ranch in Putnam County and Big Cypress Rodeo in Hendry County...more