"Florida was an open range state. Fences to keep cattle in were illegal and cows were free to go where they wished. Under these circumstances, it was easy for herds from different owners to mix. It also made it easy to steal cattle and falsely accuse others of stealing cattle. On the other side of the coin, a free range allowed all the cattle to go find the best grasses to eat and freed the rancher from having to buy and cultivate the land necessary to raise his own cattle. ..."

"In order to keep an idea of which cattle belonged to what owner, the ranchers used a system that was universal to ranchers everywhere. It was a system of marks and brands. After a certain age, the cow would be marked. This meant that the ranchers would cut out sections of the cow's ears in geometrical shapes. They might cut out a triangle on one ear and a rectangle on the other, or two rectangles on one and cut the corner of the ear off on the other. The different marks were limitless, but each mark was the trademark of that owner, meaning all of that owners' cows had that mark."

"The second identifier on the cow was the brand. The brand was a mark placed on the side of the cow by a burning iron. The iron was an iron rod with a wooden handle. On the end opposite the handle would be pieces of metal bent into a certain shape. The rancher would come up with a design and bend bits of iron into that shape. .... "

"Simply having marks and brands didn't make it legal. You had to register your brands with the county. ... On a page of the book, the name of the rancher is written. Beside it is a drawing of the brand. The pages of the books have a column of figure 8s on the far right hand side. These represent the cow's ears and the rancher has to draw the earmarks that he intends to use on the figure 8.  "  -- Manatee County Clerks Web Site