About half of the land in Florida is used for cattle and beef over 4,000,000 acres Florida ranked number 12 in the US for cattle. When the cattle industry was just developing the Florida Cowboys were called “crackers” because they would crack the whip to move the cattle ... later the small houses they lived in were called “cracker boxes” ..... Also the term cracker became derogatory and referred to white males.... I lived in the south in Florida and that was a very common thing to be called a cracker and that’s my history lesson for today.