VERMONT DAIRYMEN'S ASSOCIATION. 23 



voice their sentiments and say to you that I hope that the good work 

 you are doing will take on a wider scope in order that we may have 

 in the near future that which we all desire. Until those questions are 

 solved we cannot hope to have our fondest hopes realized, which would 

 be a better and greater Vermont. 



Ladies and gentlemen. I beg pardon for taking so much of your 

 valuable time and I will close by extending to you once more a hearty 



greeting of welcome, and in addition it gives me pleasure, while you are 

 here with us, to extend to you the freedom of our city, and I hope and 



trust when your meeting draws to a close you will find that it has 

 been one of the pleasantest and most helpful in the history of the 

 organization." 



President Aitken: — The response to the address of welcome will 

 be made by Hon. Ernest Hitchcock of Pittsford, Vt. 



Hon. Ernest Hitchcock said: 



Ladies and Gentlemen: — It certainly is a pleasure as well as an 

 honor to stand here and voice the sentiments of this Association and 

 to extend to his Honor, the Mayor, and the people whom he repre- 

 sents the cordial thanks of this Association for his very courteous 

 words of welcome. And it is a greater pleasure because we realize 

 that this welcome has not been a matter of words alone, but has 

 been manifested in deeds to an extent which this Association has 

 seldom if ever enjoyed. There is, it seems to me, a peculiar fitness 

 in the meeting here in Burlington of this, which is perhaps the largest 

 and most important, State Association. There is a peculiar fitness in 

 meeting in this Queen City of the State, the city which leads in popu- 

 lation, leads in wealth, and, best of all, leads in the educational ad- 

 vantages of Vermont to its own citizens and those of the other 

 towns in the State. 



His Honor alluded to the age of this Association. It is true it is 

 the oldest State Dairymen's Association in the Union, and looking 

 back over the years of this Association, back (if I remember correctly; 

 to the year 1870, a period well within the recollection, probably, of 

 half or two-thirds of the members now before us, looking back I see 

 results that have been attained during those comparatively few years. 

 These years have witnessed absolutely, you might say, the creation 

 of the dairy industry as we know it to-day. Go back twenty-odd years 

 and you go back of the date of the Babcock tester; back of the 

 day of the Centrifugal separator, which means that we go back of 

 those two instruments of separation upon which is based, is abso- 

 lutely founded, the dairy business as we know it to-day. It seems 

 almost impossible that the next thirty years may bring similar ad- 

 vance in the business, it is impossible for us to guess at the regions 

 into which future discoveries will go. Here is one thought I want to 

 leave with you to-day: I yield to no man in the admiration I have for 

 the work of investigation; for the broad nature of human knowledge, 

 but, after all, it is only when that knowledge is put into practical use 

 that it becomes of the greatest benefit, and if I were asked to-day 



