ILLINOIS STATE DAIUYMEN'S ASSOCIATION. 203 



We have an old Scotch adage that runs after thiswise: "Get thy 

 spindle and thy distaff ready and God will send the flax." 



The first essential then is to get good foundation stock. Good judg- 

 ment and skill must be exercised in selecting ancestral stock, for the 

 profitable dairy cow is the product of experience and skill. Experience and 

 skill are products of slow growth. 



Experience is commonly the result of oft repeated trial and failure, 

 and skill consists in a foundation of common sense and, a superstructure of 

 special education. 



And herein lies the reason why progress in the dairy industry and other 

 kindred branches of husbandry is so slow among the masses. Each one is 

 trying to get something cheaply, hastily and secondhand, instead of going 

 to work intelligently and patiently for himself. The profitable dairy cow, 

 if the desires of the progressive dairymen of our state are to be realized, 

 must be produced, and no process of production has been discovered. It 

 is by the practice of skillful selection and by diligent and persistent appli- 

 cation of the principles ol* heredity and descent, that anything which has 

 present value, or any true stability or hope of permanence, has been, or 

 ever will be realized. 



Brains and diligence make good wheel-horses in a farm team, and 

 when hitched up with a fine sheep and a good pig with a profitable dairy 

 cow in the lead, they will haul off a bigger load of mortgages from the 

 farm, and haul home a bigger load of general prosperity, than any agri- 

 culturau combination yet formed in the State of Illinois. If the dairyman 

 decides to become a breeder and is not qualified by experience and skill to 

 make intelligent selection of breeding stock, let him secure the service Of 

 those competent. "He that can not paint can grind the colors." He that 

 is not possessed of the judgment and skill required in intelligent selection, 

 and the proper application of the principles potent in breeding, should 

 secure the services of one qualified and begin the work of producing a 

 profitable dairy herd from the best foundation stock he is able to secure. 



^Having fixed as high a standard of excellence as he can reasonably 

 hope to attain from the resources at his command, let him bend all his 

 energies to the realization and maintainance of that standard. 



