ILLINOIS STATE DAIRYMEN'S ASSOCIATION 45 



One day he sat there by the old water wheel, smoking his old 

 cob pipe. A stranger happened in and he looked up and said 

 **How do you do." The stranger said "You don't seem very 

 busy." ''No," says he, "I am only running on tailings." "Run- 

 ning on tailings, what do you mean by that?" "Eat all the 

 good wheat, and in order to keep the old mill going, we have to 

 run on tailings, screenings." I found out that when this program 

 committee started out, that they ran short of good material, and 

 in order to keep this thing going until closing time, they had to 

 w^ork in some tailings, and that is why I am here. 



Now then, there isn't a man here before me this afternoon 

 that loves the good old dairy cow any more than I do. There 

 isn't many of you here that understand or realize the difference 

 between a good cow and a poor cow much more than I do. All 

 that I am sorry for is that I haven't had more experience with 

 the good cows instead of this kind that Prof. Fraser showed up. 

 But as much as I love cows, as much as I love milk, taking care 

 of cattle, I do not love it well enough to devote my whole time to 

 it. You say that I never will make a successful dairyman. I 

 will not argue at all. But I have had the opportunity a few times 

 of listening to some of these great dairymen, these men that 

 milk vast numbers of cows, and these men that make such an 

 immense quantity of milk around Joliet and around Elgin, over 

 that great district where they make so much milk, and while 

 I was listening to some of these men at the Farmers Institutes 

 and other meetings, the thought came to me, I wonder if the 

 wives of these men were to have the opportunity of getting up 

 here before an audience, if they would tell the same story that 

 their husbands told. If they would tell how they lived, of getting 

 up early in the morning and working until late at nightworking 

 and washing for the family. I wondered if the boys of these 

 fathers, if they were to have the opportunity of getting up before 

 an audience, if they would tell the same story their fathers 

 told? How they loved to milk 15 to 20 cows, over 700 tons in 

 a year. I do not mean for a moment to have you think that 

 I believe that such dairymen as you have around here and Elgin 



