ILLINOIS STATE DAIRYMEN'S ASSOCIATION 57 



ers and he said they say ''that is all we can sell." Why won't 

 the farmers buy those that come more than that? "It 

 pulls too hard" the boys say. It ain't so at all. Any four of 

 us men can pull 8 ft. mowing machines if it is in good shape. 

 The draft is not the limiting factor at all. No work any easier 

 than running the mowing machine. Why say that you can't run 

 a mowing machine, an eight footer, when you use a seven foot 

 binder on the same farm. It is utterly foolish. We do things 

 as we do, for no more reason than that we have always done 

 them that way. You tell an Englishman that he is not doing 

 something right, and he will say ''we always did it so." You 

 and I need to get out one side of ourselves and look back and 

 see what we are actually doing, and we need it in dairying more 

 than any other phase of agriculture. These meetings are for 

 discussion because matters are changing rapidly. Everything 

 is being adjusted to new conditions, and we must readjust our- 

 selves also. 



It is costing us too much to produce milk. The consumer 

 must be educated until he is ready to pay a reasonable price for 

 a good product, and be sure he gets a good product. 



We have something to do in Illinois and it is for the in- 

 terest of every man to do it now and not to postpone it. It is 

 not going to drift ten years more as it has in the past. If we 

 are a dairy state, and we are, then we ought to be doing better 

 than we are. We have in the two corners of this state, Chicago 

 and St. Louis, the two great markets of the west. They are 

 natural and legitimate plunder. But those cities ought to be 

 'supplied from Illinois. We can have the milk trade of St. Louis, 

 if we go after it, and Chicago, if we can keep it. Am I succeed- 

 ing in making this clear ? 



What we ought to do in this meeting, is to discuss a lot 

 of questions that do not concern us as individuals, but the indus- 

 try as a whole. Plan a long ways ahead. I had a long talk 

 with Mark Dunham about his business years ago. He built up 

 his business from one horse to one of the largest horse businesses 

 in the country. He said when he published his first catalogue. 



