ILLINOIS BAIRYMEN'S ASSOCIATION. 91 



about fertility." One of his farms was rented and had been 

 cropped until it had gone down to a point where he could not 

 get his rent, and to make him see it from his own standpoint I 

 said to him. " You can no more keep on cropping your land than 

 you can continue to check out of your bank without depositing." 



Mr. Hayclen : — The average yield of corn is five or six 

 bushels per acre less than in the dairy section of Illinois. 



Mr. Gurler: — That has not been so for a term of years. 

 Is that a fact as a rule? 



Mr. Hayclen : — Yes, in the corn belt about 35 bushels per 

 acre. 



Mr. Gurler : — I thought it was only the last year or two ; I 

 did not suppose that conditions had existed for a number of 

 years. 



The President : — There is no question that the best work 

 done in the university the last ten years is Dr. Hopkins' w r ork. 

 He will give you advice and you will find that the root of it all 

 is that you must adopt a method of agriculture that will keep 

 up your land, and hence the dairy department, it seems to me, 

 is the strongest and best side of agriculture. 



Mrs. Purviance : — They are mostly renters on the farms in 

 our country; they have been running for a number of years and 

 it is almost impossible to get a crop that will make more than 25 

 bushels. We have been on our farm for fifteen years, and last 

 year we had 25 bushels of corn to the acre, that is the average. 

 This year we had a little over fifty bushels to the acre; we had 

 over 250 acres, and that was better than anyone around, and we 

 owe it all to the dairy. 



Prof. Smith : — The Michigan people have been looking to 

 Illinois as a perfect paradise, but if these things are clone in the 

 green tree what can you expect in the dry? If Illinois, with all 

 the advantages of having the best blood of the East poured into 

 it and the best land that the sun shines upon, does things like 

 this, what do you expect of us ordinary mortals up in Michigan, 

 where we have everything to contend with? I want you to 



