144 ILLINOIS STATE DAIRYMEN'S ASSOCIATION. 



The banker who does business on the dairyman's money is 

 importuned to buy an automobile, while the dairyman's mail is 

 only circulars from the manufacturer of milk wagons. The 

 dairyman can always be found at home, from necessity, while 

 the grain raiser goes every Saturday to visit his wife's people 

 and stays till Monday; the dairyman counts the proceeds from 

 his product in nickels; the wheat producer counts his in dollars. 

 The dairyman spends his summers in the pasture and feed lot 

 and his winters in the cow barn ; the stock dealer spends his 

 summers on the lakes in the north and his winters in California, 

 Florida and Mexico. The dairyman takes his product to market 

 in a tin can, the corn raiser takes his in a box car; one sells by 

 the pint, the other by the carload. The dairyman has a steady 

 job, his work never ends, while the farmer works four months 

 and loafs the rest of the year. 



These are some of the impressions and mental comparisons, 

 and because of this I am disposed to be charitable toward some 

 for the conclusion they have arrived at, and my mission today 

 is to reassure the dairyman, and impress those who are not 

 dairymen, with the dignity and importance of the man's pro- 

 fession who is "Only a Dairyman" ; and if I am talking to a man 

 today who is prejudiced, my effort will be the same as the little 

 girl whose grandmother visited her home for the first time, and 

 she said to her: "So you are my grandmother, are you?" The 

 woman said : "Yes, I am your grandmother on your father's 

 side," and the little girl said : "You'll soon find out that you are 

 on the wrong side." 



I would send this message to a legion of my Illinois friends 

 who are wearing out their land by drawing on its fertility and 

 putting nothing back, you are on the wrong side. I am glad, 

 that to some extent, sentiment has changed, and with this change 

 has come an improvement in the care of the milk on the farm, 

 and as this wave of sentiment spreads, many evils will be cor- 

 rected. The woman who expects company to dinner puts on a 

 clean tablecloth, brings out her best dishes and prepares for 

 that meal the most palatable articles of diet and in the most 



