26 ILLINOIS STATE DAIRYMEN'S ASSOCIATION 



I am going to say, I doubt very much if it will appeal to 

 those of you who are here. 



I always like to feel when I give a talk that I have 

 dropped some suggestion that you can take home to make 

 things better. I can tell you absolutely that your time is 

 wasted here today, and mine is too, if you just sit and listen 

 and then go home and do not put these things into practice. 



I am sorry that your wives are not here — they would 

 see to it that you did some of these things. The week be- 

 fore last, in speaking before a dairymen's association, I no- 

 ticed that there was not a man in the audience who had his 

 wife along with him. I said: "Where in the world are all 

 you fellows' wives. Why didn't you bring them along?" 

 They did not like it very well. 



You have heard a mighty good talk this morning from 

 Professor Caldwell and Professor Reed gave one of the best 

 talks on the cow testing association that I have ever heard. 

 I just want to take up a little addition to what he has said. 



We were organizing a cow testing association over in 

 Iowa a good many years ago. I firmly believe that the 

 testing association is one of the greatest things for a com- 

 munity and its prosperity. I have noticed over and over 

 again in our state that when the year is up it is necessary to 

 go right back and sign up the members all over again. And 

 it is no soft job to get them back in the association year 

 after year. Undoubtedly, if it is good for a man one year, 

 and for a community one year, it is good for a period of 

 years. Every year it leaves the individual and the com- 

 munity so much better. 



I was just hoping that Professor Reed would go right 

 ahead and analyze the results of associations. 



It occurs to me that there is probably a reason why 

 these associations do not live. In all lines of business they 

 have bookkeepers and they keep a lot of figures. They 

 keep so many figures that, by the time they get the figures 

 together, the year is over and we have lost money. And 

 these figures amount to very little unless someone in the 

 organization sits down and analyzes and figures out what 



