FIFTY-SECOND ANNUAL CONVENTION 59 



but in closing let me say I am a firm believer of the dairy 

 business. I believe in it with all of the power which I have 

 got, and when many young men come into my classes as 

 these young men will before me just now — I am talking to 

 these younger boys — who have the spirit and the inspira- 

 tion to go out and say, *'Dad, this is the better way," we 

 have got to prove our faith by our works, and when I can 

 prove these things through absolute practice I can stand 

 up with a smile and face the future with a great deal of 

 satisfaction, because I believe I have given them something 

 they can take back home on to their own farms, and if I 

 didn't believe this with all my heart, as much as I go about 

 southern Illinois, I would be taking something I didn't want 

 to take; but in the sixteen years I have been in the state 

 institution at Carbondale some of my friends called me 

 out and said, ''Look here, Muckelroy, don't you know you 

 are going to ruin this farming business? You are going to 

 get it so we can't grow anything on the land, and these 

 farmers that are your friends are going to lose confidence 

 in you." That is only fifteen years ago, gentlemen, but 

 we have grown out of that. We have grown into these 

 systems of better farming, and alfalfa is growing now on 

 the place where we spread the limestones. 



The thought of permanent pasture is one thing that 

 confronts us in southern Illinois. We use sweet clover, 

 that is the finest thing I know of for pasture. Last year 

 on the state farm we pastured on eight acres of sweet 

 clover, fourteen head of dairy cattle, — twelve of them were 

 mature cows — four head of horses and sixteen head of 

 sheep — on eight acres of sweet clover! I think that sounds 

 like a big one,, but it is a fact and I will prove it to you. 

 That sweet clover was all juicy and green when all of the 

 other pastures were dried up. 



I thought some ten or twelve years ago that I would 

 have to put another silo on the state farm in order to tide 

 over the dry weather, the drouth, to make our cows give 

 milk the year around, but about that time there came to 

 us the subject of sweet clover. It saved a great deal of 

 expense, because of the fact that we can have our pastures 

 green all the year through. 



