FIFTY-SECOND ANNUAL CONVENTION 77 



I am going to tell you now of an incident that occurred 

 in the latter part of November, and I do not wish you to 

 take it that I am criticisnig anyone in particular when I 

 tell you of this incident, but it merely illustrates what may 

 happen and how necessary it is that there be adequate pro- 

 tection in our state. The latter part of November the divi- 

 sion of plant industry received word from the Minister of 

 Agriculture of the Dominion of Canada that he had been 

 granted permission by the United States Department of 

 Agriculture to ship corn from the province of Ontario, the 

 corn borer area of Canada, to the National Livestock Show 

 at Chicago. The superintendent of plant industry brought 

 that wire to my desk immediately and I replied by sending 

 the Minister of Agriculture of Canada a wire for him to 

 send the corn; my inspectors would receive it and either 

 burn it or return it. I in turn sent a copy of my wire to 

 the Secretary of Agriculture at Washington, and the Sec- 

 retary of Agriculture at Washington notified him that his 

 Department was right, and that they would be guided by 

 the Illinois regulation. On the other hand if there had 

 been no agency in this state to protect us against such 

 things, that are happening every little while, we would be 

 at the mercy of the hundreds of pests which might be 

 brought into this state. This is merely a sample of the 

 work of the division of Plant Industry. 



Next I wish to mention, but briefly, the division of 

 Federal-State Co-operative Crop Estimates as it is con- 

 ducted in this state, the Illinois Department of Agriculture 

 co-operating with the United States Department of Agri- 

 culture in their Bureau of Agriculture Economics. I can 

 well remember fifteen and twenty years ago the fluctua- 

 tions and the prices of grain on our Chicago grain market. 

 These fluctuations were very extreme and very often. You 

 may think that the present grain market is bad. You may 

 think that the fluctuations are extreme, and at times they 

 are, but if you use your memory a little just now you will 

 remember back twenty or twenty-five or thirty years ago, 

 that the Chicago board of trade was in that day. You 

 will remember how it was a daily occurrence for the grain 



