112 ILLINOIS STATE DAIRYMEN'S ASSOCIATION 



sent on this occasion the milk producers of Galesburg, the 

 men that ''pail" the cow, that use the milk. 



If I am correctly informed there are approximately 

 one million milk cows in Illinois. Assuming that one man 

 milks five cows, there will be an army of two hundred 

 thousand men sally forth tomorrow morning between four- 

 thirty and five to milk the cows and bring in the golden 

 fluid that makes peaches and strawberries delicious, that 

 makes grapenuts fit to eat, that brings the milk and cream 

 to our coffee, the cheese and butter and all those things 

 that we have that are delicious, from the cow. 



It is strange to me that in all of our literature, in 

 poetry, in songs, in sculpture, in paintings, nobody has ever 

 yet devoted much attention to the man that milks the cow. 

 The blacksmith has been immortalized in songs and in 

 poetry, the reaper, the sower, the builder, all have had 

 their eulogies sung, but the man that milks the cow has 

 gone unhonored and unsung. The cow is held up as the 

 embodiment of rudeness and stupidity, and whenever we 

 see the milkman or the cow appear in print the milkman is 

 always getting kicked over or is being pawed over by some 

 calf that he is trying to teach to eat, so that he can cheat 

 the mother out of the milk so that some lady can wear her 

 dress buttoned up down the back. 



(Read: ''Here's to the job that will not stay done.") 

 (Great applause.) 



Toastmaster: As we go along year after year and 

 watch the development in this industry, knowing that some 

 of the credit is due to those boys and young men who are 

 being taught agriculture, the young men who are teach- 

 ing the subject of agriculture in the high school, it gives 

 me pleasure at this time to introduce Mr. M. H. Alexander, 

 the agricultural high school teacher of Galesburg. (Ap- 

 plause.) 



Mr. M. H. Alexander: Mr. Toastmaster, ladies and 

 gentlemen : I am mighty sorry that there wasn't somebody 

 down in Knoxville at that time to keep Mr. O'Hair awake. 



