14 ILLINOIS STATE DAIRYMEN'S ASSOCIATION 



REMARKS BY PRESIDENT. 



J. P. Mason, Elgin. 



Members of the Illinois State Dairymen's Association, and 

 friends : 



In opening this, our forty-first annual meeting, we appre- 

 ciate the cordial welcome of the Mayor and citizens of Peoria. 



This organization is solely educational. We formerly held 

 just our annual three-day meeting, but in recent years we have 

 held several one-day meetings wherever requested throughout 

 the State, ten to fifteen, or as many as our funds would permit. 

 Being in close touch with our Agricultural College, and work- 

 ing in conjunction therewith, we aim to disseminate the dairy 

 knowledge where it will do the greatest good. The officers and 

 directors endeavor to have all phases of the dairy industry dis- 

 cussed here by speakers who are practical and who are authority 

 on topics which they will present. We wish to be fair and to 

 give a square deal to all, and any person who has a question or 

 desires any information at any time, should feel free to ask it, 

 as the discussion is the best part of any meeting. We want 

 everything made clear to all, and to make this convention the 

 most successful of any held by this Association, and we should 

 all take part to accomplish that end. We all realize the great 

 strides made in Agricultural pursuits in recent years. There is 

 no branch of it where it is safer and runs with less fluctuation 

 and where it is of greater possibilities than the dairy industry 

 if rightly handled and properly managed. None of us has any 

 conception of the results that could be attained if worked to the 

 limit. Intensive dairy farming would mean building up your 

 land, doubling its productiveness on the average farm. As we 

 market the produce of the farm through the dairy cow, that 

 would mean doubling your dairy or live stock. We all know 

 we can double the production of the average herd bv breedings 



