42 ILLINOIS STATE DAIRYMEN'S ASSOCIATION 



had a habit of finding where the dairy communities were and 

 just taking a trip and making a first-hand investigation and I 

 want to tell you that first-hand investigation is the best kind of 

 investigation, don't take other men's conclusions, get at the facts 

 and draw your own conclusions, that is the best way to do. Well, 

 he came to Ames and he came to our community to investigate; 

 he visited two or three farms and when I got home that evening 

 the president of the creamery called me and said we had a friend 

 from Denmark visiting us and about a dozen of us were going 

 to get together and take our supper with him, which we did, and 

 we got that Dane to make us a speech. Again applies the say- 

 ing : 



''O wad some Pow'r the giftie gie us 

 To see oursel's as others see us." 



And he told us how he looked at us and it was really a pret- 

 ty good thing and this was the one "single thought that he gave 

 us, he said : ''Gentlemen, I am sorry to say to you that you never 

 will be great dairymen; you have got the greatest soil in the 

 world but you can make money too easy here at other things." 

 They told me that when he got back to Denmark he said that 

 Illinois and Iowa were the greatest dairy countries in the world 

 because they were the great corn countries, but they never will be 

 dairymen because they can make money too easy, that is the 

 trouble. If they had the conditions that we have in Denmark, 

 they would be the greatest dairymen in the wbrld. That is the 

 trouble in Iowa and I think this is the trouble in Illinois, that you 

 won't dairy, it is too hard work, you say. But, my friends, the 

 day will come when you will have to. What I want to convince 

 you of this afternoon is that the cow will make your farm bet- 

 ter than you found it, and I think if I can convince you of that 

 one fact that I will have accomplished something in coming 500 

 miles to make a speech to you this afternoon. 



Some years ago I made a speech in one of the counties in 

 Iowa on Dairying, and I made the assertion that the dairy com- 

 munities of the world had the lands of the highest commercial 

 value, and some fellow took me to task about it, he did not be- 

 lieve it. I did not have any data to prove what I had said, but 



