46 ILLINOIS STATE DAIRYMEN'S ASSOCIATION 



to the Iowa State Fair. Every morning I looked out of the 

 window of my barn, to where they had a lot of grade Guernsey 

 and Holstein nurse cows tied, and saw an eleven months old 

 Hereford bull calf that weighed a thousand pounds, get down 

 on his knees and suck three of these cows. I went out there one 

 morning and asked the man holding the Hereford calf which 

 one of the cows was the mother of the Hereford calf. Of 

 course, he said none of them, that they were only nurse cows. 

 I asked him where the mother of the bull was and he said in 

 the show barn, and I said, does he suck her too? ''Oh, no," they 

 said, "she has been dry for five months." (Laughter). The 

 Creator did not intend those cows as dairy cows. So I say to 

 you people here, you will never succeed with any but the dairy 

 breeds. How do I know? Why fifteen years ago I had about 

 sixteen grade Shorthorn cows that Mr. Stewart had selected as 

 the best milk cows out of 30 head, and we weighed the milk from 

 those cows for a year and tested them out for butterfat and they 

 paid $35.50 apiece throughout the year. I said to him, you know 

 mighty well that it costs more than that to feed them — this was 

 fifteen years ago. It cost us $35 to feed that cow^ and the only 

 thing we have gotten is her calf and we are practically milking 

 that cow for nothing. "Well," he said, "I have done the very 

 best I could," and he was a mighty good caretaker and one of 

 the best feeders I ever saw. I said, they say there are better cows 

 and I am going to try and get some for the best is none too 

 good, so I went and bought two purebred heifers. This will 

 give you my idea of going into the business; with a bull and six 

 grade heifers later on and that was my start and I grew into the 

 dairy business and I presume, my friends, I would not be here 

 this afternoon if it was not from the fact that I am the man who 

 by proxy can run a 120 acres farm and make it pay $8.50 

 rent. I have been able to do that, but I will tell you this, you 

 know that running a business by proxy is a pretty hard thing 

 to do. I have been through every vicissitude in the hired man 

 business you can think of. For instance, a man came to me and 

 said, "I understand you are looking for a man, what do you want 

 done?" We have about fifteen cows to milk. "Oh, if I have 

 got to milk cows, you had better look for another man." "It is 

 right now I am mighty glad to have you tell me," I replied. We 



