160 ILLINOIS STATE DAIRYMEN'S ASSOCIATION 



HOG RAISING A SIDE LINE TO DAIRY FARMING 

 AND CREAMERY OPERATING. 



Mr. N. J. Nelson, Peoria, Illinois. 



''Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen : 



I had intended bringing with me some figures, some sta- 

 tistics of which I have quite a few, but last Thursday I was 

 called to Chicago by this dairy bunch (laughter) and went home 

 sick and came out of my bed to be here, at least. For that reason 

 my preparations were not completed on what I really wanted to 

 talk to you about here, on this hog raising proposition. 



Last night at the banquet, our venerable toastmaster paid 

 tribute to the Patron Saint of Wisconsin. I don't know why 

 Wisconsin should monopolize the Patron Saint of the Dairy In- 

 dustry; I believe Illinois will produce more than one Patron 

 Saint. We have them with us now. 



On a train from Springfield the other evening, I met a 

 young man from Jacksonville who told me that six years ago he 

 was a renter, milking a cow to keep himself and familv supplied 

 with butter and milk ; that he attended a farmers' institute where 

 our venerable president of this Association, Mr. J. P. Mason, 

 was on the program to give a talk on the Dairy Cow. Ihis 

 young man said that he was so impressed with what Mr. Mason 

 said that he took the liberty of asking quite a few questions and 

 that Mr. Mason answered every one of them to his satisfaction. 

 He said that he went home enthused and made up his mind that 

 there must be something to the dairy cow proposition. 



He purchased dairy cows as soon thereafter as he could. 

 The following year he took cream to the creamery and sold 

 from those six cows, besides furnishing his own table, $470.00 

 worth of butterfat. He sold four steers that he had raised from 

 those cows for over $200.00, besides three other calves. About 

 this time he became very much interested; and a couple of yccirs 

 later he bought a farm for which he paid $210.00 an acre. He 

 then went into the milk business right. He saw that there was 



