72 ILLINOIS STATE DAIRYMEN'S ASSOCIATION 1 



one-half of it. In this respect we are ahead of you. If there '* 

 any one thing that I would urge you to do, it is to Co-operate; 

 get together. We farmers are the only ones that are not in 

 some kind of a combination to control the price of the product 

 we produce. 



When you consider that from the time of your birth when 

 you are first wrapt in swaddling clothes all the way along until 

 you are put in your casket, everything that covers your body, 

 everything thai you buy and use, is manufactured and sold by 

 some trust or combination while our products alone have no 

 kind of protection or any in which we have any kind of control 

 over the price we receive for them. 



Now, I feel somewhat embarrassed as I stand before you, 

 for I know that I am standing before an audience that lias in 

 their community five hundred silos and five thousand dairy 

 cows, and under these conditions I do not feel that I can say any- 

 thing to instruct you along this line. If I can say something lhat 

 would cause you to think or investigate, I feel that I might do 

 you some good, for I believe that we are simply working on the 

 surface yet in our knowledge of dairying. 



At a meeting I was attending last week the question was 

 asked what would be the proper price to pay for a good su/e. 

 Some said a hundred or a hundred and fifty dollars. Do you 

 know that six thousand dollars was paid last week for one which 

 was not over a month old? You can see by this what kind of 

 a dairy sire you can get for a hundred or a hundred and fifty 

 dollars. I wish I could impress upon you the importance of 

 getting a good dairy sire. We are only today beginning + o 

 understand the possibilities of this dairy cow ; we do not as yet 

 begin to appreciate what she can do. I think I told you of this 

 when I was here before, but I will have to repeat more or less of 

 what I told you at that time. 



The gentleman that stood before you this morning told you 

 what he had done with his cows — gotten from 250 to 300 pound. 

 of butter fat per cow. With the possibilities that you have here 

 you can do this. I was reading a bulletin that the Government 

 has just issued. I think it was Bulletin No. 88, and this con- 



