ILLINOIS STATE DAIRYMEN S ASSOCIATION. 9 



thereby lays the foundation for health, beauty and future happiness. 

 In looking over our criminal docket we find but rarely the name of 

 the farmer or dairyman there ; visit our penitentiaries and the ruddy 

 face of the farmer is scarcely ever found there. Turn your eye to the 

 hangman's gibbet, but not to find the dairyman or farmer there ; for 

 they much prefer to stretch hemp by hand or horse power than by 

 that finer attachment to the cervical portion of their bodies. Look at 

 us, located as we are in the valley of the great Father of Waters, in 

 a country rich in the component parts of that which goes to proiluce 

 and sustain plant lite, perhaps the richest in the known world— if we 

 are to believe the report of Mr. Cobden, an English gentleman who 

 visited this state at or about the time the Illinois Central railroad 

 was being chartered and built, and who made or caused to be made a 

 careful chemical analysis of specimens of the soil from various parts 

 of the state. His report to his fellow-countrymen (if our memory 

 serves us) was, that the soil of Illinois which he examined, contn'ned 

 more of the principle necessary to produce and sustain vegetable life 

 than that of the valley of the Nile, which has long been considered 

 the richest in the known world. English capitalists, believing his 

 statement to be true, eagerly sought the stock of this railroad, and it 

 was soon built after the charter was obtained. 



We now see how fully time has verified Mr. Cobden's statement 

 made many years aeo, of the richness of our soil, by the amount of 

 actual productions of the state, the marketing of which has become 

 a serious desideratum with the farmer at the present time. 



It would appear advisable that the farmer should condense the 

 products of the farm as much as possible, before sending the same 

 forward, as he thereby reduces the amount to be paid for freight. 



It costs, at present rate, about one-eighth of a crop of wheat to 

 freight it from Chicago to New York. In flour it would cost less, 

 besides having bran and shorts to feed stock. Corn costs nearly one- 

 third of the crop to freight it asabove,but in starch, glucose or glucose 

 syrup, would cost Ipss ; also if put into pork or beef, but would cost 

 very much less if fed to cows and put into butter and cheese. Butter 

 costing only one-thirty-sixth and cheese about one-seventeenth part 

 of the product to freight as above. 



We estimate that the production of butter in the United States 

 the present year,will reach in round numbers about 653,000,000 pounds. 

 Of this amount, the people of this country will undoubtedly consume 

 about 630,000,000, and we shall probably export about 23,000,000. 



