ILLINOIS STATE DAIRYMEN's ASSOCIATION. 89 



be true as to butter and milk. Farmers everywhere will need and 

 will use milk and butter for their own tables, and very many of them 

 will continue to make butter for sale. As the country grows older, 

 and the villages and towns grow larger, there will be a larger propor- 

 tion of the whole population who will need to buy their supplies. 

 Probably the milk supplies of cities and larger towns will continue 

 to come mainly from those who make this a special business ; but 

 there is no reason why thousands of general farmers should not 

 make first-class butter, and, securing a local reputation for so doing, 

 receive a good price for it. The leading hotel of the neighboring 

 town must get its butter somewhere, as must its leading citizens, and 

 there is no reason why a neighboring farmer should not supply them 

 at something above the regular price. As good butter can be made 

 in a private dairy as can be made at a creamery. That it is not so 

 good as a rule, is clearly true, but it can be so made, and i» by a good 

 number. 



Where farmers expect to make butter for their own use, and 

 often to have some to sell, it is clearly only good economy to provide 

 such facilities as will make it possible to have the product good, and 

 very often it will be found little more costly to provide for making 

 twice the quantity absolutely necessary. The great mass of the 

 butter made in the country will long continue to be poor in quality, 

 and most of it made during the summer. The shrewd farmer will 

 adapt his course to meet these facts, and most often, it would seem, 

 he can best do this by making good butter, if any, and by making 

 most of what he will need to sell, in winter. The arguments in favor 

 of winter dairying, where buter is to be made in factories, are much 

 more generally admitted than they were a few years ago. But if 

 they have weight in such cases, they have equal force in the case of 

 the farmer. His cows must be kept in any event, and they ought to 

 have nearly the same care whether giving milk or not. As a rule he 

 will expect to have milk and butter enough for his own family, and 

 if this much can be cared for, more can be. The special dairyman 

 may be but little more busy in summer than at any other season, but 

 for the general farmer midsummer is not only the time when it is 

 most disagreeable to milk and care for it, but it is also the season 

 when, both on the farm and in the house, most is to be done. It is 

 easier to provide for the proper care of milk in cold weather than to 

 guard against the ill effects of extreme heat. 



Another class, which may well give increased attention to 

 dairying, is that engaged in rearing beef cattle more or less largely. 



