ILLINOIS STATE DAIRYMEN S ASSOCIATION. 43 



his proportion of the shower. Yes, dairying to succeed is 

 to dairy persistently, to dairy intelligently and three hun- 

 dred and sixty-five days in a year, and one day more in 

 leap-years, and to dairy as a special business. 



W. W. Bingham : Said the question had been dis- 

 cussed in a little different light from what he had thought. 

 He believed no business should be followed, if not followed 

 thoroughly. The question was, Is it going to be profitable 

 if followed the next few years ? He thought the experience 

 of the past few years had taught us a lesson. The business 

 was but in its infancy. Many were classed as dairymen who 

 Vv^ere nothing but milk-producers, who did not profess to 

 know how to make butter and cheese. These, of course, 

 followed the co-operative plan. The profits to be derived 

 from any business are from what you have above cost of 

 production. He thought the dividend plan^ of making but- 

 ter and cheese had a tendency to decrease prices. He 

 thought if this plan was followed out it would always glut 

 the markets as it had in the past. This glutting had a ten- 

 dency to diminish prices. It was putting the profits of 

 the business into another's pocket. Thought in a few 

 years this business would get down to where the dairymen 

 would either sell their milk outright, or make it up them- 

 selves, and learn to sell it out and out and not put it into 

 the hands of commission merchants. He thought if we 

 would do away with this dividend system of making up 

 our products, our profits would be increased, because of the 

 quality made, and less of it. We could judge of the future 

 only by the past, and he thought he could say, without 

 being successfully contradicted, that those who have been 

 getting rid of their milk by the dividend plan hadn't made 

 a cent in the past few years. The dividends had been down 

 ;o forty and fifty cents, which didn't pay expenses. He 



