ILLINOIS STATE DAIRYMEN S ASSOCIATION. 5 I 



are milked in the Northwest (let a good business man 

 make the figures) are milked at a loss ; one-half the balance 

 pay no profit ; the other quarter pay, why ? — because they 

 are in the hands of men that never do business by the 

 halves. If they keep cows, they know every month, yea, 

 every week, whether they pay or not. Such men don't ask 

 their cows to pay without feed, and the best kind at that. 

 Their cows are always milked regularly ; they are provided 

 with good, warm stables, protected from all cold storms, 

 always treated kindly; they use no dogs, but soft, kind 

 words. There is too much guess work with farmers, 

 generally. When you ask one man how his cows are doing, 

 he will answer promptly : ** Average twenty-five pounds 

 per day ; I get ^1.25 per hundred for my milk ; I get thirty- 

 one and one-fourth cents per day per cow — cost, twenty 

 cents per day for keep; and at that figure my hay and 

 grain is sold for a good price at home. I have the manure 

 for my farm ; my farm is growing better every year and my 

 bank account stronger." This is so with but few. Three- 

 fourths of the dairymen in the West cannot say they do as 

 above. Take, for instance, the report of Professor Wilson, 

 at Elgin, in 1874, of the best dairy in 36,000 cows kept in 

 New York State. That season the best dairy produced 

 ;^92.50 worth of milk, the poorest, ^13.50. Both these 

 men carried to same factory and received same price for 

 their milk. I presume, if we knew the product of the 

 entire 36,000 cows, .we would find not more than 9,000 of 

 the 36,000 gave over ^40 worth of milk. I judge by what 

 I know ; it is not guess work. How much is lost every 

 year by bad management in the manufacture of butter and 

 cheese ? Why do dairymen keep and milk cows and carry 

 milk to a factory where the proprietor or manufacturer does 

 not understand his business ? Why is it that there is eight 

 cents a pound difference in the price of creamery butter? 

 Why is it that there is from two to four cents per pound 

 difference in the price of full-cream cheese ? Is there not 

 five cents per pound difference now in skim cheese ? Why 

 do dairymen carry their milk to a factory that never turns 

 out any thing but second-class goods ? Is it not the fault 

 of you, dairymen ? I think if dairymen first guaranteed to 

 the factoryman good, pure milk, then bound the manufac- 

 turer to produce "A No. i " goods or pay the difference, 

 and then carried this rule into effect and lived up to it 



