70 ILLINOIS STATE DAIRYMEN'S ASSOCIATION. 



adjectives unnecessarily employed in teaching the infant 

 bovine to drink, when undertaken by a man, would beggar 

 description and fill books. Would we could read the other 

 side of the story, bound in calf. 



You may justly say, what has this to do with the 

 " homes of the dairymen ? " Much, we assure you. Cot- 

 ton was king until corn waved its tasseled scepter. Now, 

 the cow and her progeny are absolute sovereigns, usurping 

 unlimited power. Every effort must bend towards their 

 well-being and comfort, else they will refuse to yield munifi- 

 cent returns, which gives prosperity and comfort to the 

 household. What busy homes they are, too, " from early 

 morn' till dewy eve " ! The dairyman's home. The name is 

 suggestive of a comfortable degree of wealth. If that 

 wealth is acquired by the present owner, it means that the 

 day of good, strong, brave tusseling with poverty is over ; 

 that the foe he had wrestled with so long and stoutly, is 

 vanquished. Yet to keep the vantage ground so valiantly 

 gained, requires busy hands, notwithstanding he can give 

 his lamily many comforts and luxuries heretofore unattain- 

 able. " No man has a better right to kill himself by over- 

 work than he has to do it by over-drinking. If suicide be 

 a crime, he who dies by putting too great a task upon his 

 strength, is as truly a criminal as he who dies by putting a 

 bullet through his brain. If a certain amount of rest and 

 recreation is necessary to a man's health and life, the 

 omission to take it is as great an offense against God's law 

 in nature as would be the omission to take food, and death 

 by willful starvation is no more an act of self-destruction 

 than is death by willful fatigue." One can not but be 

 struck with the force and truthfulness of these remarks. 

 Where is the remedy ? Unquestionably the housekeeper 

 in the dairyman's home is too often over-taxed — "The tire- 

 less service of willing hands, the strength of swift feet * 

 * *." It is useless to enumerate the duties that pile 



themselves Alps high upon the weeiry shoulders, and more 

 than useless to suggest a servant to lighten the labor. We 

 remark here, emphatically, there are no servants in this pro- 

 gressive, enlightened, civilized nineteenth century, that 

 know how to work. Then is it any wonder that the brow 

 becomes ruffled and the voice takes on a hard, monotonous 

 sound, directly in the face of duty, when the body is over- 

 weary ? We know full well, to be happy ourselves and to 



