3C ILLINOIS STATE DAIRYMEN'S ASSOCIATION. 



EVENING SESSION. 



Tuesday, 7:30 p.m. 

 Convention met pursuant to adjournment, when Prof. 

 Morrow, delivered the following address. Subject, '*The 

 future of the western dairy interest." 



a. E. MORROW'S PAPER. 



" The outlook for western dairy interest." 



If we look to the past of our western dairy interests as a means by 

 which we may predict their future, we find some fluctuations, some reverses, 

 but on the whole a marvelously rapid growth and remarkable prosperity. 

 No other branch of American agriculture, engaging the attention of an equal 

 number of men, with no greater capital, has been more prosperous than has 

 the dairy since the close of the war of the rebellion — if indeed any has been 

 equally prosperous. The introduction of the factory system of cheese 

 making — the only case in which co-operation has been so directly and suc- 

 cessfully applied in American agriculture — was followed by an extension of 

 the dairy region, and increase of the quantity and improvement in the 

 quality of our cheese product almost or quite unprecedented in the history 

 of agriculture. A little less than ten years since, in this city of Elgin, I 

 for the first time, attended a dairy convention. There was much interest ; 

 the business of dairying as a main feature of farming, had already reached 

 considerable proportions, but compared with what it now is in the West, 

 there had been but the very commencement. 



If asked why dairying should have so generally proved profitable in 

 those sections in East and West where it has been intelligently pursued, I 

 should say : largely because it has compelled work — work daily and through- 

 out the year ; that it has made a fair degree of skill and intelligence 

 absolutely necessary ; that it has developed a fair knowledge of business 

 principles ; that it has been largely a cash business. 



If we look to the present, we find some things not so favorable. The 

 dairy interest, in common with all other business interests of the country, 



