33 ILLINOIS STATE DAIRYMEN'S ASSOCIATION. 



such meetings as this, to agricultural papers, to dairy books, anyone can 

 now learn much about how to succeed in dairying. 



But the dairy interest is to prosper — prosper as well as most branches 

 of agriculture, and better than many. The broad general rule will hold 

 true here : that no needed calling, no needed producing interest can remain 

 permanently depressed. Milk, butter, cheese, will continue to be used and 

 in increasing quantities. The active and, I believe, the relative consump- 

 tion must increase, and this demand will be supplied at a fair profit, in any 

 series of years. Let us bear in mind that one of the chief reasons for its 

 success in the past, is an element which will always tend to keep many 

 farmers from engaging in the dairy business, They object to its confining 

 nature, to being compelled to be at home night and morning seven days in 

 every week. 



The dairy interest, then, while not to have wonderful profits, is to 

 prosper fairly, is to increase and spread over more of our country, but, 

 except in the neighborhood of cities, supplying which with milk is to be an 

 increasingly important part of the business, the tendency will be to make 

 the dairy less an exclusive specialty, and more a leading feature of a some- 

 what diversified farming. 



As a rule, I believe even western dairymen will find it directly profit- 

 able to do what I have for years advocated as desirable — raise their own 

 cows rather than rely on purchasing to keep up their herds. They can do 

 this as cheaply as others, and can, by so doing, secure better cows ; can 

 improve the average quality instead of tending to deteriorate it as has been 

 the effect of the practice of relying on purchased stock. Many exceptional 

 cases admitted, the western dairyman will find it advisable to look somewhat 

 to the beef producing ability of his cows as well as to their milk, producing 

 qualities. The disposal of old or undesirable cows is to be an increasingly 

 important question, and the time is coming when the bull calves on dairy 

 farms will not be deaconed. Looking even to production of other crops 

 for sale need not make the dairyman feel he is going astray. 



While the foreign demand must long continue a most important feature 

 in our cheese markets, and increase in importance as to butter, the sugges- 

 tion I have often made to western dairymen, needs to be repeated : We 

 should never lose sight of the home demand, never neglect an opportunity 

 to develop it. Americans are butter eaters but not cheese eaters, as are 

 the people of Europe. If we consumed cheese in equal quantities with t^^e 

 English, our present manufacture would barely supply the home demand. 

 As a help to a larger home demand, I have urged the manufacture of a 

 greater variety of styles of cheese. It seems peculiarly strange that with 



