ILLINOIS DAIRYMEN'S ASSOCIATION. 



With plenty of cream, you ought to make gilt-edge butter. Do you 

 do so? If not, why not? Have you tried to find out? If not, get some 

 good judge to score your butter, and find out where your weak points 

 are, and then rectify them. Now, if it scores low, do not get angry at 

 the judge, as so many do. They think they know all there is to be 

 known, and as a result, make the poorest butter on the market. 



There is a growing demand for butter, and producers find they must 

 have a pure article, if they find ready sales and top prices. 



We have gained one good point over oleomargarine. Let us do still 

 more, by increasing the number of dairies, until we supply the market 

 with good, sweet butter, and drive oleomargarine entirely out of the 

 market. It can be done if we will only stand together and work. 



Here is where our organization can do good work. Let each county 

 have an organization; let them have meetings and discuss the various 

 points on butter making. Let them have butter shows and give substan- 

 tial premiums. In some townships there may be better buttermakers, 

 who have better facilities. If so, throw them into classes, as we have 

 done in our county. 



Let me give you briefly an account of our own organization. When 

 the Logan County Farmers' Institute was first organized some fifteen 

 years ago, there were half a dozen men who attended. For several years 

 the attendance was light. About the fourth or fifth year, one or two 

 ladies were present, and were laughed at for going. About eleven years 

 ago the managers decided to have a farmers' exhibit and a woman's de- 

 partment in connection with their program. That year they had an insti- 

 tute. We held our meeting in a large hall. There was a fine display. I 

 do not recollect about the men's department, but I do of the cakes, 

 bread, butter and chickens, especially the last two, for it was hard to 

 decide which would win the day — the crowing rooster or the strong 

 butter. The roosters won and were banished. But that butter! It had 

 all the colors imaginable, and all the flavors of the cellars and kitchens. 

 We had forty-seven entries in butter, and all became the property of the 

 merchant who gave a premium of $5.00 in merchandise. He made the 

 same offer the next year, but received only 25 entries. There was a 

 decided change. People had learned that they must not have an orange 



