48 ILLINOIS dairymen's ASSOCIATION. 



How on our farms there shall grow up families of cattle, noted for their 

 milking as well as their beef qualities. How the products of the dairy may- 

 be sent to market in an attractive form, commanding better prices than the 

 little pittance we now receive for our— in some instances— well sold country 

 butter. And in fact, how we shall add to our industries, the art of taking 

 annually coupons from our cows, that equal the original bond. Probably in 

 no one thing is their greater loss to our farmers, than in the manner in which 

 this matter of milk is managed. Trusting these Dairymen will fully develop 

 this question, I will speak of one other at least. 



The last quarter of a century has produced some very radical changes in 

 the manner of making, and especially in the manner of harvesting our crops 

 of grain and hay. To do a given amount of work, not more than one-half as 

 many laborers are put in the field as were thirty years ago. It is claimed 

 that with these improved implements an acre of corn can be put in the crib 

 for less than three days' labor of one man ; that a crop of wheat can be made 

 for five dollars per acre, including seed ; that hay can now be put in the mow 

 for one dollar per ton. It would be natural to suppose that with this ma- 

 chinery that is doing this work faster, cheaper, and better, we could also 

 increase the yield per acre . The fact is, with the advantages this generation 

 has over their fathers in the use of implements to them unknown, we 

 scarcely keep pace with them in the average of our grain crops. Nor is this 

 to be attributed to the use of these implements, but rather to the fact that 

 we have thought our soils were inexhaustible, and have drawn on them for 

 indefinite amounts, regardless of deposits. It is one of the fixed laws that 

 while one crop is growing, and the soil is being exhausted of the elements 

 that enter most largely into that particular grain, those that enter into an- 

 other variety are accumulating. Hence the necessity for systematic rotation 

 of crops. Not that any of our farmers are foolhardy enough to grow any one 

 of the crops that especially impoverishes the soil to the exclusion of all oth- 

 ers, but that for the want of system we fail to get much benefit from the 

 manner in which we simply change from one crop to another, as suits con- 

 venience . 



It is a common thing for older heads to advise young men to decide early 

 in life what their life occupation is to be, and then fit for it with a will. It 

 is just as wise for young farmers to decide just what products they prefer 

 shall bring them annual revenue, and then stick to that plan with a will, and 

 when this is done, systematize the order in which they are to follow each 

 other, and you have systematic rotation of crops, the benefit derived from 

 which will depend, however, upon the crops selected and the continuance of 

 each. This is an old theme, yet none the less important. The natural in- 

 -crease of our population, added to the thousands the tide of immigration is 

 casting on our shores every year, will soon have occupied all of Uncle Sam's 

 surplus domain, and will ere long give us a population too dense to be fed 

 with ease, unless we cease to live only for the present. Besides, it is criminal 

 to hand down to posterity an impoverished estate, when the present genera- 

 tion is none the more wealthy for this gradual impoverishment. 



On credible authority I may say that not less than thirty-five per cent, 

 in value has been added to the live stock of Illinois by the introduction of 



