5 8 ILLINOIS STATE DAIRYMEN'S ASSOCIATION. 



buffaloes and rattlesnakes, the one with dreadful face and the other with 

 dreadful sounding tail. 



When the last vestage of the Indian tribes had been driven across 

 the Mississippi to return no more for ever, and the people began to come 

 from the east to make their homes in Illinois, then the early settlers 

 came mostly overland in wagons. Generally these wagons were drawn 

 by oxen, and frequently the oxen were the offspring of the family cow 

 which followed the wagon and furnished the main food supply for the 

 support of the family while on their journey westward. 



They did not anchor until they found some timbered spot and wat6r 

 around. Thus it was that the first homes in Illinois and the first dairies 

 were located by running waters, and were of the type described by Whit- 

 comb Riley as being "Out at Old Aunt Mary's." The family cow filled 

 an important place in the history of the State. As the settlement grew, 

 whether on the farm or in the vil lage, or in the town, they always kept 

 a cow or two. In fact, for a number of years, the larger number of cows 

 were owned in the town. 



The Illinois towns were not laid out and built as Boston was, on each 

 side of the cow paths, yet the cow paths in Illinois were important fac- 

 tors leading as they did from the setlements to the prairie pastures. 

 They were the thoroughfares by which strangers found settlements and 

 by which visitors took their departure. 



As the country became more settled, and the farms were cultivated, 

 and the farms began to encroach upon the common pasture, then the cow, 

 especially the town cow, became a factor in State politics, and laws were 

 proposed and enacted either for her protection or her restraint. Many 

 an aspiring candidate for legislative honors attained victory or met his 

 Waterloo, according to the side of the fence on which he stood in respect 

 to the rights of the town cow. 



Long after the common pastures were things of the past, the town 

 cow claimed the right of eminent domain and continued to pasture on the 

 highways. But the town master, who began early to make the road beds,, 

 shortened the pastures of the higliways and compelled the town cow to 



