128 ILLINOIS STATE DAIRYMEN'S ASSOCIATION. 



dairy cows, I have found but one of them was feeding enough protein. 

 They nearly all break down on th at. 



There is no telling how much you can increase the dairy output in the 

 special purpose dairy farms unti 1 you get acquainted with your cow, and 

 then learning how to feed her, and then how to breed with that special 

 end in view. 



I am here to tell you that you may be surprised at what I say, and 

 you may not believe it. I want to say to you that with all your special 

 purpose dairyin. in Wisconsin and on back east that after all you are 

 only a small toaa in the puddle; that special purpose dairying is the least 

 end of dairying; that the possibilities of dairying, the possibilities of 

 good dairying to farmers of all classes, lies not in your special purpose 

 dairying at all, but lies in another kind altogether. 



Let me put my thoughts clearly before you. First I will recite some 

 history that's well known to aim est every man in this audience. When 

 this vast Mississippi valley was opened up by the hand of the farmer, it 

 was stored with the accumulated fertility of ages and ages and hundreds 

 of ages before Adam was a baby. The great Farmer of the farmers, and 

 every progress in agriculture is f ormed out of the laws He has made, and 

 the laws made by Moses. 



In the growing of feed — He has been in the business long before you 

 — He knows the best for the field and is especially careful to store the 

 soil with humus. Never does winter fall but the winter floor is covered 

 with leaves. He goes on the broad expansion and prepares during all 

 summer long, and before his land is fit to grow grass. He starts waste; 

 waste that comes in the spring; waste that comes in the summer; waste 

 that comest in the fail, and gets a good start in the spring. Why? Be- 

 cause He wants to store this land with humus. What does he do with it? 

 It is like sponges which drink up the rains and give it to the thirsty roiots. 

 in dry time. He keeps his supply of nitrogen. 



What is humus? Partially d composed vegetable matter. And we 

 come to this inheritance richer than anything that fell into the hands of, 

 man. And the first thing we do is to exhaust it, by raising corn, wheats 



