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ILLINOIS STATE DAIRYMEN'S ASSOCIATION 



ter and cheese were accounted necessities in every family, and while I 

 believe that some better butter is made now than was ever made ia 

 those days, and perhaps cheese as well, yet I believe too, that it is by no 

 means the rule and that the quantity is exceedingly limited. In any 

 event, conditions have changed since then in a number of important par- 

 ticulars, not all of which are advantageous to the dairy industry. 



Then, cows ran in pastures in summer and in yards in winter, and 

 were milked almost entirely out of doors in pure air, under more or less 

 motion — conditions unfavorable for contamination; now, although we 

 have learned beyond a doubt that the cow herself is the chief source of 

 contamination of milk; yet the milking is almost universally done in 

 close barns, often, if not generally, shockingly ill kept, and resulting in 

 wholesale contamination of the milk as fast as it leaves the cow. Indeed^ 

 if the purpose were to make the milk unfit even for a calf to drink, human 

 ingenuity could hardly invent a more scientifically complete method than. 

 that which is in vogue today on many of our dairy farms, even in some of 

 those supplying milk for human consumption. This is no idle assertion, 

 for it rests upon data on file in the offices of the Experiment Station, 

 which has not been published for obvious reasons, but of which every 

 member of this association is fully conscious from his own observation. 



In the old days most families made their own butter and cheese and 

 drank their own milk and cream, and the few who lived in towns engaged 

 these table necessities from sources well known to them. Now, fully 

 half our people live in cities, most of whom are compelled to buy these 

 products in the open markets. The advantage of all this is in a steady 

 demand and a money market for dairy goods, elevating dairying to the 

 rank of a business; the disadvantage is that the producer and consumer 

 are so widely separated that the personal element is lost and with it 

 there is a letting down of the feeling of responsibility on the part of the 

 producer who brings into frequent use that old saying, "Good enough to 

 sell," Under this legend many a commodity makes its way to the general 

 market that the producer would not for a moment think of putting upon 

 his own table or of preparing for that of a friend. This is a shortsighted 



