ILLINOIS STATE DAIRYMEN'S ASSOCIATION. I 39 



pay the difference not the producer. Has the dairy business kept pace 

 with the development of the candy business, I ask you? I can buy Gun- 

 ther's or Lowney's candies in any town and they will always be stand- 

 ard and good. Tell me, what are the chances of my being able to get an 

 equally good and uniform quality of milk, butter or cheese in the same 

 town? Remember, my dear friends, that the quarrel that the public has 

 with us is on quality not on price. Butter sells at 40c, 60c, and $1.00 a 

 pound in this country if only it is good enough. It reminds me of Mark 

 Twain's grocery sign: "Eggs, 10 cents; good eggs, 15 cents," Any house- 

 keeper will tell you that the dairy part of the living is the most trouble- 

 some of all except the eggs, and we all know that there are multitudes of 

 people ready to take these products at almost any price if only they are 

 good enough. 



Dairymen do not sufficiently realize that they are engaged in produc- 

 ing one of the world's luxuries. Now the inherent advantage in a luxury 

 is that it appeals to wealthy people, or to the weakest side of all people, 

 and if it pleases them it will pull the money out of their pockets in spite 

 of them. On the other hand, the disadvantage of a luxury is that if it 

 does not please the consumer, he will finally grow discouraged or dis- 

 gusted and quit using it because it is a luxury and not a necessity. 

 Dairymen are too exclusively intent on cheapening production, though 

 they do not seem to have largely availed themselves of the two most 

 effective means of doing it, viz: The use of the Babcock test on every 

 member of the herd and the home raising of cows by use of pure bred 

 bulls. 



The lesson we must learn contains the fundamental principle that 

 we are engaged in producing a luxury, and that we must please the very 

 largest possible number of people able to pay a good price, and to do this 

 economy and production is not the first consideration, but rather quality 

 and appearance. Not only that, the drift of public sentiment plainly 

 indicates that the dairymen's fight against butterine in so far as it aims 

 to prevent its sale as butter is right and just, but that in so far as it 

 opposes the manufacture and use of butterine, and attacks the article 



