248 ILLINOIS STATE DAIRYMEN'S ASSOCIATION. 



which had been known for four thousand years. Dairying is now a 

 specialized industry requiring a special education and training to suc- 

 ceed in it. Among men of business judgment none others need apply. 



In an article on "Harvest Implements" in Morton's Cyclopedia of 

 Agriculture, published in 1871, the writer states that "Notwithstanding 

 all the ingenuity, however, that has hitherto been applied to this sub- 

 ject, reaping has been and no doubt for many years, as we have said, 

 will continue to be a manual operation." The writer then proceeds to 

 descrioe the various forms of sickles with which it is proper to cut 

 grain. This article was not written by an ignoramus. Morton's Cyclo- 

 pedia of Agriculture was as standard in the field of agriculture as the 

 Century Dictionary is in the field of letters. It is true that America 

 had known something of the reaping machines for fifteen years, but the 

 self binder was a figment of the dreams of a few inventors. What this 

 means may, perhaps, be best emphasized by the startling but never- 

 theless true statement that if the small grains of the crop of 1901 in 

 the United States had to be reaped by the method so gravely described 

 by our English authority, it would take the combined; efforts of every 

 man of military age in the United States three weeks to accomplish the 

 task. This has an important bearing upon what is to follow. Here 

 emphasis is laid upon the fact that rural engineering is a different prob- 

 lem from what it was thirty years ago. Take an illustration from the 

 field of animal industry that is just now for special reasons a very 

 attractive line of work. In 1870 there were common in the United 

 States one recognized breed of horses, three breeds of cattle, two or 

 three breeds of swine, and, perhaps five breeds of sheep. Some other 

 breeds of livestock had been introduced but they were practically un- 

 known. At present we have at least eleven recognized breeds of horses, 

 not including ponies, seventeen breeds of cattle, eleven breeds of swine, 

 and fourteen breeds of sheep, with all of which a man must be more or 

 less familiar before he can lay any claim to be an expert in the field of 

 animal industry. 



In the field of applied sciences, the changes have been no less pro- 

 found. When the men who are now teaching the science of agriculture 



