TRANSACTIONS 



OF THE 



TWELFTH ANNUAL MEETING 



OF THE 



Illinois State Dairymen's Association, 



HELD AT 



Adelphi Hall, Belvidere, III., December 9~h 5 1885. 



The meeting of the Illinois State Dairymen's Association was called to 

 order at 2:30 P. M., Wednesday, December 9, 1885, by J. C. Foote, Esq., who 

 introduced Dr. F. S. Whitman, Mayor of the City of Belvidere, who delivered 

 the address of welcome on behalf of the citizens of Belvidere. 



ADDRESS OF WELCOME. 



DB. F. S. WHITMAN, BELVIDERE. 



Gentlemen of the Illinois State Dairymen's Association: — As the official 

 representative of our city, I have been asked by the Committee of Local 

 Management to speak a few words of welcome to you on the opening 

 of your Twelfth Annual Convention, which it gives me great pleasure to 

 do. Ours is a great agricultural city. Belvidere is tributary to a country 

 whose fertile soil well repays the efforts of the enterprising farmers that 

 till that soil, and these farmers have been quick to see the profit accruing 

 to the dairy farm, and were the first in the State to make use of their oppor- 

 tunities in this direction. Under these circumstances, gentlemen, it seems 

 to me a fit and proper thing that you should hold your annual convention 

 in our city. The time has long since gone by when it is necessary for 

 me or anyone else to go into any labored argument to prove the health- 

 fulness and the nobility of agricultural pursuits. The time will soon come 

 when it will be just as self-evident that any farmer who expects to keep abreast 

 of the times must turn his attention to the dairy branch of agricultural industry. 

 The time will soon come when the person who has not tried this experiment 



