« ILLINOIS DAIRYMEN S ASSOCIATION. 



is not the first time that a dairy convention has assembled in this city. Indeed, 

 sir,' if I remember correctly, some fifteen or may be eighteen years ago a con- 

 vention, perhaps one of the first dairy conventions held in the Northwestern 

 States, was held in the city of Belvidere; held at a time when the agricultural peo- 

 ple of the Northwest were burdened under a debt from which it seemed almost 

 impossible for them to escape. Their farms were mortgaged, taxation was 

 eating them up, and they had not the wherewithal to meet the incumbrances 

 and keep their heads above water. But, as you all know, a large portion of this 

 section of country was settled by those sterling people from York State, who 

 had seen what could be done in the Empire State by using the cows, and they 

 began to think that even here in this Northwest, on these broad prairies, where 

 the water is pure and where the atmosphere is pure, that butter and cheese 

 might be manufactured profitably. 



These gentlemen conceiving this idea met together from the neighboring 

 cities and formed, if I mistake not, the Northwestern Dairymen's Association, 

 which will soon celebrate its twentieth anniversary. A citizen of one of your 

 neighboring cities was elected president, and through his energy and intelli- 

 gence the Association was placed upon a good, solid basis; instruction was given 

 to the farmers, and they have been benefited not alone by that meeting that was 

 held here, but by every meeting that has been held in the Northwest ever since, 

 for these conventions are simply educational institutes. Dropping a fact here 

 and there, teaching this or that one how to proceed in his business, and leaving 

 with them the very cream of the best thoughts of the whole country when they 

 are assembled in these conventions. 



Why, sir, you may in your mind's eye go back to the time when even this 

 section, now famed and noted for its fertility, could not produce sufficient grain 

 to support the farmer upon the farm. The continuous growing of grain had 

 exhausted the soil, and as a result the farmer was obliged to turn his attention 

 to something else, and in doing so happily he struck upon the idea of combining 

 with his other farming operations dairying, and it has proved a Godsend to the 

 people of this section as it has to the people in other parts of the Northwest. 



I remember the first time I ever passed through this section of country, 

 perhaps seventeen or eighteen years ago. I did not then see the marked evi- 

 dences of prosperity that are to be found upon every hand to-day ; neither did 

 I see the herds of cattle grazing upon the prairies as they are to be seen to-day. 

 The fine barns were not there, the comfortable houses were not to be seen, the 

 prosperous farmers were not to be seen, but, on the contrary, you saw the 

 farmers with long faces and poor houses, and inconvenient barns with poor 

 stock upon the fields. You seemed to be burdened to death with the debt from 

 which you could never raise, and yet they have been enabled not only to pay oft 

 those debts, but I doubt not that many of the farmers of this section of the 

 country are depositors, if not stockholders, in your national banks ; and all this 

 prosperity is because they have turned their attention to a business which was 

 productive. They hare been careful and painstaking, and we see the evidences 

 of it all around. 



The industry of the dairy in the State of Illinois is a grand industry. It 

 combines an unusual array of wealth. Indeed, as I learned by a circular issued 

 a short time ago, there are one million cows in the State of Illinois, which are 



