ILLINOIS DAIRYMEN'S ASSOCIATION. 31 



consumers rather than producers. The average Congressman will work for his 

 constituents. His first instinct will be to favor a law which cheapens the cost 

 of living of those he represents. This is natural. Looking at it from his stand- 

 point he will fail to see the iniquity of counterfeiting butter as plainly as we 

 who depend upon dairying for our bread and butter. We shall look in vain for 

 relief by Congress. While I am opposed to the whole business, I can see no 

 direct way of getting relief from it. Granting, then, that it has come to stay, it 

 is not so big a bugbear as many suppose. It can only take the place of dairy 

 grease, which should have been banished from earth long since. They cannot 

 compete with fine creamery. There has been no time within my memory when 

 fine grades of creamery did not command a good price — 18 to 20 cents in June 

 to 32 cents in December is not bad. But, says the already frightened dairyman, 

 if we are to depend alone upon those who have a taste for and can afford to use 

 fine goods there will soon be a surplus. This is true perhaps with the necessaries 

 pf life, but not with the luxuries. As proof of this I have but to refer you to 

 your own experience. It requires a much larger quantity of good butter in your 

 own homes than bad. 



With certain limitations, which this generation will not reach, the law holds 

 true, As you improve the quality you increase the demand. Ask any pater 

 familias or caterer, and his testimony will invariably go to prove this rule. 

 Only a short time ago a railroad man charged me with beating him out of $25 a 

 year by selling his wife a small crock of creamery. Now, he says, she has got 

 to have just that brand of butter and double the quantity ; and this is not an ex- 

 ception. 



From statistics we learn that but 18 pounds of butter are consumed annually 

 by each individual in the United States. Now, is there any doubt but that if 

 double this amount of nice, sweet butter were placed within reach it would be 

 gladly secured and consumed? Is it the part of wisdom, then, to waste our 

 breath in bombastic Philippics against the manufacturers of butterine and then 

 sit down and fold our hands or murder our representatives because they do not 

 make laws to suit us? As I look at it, we should invoke the aid of science and 

 experience, and make goods so fine as to defy imitation and competition from 

 counterfeiters. 



Let us as dairymen, then, come up to the mark of our high calling. Let us 

 bring to this business some of the wisdom and culture that is wasted in our 

 learned professions. I may be lacking in reverence, but I believe that it requires 

 as much brain and push to make a royal butter and cheese man as a lawyer or 

 doctor, and certainly it requires more wisdom and grace to run a dairy and take 

 honest milk to the factory than to manage an average church and society. 



We know, then, what is demanded. Let us make it. How shall we do it? I 

 hear you say. As our farms are arranged in this section there is no doubt but 

 that the factory plan is the most feasible one. I am not here to say whether the 

 whole milk plan or the gathered cream plan is best— I use both — nor to discuss 

 the comparative merits between creamery and dairy butter. My mother made 

 beautiful dairy butter and, like everybody else's mother, always got 2 cents a 

 pound more than anybody else. I have a great respect for dairy butter. I do 

 not hope to tell you much that is new, but to emphasize the oft-repeated tale 

 you have heard from our revered friend, Dr. Tefft, and others at these conven- 



