ILLINOIS DAIRYMEN'S ASSOCIATION. (J7 



This may look like a distant period to some of you, but many now present 

 will live to feel the pressure produced by the beginning of it. It is already 

 dawning upon us, and the note of warning cannot be sounded too soon The 

 honest owners and tillers of the soil can begin none too soon to fit themselves for 

 the most efficient cultivation of the soil, and to prepare their sons and daughters 

 to fill the responsible places that will naturally fall to them. 



Not only will the farmer be called upon to produce more per acre but to 

 produce it at less cost. Every farm will then be a special study (as it' should 

 now) that its capabilities may be developed to the highest point of production 

 and all the operations of the farm be run at the least possible expense Every- 

 thing of value, whether for feeding, fertilizing purposes or other uses, will have 

 to be saved and utilized; nothing will be allowed to go to waste. At present 

 the wastes on the farm from mismanagement, carelessness and lack of 

 knowledge how to appropriate and use, would sustain another population equal 

 to the one now living on the soil; this is stating the fact mildly. Men do not 

 yet know the capabilities of the land for production. The United States alone 

 under proper cultivation, could feed and clothe the present population of the 

 globe, and I verily believe that this could be done on the soil composing the 

 valley of the Mississippi and its tributaries. 



But what of the present? What can we, who now occupy this earth do 

 for our own and the benefit of the future? What ought we to do? We ought 

 to do anything and everything we can to improve our condition mentally 

 morally and physically, and to render the soil more productive, and the world 

 more beautiful and comfortable to live in. This is a very general answer and 

 may not throw much light on many minds, which are at a loss just what to do 

 in the present emergency. I will try to definitely name a few things, applicable 

 to the immediate present, which can and ought to be done. 



1st. We ought to skim over less surface, cultivate less acres, and do it more 

 thoroughly. We ought to so cultivate the soil, as to make it more instead of 

 ess productive, saving all fertilizing materials and putting them on the soil 

 vhere.we do our work. We should thereby learn to get along with less acres 

 laving plowing, harrowing and traveling. We could harvest more product on 

 ess area. Our stock would have to forage over less territory to get their food 

 >r we would travel over less to cut and gather it. Millions of dollars are wasted 

 svery year m extra and needless work, because we skim over so many acres 



2d. As fast as possible we should get our lands seeded to tame grasses 

 .hey are much more productive, more nutritious, and make better dairy goods 

 ,nd beef, than any wild grasses I have encountered. It is estimated in the 

 liferent sections through which I have traveled, to take all the way from seven 

 o forty acres of prairie to summer and fatten a steer. This is a great waste 

 rhich cannot much longer be endured. Wild pastures must and soon will dis- 

 ppear. Sown to tame grasses and properly fertilized, one to two acres will 

 Lirnish the cattle food, that is now gathered from seven to forty acres and it 

 -ill be of much better quality. It will endure the frosts better in the fall and 

 fiord nutritious food later in the season. It will also come on earlier in the 

 mng, and the tame grasses will flourish, to the best of my observation from 

 Winnipeg to Southern Kansas, and I think to the Gulf. It is scarcely possible 

 > estimate the value of the saving that will be effected by the introduction of 



