ILLINOIS DAIRYMEN'S ASSOCIATION. 75 



begins to soften, and he tells his poor tired wife that he saw some beautiful 

 green glass vases, and that he would have bought them for her if he had not 

 been afraid of breaking them. 



In pointing out where there is a profit, I have necessarily shown where there 

 is a loss in our business. But there are so many, that it would be impossible 

 for me to mention them all. First, I think it is a great loss not to keep accurate 

 accounts of our receipts and expenditures. How can we close a leak if we do 

 not know where it is ? We may be paying too much for feed and not enough 

 for labor, or the opposite. Dairying is not reduced to a science like surgery. 

 A professor can tell his pupil just how to amputate a limb, and under what cir- 

 cumstances it can and can not be done. We cannot lay down a rule in our 

 business that will apply to every section of country. How much more difficult 

 to have one to apply to every farm ! The kind of crops that can be raised on 

 adjoining farms is at times very difficult. We can only have general rules to 

 go by; we must adapt them to our circumstances. We lose by not having the 

 best animals in our herds and the best implements our means will permit us to 

 buy. If we are raising our calves, and have twenty or thirty cows, we had 

 better pay $200.00 or $300.00 for a good bull than to use a poor one, although he 

 may not cost us anything. 



It would be folly for a man with two or three cows to invest several hundred 

 dollars in a cream separator; it would be equally foolish for a man with fifty or 

 sixty cows to set his milk in the old-fashioned one-gallon stone crocks. The pro- 

 gressive dairyman must be up with the times, and use everything that will lessen 

 the cost of production and improve the quality of his products. Our greatest 

 loss in the dairy is caused by the manufacture of imitation butter. This can be 

 reduced if we can prevent its fraudulent sale. It is now reported that dairy- 

 men themselves are adulterating their butter. If this is a fact, we should find 

 out who they are and punish them to the full extent of the law. 



We lose by not knowing what cows yield a profit and what ones consume 

 more feed than their milk is worth. We need some method of telling quickly, 

 accurately and cheaply the butter and cheese value of a small quantity of milk. 

 Money can be made at almost any business, if a person will work hard enough, 

 and has the right kind of energy and back-bone so that he will not give way at 

 every little failure. But money should not be our greatest aim. We should 

 consider first— do we give a fair value for the money we receive ? Next, are we 

 going to use that money so it will benefit our family, our friends, or our 

 country ? Every dollar we earn, if so applied that it will help one iota in the 

 progress of civilization; if it will help as much as one drop compared with the 

 ocean, to raise the mental and moral standard of our fellow beings, it has not 

 been earned in vain. 



It is not my intent to point out how we, as a class, may use our dollars. 

 We are all created free to choose between right and wrong, and must be 

 governed by the dictates of our own conscience. 



By the world our calling is generally considered an humble one. If this is 

 true, it is our duty to ennoble it. And let us remember that no honest labor is 

 degrading ; that man can degrade himself and his labor, but that labor never 

 degraded the man. In closing, I will say that in our occupation, like all others, 

 honesty, industry, economy, a true sense of justice and true generosity, can 



