ILLINOIS DAIRYMENS ASSOCIATION. 9 



So then, on behalf of this oneness of interest, in view of the fact of the 

 inter-dependence of the. sons of one branch of industry upon another, I bid 

 you welcome. It may not be improper, indeed, it will be expected by you» 

 that I shall say a word with regard to our town into which you have come. I 

 know that there is a great deal of wisdom in the proverb, " Let another man's 

 lips praise thee and not thine own mouth," r>ut you will remember that I am 

 a Methodist preacher, and as a Methodist preacher I have no permanent resi- 

 dence in any citv; here to-day, and perhaps there to-morrow, having only 

 a yearly lease with only two possible renewals. So that you will not regard 

 what I say with regard to the town into which you have come, as particularly 

 boasting, so far as I am concerned. It seems to me eminently appropriate 

 that this Dairymen's Convention should hold its association in DeKalb, for 

 while we do not make any great professions as to size, we do claim a very 

 intimate relationship to the body here assembled to-day. We do claim that, 

 peculiarly, we arfe associated and allied together in all the line of inventions 

 of the recent past, and it is doubtful whether anything has so fully met a 

 great popular demand as the barbed wire fence. It is- pre-eminently a gift 

 to the farming community of the land ; and, perhaps, some of you bave 

 heard that they claim in th s town to be the patron saints of that industry. 

 I say, then, we are peculiarly related to you, in that this is a bond of union 

 between us. We are not large, as I said, in size; not so large as Chicago, 

 not so large as Peoria, not so large even as Rockford, and yet, it is^doubtful 

 whether, to put it very mo'iestly, whether there is another p'ace of the same 

 size in the state so widely known as DeKalb. There is not a state, there is 

 not a territory, there is scarcely a hamlet, there is scarcely a cross-roads, 

 throughout the length and breadth of the land, where our commodity or 

 production is not found. Nor is it bounded even by the limits of our own 

 country, but is carried on to South America and Europe, and even to Aus- 

 tralia—everywhere, you find the product of the cit\ of DeKalb. We have, in 

 the manufacture of this barbed wire, three factories, but we sometimes fail 

 to comprehend just how great an interest it is. I can give you only one or 

 two facts with reference to it. I say we have three factories ; one factory 

 alone ye> rly sends out twelve carloads of invitati< ns to the farming commu- 

 nity of this land and otlier lands to visit our place. Think of it ! Twelve 

 carloads of invitations sent out every year by one < f these factories, and this 

 one factory alone has a capacity of producing twisted barbed wire three times 

 faster than the ordinary pas^enyer train runs. That is to say, that that one 

 factory alone can' produce wiie enough to make a fence (if thiee strands to 

 encircle the globe quicker than a p issenger tiain could go around it. 



In behalf of this interest, which is peculiarly a gift to the interest repre- 

 sented by you. I bid you welcome. 



But one word more. When Queen Elizabeth went out to dine with the 

 Duke of Leicester, thanking him in somewhat of a melancholy mood, she 

 said to him, '' The best of a welcome is always found in the countenance of 

 the host." And so to-day, while in this formal way I stand here to bid you 

 welcome as an association, I trust that in our countenances, and in our ap- 

 preciation of your gathering, and our appreciation of your exercises, and in 

 the privilege which many of us hope to have of seeing you in our homes, and 

 at our firesides and our tables, I bid you welcome. 



