56 



ILLINOIS DAIRYMEN'S ASSOCIATION. 



appoint a committee of three of its members to confer with the State Board 

 of Agriculture, in reference to the giving to the dairy interest a large recog- 

 nition hereafter, in the annual fairs held under the care of said board 

 Motion to adopt seconded and carried. 



The following delegates were nominated and elected by the convention- 

 C. C. Bueli, Eock Falls ; J. H. Broomell, Aurora ; E. P. McGlincy, Elgin 



Convention adjourned to meet at 2 o'clock p. m. 



Convention met pursuant to adjournment at 2 p. m. ' 



THE SIGJSTS or THE TIMES AS EELATED TO THE MA:tfUFAC- 

 TUEE OF BUTTEE AND CHEESE, 



RY J. H. BROOMELL, AURORA. 



The fool will stupidly go forward in pursuance of a course guided by 

 avarice and controlled by prejudice, regardless of the shipwreck which must 

 inevitably carry him to destruction. 



The wise man will carefully note the signs of the times about him, draw 

 from the storehouse of experience and compare the present with the past to 

 enable him to determine upon a wise course for the future. 



The theme about which I shall speak is one of great vital importance to 

 the dairy interest of the northwestern states, the region so emphatically 

 wedded to the combined system of manufacturing both butter and cheese 

 from the same milk. It is clear to me that the course of the wise man ap- 

 plied to this system will mark out a new departure for the future. For a 

 number of years past we have heard high-sounding prophecies from numer- 

 ous Isaiahs about the fate of skim cheese. Each year was to see the last of 

 this troublesome commodity. The man who would be daring enough to 

 make the stufe the following year would surely meet with financial disaster. 

 The dealers said they were a curse upon their heads from the beginning to 

 the end of their weary efforts to bamboozle somebody iuto buying them. 

 The consumer said they were only fit for grindstones and fish-bait, and were 

 always indignant when they found themselves worse sold than the cheese 

 which they bought. 



J^otwithstanding these anathemas their manufacture has continued down 

 to the present time. The factory men have freely admitted that these goods 

 were ofttimes very undesirable for human food, and have wondered why 

 consumers could be induced to take them at any price. Then why were 

 they made ? some one asks. The answer is easily made. They were made 

 because it paid to make them. At the price skim-cheese were sold previous 

 to the year 1883, no factoryman manufacturing either butter or full cream 

 cheese alone could pay the prices for milk which were paid by other factory- 

 men who made both butter and cheese from' the same miik. The factorymen 

 who paid the biggest prices got the milk, hence the desire which did exist to 

 make good cheese was crushed out and extinguished by the competition with 

 butter and cheese factories. 



Moreover, the quaUty of the skim cheese made has been going from bad 

 to worse. Some years ago the poorest quality of skim cheese, as to stock, 



