68 ItiLmOIS DAIRYMEN'S ASSOCIATION. 



the very necessities of living and of life, the railroad has become itself a 

 necessity. Its iron bands constitute the pathway to every home, and its 

 engine the swift and tireless messenger that fetches and carries for every 

 household and every soul in the land ; and he who shall stand blindly and 

 selfishly in its way must stand also blindly and ignorantly in his own. 



Mr. Eice : Why do the railroad companies charge the dairymen of this 

 section sixty cents a hundred for cheese, and the farmers twenty-five cents a 

 hundred for their wheat ? 



Mr. Lumbard : There are several good reasons for that difference in 

 rate. In the first place, the railroad company is an insurer of the property 

 on its hands. A cargo of cheese is worth much more than a cargo of wheat, 

 if it is lost. Another reason is, that cheese is perishable property, requires 

 extra speed and extra care, ordinarily has to be shipped in a refrigerator car, 

 which weighs 40,000 pounds, and it costs more. It has to have special care 

 at both ends of the line. If it is lost, we have to pay more. You cannot 

 carry a carload of diamonds from here to New York as cheap as you can a 

 carload of paving stones. 



Mr. Hoard : To carry $2,500 worth of wheat, you compel the railroad 

 company to build six cars ; to carry $2,500 worth of cheese they can do it in 

 one car, and the farmer never should be fool enough to compel the railroad 

 company to build six cars to transport product that he can get transported 

 in one car. This is why there should be more dairymen and less grangers. 

 That one item alone, gentlemen, in the saving of the cost of transportation, 

 between the cost of a dollar's worth of cheese and a dollar's worth of grain, 

 is enough to settle the question. 



You have no business to look at this question in any other way, except 

 with respect to the unit, the dollar. There is a saving on transportation 

 alone of 19 per cent. 



THE PLACE OF DAIRYING IN ILLINOIS AGRICULTURE. 



BY G. E. MORROW, 

 1»R0FESS0R OF AGRICULTURE, ILLS. INDUSTRIAL UNIVERSITY. 



The rapidity of the development of the American system of associated 

 dairying has been marvelous, even- in this country of marvelously rapid de- 

 velopment of so many industries. In many of its features our system of 

 dairying is distinctively American. Twenty years ago the factory system of 

 manufacturing cheese and butter was only fairly beginning to attract atten- 

 tion. Then dairying as a leading branch of farming was confined to a lim- 

 ited area. Now dairy farming is a leading feature in the agriculture in many 

 states, and is successfully pursued over wide areas where it had no shadow 

 of a foothold a few years since. 



I see no reason to change my often repeated opinion that no branch of 

 American farming, employing any large number of persons, has been so uni- 

 formly profitable as has dairying where it has been intelhgently conducted. 

 It is doubtful if any class of meetings connected with agriculture have been 

 better attended, more intelligently conducted or more effective, than have 

 the conventions of dairymen . In few branches of agriculture have there been 

 equally striking changes in practice in so short a time. In none has co-oper- 



