78 ILLIKOIS DAIRYMEN'S ASSOCIATION. 



in the nature of things, highly conducive to prosperity, and which opens up 

 a new avenue of interest to the farmer and new hopes and comforts to his 

 home. 



The very foundation principles of general prosperity and business success 

 among any people may be expressed in two phrases, to wit: a diversity of 

 industries, and a systematic, intelligent conduct of every line of business in 

 which the individual engages These conditions complied with, wealth and 

 plenty among the people, is simply a question of time, perseverence, econo- 

 my and honest work. Perhaps nowhere in the world has nature done more 

 to provide for a variety of industrial enterprises than in Illinois, by planting 

 within its borders such a rich variety of natural resources, which our people 

 are learning more and more to comprehend and appreciate from year to 

 year. Within my memory it was believed that Illinois must forever be 

 purely an agricultural region, and that its agriculture must be confined to 

 raising grain and meat. But in the quarter of a century past we have seen 

 it creating and establishing line after line of profitable pursuits, until with 

 its nearly 9,000 miles of railway, far surpassing in this regard all other States 

 of the Union, it has become the center of the commerce and civilization of 

 the continent as well as the geographical center. 



Stretching from Lake Michigan on the north to the embracing arms of 

 the two great rivers on the south, it has become the natural and actual high- 

 way of the Nation's commerce and the people's intercourse. It is like the 

 substantial and only bridge over an unfordable stream to which all diverging 

 roads must tend and over which they must cross. It is the keystone of the 

 arch to the business of the country ; the pivotal center upon which the ma- 

 terial wealth of the nation turns. In this quarter of a century we have seen 

 mines of coal and deposits of stone developed all over the State, and by the 

 mouths of the pits and on our beautiful streams gigantic manufactories of 

 almost endless variety rise, and by the musical clatter of the employed and 

 happy mechanics' energy, and the curling smoke from many furnaces, pro- 

 claim to the world that Illinois is destined to be by nature and by practice a 

 leading manufacturing State as well as agricultural. 



To you, gentlemen, is due a very large measure of credit for introducing 

 still another magnificent diversity of business interest, to add to the healthy 

 energy and activity of the people. By your enterprise it is shown that the 

 Illinois farmer need not necessarily depend solely upon the shifting chances 

 of the seasons for his prosperity. That a failure in the grain crop is not 

 necessarily disastrous to his living. And still further, you have demonstrat- 

 ed that he need not dt^peud entirely upon the shifting manipulations of the 

 market for profi t from stock raising or grain producing, for you have estab- 

 lished a farming enterprise which, in a large measure, is independent of the 

 seasons, so long as blue grass and clover grows and water runs, the product 

 of which, instead of being controlled and buffeted about in the markets by 

 speculators and gamblers, itself controls and monopolizes. 



Plato, the ancient philosopher and lawgiver, taught political economy to 

 his people in a forcible manner by describing to them an imaginary and 

 ideal republic. He first gave his romance a locality, a country, called on 

 nature to supply it with all the natural advantages of soil, climate, wood, 

 water, diversity of surface into woodland and plain, mountains and rivers, 



