ILLINOIS STATE DAIRYMEN'S ASSOCIATION. 



The Dairy Industry of Illinois* 



It is customary that the Secretary of our Association 

 give a review of the industry which it represents, with a 

 statistical estimation of its extent. 



It has also been customary to try in every way to make 

 the result as large as possible, basing it on the various statis- 

 tical returns combined with a considerable amount of addi- 

 tional ^'guessing." 



I regret to say that when I attempted to collect and re- 

 vise the figures hitherto given I found myself greatly at vari- 

 ance with the result, as, for instance, of Mr. D. W. Willson, 

 who compiled the estimate for my predecessor in last year's 

 report. In order to show the enormous variation of estimates, 

 I quote first of all from the statistical report of Illinois State 

 Board of Agriculture, December, 1896. As Dairy Cows we 

 find tabulated 617,515, valued on an average of |32.00 per 

 head, or |19,829,860. This was for 1896, but for 1890 it was 

 738,584, as against the U. S. census for that year makes the 

 number of Milch Cows 1,087,886! 



The State Board estimates the sales of dairy products 

 for 1896 at 16,332,425 pounds of butter, 1,914,120 pounds of 

 cheese, 109,108,406 gallons of milk and 912,190 gallons of 

 cream, valued in all at |15,785,345. To this should, of course, 

 be added, the value of the home consumption on the farm. 



