ILLINOIS STATE DAIRYMEN'S ASSOCIATIO'N. 195 



have asked the legislature time and again for better facilities 

 and have been refused, as a matter of economy. 



With a million dairy cows in this country, producing, as 

 they do, not to exceed one hundred pounds of butter per annum 

 per cow, instructions along better lines of production would 

 enable a production of some 150 pounds per year in the course 

 of two or three years, rather than one hundred, and would add 

 to the wealth of the people many hundred times more than the 

 small cost of the necessary appliances for thorough instruction 

 along that line. 



Our State Association has been hampered very much be- 

 cause it had not funds to do general work in educating the 

 people along better lines of dairying; and what we need is an 

 appropriation to enable this Association to go into various 

 parts of the country and reach the farmers who cannot be 

 reached by a single meeting in a single locality. We ought i o 

 have sufficient funds to hold a series of meetings, and not less 

 than one each month in various parts of the State, and the 

 farmers could have the benefit of the instruction the best ex- 

 perts could furnish as to the best way in which the dairy, and 

 thereby all agriculture could be benefited. 



With the great producing capacity of the State of Illinois 

 along dairy lines, and situated as we are at the center of the 

 great Mississippi valley, with opportunities for reaching the 

 best markets of the country quickly and cheaply, her dairy 

 products should stand at the front; and if we can only get our 

 legislative body to understand that it is not protection per se 

 that is w^anted, and the majority of the members of the legisla- 

 ture were elected on that basis, but protection from fraud that 

 we demand. It is estimated that if Chicago alone were fur- 

 nished with pure milk, it would require the product of 25 per 

 cent, more cows to furnish the same amount of milk that is 

 now delivered in that city. So all along the line. Every adul- 

 teration whereby reducing the quality and coming somewhat 

 cheaper in price, reduces the value of the new product, of which 

 the farmer is the great producer. As farmers you are possibly 

 aware that you are the great food producers; that all of the 

 food, practically, that is raised or consumed is produced at the 

 farm in the original state. All raw product comes from the 

 land. It has to be handled, manufactured and put into shape, 



