ILLINOIS STATE DAIRYMEN S ASSOCIATION. 59 



improvements and progressive ways will show a marked differ- 

 ence in the results of individual harvests. The science of the 

 farmer, like that of men of the learned professions, is progressive, 

 and his onward march in the career of improvement, if not so 

 brilliant, is equally decided. The agricultural press of our 

 country has educated the popular mind and opened the avenues 

 of knowledge, which our agriculturists have followed in search 

 of better practices, better means, better intelligence. It has 

 worked a mighty revolution in methods of tillages of dairying, 

 the use of labor-saving apparatus, tools, seeds and plants, the 

 rearing of finer bred animals specially adapted to the end sought, 

 in a word, it has been a safe beacon light. 



The agricultural interests of the country owe a debt of untold 

 magnitude to the talent, industry and honesty of the agricul- 

 tural press, for under a wide diffusion of the humanizing influ- 

 ence of intelligence, the generation of slaving farmer has per- 

 ceptibly died out. 



Among the most noted representative journals in the field of 

 American agriculture, our Illinois agricultural and dairy news- 

 papers are specially to be mentioned. The board of directors of 

 the Illinois State Dairymen's Association addressed special invita- 

 ions to veterans to these join with us in this feast of reason and you 

 have noticed before this time that our programme embraces the 

 names of four of our Illinois newspaper representatives, who 

 have promised to address us on prominent subjects, full of vitality 

 and interest. 



Ladies and gentlemen, I now have the pleasure to introduce 

 Hon. Milton George, of the Western Rural^ Chicago, a repre- 

 sentative farmer as well as representative agricultural newspaper 

 man. 



