ILLINOIS STATE DAIRYMEN'S ASSOCIATION. 63 



article in the honest product? Why are consumers so particular 

 about the nicety of real butter and then manifest so little interest 

 in the fact that the butter markets are being filled with the neu- 

 tral oils Irom the refuse tanks and garbage boxes of the back 

 alleys of the great cities? Are the noses the only organ of 

 consumers which is to be consulted on questions of discrimina- 

 tion while the stomach is being made the dumping ground of 

 that which is vile and insidious in character? If we applied a 

 little of the practical and common sense methods in the selec- 

 tion and character of our own foods, we would be more likely 

 to carry the same intelligent thought into the care of domestic 

 animals. We believe that too little attention is paid to the con- 

 stituent elements of the foods provided for the stock upon our 

 farms, for the promotion of their health, and for the reason that 

 they, the animals, constitute a portion of our food supplies. The 

 general farmer, as well as dairymen, have more or less to do 

 with domestic animals, and should pay more attention than now 

 prevails among them to the relations which exist between food 

 elements and animal growth and development, or how the milk 

 of cows may be affected detrimentally by such lack of knowledge. 

 Too much is done in this world by force of habit. In fact, 

 he is a brave man and full of inventive resources, who is able to 

 break Joose from old customs and adopt the new and improved 

 methods. Some of the foreign markets have been closed against 

 our pork, owing to the discredit brought upon it by the diseased 

 conditions of our swine, and the delusion that an insidious plague 

 is abroad in the land, decimating the herds. The destructive 

 character of the disease is not an active one at all, but passive 

 in its nature. There is a law of compensation pervading the 

 universe. In all nature the relations which one part of creation 

 bears to another are hospitable in a sense of conservation. Air, 

 earth and water teem with nature's scavengers in the form of 

 devouring parasites to put out of the way whatever is deficient 

 in the living force necessary for vigorous self-sustainment . Dis- 

 ease is the degenerate condition of an animal which becomes the 

 battle ground between the organism and bacteria which take 



