ILLINOIS DAIRYMEN'S ASSOCIATION. 11 



RESPONSE. 



Mr. W. R. Kimsey, Tamaroa, 111. 



Mr. Chairman : — 



When the State Dairymen's Association decided to come to 

 Effingham, the people from the northern part of the State 

 thought they were coming down into Egypt. I don't know 

 whether it is Egypt or not. I am still 120 miles further south, 

 and I am not at the southern end of the state. The people from 

 the north think all we have down here is hardpan and politicians. 

 I can't speak so much for Effingham county. In Perry county 

 we have no politicians. We don't know what the word means 

 there. In your own county I suppose at certain times of the 

 year my friend Dick Lawson is seen doing a little hustling, and 

 friend Martin or some of the others were giving the glad hand 

 and shake, and he'd take the baby from the mother and ask her 

 in the store and kiss the baby — not the mother. This is not 

 politics, it is merely informing the people along some lines that 

 might be necessary later on. If you hear the liveryman, certain 

 nights along in the fall, had three or four teams out driving the 

 biggest part of the night, and should ask him if he had had any 

 one out the night before, he would say " No, all in the stable." 

 His memory is short, but that is not politics. I can assure the 

 people from the north end of the state as they come down here 

 we Egyptians know nothing of politics. 



Southern Illinois was, as its name indicates, the Egypt of 

 the plains, the place where the unsettled and poorer northerners 

 came. It is noted not alone for its statesmen, its governors and 

 generals and other noted people, but it is the home of the farmer. 

 We have too long followed in agricultural lines the example set 

 by our eastern agricultural friends, but without the necessary 

 changes. The dairy work is coming to the front and we are mak- 

 ing these changes, and while probably some way-back farmers 



