ILLINOIS DAIRYMEN'S ASSOCIATION. 



benefitted the food supply in that one common vegetable alone to 

 the extent of more than a million dollars. He has improved 

 the. size, form, color and fragrance of many flowers and fruits 

 almost beyond belief, and it is said that he has changed the cruel 

 and worthless cactus which covers the hot desert plains of the 

 southwest into a spineless plant bearing profusely a most delicious 

 fruit, and a highly nutritious leaf and stalk. Very few, indeed, 

 can expect such achievement, but there is not a plant upon the 

 soil, nor creature upon the farm, that is not susceptible of won- 

 derful development and improvement. 



Great advance along these lines has been made, yet far 

 greater impends in the near future. The Secretary of Agricul- 

 ture tells us the farm products of 1905 were worth at home on 

 the farms the enormous sum of $6,415,000,000, a sum so vast 

 that our bewildered faculties cannot comprehend it. He says 

 that every sunset during the last five years, has registered an 

 increase of $3,400,000 to the value of the American farms, or an 

 aggregate increase of $6, 133,000,000, and that by continuing 

 this rate of increase for ten more years, the farmers will have 

 produced one-half of the total wealth accumulated by the nation 

 in three centuries of toil. 



Do not fail to note the significant changes occuring in the 

 last two decades. When Illinois' most illustrious son first became 

 President, cotton had long been the unchalleng'ed despotic king. 

 Today the annual farm product values are: Corn, $1,216,000,- 

 000; milk and butter, $665,000,000; hay, $605,000,000; cot- 

 ton, $575,000,000. And do not overlook the significant fact 

 that our cow calmly chews her cud of corn and hay, consuming a 

 very large portion of it, and is the gentle, contented queen of 

 today, while close behind her cackles the busy American hen. 



The export of $12,000,000,000 worth of farm products dur- 

 ing the last sixteen years, has reversed the balance of foreign 

 trade which had been against us, and given us a favoring balance 

 of over $5,000,000,000. 



I well remember when the vast prairie portion of our great 

 State, stretching broadly from near Vandalia to Peoria, including 



