144 ILLINOIS DAIRYMEN'S ASSOCIATION. 



Missouri, I told them it was in Illinois. It was supposed to have 

 originated and taken place in Illnois. It was about a little child 

 whose parents had been engaged in farming and in the dairy 

 business and they had increased the value of their land to the 

 extent that they thought they could sell at a very large price and 

 go into Missouri and buy more land. In her evening devotions 

 of the night before, after she had thanked God for the many 

 blessings he had sent them, and after commending her little play- 

 mates to His care, she said, "And now good-bye God. We are 

 going over to Missouri." I tell this story. It seems to me to fit. 



Now I never made a dairy speech in the middle of a con- 

 vention, but that it would all be shot to pieces before I got a 

 chance at it. I am not going to talk on the dairy questions. 

 Those subjects will bear telling to you two or three times I know 

 and then some. In Iowa, we tell it at every meeting. We try 

 to impress them upon the minds of the people. 



I take it you people in this county are just starting into the 

 dairy business ; not to any great extent yet. A meeting of these 

 dairymen here should be good in the future to you. It looks to 

 me as though you were interested in the subject. I don't believe 

 in driving people into the dairy business. We were in the wheat 

 business up there until we got so poor, we didn't dare go to town. 

 If we went to town, we went on the back streets because we owed 

 every grocery there, and were driven into dairying. It has 

 proved a God-send to us in the end. It is the best business we 

 ever struck. We would never have engaged in this business, but 

 we needed the money, and we have made money out of it. In- 

 stead of land being $40 and even $24 an acre, you have got to pay 

 $100 an acre. We have got to that through dairying. Our 

 lands are more fertile today than they have ever been. Even 

 with the lack of intelligence we have made money out of it. 

 W^e are only in the early stages of dairying, and do not yet know 

 the possibilities of the dairy cow, and what she is to us. 



According to the last report from Iowa, it cost $24.00 to 

 keep a cow* The very best estimate $21.00. In the whole state 

 we are only making two or three dollars profit from a cow for a 



