12 ILLINOIS STATE DAIRYMEN'S ASSOCIATION. 



RESPONSE FOR ASSOCIATION 



by 



Joseph Newman, Elgin. 



Mr. Newman : Mr. Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen, We 

 always appreciate a hearty welcome into any city we take the 

 Association. We are, as the gentleman has informed you, an 

 educational association, purely, nothing political in its make-up. 

 We shall bring speakers here during the program of the next 

 two or three days that will enlarge on the points the gentleman 

 has brought out. We shall endeavor to tell him, the farmers 

 and the town people, in fact all of Fayette and neighboring coun- 

 ties, if they will come here, that by taking off loo pounds of 

 butter fat they only take six cents from the soil. 



We shall go into details and tell them that they are bringing 

 money into these counties every thirty days, that is far different 

 from the annual money that comes in from any crop of cereal. 

 We shall be able to show them by able speakers that this thin 

 land can be brought up, and at the same time the people shall be 

 able to live and occasionally have pianos. We shall be able to 

 show them also that this thin -land, by adopting the best system 

 of agriculture there is, by going into 'the grasses, and the clover 

 and the alfalfa, they will so enrich that soil that they can return 

 on to the soil a sufficient amount of fertilizer so that they will 

 not have to go to the fertilizer company to produce. Their lands 

 will.be brought up in a natural way. It can be done and it will 

 be shown it has been done. 



Coming as I do from the north, from a land that overflows 

 with honey and milk as the Good Old Book has told us, the Fox 

 River District, which is the flower in the state, I can say to you 

 that we have been able to do this. Mr. Mason, who is President 

 of the Farmers' Institute, has two farms not to exceed 150 acres 

 in each farm, the soil of which twenty-five years ago was no 

 better than yours here today in some of your thin lands. On 

 those two farms his check during the winter months is not less 

 than $1,500.00 in cash. He is a practical farmer and what he 



