86 ILLINOIS STATE DAIRYMEN'S ASSOCIATION. 



Why is it that these men will not read or think or study the busi- 

 ness that they are giving their whole lives to, and every bit of 

 food they raise on the farm is going into those cows. Suppose 

 a preacher wants to preach, does he not want to read the Bible? 

 Suppose a lawyer wants to try a case does he not want all the 

 books available, and if a doctor never studied medicine would we 

 want to employ him ? Yet dairymen will start in without know- 

 ing the first principles and expect they are going to succeed. Gen- 

 tlemen, you will make a failure if that is the way you are going 

 to conduct your dairy. 



I lived thirty years in and around Elgin. I was born there 

 in 1856, and if the Lord is willing I am going to be buried there 

 in 1956. 



Why is it that in every section of our great country we go, 

 we find dairying carried on successfully and profitably by some 

 men while others make no effort or a complete failure of the 

 business, and why cry out, ''Dairying doesn't pay." Two words 

 explain the reason why one man is successful and the other a 

 failure. One is knowledge, the other ignorance. Why is it that 

 in the same community or locality with the same kind of soil, the 

 same markets and other similar conditions, one person will be 

 highly successful, while another will be a complete failure. 



Let us look into the conditions surrounding these two dairy- 

 men, and try to discover the cause of the success of the one, and 

 the failure of the other. The successful one is a reader of the 

 best dairy literature ; he keeps in touch with the Experiment Sta- 

 tion of the state and applies dairy principles in conducting his 

 dairy. He has the best cows to be had, well knowing that other 

 things being equal, the cow is the basis of successful dairying. 

 The other man reads little, thinks less and any old cow is good 

 enough for him. Poor, ignorant man, my heart goes out in pity 

 for him in his bhnd stupidity and ignorance for all the hard 

 work he will do and the pittance he will receive. 



Now let us see the difference between the good cow and the 

 poor cow. Now I do not know how it is with you men down 

 here, now in Iowa if any one would say anything about the dual 

 purpose cow, he would be shot on the spot, how we all dift'er 



