FORTY-SECOND ANNUAL CONVENTION 11 



RESPONSE. 



Mr. H. J. Credicott, Freeport 



"Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen : 



It gives me great pleasure, on behalf of the Illinois State 

 Dairymen's Association, to thank the Mayor of the City of Car- 

 bondale for the welcome extended to our meeting. 



The convention was brought to this part of the state be- 

 cause of a feeling that you needed the dairy business here. It is 

 a business which develops the resources of the farm, whini 

 builds up the farm instead of tearing it down. It is a business 

 which brings ready money, — it is a cash business, and there is 

 nothing that will build up a community faster than the dairy 

 business. You will find in old established communities where 

 the dairy business has been in vogue for a number of years that 

 the banks have larger deposits of money, that the farmers are 

 prosperous, that there are but few mortgages on the farms and 

 those you Avill find are usually placed there. for the purpose o\ 

 getting money to buy more dairy stock and extend the business. 



One of the first things that usually comes up in a new coun- 

 try is the question of markets. They get to wondering if they 

 produce dairy products on a large scale if they can find a market 

 for it. I remember in Minnesota, my home state, when the dairy 

 business was first started out there, — it was a grain farming 

 proposition, wheat with a little corn, and the farmers were very 

 dubious about the dairy proposition — they wondered if they pro- 

 duced lots of butter whether they would find a market for it. 

 At the beginning when they were producing a good quantity and 

 good quality they did have some trouble with their markets, but 

 that is a thing that is easily smoothed out. This great country 

 can consume all the dairy products that we can possibly produce. 

 There may come times when it may look as if there is an over- 



