FORTY-SECOND ANNUAL CONVENTION 137 



The reason why I am interested in the dairy business as 

 a business man is because I Hke Southern IlHnois. I beheve in 

 Southern Ilhnois and I beheve the character of its soil, the di- 

 versified agriculture that has been followed here has depleted" 

 the soil and that we need a change, and the dairy business is 

 what we need in Southern Illinois. 



I was coming down on the train this morning, talking with 

 a good business man of Centralia, he said: "I hope to live 

 long enough to see this soil out here like it was fifty years ago" 

 and he said: "I believe that it can be made better than it was 

 fifty years ago, I think it can be improved even to what it was in 

 its virgin state." 



I believe one thing truly, and that is that grain farming, 

 successful grain farming in a general way has passed in South- 

 ern Illinois. I don't believe we can make claim to build up this 

 fertility and maintain the farms and improve them and make 

 them better by grain farming. I think, to begin with, it will 

 cost too much money to buy the commercial fertilizers to be ap- 

 plied to bring it back to the virginal condition, and I know of no 

 way that we can keep Southern Illinois from becoming a waste 

 land than by the live stock business, and I know of no live stock 

 business that is so remunerative, that is of such immense edu- 

 cational, uplifting value as the dairy business. 



My observation has been, traveling through the best dairy 

 sections of the country and studying the dairy situation, that 

 the best homes, the best kept farms, the happiest families, the 

 best schools and the best country churches are found in the dairy 

 communities. The first consolidated school, the first state to 

 adopt the county high school, agricultural school system, wa j 

 a dairy state, and I was traveling with a gentleman today from 

 Wisconsin and he said this : ''The average farm in Wisconsin 

 is 119 acres, the average farm in Kansas is 245 acres; the aver- 

 age income from the farms in Wisconsin is better than $2300.00; 

 the average income from the farms of Kansas is less than 

 $2300.00 with twice the acreage." 



The homes of the dairy sections are contented, cultured, 

 comfortable and good, in the other many of them are places. 



