138 ILLINOIS STATE DAIRYMEN'S ASSOCIATION 



cabins or places for herders or ranchers not the contentment, 

 not the culture, not the spirit of home in those places. 



In speaking of what dairying may mean to any section, I 

 heard one of the best dairymen in Northern Illinois say, that 

 had moved to Southern Illinois, that ''At the time I began the 

 dairy business, the conditions at the time being equal or as good 

 I could have been v^orth considerable more money and may be 

 much easier because you can grow more leguminous plants 

 in Southern Illinois, and you have shorter winters and milder 

 winters, earlier springs and later falls." 



I want to repeat to you just one thing that I have studied 

 thoroughly and that is, that I think it wholly impossible for 

 Southern Illinois farms to be improved or even maintain with 

 the present system of farming. My observation is that they are 

 gradually going down, gradually producing less, that it is nec- 

 essary that we change to a line of farming that will im- 

 prove this condition. 



My home is at Centralia, I have been there about five years. 

 When I moved there five years ago I came from a section 

 where it was all agricultural, everything depended upon farming, 

 we had no manufactories, no mines, no railrod pay roll. In 

 Centralia I found the opposite ; we had there large shops, rail- 

 road shops, and a large railroad payroll ; there were two mines 

 in operation, a large payroll from the mines and this condition 

 had caused the business men of Centralia to overlook in a meas- 

 ure the importance of agriculture. 



I said to a banker there that I observed that there were 

 not many farmers' names on the books of the bank, and he 

 made the remark : "You will have to look to the business insti- 

 tutions of Centralia for your deposits." I did not agree with 

 him. I realized, as you realize, that the biggest thing that we 

 have got to look to for financial prosperity is the farm. The acres 

 were there, but they were depleted in a way. Many of the farm- 

 ers were coming in and working in the mines and on the rail- 

 roads after having made just enough on the farm to feed their 

 stock and the other necessities of life to tide them over to the 

 next year from a farming standpoint, securing their surplus 

 money from the mine and railroad work. 



