52 ILLINOIS STATE DAIRYMEN'S ASSOCIATION. 



down to the Red> Bud convention. Last year I do not know if there 

 was any one on the program from the State University, but 1 do know 

 that for this meeting, tlie coldness, the lack of men, or means, or all three 

 seems to have gone. For look at them, the speakers from Champaigj^ 

 University, and they are all here, Daveniport, -Frazer, Kennedy, and 

 Erf, and the dairymen of Illinois should lose no time to get all they can 

 from the practical experiments of these men. 



Now to get to my subject. The State dairy districts as made up by 

 ex-Sec. Monrad in 1898, gives 104 creameries in the thirty-four southern 

 counties and about four times as many creameries and cheese factories 

 in the thirty-four northern counties. 



Now I don't know whether you expect me by this time to tell you that 

 the south end cf the State is producing as much milk as the northern 

 portion, or why it is that it does no}., or should not. 



If the figures given for the Cnicago production of oleomargarine for 



November, 1899, are true; that is, 5,460,000 pounds, or at the rate of over 



65 million pounds annually, while the production for 1893, on the same 



' basis was 22 million pounds less, it is not so much a matter of how to 



increase the dairy he]-ds of southern Illinois, as it is of how to secure 



safe and sure markets for what Is produced. 



Southern Illinois is not strictly speaking a dairy section, and as in- 

 significent as the number of creameries may seem, I am inclined to be- 

 lieve that if the number was cut in two, and I was to say that there 

 were fifty working creameries in the thirty-four southern counties, that 

 the number would be about right. 



In my own. county two years ago twelve creameries were reported; 

 today there is but one or two in operation, and that is run on the gathered 

 cream plan. 



Southern Illinois is not destined to become a great dairy section. Its 

 record is being made, as a fruit country. Apples, peaches, plums, pears, 

 and all small fruits are grown in abundance. The acreage in fruit trees is 

 being increased annually. The thin soil of many of the counties and the 

 climate seems to be better adapted to this line of produce than any 

 other. 



