132 ILLINOIS STATE DAIRYMEN'S ASSOCIATION. 



petuity of the nation. He is the only truly independent voter. He repre- 

 sents his own business, habits of thought and life, both capital and 

 labor, and is therefore the only impartial and available arbitrator. 



When imperial Rome was shaken to her foundations she called Gin- 

 cinnatus from the plough and he saved the country. So it has ever been 

 in the past; so it will be again in the future. Looking at things from 

 this standpoint, the first and most important work of the institute is ta 

 develop the farmer himself. How important that he be a man of intelli- 

 gence, of high moral integrity, and that the spirit of patriotism, love 

 of home and native land be kept alive in his breast. Verily I believe 

 that the Institute has helped and is helping the farmer to respect him- 

 self and the position he occupies in the world, and that it will continue 

 to help him to look up and not down, forward and not backward; that it 

 will inspire him to press forward and lend a helping hand. 



The Farmers' Institute is bringing the scientists and experiment 

 stations into closer relations wiih the farmer and dairymen and all are 

 helped and benefitted by a more intimate fellowship. One of the hopeful 

 signs of the development of agriculture- is, that the best scientists are 

 every day becoming more practical, and our most practical and successful 

 farmers and dairymen are more scientific. There are many farmers yet 

 who are disposed to ridicule so called book-farming, and who do not ap- 

 preciate what the chemist, the entimologist, the bacteriologist, and bot- 

 anist are doing for them. But the Farmers' Institute is spreading the 

 gospel of scientific truth and the burdens of the husbandman are light- 

 ened thereby. For example, the "Babcock milk test" is a purely scientific 

 invention, without which co-operative dairying is scarcely practicable. 

 It could never have been developed on the farm nor outside the labratory 

 and university. 



A knowledge of sm.uts and fungi, the amount of damage done by them 

 to farm crops, and the ability to prevent such damage could only be 

 worked out by men trained along lines of scientific investigation and 

 properly equipped for their work. The composition of foods and their 

 feeding value, the chemical and mechanical conditions of the soil and 



