ILLINOIS STATE DAIRYMEN’S ASSOCIATION. 
13 
In years bygone, New York State was the great producer of the cereals 
but by and by Ohio, Indiana, Michigan, Wisconsin and Illinois sent forward 
their productions in this line, and New York was forced to abandon their 
production, and turned her attention to the dairy, with a firm belief that the 
Western States could never compete with them in this undertaking. But 
how now ? In a recent article from an Eastern paper, we see it stated that 
the West will soon rival the East in the dairy products, as they have already 
done in the cereals. The capital invested here at the West, being far less 
than that of the East, in proportion to the amount of dairy products produced 
the feed for stock costing far less than theirs, and the cost of shipment from 
here to the sea coast being only about one and a quarter cent per pound 
gives us a decided advantage in this line of products. We firmly believe 
that the futuie prospects of the dairy interests of Illinois depends very much 
upon the quality of those products. We have always claimed that no butter 
or cheese should be put upon the market which is not worthy of the name 
of the factory or maker on it so stamped as not to be easily erased, then, 
and in that case, if good, the maker would have a fair show of the benefits 
which might be derived from it, and if poor, would only have to father his 
own, whereas, as it now stands, he has to father his share of all the poor 
cheese sold in Illinois, whether made here or not. We allude to this matter 
here as bearing directly on the future dairy interests of this State. 
Now while in 1863, only 50,000 or 100,000 pounds of cheese were made, 
cheese brought on the market only six or eight cents, and butter from ten 
to twenty-five cents per pound, and now that we have increased in the 
manufacture of cheese to millions of pounds per annum, and butter in pro¬ 
portion, the price of cheese has ranged from eight to fifteen and one-half 
cents, and butter from twenty-eight to forty cents per pound. Therefore, 
as the quantity increases, the price per pound has also increased. We here 
predict that the market will never be overstocked for any length of time in 
our day, with strictly gilt-edge butter or cheese. 
It has become a pretty well-settled fact, that no one article of diet known 
to man and so readily obtained by him, contains all the ingredients so neces¬ 
sary to build up and sustain the human system in so large quantities as that 
of milk and its various manufactured products. If this be true, then, as we 
the people, are educated to see and realize the fact, the use of milk and its 
manufactured products will much increase. It is the early education on 
this subject, that we so much need. The poet says: 
’Tis education forms the common mind, 
Just as the twig is bent, the tree’s inclined, 
and we, without reserve, indorse the poet’s sentiments herein expressed, 
believing, as we do, that the early education in regard to diet has much to do 
with our likes and dislikes of certain dietetic articles in after life. 
Topic No. 34—“Is the Dairy Business in the West Liable 
to Be Overdone, so that It Will Not Be as Remunerative as 
Other Branches of Agriculture ? ” 
