81 
ILLINOIS STATE DAIRYMEN’S ASSOCIATION. 
this business from its first introduction in the west, we don’t believe that 
one out of ten are as well off to-day as they would have been had they 
have stuck to the business they had left. Too many small factorys are be¬ 
ing put up, they can’t pay. A factory, in a great measure, is like a hotel, 
it takes a certain number of guests to pay expenses, and when they get be¬ 
yond that they make some money. So with a cheese factory. It costs no 
more to keep five hundred cheese warm than it does one. It costs but ten 
per cent, more for help to make one thousand pounds of cheese per day 
than it does five hundred pounds. The factorymen can dispose of, collect 
for, and disburse, the money for one thousand pounds of cheese per day 
with the same time and trouble that it would take to dispose of five 
hundred pounds. 
MILK SUPPLY OF FOX RIVER VALLEY. 
We are indebted to the Chicago Journal for the follow¬ 
ing article upon this subject: 
The Agricultural department of the general Government should p ossess 
and annually publish actual data of this rapidly increasing branch of our * 
national production, but it is mainly left to the detached fragments of news 
that creep into the press, which are collated by some industrious lover of * 
statistics, and so an approximate statement is finally reached. The constantly 
increasing demand for improved products of the dairy has stimulated 
endeavor to its utmost, until American butter and cheese, like American 
wheat, corn and beef, have become staple articles of export, and European 
markets are supplied from our Western prairies as well as from the glades 
of New York. It is not the purpose of this article to give even a good 
synopsis of the products of the dairy farms in the West. Such a work 
would require a greater expenditure of time than the writer has at command, 
but having in possession a few figures, thought it might prove interesting 
to many of your readers to peruse them. ’ ^ 
The item of milk for daily consumption in a city like Chicago is some¬ 
thing enormous. This supply must come from the rural districts, and 
within a limited range, as it is not found desirable to transport the fluid too 
great a distance. Coming pure from the farms, it might become butter if 
indulged with too long a ride. The great bulk of the supply for Chicago 
t 
