ILLINOIS STATE DAIRYMEN’S ASSOCIATION. 9 
thereby lays the foundation for health, beauty and future happiness. 
In looking over our criminal docket we find but rarely the name of 
the farmer or dairyman there; visit our penitentiaries and the ruddy 
face of the farmer is scarcely ever found there. Turn your eye to the 
hangman s gibbet, but not to find the dairyman or farmer there ; for 
they much prefer to stretch hemp by hand or horse power than by 
that finer attachment to the cervical portion of their bodies. Look at 
us, located as we are in the valley of the great Father of Waters, in 
a country rich in the component parts of that which goes to produce 
and sustain plant life, perhaps the richest in the known world—if we 
are to believe the report of Mr. Cobden, an English gentleman who 
visited this state at or about the time the Illinois Central railroad 
was being chartered and built, and who made or caused to be made a 
careful chemical analysis of specimens of the soil from various parts 
of the state. His report to his fellow-countrymen (if our memory 
serves us) was, that the soil of Illinois which he examined, contained 
more of the principle necessary to produce and sustain vegetable life 
than that of the valley of the Nile, which has long been considered 
the richest in the known world. English capitalists, believing his 
statement to be true, eagerly sought the stock of this railroad, and it 
was soon built after the charter was obtained. 
We now see how fully time has verified Mr. Cobden’s statement 
made many years ago, of the richness of our soil, by the amount of 
actual productions of the state, the marketing of which has become 
a serious desideratum with the farmer at the present time. 
It would appear advisable that the farmer should condense the 
products of the farm as much as possible, before sending the same 
forward, as he thereby reduces the amount to be paid for freight. 
It costs, at present rate, about one-eighth of a crop of wheat to 
freight it from Chicago to New York. In flour it would cost less, 
besides having bran and shorts to feed stock. Corn costs nearly one- 
third of the crop to freight it as above,but in starch, glucose or glucose 
syrup, would cost less ; also if put into pork or beef, but would cost 
very much less if fed to cows and put into butter and cheese. Butter 
costing only one-thirty-sixth and cheese about one-seventeenth part 
of the product to freight as above. 
We estimate that the production of butter in the United States 
the present year,will reach in round numbers about 653,000,000 pounds. 
Of this amount, the people of this country will undoubtedly consume 
about 630,000,000, and we shall probably export about 23,000,000. 
