ILLINOIS STATE DAIRYMEN’S ASSOCIATION. I | 
It would seem that the home market, which should be 
the best of all markets, is largely if not wholly ignored by 
our dairymen at the present time. 
It was claimed in 1876-7 that the consumption of 
cheese in this country was fully four pounds per capita. 
Were that so for 1878-9, our 47,000,000 people would 
require about 188,000,000 pounds of cheese for home con¬ 
sumption alone. But how is it now ? We estimate a falling 
off of about twenty-five per cent, in the home consumption, 
reducing the amount required from 188,000,000 to 141,- 
000,000 pounds and leaving a surplus on our hands of about 
47,000,000 pounds. Now this is an item in marketing that 
nobody but the dairymen of this country has any power to 
remedy. The American people too well appreciate the 
nutritive qualities of good cheese, when taken into the 
human system, to discard its use, if such cheese can be 
readily obtained. 
Last winter a bill was drafted and presented to our 
legislature, which passed the senate and came near passing 
the house, to recognize the Illinois State Dairymen’s Asso¬ 
ciation^ a state institution, with power to establish and 
maintain an experimental dairy station somewhere in the 
state.. One of the objects of such a station would be to 
examine, and recommend the raising, the best and most 
profitable breeds of cows for the dairy of Illinois. The 
United State census of 1870 gives Illinois 640,321 cows. It 
is now computed that the state has at the present time 
between 800,000 and 1,000,000. The estimated average life 
of a cow in the dairy is about six years. This holding true, 
it will call for the annual rearing of about 150,000 to fill 
the vacant places of valueless cows in the state of Illinois 
alone. This being correct, it behooves us as citizens, and 
especially as dairymen of Illinois, to look well to this matter 
of breeds for the dairy. Prof. Johnson tells us of a breed 
of cows that required nine pounds of hay to produce one 
quart of milk, and of another breed which required only 
five pounds. Now if this be true (and we have but little 
doubt of it from our own observation),would any gentleman 
within the sound of my voice hesitate for a moment, all 
other things being equal, which breed to select his cows for 
the dairy from ? This is only one item of the use of such 
a station; although a very important one, perhaps not the 
most essential one to the dairyman. The fact that our 
