ILLINOIS STATE DAIRYMEN’S ASSOCIATION. 
23 
The motion for the appointment of a committee pre¬ 
vailed, and the chair appointed R. R. Stone and C. W. 
Gould, of Elgin, R. W. Stewart, of Hebron, and Ira Albro, 
of Wayne, as such committee, which was afterward enlarged 
by the appointment of J. R. McLean and George W. Lake. 
These gentlemen met and drafted a constitution and by¬ 
laws, which were adopted at a meeting held at Elgin, March 
1, 1872, and at the same meeting the following officers were 
elected: President, Dr. Joseph Tefft; vice-president, J. R. 
McLean; secretary, R. R. Stone; treasurer, O. Davidson. 
I think at the next meeting a few samples of cheese and 
butter (the latter private dairy) were exhibited, and a few 
sales were made. 
I may here go back a little in the history of the board, 
and state that many who favored the organization felt that 
it would be more ornamental than useful, but the eight years 
of its existence have proved most conclusively that they 
were mistaken in their supposition. They inquired who 
would come to Elgin and buy their goods. By this move, 
if unsuccessful, they, or at least some of them, were fearful 
that the commission men would refuse to handle their pro¬ 
ducts, and they would then be worse off than before. To 
some it looked like leaping from the frying-pan into the fire. 
Little did they dream that in two years Chicago, Cincim 
nati, St. Louis, Philadelphia, Baltimore, New York, and even 
Liverpool, England, would send dealers to their little inland 
city, to buy the goods direct from the manufacturers. But 
they have lived to witness the frequent visits of the repre¬ 
sentatives of the leading cities of the Union to the Elgin board 
of trade, in search of the best butter made in the world, 
and the best skimmed cheese that can be found. I say the 
best skimmed cheese, for I have heard dealers say that 
some of the eheese offered for sale was skimmed on the top 
and bottom, and opened and skimmed in the middle ; so 
that would make it the best skimmed. 
But to return. All of the books and papers belonging 
to the board, containing the reports of the sales made and 
the proceedings of the business meetings, were destroyed 
by fire in January of the present year, so I am compelled 
to rely on memory and the columns of “ The Pdgin Advo¬ 
cate,” which publishes weekly a full statement of the sales 
and business of the board, for many of the facts and figures 
here given. 
