ILLINOIS STATE DAIRYMEN’S ASSOCIATION. 23 
former. Those who had engaged in the dairy business in 
the Northwest, and especially about Elgin, did so for the 
money that was in it, and not for the fun of the thing, as 
some people supposed, and after having developed the in¬ 
dustry, and demonstrated to the incredulous Easterners that 
good butter and cheese could be produced on the broad and 
fertile prairies of Illinois, as well as in New York state, they 
concluded that in order to make both ends meet—or both 
butter and cheese and money—something must be done to 
give them a good, reliable market and insure them prompt 
pay for their products, for previous to the organization of 
the Board, in 1872, the goods had been disposed of on 
commission, and by the time the freight, cartage, storage, 
shortage, and several other ages known to the trade, had 
been deducted from the shipments, the manufacturers found 
that the account of sales were very short, and occasionally 
they found themselves indebted to the commission man, 
and they had nothing to pay the milkmen or their help with, 
at least that is about the way some of them would state 
their grievances when they met in annual convention to 
talk over their future prospects, Well, as this kind of busi¬ 
ness would soon deplete a national bank—the fiatism had 
not been discovered—it was deemed wise and prudent to 
have a change of policy; and so, with high hopes of future 
wealth, on the part of some, and many misgivings on the 
part of the less sanguine as to the final result, the Elgin 
Board of Trade was organized on the 23d of March, 1872, 
and to it the hopeful turned their longing eyes like a storm- 
tossed mariner when he beholds the glimmering light of 
the friendly beacon. 
It was the intention of the projectors of the Board to 
create a market at home for the sale of butter and cheese, 
and instead of the factorymen chasing around the country 
endeavoring to sell their products, the buyers were to come 
to them, or to Elgin, the acknowledged center of the cir¬ 
cumference of the then known dairy world of the North¬ 
west, for, be it remembered, but little dairying on a large 
scale was carried on in Wisconsin, and Iowa had not yet 
taken her first lesson in the A B C of the business. A 
home market was thus established, and although the first 
year of its existence did not give the Board of Trade a 
world-wide reputation, yet it gradually paved the way for 
