24 
ILLINOIS STATE DAIRYMEN’S ASSOCIATION. 
this achievement, and to-day the Board of Trade of Elgin 
is as well-known among the dealers in the market centers 
of America and Europe as any Board in the United States, 
whether it be for the sale oi dairy products, or grain and 
pork, or bonds, or other commodities, and the Elgin Board 
of Trade has become an important factor, for dealers every¬ 
where look to its weekly meetings as an infallible guide 
for establishing the prices of butter and cheese. New 
York City, the great butter and cheese mart of the United 
States, and from which port nearly three-fourths of the 
butter and cheese of the United States is exported, vaits 
with feverish excitement for news from Elgin giving the 
quotations, especially on butter, and particularly at this 
season, when a slight advance may disturb the market for a 
day or two; and other markets are also anxious to learn 
the quotations, and arrange for telegraphic reports from 
this recognized dairy center. 
Frequently the sales of butter are made at a higher 
figure on the Elgin Board of Trade than on any other 
market, and this of itself proves the excellence of the 
product. For a few years past Elgin butter has been 
quoted in New York side by side with the fancy brands of 
Orange county, and to those who have watched these quo¬ 
tations there has almost invariable appeared the fact that 
the Elgin creamery brand was a little more desirable stock, 
and more ready of sale than the other brands. 
The care taken in the manufacture and the determina¬ 
tion to maintain the high standard attained has been the 
means of placing; the Elgin product on the top shelf of the 
markets. This has been done in the past, and beside the 
individual effort in this direction, the Board has given no 
little aid to the matter, assisting its members, who were 
strangers, to make good sales, and by advice ano encour¬ 
agement endeavoring to stimulate all to manufacture the 
best quality of goods at all times. Many of the members, 
in the early history ot the Board, gladly accepted the ad- 
. vice and profited by it, and they have carefully noted any 
improvement made by others, and were not long in follow¬ 
ing the examples set by their more skillful competitors in 
the business. There are to-day a few members who might 
learn something of their elders if they did not think that 
they knew it all themselves. 
