ILLINOIS STATE DAIRYMEN^ ASSOCIATION. 
59 
States, our mineral States, our manufacturing States and our agricul- 
ural States. Illinois, which we proudly call our home, belongs con¬ 
spicuously to the latter class. Her fields of grain, her pastures and 
neadows, are the admiration, if not the envy of her sister States, 
iier citizens are employed in that industry which, increasing and en- 
arging with intelligent labor, tends to build up and perpetuate their 
lomes, and thus to foster that patriotic love of country upon which its 
:>eace and safety rest. To protect these homes and farms, and hand 
hem down to their children as treasures of wealth, the cultivators of 
:he soil will give their lives, if need be, in defence of their country and 
ts institutions. 
In every sense Illinois is a new State. We have no grand his- 
:oric past. As a State we cannot go back to the days of our revolu- 
;ionary struggle for national independence ; only a few of us can fol- 
ow our history back without finding ourselves in New York, New 
England, Kentucky, or across the water in the old world. While this 
s so, the career of our State has been a proud one, and its growth 
steady and rapid. There is no page in the history of Illinois of which 
ler sons and daughters may not justly feel proud ; her people have 
3een enterprising, intelligent, brave and patriotic. 
Illinois was made a State in 1818—now nearly sixty-four years 
igo—with a population of 40,000. We have grown to three millions 
seventy-eight thousand seven hundred and sixty-nine in 1880. We 
lave gained in population nearly 50,000 per annum since we became 
i State. 
Goethe once said that “he did not know whether figures gov¬ 
erned the world or not, but he did know that they showed how it was 
governed.” 
Napoleon said that “statistics mean keeping the exact account of 
x nation’s affairs.” 
The area of our State, as you know, is 55,405 square miles. It 
s larger than Massachusetts, Vermont, New Hampshire, Connecticut, 
Uiode Island, Delaw are and Maryland, all combined. In comparison 
vith any of them it is an Empire. Its surface is the most level of all 
he States, with perhaps two exceptions. While from year to year the 
business of our people is changing and becoming more and more 
liversified, yet the foundation of the wealth of Illinois is our rich, pro- 
luctive soil. The pioneers of this State, all honor to them, were a 
loble set of men. They were hardy and temperate. They came 
vith their families to the southern portion of our State and settled, 
generally near a stream or spring, and in or near the woods. For 
/ears the settlers in the State seemed afraid of the prairies, and if a 
nan ventured out into the prairie to open a farm, his neighbors on the 
‘.reeks and clearings thought he was crazy—they said the green, fly 
vould eat him up. Usually the first thing to be done after erecting a 
og cabin, was to clear a piece of land for tobacco, another for cotton, 
md finally a piece for corn. They were about all irom the southern 
bates. Game was plenty, and they did not find it necessary to work 
'ery hard to get a living—their wants were few, and the country was 
