58 
ILLINOIS STATE DAIRYMEN’S ASSOCIATION. 
which has proved most satisfactory: Buying all good, clean cream, no differed 
whether in deep or shallow setting, whether twelve, twenty-four or thirty-six hou 
setting, patrons doing the skimming. Our cream haulers are provided with a pg 
twelve and one-fourth inches in diameter, a rule to measure the cream, and a book 1 
record the same. They are further provided with a case containing sixteen Masc 
quart jars, and dipper, for the purpose of bringing samples of cream to the factory i 
be tested. Drivers are instructed to mix the cream thoroughly by pouring from oi 
vessel into another, as it cannot be mixed eyenlv by stirring ; then fill a jar, label, an 
briner to the factory. This jar holds, when filled, exactly one-half inch of our mea 
ure. This sample is churned in a miniature churn, and the butter is carefully waslie 
and weighed. The ratio of the butter thus obtained gives the per cent, by which tt 
patrons’ cream is rated, until another test is made, which may be the next time h 
cream is taken, or the next week or next month. A patron never knows when a san 
pie will be required. Should a patron be inclined to be dishonest, it will very soon! 
noticed, and as they know not the day nor the hour when the fatal jar may be pr< 
sented for a sample, the driver may very unexpectedly pour the milky cream into h: 
jar. Thus they soon learn that u Honesty is the best policy.” By this method w 
can give each patron what belongs to him, and we get what we pay for (slight vark 
tions excepted.) 
Patrons having good Jersey or other good butter-producing cows, with high feet 
ing and careful handling of the milk, will have a high per cent, and realize accorc 
ingly. On the other hand, those with poor cows, careless handling and milk dipping 
will have a low per cent. 
By this method we send our teams three times a week over each route in warr 
and twice in cool weather, thus saving one-half the expense in warm and two-thirc 
in cool weather, over the self-skimming system. 
On motion the convention adjourned to 7:30. 
Thursday Evening. 
On assembling for the evening session the association was regaled with a song b 
Prof. Mountz, of Sterling. Mrs. Kate Price Biggers was then introduced, and lm 
to an attentive and appreciative audience the following pleasing essay : 
HOME-BUILDIKG. 
BY MRS. KATE PRICE BIGGERS, OF CARPENTERSYILLE, ILL. 
There is an art in home-building, an art that touches more nearly our happiness 
our well-being, and the quality of our life, than any other. 
What hosts of sober thoughts and tender hope's arise as one watches the proces 
of building a new dwelling. 
As I liave read and re-read Longfellow’s “ Building of the Ship,” I have oftei 
wished he had written a companion poem. That his pen had pictured the gathering 
of the rocks and stones, tossed about so long by geological vicissitudes and now col 
lected and packed away together in strange companionship, for a rest, in the founda 
tion of the house. The journeying of the timbers from the mighty forests, their hew 
ing and sawing and cutting down to proper proportions to enter into the building; the 
amount of handcraft expended until the house is finished, from the roof that slial 
shelter the dear ones, between their coming and going so many years,—to the floors 
that shall be worn by the mother’s faithful feet in her round of daily service, or through 
nights of patient vigil, and by the toddling steps of babes and dancing feet of child¬ 
hood, until the walls are completed that we hope may long enclose so much of happy 
life and peace,—so much of heavy-hearted care it may be ; walls that shall echo alike 
the wailings and cooing prattle of infants, the laughter and blithe songs of youth- 
all the various tones in every key that go to make up the music of the family life, 
whether merry, sad, joyous or solemn, from the hushed whispers of grief to the pas¬ 
sionate climax of discords. 
If the home endures for a generation or two, how permeated the house becomes 
with the influences of the home. Ah, true enough,All houses wherein men have 
lived and died are haunted houses.” 
It is a sad misfortune that our American homes are not more stable. That home¬ 
steads rich with flavors of dear associations and remembrances of family life, do not 
endure from generation to generation. The house should be the external part of the 
home, and there should be a vital connection between the two, as with the snail and 
its shell. 
But a house does not make a home, no matter how liberally and well the stones 
of earth are builded together for it, nor how strong and handsome the woods from the 
