Repository: UIHistories Project: Board of Trustees Minutes - 1870 [PAGE 392]

EXTRACTED TEXT FROM PAGE:

378

JUDGE MILLER—The effect of reverting to the common law will be simply to make each one take care of his own. An invitation from Prof. J . H. BLODGETT, Principal of the West Side schools, to visit the schools, under his charge, was received and accepted, with thanks; after which, the convention adjourned*

WEDNESDAY AETERNOOK—2 P . M.

W M . G. KING, Esq., of Eockford, read an address on some of the points of

DAIRYING.

It is not my intention at present to give you a full treatise on dairying, but simply to glance at the general features of this industry, and to point out some matters which require the attention of western farmers. When we consider the improvement which has been established in the dairy industry of the northwest, the magnitude of this interest and the great importance it is fast gaining in the nation's industry—its product being now one of our leading exports—we can realize that we have an immense Held for our labor and investigation.

THE IMPORTANCE OF DAIRY INDUSTRY.

We will glance, for a brief period, at the importance to the national prosperity of this branch of its industry. Commissioner Wells, in his last report to Congress, has placed us, and with us the whole commercial world, under obligations for his untiring industry and unflagging zeal in collecting statistics of the first importance to all persons engaged in active pursuits, both in this country and in all other countries doing business with u s ; and we are pleased to find that foreign statistical and scientific associations award to a United States Commissioner the well-deserved compliment that he has given to the world the most elaborate, the fullest, if not the best paper on national resources ever produced under the auspices of any nation in existence. We will review a few of the leading facts which bear upon dairy interests. He tells us that the dairy products of the United States amounted, last year, to the amazing sum of four hundred millions of dollars, exceeding the cotton crop by about one hundred millions, being within fifty millions as large as the corn crop, and leading the wheat crop twenty-five millions of dollars. When we take into account the large amount of dairy products consumed on the farm, which are not calculated in the estimate, the product of the dairy must equal in value even the crop of corn, which is grown successfully both north and south, and has long been considered as our most important staple, while dairy products are confined to a comparatively small section of our territory. Ten years ago the amount of cheese made in all our States amounted to a little less than fourteen millions of dollars, and the amount of butter made then to less than thirty millions of dollars ; the ^}jo]e,