176 TRANSACTIONS OP THE 



EDITORIAL COMMENTS FROM THE SACRAMENTO 



RECORD-UNION. 



THE STATE FAIR. 



The State Fair opens this year under more favorable auspices than 

 ever before. The presence in Sacramento of the President of the 

 United States furnishes an attraction to visitors which will largely 

 increase the attendance, but it may be said without any fear of exag- 

 geration that the Fair itself promises to be the most satisfactory in 

 all respects that has been held. The evidence of increasing interest 

 in these exhibitions is indeed very gratifying, and with the growth 

 of that interest proceeds a commendable tendency to remove all the 

 surviving defects and drawbacks, and to introduce novelties and 

 reforms whenever possible. The exhibition of stock at the Park this 

 year shows how rapidly that important interest is advancing. In 

 former years it has been customary for exhibitors to bring more 

 animals than space had been applied for, as there was always plenty 

 of spare room. Now, however, it has been found necessary to restrict 

 exhibitors rigorously to the space they have taken in advance, the 

 applications having been so numerous that it is already doubtful 

 whether there will be sufficient space for all of them. A special 

 feature of interest will be the stable of blood horses sent up from 

 Governor Stanford's breeding farm at Palo Alto. These horses are 

 among the first products of the most thoroughly scientific system of 

 breeding that has ever been established on the continent. The 

 interesting experiments which Governor Stanford has entered upon 

 could only have been undertaken by a man of equal wealth and 

 public spirit, for while the cost of them is necessarily great, the chief 

 profit must be reaped by the country at large, in the elevation and 

 perfection of the various strains of horses which are being raised 

 under the new process. 



A very important change has been made in the character of the 

 races to be run this year, and it is one which will, without doubt, be 

 cordially approved by the public. Heretofore the time has been 

 largely occupied by interminable three-in-five races. Sometimes one 

 of these races has consumed a whole afternoon, and even then not 

 been decided. Their uncertainty, tediousness, and unnecessary strain 

 upon the horses, have rendered them decidedly unpopular, and some 

 well-known breeders have refused to enter any of their stock in such 

 races any more. The State Agricultural Society has wisely recognized 

 the disadvantages of these protracted heats, and has therefore ban- 

 ished the three-in-five race from the speed programme altogether. 

 This year the longest race will be two-in-three heat ones, and as a 

 result the speed programme contains more entries than ever before, 

 and the entertainment of the public will be very much greater. 

 Instead of, as old, having only two races in the day, as was generally 

 the case, it will now be possible to have four, or even five, and the 



