No. 7. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 375 



that brought iu from other states. They catch the high 

 ideals, learu the correct types, and return with that enthus- 

 iasm which impels improvement. Have these states lost trade or 

 prestige since the establislinient of these high class State Fairs? 

 Has agriculture lost any money through the appropriations to these 

 great State Fairs? No; but on the contrary it has placed them to 

 the very front as agricultural states; they have increased their agri- 

 cultural wealth by opening up better markets for their high-class 

 agricultural products; and by the object lessons which they have 

 learned in the use of better seeds, better stock and better implements 

 they have guined prestige and trade while we have lost it. The best 

 breeders and buyers today go to the big State Fairs where they can 

 see the stock, meet the breeder and buy direct, and Pennsylvania 

 has been content to remain at the foot of the class, and see her 

 high-class breeding trade go to her more progressive neighboring 

 states. 



The only objection we ever hear offered to a State Fair in Pennsyl- 

 vania is the cost to the State, and, we iu Pennsylvania, are so used 

 to this objection when appropriations are asked for in the 

 interests of agriculture, that it does not affect us very much; we 

 expect it; we have been up against it so many times. Well do I re- 

 member, and well do you gentlemen remember — it is not so many 

 years ago — when Pennsylvania had an apology for an Agricultural 

 College and Experiment Station; not many farmers knew where it 

 was or what it was; it seemed so obscure. When we asked an ap- 

 propriation from the State to put it on a creditable working basis, 

 we were met with the same objection — "the cost to the State." 

 After much hard labor and earnest endeavor, we did get a few small 

 appropriations, and today the farmers of Pennsylvania and those of 

 other states, know that we have a State College and Experiment 

 Station. They know where to find it; and all over our great State 

 today, in city and country, you hear our college highly commended; 

 and the advantage to our farmers, emanating from our active State 

 College force, is beginning to be seen on every hand. Has the State 

 lost anything from these appropriations? Is it not a fact that the 

 improvements at the College, and the advantages which our farmers 

 have gained through them represents far more value to the State 

 today than the cost of the appropriations. Now, I would like to ask 

 how the State can lose by passing the pro])osed bill creating a State 

 Fair Commission, carrying with it an appropriation of the small 

 sum of two hundred thousand dollars for the establishment of a per- 

 manent State Fair. Would not the })roperty and improvement to 

 the State, when located near the Capital, represent the money in- 

 vested? Would not the improvement and prestige gained by the 

 State, in having and owning a high-class permanent exposition, add 

 far more to the wealth of the State, than the paltry sum of two hun- 

 dred thousand dollars which is asked for? 



But let us look into this cost to the State a little farther. This 

 two hundred thousand dollar appropriation would not be thrown 

 away or given away; but according to the bill now before the Legis- 

 lature, would be put into the hands of a wise State Fair Commis- 

 sion, to be invested in real estate, for the upbuilding and develop- 

 ment of a public enterprise, which in a few years will be self-sup- 

 porting, and will be returning to the State ^ nice dividend on the iH' 



