The Missouri State Fair. 455 



permanent, dignified, excellently-equipped and high-ranking agricultural 

 exhibition at Sedalia, and they have begun to accord it an encouraging 

 measure of support. Their pride in it is abundantly justified. It is 

 staged on a pleasing elevation of Pettis county prairie, flanking corn 

 fields on the west, and accessible by two railways, on which a shuttle 

 service was given during the week, and a trolley line from Sedalia. Its 

 permanent buildings of brick, concrete, steel and stone are among the 

 most attractive, substantial and convenient to be seen in America. 

 To the equipment this year was added a woman's building, with large 

 airy rest rooms and every facility for the comfort and delight of women 

 and children. To the rear of this $40,000 structure, which is strikingly 

 picturesque, a large enclosure, provided with sand piles, swings, a tobog- 

 gan and other fixtures, fairly teemed with youngsters who had been 

 quick to recognize their own. It may be doubted whether a happier 

 idea than that which this handsome building with its large yard has put 

 into effect has ever been evolved in connection with a State fair. It is 

 worth copying on every state fair grounds. It would be too much to 

 say of the Missouri State Fair that it is the greatest in America — giants 

 do not attain their full growth in 10 years. It may, however, be said 

 that from an educational standpoint it is superior to most and second to 

 none. In it there is more of the good and less of the bad — more to com- 

 mend and less to censure — than in almost any other great state show. 

 Everywhere there is something to see and study. Even from the first 

 meeting the educational idea has been uppermost in the minds of the 

 fair managers — and a decade has not seen it dimmed. Instead, it has 

 gained in strength. The fair has always been clean. There is no market 

 for "gold bricks" in Missouri. The Missourian of today — at least the 

 Missourian who attends his State fair — is more interested in learning 

 how hog cholera serum is manufactured, how to spray fruit trees, how to 

 build a good silo, or how to grow more corn, or to raise better poultry, 

 than he is in listening to an agent tell about some so-called wonderful (but 

 worthless) device given as a premium with the purchase of every prize 

 package. This tersely tells the tale. It accounts for the educational 

 idea which was so much in evidence at Sedalia. — Breeder's Gazette, 

 Chicago. 



The tenth annual State fair was opened at Sedalia, Missouri, October 

 1, and closed Friday, October 7. The greatest and most satisfactory 

 fair ever held. An educator and a potent influence in the advancement 

 of the agricultural interests of the great State of Missouri. The corn 

 show alone was worth a week's time and expense to any progressive 

 farmer. The grand parade of cattle and horses Friday morning, wear- 

 ing the ribbons awarded, was of the nicest of its kind ever made at any 



