204 MISSOURI AGRICULTURAL REPORT. 



palace which was a special display put up at the request of the De- 

 partment of Agriculture, Missouri occupied by far the most promi- 

 nent place allotted to any purely agricultural state. Of the corn 

 growing states of the Louisiana Purchase, Missouri's exhibit was de- 

 cidedly the best. The display by states in the Agricultural building 

 cost a small fortune. The following table is intended to be only ap- 

 proximate, as the authorities in charge would not announce definite 

 figures. South Dakota, Sio,ooo; North Dakota, $12,000; Colorado, 

 $13,000; Kansas, $30,000; Nebraska, $30,000; Iowa, $35,000; ]\Iin- 

 nesota, $35,000; California, $ ; Missouri, $80,459.74. Mis- 

 souri appropriated $100,000 for the agricultural display, $70,000 of 

 which had been expended at the close of the Exposition, $60,000 for 

 actual exhibits and their installation, and $10,000 for salaries and 

 incidental expenses. 



The Display Artistically and Othermsc. — The facts about the 

 Missouri display are almost as interesting as the exhibit itself. It 

 required 6,000 bushels of especially selected corn, 200 bushels of 

 grains and grasses, and two tons of grass, wheat, oats, rye and straw 

 to put up the towers, friezes, facades, pagodas and pictures which 

 made the five blocks east of the main aisle the most beautiful spot in 

 the Agricultural building. The Missouri exhibit had one advantage 

 over every other in the building, in that its beauties were not ob- 

 scured by staff work. The five blocks of exhibits were made up of 

 the real material produced on the farms and in the orchards and 

 gardens of the State and the arrangement was both logical and 

 practical. 



One feature of the display which attracted immediate attention 

 was the two immense pictures on the west wall, in the State's sec- 

 tion, the 6,000 acre corn field of David Kankin's Atchison count}- farm 

 and the Model Missouri Farm. These pictures were each 35 b\- 15 

 feet and were made entirely of grains and grasses. They were built 

 by the great French-Canadian decorator and artist, Air. J. D. P'^ortier 

 of Toronto, and were the most gorgeous pieces of work of this char- 

 acter ever attempted. They cost the INIissouri Commission $3,000. 

 Mr. Fortier also assisted in the other decorative work. 



Within the staff work which surrounded, the entire space of Mis- 

 souri's exhibit were smaller pictures forming a progressive history of 

 the art of agriculture, each picture made from grain, grasses, mosses, 

 corn and parts of corn. The pictures in this richly tinted mural group 

 represented every phase of agricultural life, from the most primitive 

 days down to the present time; the old way, the new way, fields, farm 

 work, and cattle in green pastures. 



