TWENTIETH ANNUAL YEAR BOOK— PART III 221 



followed up his suggestion and got them to appoint a committee to 

 investigate the possibility of building a sales barn. I went to our 

 commercial club and had them also appoint a committee to meet 

 with our directors. These joint committees decided that it could be 

 done and they went out and appointed a finance committee. The fi- 

 nance committee went back to the breeders' association and told 

 them of our plans and obtained from them a pledge of about 60 per 

 cent of our estimated cost of the building. We went to the board of 

 supervisors and got a promise from them of county aid. We took 

 it up with the commercial club and they pledged the difference. Our 

 building committee couldn't find plans that suited them, so they 

 made plans of their own. They hired day labor and started our 

 building. A certain county at that time started to stock their com- 

 munity with pure-bred hogs and started a pig club. I went to our 

 county agent and learned that we had no pure-bred pigs at the time 

 and I knew that we needed the best. So we organized a pig club 

 and divided it up into three branches : One a feeding contest, one 

 an inspection contest, and one a judging contest. We solicited the 

 various banks in our community and stockmen and got a total of 45 

 prizes, 15 in each contest, supplemented by loving cups and sweep- 

 stakes cups. It made a very interesting list of premiums and on the 

 last day of the fair the boys brought in their pigs and it was very 

 entertaining to the people from the various communities. The boy 

 who won out was a boy that came some 24 miles with his pig to our 

 town. There were thirty boys who won premiums. 



I learned that Ames had a spraying gang in a nearby county that 

 summer, and we got in touch with them and made arrangements for 

 them to put on a demonstration of spraying and I dare say that 

 we will have apples sprayed in Benton county next year because 

 of that demonstration. 



We also circularized every family and told them to bring in some 

 of their chickens. I found that a farmer near town was contemplat- 

 ing the building of a model hen house, so I got him to erect it on 

 the ground and let us use it during the fair and then move it out 

 afterwards. He came in and spent the entire four days at the fair, 

 using this model poultry house for his house and gave demonstra- 

 tions in culling a flock of chickens and demonstrating the benefit 

 of culling. He had samples of tubercular chickens and all kinds of 

 diseases and it made a very interesting exhibit. 



I then got a list of farmers having pure grains and we got samples 

 of those from all of the different farmers, samples of oats and corn 



