222 IOWA DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE 



and wheat that had been tried out in our county. We also had three 

 men from Ames, one on soil, one on farm management and one on 

 chickens. We set up a tent and fitted out offices for each one and 

 I believe our Ames exhibits was one of the most entertaining 

 features of our entire fair. 



I then turned my attention to the exhibiting of automobiles, trucks 

 and tractors. I found the different firms had men down in the hope 

 of putting on individual displays. It occurred to me that it might 

 be well to put those all together under one big tent, so we rented a 

 tent 74x25. We took the cost of the tent, added to this our freight, 

 labor, police and lighting, and we also went further and hired an 

 orchestra to play there every afternoon and evening and then we 

 found we could divide this into 35 stalls of two cars each and then 

 we put in an auto show and it was self-supporting. That orchestra 

 that we had put on a vaudeville act afternoons and evenings and it 

 gave us an additional vaudeville act without additional expense. 

 When I was in college I heard a lecturer once say he had asked a 

 noted playwright what he had in mind when he wrote his plays to 

 make them a success and he said that when he wrote a play he had in 

 mind little Johnny in the front row. If he could satisfy little Johnny 

 in the front row, Johnny's parents would be satisfied. And, gentle- 

 men, I want to say to you that that will work out in every instance. 

 When you are building an entertaining program, if you stop and 

 consult Johnny you will have good advice. In vaudeville programs, 

 stop and consider Johnny. It was only a few years ago that I was a 

 Johnny running around on the fair grounds. I would go around 

 and see the vaudeville program and then the next day I'd go back 

 and see the same thing again and I'd leave in disgust and go some- 

 where else. So in purchasing our vaudeville program, we purchased 

 nine different acts, and to supplement this we tried something dif- 

 ferent by having a wrestling match on our program. We matched 

 men from Waterloo and Cedar Rapids and nearby counties. We 

 ran these matches one fall between each heat. It relieved the same- 

 ness of the program and it makes for added interest in our platform 

 attractions. About this time we got our barns nearly completed. 

 Our sales barn is an octagonal building with a seating capacity of 

 500, with a 32-foot sales ring. The only criticism I have of it now 

 is that it is a little too small for the fair, but it is about the right 

 size for sale purposes. We then built a horse barn 100 feet long and 

 32 feet wide with stalls for 50 horses. We built a cattle barn 28x100 

 feet, but before we had the rafters on we widened it out to 46 feet. 



