80 IOWA DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE 



THE FUNCTION OF A STATE FAIR AND ITS EDUCA- 

 TIONAL FEATURES. 



By J. C. Simpson, Secretary Eastern States' Agricultural and Industrial 

 Exposition, Springfield, Mass. 



Does the public generally know the function of a state fair ? Does 

 it know that as a sale center it affords the breeder of pure-bred live 

 stock the best kind of an opportunity to dispose of his animals, and 

 to loeate and form the acquaintance of other breeders'? Does it know, 

 or realize, that the Iowa State Fair has been the greatest of all the 

 states' educational propagandas, that it has placed loAva in the lead 

 as having a greater number and larger percentage of pure-bred 

 stock than any other state in the Union? Does it realize that the 

 Iowa State Fair has in its annual swine show provided the greatest 

 market place throughout the entire word for the buying and selling 

 of pure-bred hogs? Does it know that it is possible to carry on a 

 great educational work for one week each year, with an equipment 

 owned by the state, at a less per .capita cost to those who desire 

 to take advantage of this splendid opportunity to gain knowledge 

 by exposition and model, than by any other medium ? Does it know 

 that the state fairs, through their opportunity to instruct by ex-, 

 position and model, brought the manure spreader into general use on 

 the farms of America ten years in advance of the time ? I would 

 dislike to tell you what a member of your present Board of Agri- 

 culture said about the manure spreader and the man who would 

 use it^ the first year it was shoA\Ti at the Iowa State Fair. And 

 what about the silo? How many of you gentlemen ever saw a silo 

 until the silo manufacturers began to show them at the fair, and 

 still there have been silos in use in Iowa for thirty years or perhaps 

 longer. One of the Iowa men who helped to make Shorthorn 

 history, for years and years made tlio feeding of ensilage a part of 

 the ratious lie fed in ]>!-(!diicii]u 1()|)-n(i1ch calUc; slil1, not even his 

 neighbors took 1o tlie silo until the manufacturers began to exploit 

 and tell about its use in the economy of feed, spending large sums 

 of moue.y to put them up at the fair for exhibit and demonstration 

 purposes; nor did the public generally accept them as a necessary 

 equipment on every well-regulated farm. Does the public general- 



