138 IOWA DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE 



is an attraction and an asset to your fair. The problem, to my mind is 

 how you can get these early spring meetings and make them a success 

 locally, because the local officers do not like to put on a losing game. 



These other phases of the question I will leave to the other gentlemen 

 who have had more experience in the business than I have. 



In regard to the circuits and the advantages of a circuit: In that 

 line I have probably had some experience, having been connected with 

 the Northwest Iowa Fair Circuit for nine or ten years, and I can truth- 

 fully say I believe that circuit has been a very successful one, being com- 

 posed always of from eight to eleven members, and I know from the 

 comparison of entries that the Northwest Iowa Fair Circuit, on the av- 

 erage thru the whole state, has more horse entries than any other cir- 

 cuit in Iowa. Our purses haven't been overly large, but fairly above 

 the average, running from, $300 (the least that we can have) up to $500, 

 and the number of classes range from seven to ten, and sometimes twelve. 

 Now I think the Northwest Iowa Fair Circuit has been in existence 

 about eleven years and it is quite harmonious. I don't say this in any 

 manner of boasting, but I do say that the circuit has continuously been 

 a success. It has been composed of many good, progressive towns, and 

 in our annual meeting, which is held at Sioux City (and our friend from 

 Sioux City, Joe Morton, can be said to be almost the god-father of the 

 institution), we discuss the matters of purses and classes and the aid and 

 assistance we have to extend horsemen in an open and friendly manner, 

 and we give them all the encouragement possible. 



Now, as a rule, Rockwell City opens the circuit with from seventy-five 

 to one hundred and twenty-five entries, which you will agree is a pretty 

 fair entry list, followed by Fonda, Alta, Sheldon, Rock Rapids, and a 

 number of others and finally winding up at Sioux City. I don't remem- 

 ber of any towns in the circuit, as I said before, having any difficulty 

 and everything has been harmonious. It has been a successful institu- 

 tion and it has aided the secretaries of the different institutions in secur- 

 ing a fine entry list and making a success of the racing game. It adds 

 to the attractions. Where fairs are not in co-operation they get no bene- 

 fits from their attractions for the simple reason that you can see at a 

 glance that when one fair is only twenty or thirty miles from the other, 

 the people in these days of autos attend most of the fairs around and do 

 not want to go and see the same attractions repeated at the neighboring 

 town. Consequently the aim and secret of success in this circuit has 

 teen to get different attractions from different amusement houses, or 

 different amusements from the same houses. 



I could never see that a circuit was any benefit in securing attractions 

 because every secretary has notions as to what attractions are most 

 pleasing to his local community. I am decidedly of the opinion that so 

 far as getting horses — getting good horses and good drivers — that a cir- 

 cuit is a benefit to a lot of fairs if they can arrange the circuit so that 

 the railway facilities will be right in shipping distances, as we have up 

 there, and I think that it tended to our success, together with the hos- 

 pitality of Sioux City during the Inter-State Fair and the personnel of 

 the officers of the Northwest Iowa Fair Circuit. 



