TWENTY-FIRST ANNUAL YEAR BOOK— PART II 69 



THE WORLD'S GREATEST AGRICULTURAL FAIR. 



From Farmer and Breeder, Sioux City, lotoa. 



Nothing so marks the progress of agriculture in this United States of 

 America as the fact that the Iowa State Fair — held this year at Des 

 Moines from August 25th to September 3d — was the "biggest and best" 

 that has ever been held. This statement, which may seem trite to those 

 who read year after year the chronicles of the inspired reporter, is chiefly 

 interesting and valuable on account of its truth. For year after year the 

 Iowa fair has achieved new heights; each fair has actually been the 

 "biggest and best," for all of which there is a reason. 



The reason is not found in the undisputed fact that Iowa is the fore- 

 most agricultural state — although this is the main contributing cause. 

 It lies chiefly in the fact that farming is essentially progressive in this 

 forward-looking commonwealth. Agriculture in this great central region 

 — which in itself constitutes the world's greatest food-producing area — 

 is a live industry. Farmers here have not degenerated to the status of 

 the peasant "whose shoulders are bowed by the weight of centuries." 

 The western farmer — let us admit frankly that he is typified by the Iowa 

 farmer — is up-and-a-coming. He is bent on living up to his highest 

 possibilities. He is intelligent, purposeful, determined, a man among 

 men. 



This is the reason why agriculture in this region is essentially in a 

 fluid state. Conditions are changing. The old order is passing with the 

 light of modern researches and with the facilities for spreading abroad 

 the information gathered, analyzed and disseminated by the farm press, 

 the extension movement, and the farmers' co-operative organizations. 



A great state fair is many things. It is a dramatic spectacle, a recrea- 

 tion grounds, a short course in applied farming; and it is also a record of 

 what agriculture has accomplished up to date. 



Hence, the 1920 Iowa fair was biggest and best largely because farm- 

 ing in this state has grown to be the biggest industry — compared with 

 former records in this and other states. Never before has this great 

 region come so near to the ideal of "pure-bred live stock on every farm." 

 Never before have tillage and animal husbandry and home building and 

 child culture and social progress been so prominent in the minds of the 

 rank and file of those who have made Iowa famous. 



Owing to this progressive spirit and to the material fact that 95 per 

 cent of Iowa's land is arable, it is only natural that the state fair should 

 be that which we have indicated at the top of this page — "The World's 

 Greatest Agricultural Fair." Barney Heide, secretary of the International 

 Live Stock Exposition, whose home is in Illinois, has said it, and he 

 ought to be qualified to speak with authority. Neither should this com- 

 parison arouse envy in the hearts of those who live in other great agri- 

 cultural states where other great and splendid records are made by state 

 fairs. 



Inasmuch as Iowa is the leading state in pure-bred live stock, it Is 

 only natural that the exhibits of farm animals should occupy a prominent 

 — perhaps the most prominent — place in the eyes of visitors and the fair 



