178 TWENTY-THIRD ANNUAL YEAR BOOK— PART III. 



a permanent home. They held their meetings first in one county, then in 

 another, but the spirit of the association has been one of steady and 

 permanent growth. These early pioneers came westward in their linchpin 

 wagons, and they brought with them such equipment in the way of scrub 

 horses, "elmpeter" hogs, and what they called the old Durham cow, 

 which furnished most of the sustenance of the family during the long 

 and tiresome trip from Ohio or some eastern state. They drove to the 

 first meetings of this association in their prairie schooners, taking with 

 them such products as they could show their neighbors the result of 

 their year's work. The hawthorn and crabapple tree were the permanent 

 shelter for the animal exhibits. The specimens of such grains as they had 

 brought with them, a sample of the improved clapboard skillfully made 

 with the axe and froe, the handwork of the good wife and daughter in the 

 way of homespun garments, these were there exhibited under the shelter 

 of some friendly oak or elm. The first race-course was some open prairie 

 field previously occupied by the Indians in their native sports, and it was 

 here that the family pride of Kentucky first contended with the most 

 alert of the Indian ponies. I was told by my grandfather when a boy 

 that one of the most skillful contests was with the squirrel rifle held at 

 one of these gatherings where it required three days to award the victor 

 who received for his exhibition of skill a home-made bag for his gun 

 equipment and five pounds of long green tobacco. 



It will thus be seen that the early pioneers contended with each other 

 to excel in the things that they possessed. From one gathering to an- 

 other as the settlement spread westward a great improvement was seen 

 in all avenues of agriculture and stock breeding. These gatherings soon 

 attracted the attention of some of our ablest men who attended them 

 annually and participated in the contests for supremacy. The early 

 records of these associations will show the names of such men as Judge 

 Mason, Judge Wright, Governor Grimes, Governor Kirkwood and John 

 Henry Gear, who foresaw the importance of such an organization in the 

 development of the resources of this state. 



So great was the progress and effort of these men upon the improve- 

 ment of stock breeding and agriculture, that very soon after these local 

 organizations attracted the attention of the legislature, and during the 

 administration of Governor Hempstead the Third General Assembly, then 

 seated at Iowa City, the capital of the state, passed a bill in 1850 for 

 the encouragement of these societies and provided that whenever a 

 county or district society should be organized and had a paid-up sub- 

 scription of twenty-five dollars, they could upon proper showing, draw 

 from the state treasurer of Iowa a like sum of twenty-five dollars for 

 their w r ork, but in no case should any society draw more than fifty dollars 

 per annum from the state treasurer. This money was to be expended to 

 foster and encourage the work of improvement of agriculture. It was 

 during the administration of Governor Grimes in 1857, when the laws 

 of the state were being revised, that this association may be said to be 

 founded, and one of the provisions of this law was that any county or 

 district association, upon proper showing and qualification, could draw 

 from the state treasurer the sum of two hundred dollars. This original 



