144 IOWA DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE 



position in the world. It is a great university which teaches by object 

 lessons. It is the one place where the results of their labors may be 

 seen. The state fair is the advertising agent of the state. It is the great 

 show window of its great store of accomplishments. It is the exposition 

 center of all of the interests and industries of the commonwealth, and it 

 is the place for the annual reunion of its citizens. To all its people 

 the educational and social value of the state's fair is unquestioned and 

 unmeasured, but it has a patriotic duty as well. It is a duty which each 

 citizen owes to himself, his family, his neighbor and his state to attend 

 the state fair, see what is to be seen, learn what is to be learned, touch 

 elbows with his fellow men in the march of progress and spend a most 

 profitable vacation." 



This to my mind is not only a very clear and decisive definition of a 

 state fair, but of its worth as well. 



Of the last Iowa State Fair and Exposition "The Homestead"' says in 

 part: 



"Fifty-five years ago Iowa set its fair the task of exploiting the pos- 

 sibilities and displaying the fulfillments of the state. As the years ««-.» 

 passed both the possibilities and the fulfillments have increased. The 

 brain and the brawn of eastern agricultural sections have settled in Iowa 

 and been assimilated by the spirit of progress. New ideas have been 

 eagerly accepted and modern methods followed, until the productiveness 

 of acres has vastly increased. So the succeeding fairs have found larger 

 and better displays, a more contented and prosperous people, and records 

 have gone on being broken with almost monotonous regularity. It re- 

 mained for the 1909 state fair, however, to eclispe all the others and more 

 conclusively prove beyond shadow of doubt to all the outside world thai 

 Iowa is the ''Promised Land of Plenty.'' Never before ivas the pros- 

 perity so evident on every hand; never before did so many people attend 

 the fair and show so much interest in the exhibits; never before ivero 

 the possibilities of Iowa for the future so blended with the fulfillments of 

 Iowa for the past. For agricultural Iowa is bordering upon another 

 Promised Land of Plenty this year, as it was when the first state fair 

 was held. Real profitable dairying is just beginning; the ordinary co?/ 

 is being displaced by the pedigreed; the uncertain profits of the past are 

 about to give way to the certain, stable profits of modern scientific dairy- 

 ing. Improved machinery and the dissemination of up-to-date agronomy 

 ideas are working together to make acres yield more bushels and tons 

 than ever before. And so a quarter of a million people passed through 

 the gates of the fair that they might jubilate over the past and learn 

 for the future. Herein lies the real, true value of such expositions as 

 Iowa has been holding for the past fifty-five years." 



In Wallaces' Farmer we find the following heading in large ryye: 



'"MOST COMPLETE AGRICULTURAL EXHIBITION EVER HELD," 

 with a preliminary statement to the general report as follows: 



"The bone and sinew of Iowa was represented at Des Moines last week. 

 Nowhere can there be found a more representative gathering of men who 

 have made the great Mississippi valley the most prosperous agricultural 

 section on the face of the earth. The Iowa State Fair is distinctly an 



