FIFTEENTH ANNUAL YEAR BOOK— PART IV 245 



passed the 100,000 mark and still the Iowa farmer and the Iowa town- 

 man are buying steadily. Thousands of farm families drove in to Des 

 Moines this week in their own motor cars. Last year the management 

 permitted these cars to be parked along the main street of the fair, thus 

 making it crowded and dangerous to human life. This year special quar- 

 ters, or paddocks, were provided for the automobiles, making it more con- 

 venient to the drivers and minimizing the danger to life and property on 

 the main thoroughfare of the grounds. There is no better barometer of 

 Iowa prosperity than the automobile paddock at the state fair. It is safe 

 to say that two-thirds, possibly three-fourths, of the motor cars being sold 

 in Iowa are being sold to farmers or small-town people. It is here that 

 prosperity is most general and the automobile most needed and most use- 

 ful. While the various makes of motor cars are not exhibited at the fair in 

 as large number as heretofore, owing to the high cost of exhibit space, the 

 number of automobiles on the grounds is increasing at a rapid rate. It 

 is a sight of which to be proud to see a well dressed farm family driving 

 to the fair in their own automobile, deftly driven by the head of the 

 family or one of the younger folks. It testifies to a state of prosperity 

 which has never been equaled in any other state or at any other time in 

 our history. 



A resolution requesting new and adequate sheep quarters was signed 

 by practically all the sheep exhibitors and will be presented to the legis- 

 lature next winter. There is no question but that interest in this impor- 

 tant branch of the live stock industry is growing in Iowa by leaps and 

 bounds and the sheep men are entitled to what they ask. This year 

 the exhibits were so large that it was necessary to crowd some of the 

 sheep into the swine pens. The old quarters are not only crowded, but 

 are inadequate in every particular, the roof over the pens and judging 

 pavilion being leaky and causing discomfort to exhibitors and exhibits 

 alike. Iowa now has well on toward a million and a half head of sheep, 

 of the value of $7,500,000, at a conservative estimate. Such an important 

 industry should have better provision made for it at the state fair. The 

 sheep men have rejoiced at the success of the horse, cattle and hog men 

 in securing ample quarters, now they believe it is high time more at- 

 tention was being paid to them. The superintendent of this department 

 is a new man, Mr. C. H. Tribby, of Mt. Pleasant, but he has taken hold 

 of matters with determination and proposes to keep up the campaign 

 until the sheep men of Iowa are given the recognition and quarters all 

 too long denied them. 



It is doubtful if the Iowa state fair grounds ever looked cleaner or 

 better than they did this week. Many of the unsightly frame buildings, 

 which formerly encumbered the grounds, have either been removed or 

 demolished. Several old frame buildings formerly given over to machinery 

 exhibits have been removed to less conspicuous sites and their place given 

 over to parking or flower beds or to make room for the larger crowds 

 now attending the annual exhibition. Never before were the flower beds 

 more numerous, better kept or more sightly. There was a time — and that 

 not so very many years ago — when the physical comfort of the fair visitors 



