68 IOWA DEPARTMENT OP AGRICULTURE 



Amei'ican Association of Fairs and Expositions. Fifty-five members of 

 this association were present, from every part of the United States and 

 from four associations from our neighbor on the north, Canada, and they 

 all reported great interest along fair lines. People have come to realize 

 that these institutes have become the great educational institutions ot 

 our states by giving practical demonstrations to those who are unable 

 to attend our agricultural colleges and showing what can be accomplished 

 by scientific methods upon our farms. The increased interest in state 

 fairs the past year is shown by the attendance reported by the fifty-five 

 members present. The total attendance for the year was something over 

 thirty millions of people — over one third of our population — and this 

 does not include county and district fairs. 



I will not take up any of your time by giving you the details of 

 the last Iowa State Fair, as Mr. Corey, the Secretary, has a very com- 

 plete report for you, but there are a few things that I want to call at- 

 tention to, and one that you should be especially interested in, for I think 

 the future success of our fairs depends upon good roads. Take for 

 example the State Fair this year; in one day we had something like 

 three thousand automobiles on our grounds, or rather, that passed 

 through our gates, for a great many on the grounds were owned by 

 campers and were not counted. But we will take the count as they 

 came through the gates — three thousand — and make an average of four 

 persons to each auto. That would make twelve thousand people, or al- 

 most one-fifth of the largest attendance we had on our grounds in any 

 one day. And I am sure the proportion at the county and district fairs 

 would be much larger than this; I would put it at not less than fifty 

 per cent, and I believe this will increase from year to year. Now the 

 question is, "What would we be up against if we had bad roads?" I can 

 only judge the results by a comparison of the town I live in. As in 

 every other town, when the roads are good everyone comes to town 

 Saturday afternoon and evening in their autos; and I think I am safe 

 in saying that seventy-five per cent of our farmers have automobiles. 

 Last Saturday the roads were not in very good condition for autos but 

 the farmers would not take the trouble to hitch up their teams, and 

 there was not one-third of the people in town. I am giving this as an 

 illustration as to what would happen to our fairs if the roads were in 

 this condition. It seems to me that everyone interested in the future 

 success of our fairs must be a good roads booster. Iowa has more county 

 fairs than any state in the Union and she should have the best roads of 

 any state in the Union, for she can afford to build them. 



I have been much interested in the report of agricultural conditions 

 in Great Britain and Ireland as made by Hon. .lames Wilson and Uncle 

 Henry Wallace and printed in Greater Iowa, a publication issued by the 

 Iowa Department of Agriculture. I am sure a great many of the things 

 they do in those countries would be a benefit to our land if we followed 

 their example in the future. Because of the increasing value of our 

 land we must encourage more intensive farming. I have also been in- 

 terested in the report of Hon. D. P. Hogan, whom Governor Clarke ap- 

 ])ointod as a member of the committco to study the foreign system of 



