296 IOWA DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE 



Iowa farmer, the turnstiles played merry tunes all week, each day totaling 

 in considerable excess of the corresponding day a year ago. The exhibit 

 was worthy of the attendance; the attendance was complimentary to the 

 exhibit. By and large, it is doubtful whether so gratifying a record in all 

 departments has ever before been written at Des Moines. 



A dilatory legislature left small time for the erection of a women and 

 children's building, for which $75,000 was appropriated. Plans were drawn 

 but held in abeyance for a year. The contract has been let for a structure 

 which will mark a fine advance in the educational work of such institu- 

 tions. Over against the hillside opposite the agricultural building, will 

 rise this new monument to woman's work in the farm and city home. 

 With its lecture rooms, its completely equipped model rural school, its 

 big exhibit room for the work of women's and children's hands, its quar- 

 ters for the baby health contests, its day nursery, play grounds and com- 

 fort stations, it will embody the acme of modern thought for the physical 

 and mental well-being of women and children. Sad is the need of new 

 equipment in the sheep department, and the legislative committee was 

 shown this crying necessity, but considerations of economy limited ap- 

 propriations for the fair, and the gentle shepherds gallantly and gladly said 

 "Way for the women," and agreed to wait longer for the money for their 

 department. No little money has been spent in ways that yield a maxi- 

 mum of comfort without spectacular appeal. Nearly 18,000 square feet 

 of cement walk has been laid; an open ditch through the grounds sewered 

 with a four-foot drain for over 1,200 feet; the old wooden building which 

 sheltered the bench show last year, moved and converted into a fine dining 

 hall; other wooden buildings razed and removed, so that little of inflam- 

 mable construction remains in view; a game bird preserve of twenty 

 acres set aside at the northeast end of the grounds; roofs of many of the 

 buildings painted, and much improvement in streets perfected. 



The ambitions of the managers are so large that they sometimes refer 

 to them as dreams, but dreams do come true at times, and the consistent 

 record of faithful educational work achieved by this fair will without 

 question open the way to the treasure chest for the fulfillment of actual 

 and tentative plans for the complete equipment of the grounds. 



It has been written that the improvements this year have not been spec- 

 tacular. This is true, and yet the clearance of the grassed space in front 

 of the Administration Building of its ruck of old wooden shacks and 

 tented eating houses, and its conversion into a plaza with bandstand, rises 

 to the heights of unqualified commendation when improvements are men- 

 tioned. This is the beginning of a definite plan of landscape engineering 

 near the entrance of the ground which will demonstrate that the managers 

 have the aesthetic as well as the material education of visitors in view. 

 The remainder of this space will eventually be cleared of all concessions 

 and parked with forest trees, and it is expected that its southern side will 

 in time contain a stock pavilion more nearly adequate to the requirements 

 than the present structure. 



