FOURTEENTH ANNUAL YEAR BOOK— PART IV. 329 



is 110 decrease in the prosperity of the Iowa farmer. The attendance 

 this year would have been still larger but for the dedication of the great 

 dam across the Mississippi river at Keokuk, on Monday and Tuesday. 

 Large numbers of people who would otherwise have attended the fair, 

 attended these dedicatory exercises. 



The character and magnitude of the exhibit of light harness and 

 saddle horses and ponies was something of a stunner to those folks who 

 have been predicting that the day of the pleasure horse is rapidly passing. 

 These classes were mostly shown in an open-air ring behind the horse 

 barns, and removed from the main lines of travel, but a good-sized 

 crowd occupied the standing room at the ringside. The fact that there 

 was an excellent display of horses of this class is sufficient evidence of 

 a continuous demand for them at remunerative prices. The automobile 

 as a means of getting about has largely displaced the driving horse in 

 the cities, but there are plenty of people who find abiding pleasure in 

 drawing the lines over a spanking team or throwing a leg over a gaited 

 saddler, and for them there is no substitute. The pleasure horse occupies 

 a position of vantage from wliicli the auto can not permanently displace 

 him. 



"Please return this child to Wallaces' Farmer pavilion,'' read the tag 

 attached to the dress of a seven-year-old belonging to one of the Farmer 

 families. A very sensible precaution, and a very easy way to make sure 

 that if the child should be separated from its parents, little time would 

 be lost in finding it. One fine thing about the Iowa fair is that almost 

 no harm is likely to come to children who may become separated from 

 their parents. They find friends on every hand, and if there is any: 

 thing about the child to indicate where it belongs, a dozen are ready to 

 volunteer to see that it gets there safely and promptly. 



The Farmer pavilion was a favorite meeting place for people from 

 all over the state. Friends and old neighbors who had not seen each 

 other for years, quite accidentally found themselves together here. Two 

 old neighbors who twenty-five years ago lived near each other in a south- 

 western Iowa county, met in the Farmer pavilion, and after exchanging 

 reports concerning their respective families, the one who had moved 

 away said to the other: 



"Well, I suppose there have been a good many changes in the old 

 place in the last twenty-five years?" 



"Changes!" replied the other. "I should say there have been changes! 

 The land has all been fenced now, and if you want to get anywhere, you 

 go by section lines, and not on top of the divides, as we used to. All 

 that rough land has been broken up." 



"What about the price of land? I suppose that has advanced some." 



"If you don't think it has advanced, suppose you come back and try 

 to buy some of it. Do you remember that rough quarter which you 

 were offered for $9 an acre the summer before you left? Well, that 



