FOURTEENTH ANNUAL YEAR BOOK— PART IV. 341 



The various amusement features were relatively clean, and the manage- 

 ment kept a careful watch over all concessionaires to prevent overcharging 

 and petty grafts. In some respects, however, the management did not 

 seem to have its force well organized. The exhibitors of live stock were 

 not given the attention they deserved, and in several instances the live 

 stock judging was allowed to lag. Had a little more energy and snap been 

 put into getting the various classes into the judging ring with more prompt- 

 ness, exhibitors as well as visitors would have felt better satised. 



As we viewed the various exhibits on the fair grounds this year and 

 compared them with those of a decade ago, for example, we became greatly 

 impressed with the changes that have been wrought in every department, 

 how the exhibits have grown in size and quality, and how certain things 

 have gradually dropped out and others taken their place. Ten years ago 

 automobiles were a curiosity; today it is a problem for the fair manage- 

 ment to find storage room for the great number of expensive and efficient 

 machines in which the farmers come with their families to view the big 

 fair in comfort. Farm tractors are now so numerous that it is almost 

 impossible to become acquainted with all the different makes on exhibi- 

 tion. There are the large outfits for the extensive farmer and the 

 medium to small ones suitable for section and even quarter-section 

 farms, each manufacturer claiming points of superiority in his outfit 

 over those of his competitors. Similar changes are seen in all lines of 

 machinery. Grain drills, corn planters, plows, cultivators, harrows and 

 discs as we knew them a decade ago are no longer to be found, their 

 places having been taken by improved types. The gasoline engine has 

 displaced the once popular windmill. Modern farm gates and woven 

 wire fencing, of which we knew nothing a few years ago, now occupy 

 an important section among the ever-growing machinery exhibit. On 

 every hand one sees evidences of improvement. 



Nothing aloTig this line made a greater impression upon us, however, 

 than the silo exhibits. No less than seventeen different silos were on the 

 ground where but a few years ago none was to be found. Wood silos pre- 

 dominated, but cement staves and clay tile structures were also repre- 

 sented. A hundred salesmen, perhaps, were proclaiming the merits of 

 silage and the great saving that can be effected by utilizing the entire corn 

 crop instead of only 55 per cent of it. All told stories of the many sales 

 made in the past few years, till one might almost think that every Iowa 

 farm is now equipped with a tank for storing at least a part of the corn 

 each year. Such, of course, is far from actual facts; nevertheless the im- 

 posing display and the well-directed arguments in favor of silage converted 

 many a skeptic and undoubtedly the next improvement on his farm will be 

 a silo of some kind to enable him to make beef, mutton and dairy products 

 at a lower cost and consequently with greater profits to himself. It is 

 through the many impressive object lessons that the fair becomes such an 

 effective agent in advancing agricultural development. 



Not only was the fair as a whole educational, as it always is to the man 

 who attends with a view of carefully studying the various exhibits, but 

 this year there were so many special educational features that the great 



