38 IOWA DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE 



which show a eombind attendance of over 25,000,000. The com- 

 mittee contends that the 33,000,000 people attending fairs and 

 expositions each year represent the great masses of citizens of 

 our country. They represent tha very people to be reached with 

 war propaganda in times of war or with Federal and other prop- 

 aganda 'on production during times of peace." 



We should all feel proud that w^e are interested in a work that 

 interests almost one-third of the population of the United St.^tes. 

 Never in the history of our fairs should we he more interested 

 than in the work for 1918. I wish to say to the managers of the 

 fairs for the coming year that there is a great work for you to do ; 

 that is to interest j^our exhibitors in making your fair of 1918 

 the greatest in its history from an agricultural standpoint. 



President Cameron appointed the following .committees : 



Committee on Credentials: J. P. Mullen, Pocahontas Comity; 

 H. C. Leach, Davis County; E. G. Strong, Page County. 



Committee on Resolutions : H. S. Stanberry, Blaekhawk 

 County; E. W. Williams, Delaware County; S. D. Quarton, Kos- 

 suth County. 



REPORT OF SECRETARY. 



A. R. COREY. 

 3Ir. President and Gentlemen of the Convention : 



I have prepared quite a lengthy report of the fair this year, 

 but I am not going to read all of it to tlie convention. I found, 

 after I had prepared this report, that it consisted of some sixty- 

 seven printed pages, and I know it would be tiresome to hear it 

 all read, because a good bit 'of i^- is statistics. However, there is 

 a portion of it that I desire to bring to your attention. 



When we started preparing for this year's fair a good many 

 people thought it would be a bad year for fairs and that Pairs 

 generally would not be a success. However, our board made an 

 extensive investigation of the condition of Canadian fairs and the 

 information gained caused us to believe there was not much 

 foundation for this opinion. We secured reports from the Cana- 

 dian fairs for a period of one year before the war and three 

 years during the war. While these reports indicated they were 

 hit rather hard the first year of the war each of the following 



