64 IOWA DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE 



IOWA STATE FAIR AND EXPOSITION. 



The sixty-third Iowa State Fair and Exposition not only set new 

 records for attendance, receipts, etc., but n new record was achieved 

 for fulfilling its real mission as an educational institution. The 

 Iowa State Fair in former years has had a larger exhibit of horses 

 and cattle, but at no previous fair were the exhibits of such a 

 uniform good character. 



The barns were all well filled and the cattle exhibit necessitated 

 using the old sheep sheds and a tent or two to house the overflow. 



The exhibit of sheep filled every pen in the new pavilion and 

 set a new record for quality and number. The swine pavilion was 

 taxed to its capacity with an exhibit of swine of the highest qual- 

 ity. 



Measured by such material standards as attendance and financial 

 returns the Iowa State Fair of 1917 was successful even beyond the 

 dreams and desires of its most enthusiastic friends and managers. 

 But in measuring the success of an institution of this character, 

 attendance and financial remuneration are not enough to insure a 

 full and proper estimate. Its influence upon the people who attend 

 must be considered; also its general effect upon the agricultural 

 and stock-growing interests of Iowa and the many other states that 

 contributed so abundantly from their herds and flocks. 



Did the Iowa people find the fair good? Did they go back to 

 their homes filled with pride in the beauty, strength and magnifi- 

 cence of the fair as a whole ? Did they go away mentally strength- 

 ened and invigorated and filled with new ambition for the future? 

 Did they grasp the great, underlying and vital aim and principle 

 of the fair, which is to point the way to better methods of farming, 

 to make better and more efficient men and women and to develop 

 a higher, cleaner citizenship ? If so, then indeed the fair was suc- 

 cessful. 



All who made a careful study of the fair with minds unbiased 

 and open to conviction are prompt to answer all such questions in 

 the affirmative. The fair lived up to its advance notices. The peo- 

 ple found it excellent and have not been backward in voicing their 

 expressions of approval. Thousands of Iowa citizens returned 

 to their farms imbued with new ideas and ideals, with revived 

 enthusiasm and fresh stores of inspiration and a mighty pride in 

 the state that can present such an extraordinary demonstration 

 of agriculture and its allied industries, a demonstration that is the 

 wonder of the entire countrj'. 



