EIGHTEENTH ANNUAL YEAR BOOK — PART IH 135 



sonally soliciting stock from the owner. The secretary or the committee 

 must notify owners long enough before the fair to allow them to pick the 

 animals for the fair and get their promises to show them at the fair. 



Often you can interest farmers who never thought of exhibiting stock 

 at a fair and get them to come. A great many of them will promise to 

 come and not show up, but some new men each year will show up if 

 they are properly solicited. Then you want your farm products, and that 

 has to be looked into in the same way. The managers of the fair can 

 make all arrangements for attractions of all sorts that are necessary, and 

 that is one thing that they can arrange almost positively. If you buy 

 your attractions of the right man, he can furnish you just what you buy, 

 and you can know beforehand that it is satisfactory and will balance up 

 the amusement side of your fair. 



You don't want your racing to overbalance the other things, but you 

 do want some good racing. I never saw a crowd that didn't appreciate 

 good racing. If you can work in some sort of home talent in the racing, 

 so much the better. You can have a mule race. At our fair last fall two 

 little girls, twins, daughters of one of our officers, rode in a pony contest, 

 and the race was so close that the judges were unable to decide between 

 them, so they were asked to change ponies, and again he was unable to 

 decide the winner. Then the judge thought he would set a stunt that 

 v/ould settle the money proposition, and he had them get off of their ponies 

 and then run and jump on their ponies, and the one that would get on 

 the pony first would be the winner, and they got on the ponies at abso- 

 lutely the same time, so he divided the premium. This competition among 

 those girls interested the crowd and they were well satisfied with the ar- 

 rangement. A great many little things like that can be worked in to add 

 to the enjoyment and interest of your patrons. 



One thing we have found in our fair to be a good feature is the matter 

 of music. We have had some outside bands at our fair that have given 

 us excellent music, but the crowd at a county fair is not looking so much 

 for high-class music as for other things. If the people in a township 

 know that their band is going to play on a certain day, they will be there 

 to hear it. It is not so much the muBic that the other hand is playing as 

 it is the fact that the home band is the official band of the day. So by 

 changing around and getting different bands in your county you can get 

 the different people in different parts of the county interested and get 

 them to attend the fair. 



One thing that I find very short in the shows at the county fairs I have 

 attended is fruit and flowers. There should be work on these features, so 

 that these exhibits will make a creditable showing to balance up the 

 other departments. They can be worked, up by advertising in the news- 

 papers or asking people to prepare exhibits, or asking people to look up 

 and see what they have to exhibit that might win some premiums. And 

 I find that when once you get an exhibitor, you usually have that exhibitor 

 year after year. One thing that can be done at the time of the fair is 

 that the secretary and his helpers should look after the people and their 

 welfare. That is something that wins their special attention and that 

 helps to make the fair popular. 



