158 IOWA DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE 



soon find what a fair means to the community. It is hard to judge the 

 value of a fair in a community where you always live, but you go to some 

 other community where they haven't a fair and by comparison you can 

 tell what it does. 



I am sure that the state is more and more going to aid these county 

 fairs and district fairs than they have in the past. It is up to you men 

 to create the sentiment. I have for some time (I don't know but I men- 

 tioned it some three or four years ago to this organization) believe that 

 something ought to be done toward making a permanent record in the 

 form of moving pictures of these entertainments and then using them 

 during the dull season as advertisements and as education. I know that 

 the fair is a stimulant to the producer of livestock, for I have been about 

 the judging pens when they were giving the ribbons, and the pride that a 

 man has in his herd — and a just pride it is — is very evident at such a 

 time. So I say the fair is a stimulant, and we need that in this state. 



Nature has been very kind to us in Iowa, though we haven't accom- 

 plished as much as we ought to have accomplished. We have overcome 

 that situation. I know a fellow who went out to California or Washington 

 and bought land to grow apples on, and he paid $500 an acre for it, and he 

 sold just as good land right here in Iowa for $40 an acre. Some years ago, 

 this was. Went out there and paid $500 an acre for it to grow apples, 

 and all they furnished him was a valley and sunshine, and he had to 

 furnish the water and the soil. But here in Iowa we have the sunshine, 

 the water, and the soil, and it is so easy that there has to be some sort 

 of stimulant to get the people to actually produce as they can produce in 

 this state. State pride is a vitally important thing, and we need to 

 cultivate that. 



So the thought that I want to leave with you is, go back, even 

 though there is discouragements, as there are, go back to your community, 

 make up your mind that you are going to make your fair the best that it 

 has ever been — better than it has ever been before, and make it the best in 

 the state. And I find that is true among secretaries. I most always visit 

 the secretary when I visit the fair, and I find that he says: "Have you ever 

 found a better fair in Iowa than ours?" and I have to tell him that I have 

 not. I have never quarreled with the fellow whether his fair was better 

 than others, but that spirit should prevail. It is the right spirit. Unless 

 a man has pride in the thing he is doing, he has lost the incentive to do. 

 I saw one secretary where he had a building about 10x12 and a couple of 

 cans of fruit and a hen and a duck in it and he took me in there with as 

 much pride as a man could and he said: "We have just started but we 

 think it is fine." It was. They had made the start but, that was the spirit 

 that was necessary. If he had gone to apologizing to me he would have 

 been apologizing to the public. 



I don't know anything about fairs except that I like to go to them and 

 like to get a pass, but if I don't get a pass I will pay my way in. I un- 

 derstand that this pass costs somebody money, but I do know from my 

 contact with the public, and my contact with communities where they do 

 have no fairs, that they are an educational institution, that they are 



