SIXTH ANNUAL YEAR BOOK — PART IX. 979 



utterance to them, one would surely have come to the conclusion that 

 the state fair is truly a great educational institution and that each 

 exhibition is worth thousands upon thousands of dollars to the state. 



The horticultural display was large, fully twice as large as last year. 

 The apple exhibit was on the whole good, but it did not make as attrac- 

 tive an appearance as it might have made. The tables and the fruit were 

 not kept clean. Had more help been employed to keep the dust away, 

 the desplay would have been much more attractive. The crowded condi- 

 tion made it plain that more room will be needed in the future in order 

 to give the fruit exhibit a more attractive appearance. It must be 

 admitted, however, in spite of the fact that this is a poor fruit year, that 

 the fruit display was far ahead of anything that has been seen at the 

 state fair for the past ten years. 



The dairy exhibit was confined principally to an exhibition of cream 

 separators suitable for farm dairying. This display was also much larger 

 than last year, there being several new machines on the ground that had 

 not been exhibited at the Iowa state fair before. The Vermont Farm 

 Machine Company, of Bellows Falls, Vt., manufacturers of the United 

 States Cream Separator, exhibited a small tread power suitable for run- 

 ning a separator, that was operated by a pair of goats. This feature 

 attracted a great deal of attention and caused many to study the desir- 

 ability of securing some power other than hand power with which to run 

 their cream separators. The separator display in general was excellent. ' 

 It afforded those who were in the market for separators an opportunity 

 to study the different makes; to weigh their advantages and disadvantages 

 and to decide in favor of the machine best suited to their particular con- 

 ditions. 



The farm machinery exhibit was about the same as usual, although a 

 number of machines that had not heretofore been exhibited at this fair 

 were seen. A ditching machine attracted a great deal of attention and 

 a machine for transplanting tomatoes and plants of that character was 

 also a new feature at the fair. These transplanting machines are used 

 in the east by large truck gardeners, but so far they have not come 

 into use in Iowa to any extent. 



Up to the present nothing has been said about the live stock show, 

 although as is usually the case at the Iowa state fair, it was the leading 

 attraction. There were no less than 3,000 hogs on exhibition, which made 

 the exhibit larger by several hundred head than last year. The cattle 

 exhibit, from a numerical standpoint, was also larger than last year, 

 and it was generally held that the quality was superior. The number 

 of draft and carriage horses was also far ahead of last year's exhibition. 

 Last year a number of large breeders had their horses at the St. Louis 

 exposition at the time of the Icwa state fair, which made the horse show 

 rather weak, but such was not the case this year. In fact the number of 

 animals any one exhibitor could bring to the fair, had to be limited by 

 Secretary Simpson in order to accommodate as many breeders as possible. 

 The management is to be complimented for having made an effort to 

 interest owners of American-bred horses in the fair by offering liberal 



