SIXTH ANNUAL YEAR-BOOK— PART IX. 985 



next obliterated the shady places as lavishly as ever. Iowa people bring 

 their luncheons with them to the fair and do not save the paper and 

 boxes left after the repast has been enjoyed. 



Iowa farm folk have the state-fair-going habit. Going to the fair 

 has come to be an annual picnic outing with them. Reduced rates are 

 granted on all the railroads ia the state, and Des Moines is a very 

 accessible point from all parts. Every day has attractions of special 

 interest to certain people. This secures a distribution of the immense 

 crowds. A children's day, old soldiers' day, a state day and the like 

 give an idea as to the manner of featuring the fair. Marked success 

 has attended the operation of this method. 



Visitors get their money's worth at this fair, and when they leave it 

 is nearly alwas'S with the hearty promise to return the next year. They 

 are entertained, enlightened and set to thinking. A valuable experi- 

 ence is added to their careers. Larger interest is developed in their 

 own business as a result. They feel that the time and money have 

 been profitably spent. From every point of view the experience is 

 advantageous, and they are enthusiastically in favor of repeating it 

 the next season. Farmers attend with their families. There is just 

 as much to interest the farm women as the men. This explains how 

 the Iowa State Fair can roll up an attendance of more than 150,000. 



A famous Italian band was in commission throughout the week in 

 open air. giving a continuous concert. The music was the best that 

 any band has furnished en these grounds. It is wonderful how band 

 music attracts. There was always a big crowd surrounding the music- 

 ians and the listeners remained hard by for hours. 



We are glad to record that band music was dispensed with in the 

 judging pavilion, where last it kept high-strung dairy cattle in a state 

 of fright and exasperated everybody within hearing of its scandalous 

 noise. The bandstand in the pavilion this year was occupied by a 

 ladies' orchestra which discoursed highly praised music. It had a 

 soothing rather than an irritating effect on man and beast and was a 

 welcomed substitute for the tinshop din which emanated from that quar- 

 ter last season. 



Although an immense institution, with a strong grip on the good 

 will of the people, the Iowa fair has merely laid the foundation for 

 what it is destined to be in years to come. At two score years and ten 

 it is but a husky youth in comparison with its older self. 



Henceforth a new policy will be pursued in constructing buildings. 

 The ramshackle wooden buildings which now cumber the grounds and 

 inadequately and unsatsfactorily serve their purposes, costing heavily 

 each year for repairs, are monuments to the futility of erecting ephe- 

 meral structures. They have sufficiently impressed the idea that fair 

 equipment should be permanent. Steel, concrete, stone, brick and tile 

 will enter into all buildings now contemplated. Only two of this con- 

 struction are in evidence at present — the live stock pavilion and the 

 agricultural, horticultural and dairy building. The decaying grandstand 

 is a dangerous pile of lumber, a veritable fire trap, and several other 

 main buildings, to say nothing of the cattle, horse, swine and sheep 



