SIXTH ANNUAL YEAR BOOK — PART IX. 98? 



Every year has increased the magnitude and scope of this fair. Pro- 

 gressive improvement has characterized it career. Especially marked 

 has been its upward trend in recent years under aggressive, practical 

 business management. The dawn of a new era in agriculture has aided 

 it heroically, and the rising tide of national prosperity has quickened 

 it, but to intelligent administration is due in large measure the robust 

 health which this useful state institution enjoys. Because it has bene- 

 fited America's foremost agricultural people, they in truth reciprocity 

 fashion have supported it nobly. To educate, inspire and entertain; 

 this is its trinal motto. What the fair has cost and may cost in future 

 long ago was paid. Not in years has it secured payment in advance 

 for service rendered. If it now asks for funds they are of right due 

 it, and with interest. A public institution of this character has an 

 actual earning capacity aside from that inhering in its ow'n efforts. It 

 makes . money for the state. It multiplies its talents and is worthy of 

 more. 



STATE FAIR MARKS A NEW ERA IN IOWA. 



A Comparson With The First Fair Held Half a Century Ago Shows 

 Wonderful Advancement Made by Hawkey es. 



C. C. CARLIN, IN TWENTIETH CENTURY FARMER. 



The Iowa State Fair, held at Des Moines during the w^eek ending 

 ■September 1. marks a new era in the growth of that state. The fair 

 ground was a magic city, where half a century since there existed only 

 an expanse of land (which might has all been bought for less than 

 the price of a single acre of it today), covered by an almost impene- 

 trable growth of trees and frequented only by denizens of the wilds, 

 there was set down, as it were, in a day a consolidation of all the 

 great and diversified industries of an empire. It was a fairy land, 

 where at touch of the magic bell, there came forth all the wonders of 

 nature in her most wonderful moods, and all the results of the exer- 

 cise of man's inventive genius and skill; where the fruits and flowers 

 of the tropics spread their profusion of perfume over the less favored 

 varieties of the far north; where the crude implements of the pioneer 

 modestly gave way to the models of perfection in laVor saving devices 

 that have placed the occupation of the farmer on a level with those 

 of his city brothers; where the craft of the manufacturer in his won- 

 der working productions, is equaled by that of the fine stock raiser 

 in bringing about such perfection of animal form and character as to 

 seem marvelous, and where 60,000 people, with all their perversity and 

 diversity of interests, might each, in a single day, find some point on 

 ■which to direct his attention. 



