1000 IOWA DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



The race horse has been the means of creating more contention in 

 the agricultural fair than all the other influences combined, and yet he is 

 a legitimate factor in agriculture, when properly credited and given 

 his natural and inherited rights as a free and untrammeled animal. 



The strictly agricultural fair is advocated by a class of fair patrons 

 as being the only legitimate exhibition, and therefore the only feature 

 that should receive encouragement from the fair management. The 

 horse race is condemned as vicious and damaging in its influence on 

 the fair visitors. The encouragement for betting and gambling is 

 urged as a reason vv^hy this source of amusement should be excluded 

 from the fair. Cruelty to dumb brutes is sometimes set forth in the 

 attempt to make a case against the encouragement of the speed attrac- 

 tion on the fair grounds. 



Race track gambling, where the horse is used as the medium for 

 carrying it on, has nothing whatever to do with the exhibition speed 

 attraction of the agricultural fair. It is proper to encourage the speed 

 feature in horse breeding, because there is a legitimate purpose, use 

 and demand for active, smart driving horses. They are needed for 

 saddle and light harness use, and the breeding of these horses is a 

 proper and legitimate industry on the farm. The racing feature is an 

 entirely different proposition and has no direct connection with the 

 agricultural fair. Neither the horse nor the breeder of the horse is 

 responsible for the use to which he is put. 



The educational feature of the fair should never be lost sight of by 

 the fair management in its attempt to amuse and entertain. The 

 building of a fair that will at once appeal to the finer sensibilities of 

 the educated and the learned in science and art, is the demand of the 

 times, and should be the aim of those having this work in charge. More 

 refinement, more taste, more artistic display in decoration and the 

 placing of exhibits is the demand at the state fair, and every effort 

 to supply this refining influence should be exerted. 



EDUCATIONAL FEATURES OF FAIRS. 



This refining influence is not confined to any department or division 

 of the fair and should not be. Throw out the proper encouragement 

 by providing neat and well arranged grounds and buildings and the 

 exhibition artist will bring every feature of display up to it. 



The work of the artist is not alone found hanging on the walls of 

 the beautiful and finely decorated buildings on the fair grounds, labeled 

 "Fine Arts", "Mechanical Arts" and "Textile Fabrics", but in the live 

 stock barns as well, the artist has been at work, where are found the 

 fine, glossy swine, finished more beautifully than the pencil of the mas- 

 ter painter can picture. In the cattle stalls the same artistic work of 

 the caretaker and scientific feeder are observed, as the massive duke 

 or prince of the herd, stands at the head, the proud progenitor of a 

 long line of successful prize winners. And the great, matronly cow, 

 a no less prominent figure in her relation to the show herd, stands 

 quietly by and unconsciously defies the picture maker in adding one more 

 touch of the brush, or the perfecting of a single line that will make 

 her more acceptable in the eye of the critic. 



