THIRTEENTH ANNUAL YEAR BOOK— PART VII 



319 



"The Iowa State Fair is not an event; it is an institution. It 

 is a university, broader in its scope and more wide spread in its 

 appeal than the state institutions of higher learning at Ames, 

 Iowa City and Cedar Falls, excellent as these are. It is a clearing 

 house of agricultural and industrial ideas. It is an exposition, of 

 the many and divers things which have united to make Iowa one 

 of the really rich and great states of the nation. For fifty-eight 

 years the Iowa State Fair has been growing in popularity and use- 

 fulness until it stands, in 1912, at the very pinnacle of its educa- 

 tional appeal and all arounji value. * * *" 



The attendance for 1912 as shown by the ticket auditing department 

 was 272,023, an increase of 1,341 over last year. While this is an at- 

 tendance that any state fair might be proud of, it did not come up to 

 the expectations of the management. Considering the added features 

 and a more diversified amusement program than was ever put on at 

 our fair, and knowing that our farmers were in a most prosperous con- 

 dition and amply able to attend the fair this year, the management had 

 reason to expect the usual increase in attendance, which would have 

 brought it up to about 300,000. This lack of increase was not charge- 

 able to the weather for practically every day was fair; not enough rain 

 fell to in any way interfere with the program and only one or two 

 days were at all threatening. 



We believe there were two reasons for this lack of increase. The 

 principal reason was the lack of co-operation on the part of the rail- 

 roads by failing to grant reduced rates the same as they had in the 

 past. The mere fact that a fair can advertise excursion rates attracts 

 a great number of people and is the source of a large amount of adver- 

 tising that the fair would not otherwise receive. We believe the two 

 weeks of rainy weather just preceding the fair delayed threshing to 

 such an extent that practically every machine in the state was in opera- 

 tion during fair week, which, no doubt, kept away quite a number who 

 would otherwise have attended. 



The following is the attendance by days compared with 1911: 



Thursday 



Friday 



Saturday 



Sunday 



Monday 



Tuesday 



Wednesday 



Thursday 



Friday 



Total 



1912 



272,023 



1911 



270,682 



The exhibit at the 1912 fair was made by 1,662 exhibitors, making 

 a total of 16,315 entries in the fourteen departments. This was an 

 increase of 72 exhibitors over last year and they made a slight increase 

 in the number of entries. It was the general opinion of the manage- 

 ment and the agricultural press that it was the best balanced show 

 ever staged on the Iowa State Fair grounds. That all departments 



