714 IOWA DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE 



Thanks to a year of almost unparalleled prosperity the exhibits were 

 numerous and varied, in keeping with the high rank which the state 

 has won in agriculture and manufacture. With bumper crops of grain 

 and with an augmented appreciation of "farming as a fine art," the Iowa 

 farmer had every reason for attending the fair this year. He looked 

 back over twelve months of undiminished prosperity. He looked for- 

 ward to a winter of bounteous plenty. The harvest yields of the past 

 few weeks, supplemented by the federal and state estimates of the 

 corn yield and his own knowledge of local conditions, testified to the 

 fertility of Iowa soil when the man behind the plow applies those ad- 

 vanced ideas of agriculture which are coming to be generally held and 

 practiced by the progressive farmers of Iowa. In the midst of plenty 

 and prosperity, there was borne in the necessity of taking more heed 

 of congenial comradeship, of the amusements which add zest to work 

 and of the education to be derived from looking at the fruits of other 

 men's success. And so the Iowa farmers, to the number of fifty thou- 

 sand or more, abandoned the every-day work of the fields for a few days 

 and came to Des Moines, having learned by experience that money and 

 time invested in a visit to the fair are well spent, with good and sure 

 returns inevitable. Nor was the trip a disappointment. Thanks to his 

 own prosperity and the liberal-minded management, this year's Iowa 

 State Fair surpassed, in all-round interest, any which the state had 

 ever held before. With here and there a department numerically weaker 

 in exhibits than last year, the whole fair was "bigger and better" than 

 ever, with an educational value and an amusement interest second to 

 none; the year's opportunity of the citizens of a great state to have a 

 good time and learn a lot into the bargain. 



It is a conservative statement, well within reason, to declare that 

 never before at any state fair has there been such a wonderful display 

 of machinery and the mechanical aids to farming. The Iowa farmer is 

 the implement manufacturer's best customer. He demands the latest 

 and most improved mechanical appliances to aid him in making two 

 ears of corn, two blades of grass, grow where only one grew before; to 

 increase the profits of his acres and his herds. Year by year the Iowa 

 farmer has come to depend more and more upon the inventive genius 

 of his fellow man. The man with the hoe has been displaced by the 

 man with a multitude of mechanical appliances, saving both time and 

 labor. As this popularity of farm machinery has increased the me- 

 chanical display at the Iowa State Fair has kept pace, until last week it 

 stood as the largest and best display of farm machinery ever gathered 

 together at any one place in the grain belt, if not the entire country. 

 From the moment the visitor alighted from street car or train, throughout 

 the long circuit of the grounds, there was never a minute when the 

 hum and whir of some machine making farming easier and more pro- 

 ductive was not to be heard. The chug and snort, the whir and whine, 

 the hum and blare of machinery was going on continuously, and scores 

 of acres were given over to hundreds upon hundreds of appliances, 

 marvelous in their human ingenuity and intelligence. If the 1912 Iowa 

 State Fair is to go down in history as eclipsing its predecessors in any 



