THIRTEENTH ANNUAL YEAR BOOK— PART XIII 737 



SHEEP. 



The sheep department of the Iowa State Fair was large enough this 

 year to overflow the pens provided for the exhibits and because of this one 

 wing of the swine pavilion was used as sheep quarters. Although in many 

 of the classes outside exhibitors were a little too strong for Iowa con- 

 testants, yet there were a number of instances where blue ribbons were 

 carried away by Iowa exhibitors. 



Breeders Gazette, Chicago, III. 



The fat lands of Iowa never laughed so riotously at the harvest as 

 in this year of grace. The season's opening was not auspicious. Tem- 

 peratures below normal and an excess of water gave late start to 

 farming operations, and the crop year in dependable Iowa opened in 

 doubt. Gradually under the wooings of more congenial environment 

 the fields of the Hawkeye state took on more seasonable aspect, until 

 forced by timely and well distributed heat and moisture the glorious 

 early harvests have been shouted home, and the unprecedented ton- 

 nage of stalks and ears now borne by the cornfields of the state await 

 a period of maturity only a little longer than usual. Never has such 

 wealth been mined from Iowa soil in a crop year. Assuming fruition 

 of the corn fields — and little apprehension is entertained on that score — 

 the farmers of the state will have garnered materially in excess of any 

 year's production in the history of the commonwealth. Here and there 

 conditions fall a trifle below the average, under the influence of local 

 disturbances, but so broad a smile has never before v/reathed the agri- 

 cultural countenance of the state. 



The expansion of the state fair is no less notable than its perman- 

 ence. Men of broad vision have utterly failed to comprehend the de- 

 velopment to which these institutions have attained in the past ten 

 years, and that to which they are unrestrainedly headed. The agricul- 

 tural fair is more or less the creature of the weather, but in modern 

 days seasons of limited production or weeks of untoward weather alike 

 prove futile to prevent appealing displays of the agricultural resources 

 of the state at these exhibitions. The state fair has struck that gait 

 which goes on forever. It may hesitate but never halts under the handi- 

 cap of unfavorable seasons. No fair more clearly than Iowa testifies 

 to this gratifying condition. In leaner years it has served as a reminder 

 of the fat years, and if gate receipts are lessened by a day's rain, the 

 turnstiles click all the more merrily the succeeding day. As an exponent 

 of a year of memorable yield the fair at Des Moines last week fulfilled 

 as admirably its mission as it has in times gone by when smiles did not 

 chase themselves in endless procession over the faces of farmers. It was 

 all that fairly could be required of such an exhibition in such a state and 

 in such a year of plenty. 

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