THIRTEENTH ANNUAL YEAR BOOK— PART XIH 769 



The building given over to the use of the Agricultural College was, as 

 usual, filled with most interesting and instructive exhibits of various 

 kinds. There were models of silos of the principal styles of manufacture, 

 exhibits showing the effect of various crops and of various rotations in the 

 production of crops, a soil map of Iowa showing the variation in the 

 character of the soil in the different geological formations, a collection 

 of the different varieties of grains, samples of the principal noxious weeds, 

 and a large number of other equally instructive exhibits. The only 

 trouble with this exhibit is that the building is somewhat out of the 

 ordinary path, and consequently thousands of people do not find it. The 

 next legislature might well consider the erection of a very much larger 

 and better arranged building, located centrally on the State Fair grounds, 

 and given over entirely to exhibits to be made by the Agricultural Col- 

 lege. We can not imagine any way in which $50,000, for example, could 

 be spent so well at Ames as in the construction of a building of this 

 sort on the fair grounds. It would afford an opportunity to present 

 object lessons to many thousands of Iowa farmers who will never have 

 the opportunity to get them in any other way. 



Something will have to be done to improve the transportation facilities 

 between the fair grounds and Des Moines. The crowd is now handled 

 by the street railway and by the Rock Island shuttle trains. On days 

 when the attendance is largest, anywhere from an hour to two hours 

 is required to get back and forth. There has been more or less trouble 

 in this matter for several years, but the increasing attendance at the fair 

 now makes it a matter which must receive the attention of citizens of 

 Des Moines. 



Following the custom established some years ago, . night shows were 

 put on in front of the grandstand and also in the stock pavilion. The 

 show in front of the grandstand this year was in the nature of a frontier 

 days entertainment, and consisted of a horse-bucking exhibition, trick 

 roping by expert cowboys, handling Texas steers, driving and riding buf- 

 faloes and steers, an Indian war dance by a band of fifty Sioux Indians, 

 trick riding of various kinds, and an attack by the Indians on an old- 

 fashioned stage coach and prairie schooner, with a rescue by the cow- 

 boys. The show was followed by an exhibition of fireworks. It was a 

 good, wholesome entertainment, and well patronized. In the live stock 

 pavilion each evening a horse show was put on, which attracted fairly 

 large crowds. These shows would have been more liberally patronized 

 had the transportation facilities been adequate for getting downtcrwn 

 afterwards. On the nights when they were most largely attended, many 

 people were not able to leave the grounds until midnight. 



About one hundred boys from the different counties of the state 

 earned a free trip to the fair by writing essays on Iowa. These boys 

 were encamped on the grounds. They made themselves useful by polic- 

 ing the grounds in the morning and taking up the tickets of those who 

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