5g4 IOWA DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE 
records for cash receipts. V/ednesday morning opened with showers and 
a temporary dampening of the ardor of fair-goers; hut presently the 
clouds lifted and the business of the fair picked up; and when the re- 
turns were all in, Wednesday was found to be a record-breaker, too, be- 
sides being made notable by the visit of Secretary Wilson and his fine 
address on timely agricultural topics in the big G. A. R. tent. By Thurs- 
day night the fair had beaten last year's record of cash receipts up to the 
same time by over $22,000 and the total receipts were already greater than 
from any previous Iowa State Fair in its entirety, even the great fair 
of 1906 being already thrown into the shade, with many thousands of 
dollars still to come from Friday's receipts and numerous miscellaneous 
sources. 
And all this in a so-called panic year, with well-authenticated reports 
that times are really hard down east! And this great fair and exposition 
conducted on the highest plane as to morality; with liquor-selling and 
gambling and fake schemes of all kinds ruthlessly excluded from the 
grounds; with no train-wrecks or balloon ascensions or sensational novel- 
ties of any kind to allure those who crave mere excitement — just a great, 
clean, varied and overv.helming exhibit of the wholesome activities of 
one of the greatest of our agricultural states, managed by competent men 
so as to give opportunities for an energetic and intelligent and enterpris- 
ing people to show what they could do. 
The crowds were exceedingly well behaved. There v/as a noteworthy 
absence of the rude, the coarse, the uncouth and the unworthy, in both 
conduct and appearance. Everybody was well dressed and everybody 
looked happy and comfortable. Accidents were remarkably few. Trans- 
portation from the city to the fair grounds and return, by both the rail- 
road and street car lines, was in the main adequate and comfortable, 
though at times the cars were overcrowded. The city authorities made 
an extraordinarily good record in holding crime in check. The citizens 
and the municipal government frowned upon extortion and arrests were 
promptly made for over-charging when reported. Every effort was made 
to provide good lodging places for strangers remaining in the city over 
night. In the streets and on the fair grounds, universal courtesy and a 
desire to accommodate fair visitors prevailed. 
The commodious and convenient new administration building; the 
increased space accorded to the unparalleled horse show; the extended 
sidewalks; the well-kept flower-beds, and the generally improved ap- 
pearance of the grounds; the dignified and attractive entertainments 
held in the stock pavilion and a score of new and distinctive improve- 
ments in fair management combined to give point and cogency to the 
remark everywhere heard that this was by a,ll odds the best fair ever 
held in Iowa. There was much talk, too, about the urgent need for a 
great steel and concrete amphitheater as the next permanent improvement 
which the liberality of the State and the practical wisdom of a far-seeing 
raanageraent should combing to provide, 
