396 IOWA DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



grounds during fair week, resolutions were passed expressing themselves 

 as well pleased with the improvements and heartily thanking the state 

 fair management, the State Board of Agriculture, and the legislature 

 for providing such splendid improvements. 



rOLAND-CIIINAS. 



The Poland-China show this year was very much a repetition of what 

 it is every year — a show in numbers and great in quality, with the 

 prize winners of the early maturity, quality type, and, as usual, at Des 

 Moines, quality predominating regardless of size and bone. In this re- 

 spect the Poland winners differ from the prize winners of the other breeds, 

 the Polands as a rule having more quality and less size and bone than 

 the winners of other breeds. The Polands are noted for early maturity 

 and quality, although many breeders are breeding the large, heavy 

 boned type of Polands. Both types were represented at the fair this 

 year, as usual, but the large type was not the winning type. Breeders 

 of this type complain that size and bone are not duly considered at the 

 Iowa State Fair, but that brings up the question of whether the judge 

 should make his awards in accordance with the requirements of the 

 trade, and particularly the farmer's trade, or whether he should award 

 the prizes to the hogs with the most quality and finish and having the 

 best show yard confirmation. Of course the latter qualities are more 

 readily found in the small, early maturing type of hog. Mr. Wilson Rowe, 

 superintendent of the hog department at Ames, made the awards this 

 year. He started in by selecting for first place a hog of the smaller 

 type, with much quality and finish and of unquestioned show yard 

 conformation, and his judging all through was consistent, his type being 

 practically the same all through, although most of the winners had more 

 length than the hog he selected to head the first class he judged. Those 

 who secure their herd headers of the type that won the prizes will lose 

 nothing in quality or fancy points, but those who v.ish to breed for more 

 size and bone will hardly select this type. 



The Poland exhibit this year was not the largest that has been seen in 

 Des Moines, which was due to the fact that a numlier of exhibitors were 

 crowded out because the pens were all taken before they made appli- 

 cation. For this reason, too. some old exhibitors were missed. 



THE DUROC JERSEYS. 



For the first time in the history of the Iowa State Fair the red hogs 

 outnumbered the blacks. From the insignificant showing that this breed 

 made a decade ago, when the Duroc Jersey exhibit was stuck off in one 

 corner only to be poked fun at by the exhibitors of other breeds, the 

 red hog show has steadily grown from year to year until now it is the big 

 end of the biggest hog show on earth and the principal exhibit at nearly 

 every hog show in the corn belt. While the increase in numbers has 

 been very marked from year to year the improvement in the breed 

 has also been very noticeable. A decade ago the specimens on exhibition 

 were nearly all of the rough, coarse type, while the prize winners at the 

 present time have so much more quality and finish that they almost 

 look like another breed. Yet the type is still the lengthy, good boned 

 type that made the breed popular. Of course there are exceptions, and 



