EIGHTH ANNUAL YEAR BOOK-PART IV. 185 



butter made with the machinery used in making it has been a positive 

 influence, not only in inducing everybody to make good butter, but in 

 calling general attention to the improved article and in creating a larger 

 demand for it and at a much higher price. Let any new and useful 

 article appear among the exhibits at a large fair and almost immediately 

 there is a demand for it that will tax the capacity of its manufacturers. 

 In no way can producers improve their markets with so little expenditure 

 of time and money as in making suitable exhibits at state fairs. 



State and other fairs are of large incidental value to the cities in 

 which they are held. The advantage in having a city overflowing with 

 visitors during the week of a fair is large. Hotels and restaurants are 

 taxed to their capacity and merchants are busy caring for the sudden 

 influx of customers. These advantages, it should be remembered, are in- 

 cidental and not primary and should be given but little attention in 

 planning the work of a fair. They are constant, however, and are of 

 suflBcient importance to warrant calling upon the favored city for a 

 larger need of support, in case of need, than should be expected from one 

 more distant, realizing only a general benefit from the fair. These inci- 

 dental advantages s-hould never be permitted to loom large in the vision 

 of fair managers or obscure the real purposes for which fairs should be 

 held. Give the primary objects of a fair as much attention as possible; 

 secondary ones will care for themselves. 



There should be a worthy purpose in every fair. There must be a 

 beneficial object in view. Those who undertake the management of a 

 fair, without well defined ideas of the substantial value of such an insti- 

 tution, thinking only of adding another department to the political ma- 

 chinery of the state or the creation of places for impecunious politicians, 

 will meet with speedy disappointment. Loftier aims than these must be 

 the rule. State fair managers should have an abiding faith in the utility 

 of their work; they should feel that each annual exhibition has practical 

 educational value to every one of their thousands of visitors, and vigor 

 and earnestness will then characterize their every action. There should 

 be a purpose even in the amusements. The races should be so planned 

 and conducted as to encourage the breeding of better and more useful 

 horses, and the athletic features should be so arranged as to stimulate 

 the physical development of the people in the same manner as did the 

 Olympian games for the inhabitants of ancient Greece. 



For a state fair there should be state management. Private enter- 

 prise is insufficient. Public spirited citizens will not make sacrifices of 

 time and money, nor will newspapers lend their unstinted aid, if, after 

 success is achieved, there are stockholders to be benefited by a division 

 of profits. If, however, the grounds, buildings, equipment and moneys 

 belong to the state; if the institution be conducted solely for the general 

 good and not in any way for personal advancement, and if, when the 

 fairs are run at a profit, it is known that surplus funds will be used for 

 betterments or set aside for increased premiums and a general expan- 

 sion of the various departments, the co-operation of press and people may 

 be depended upon and permanent success may be expected. 



The management must be characterized by intelligence, frankness and 

 integrity. Men placed in charge must not only know the needs, pur- 



