222 IOWA DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



every second time across the fields so that the tongue is over one of the 

 planted rows. When crops are put in in this manner they generally re- 

 quire a little attention by way of cultivation, this being given with a 

 one-horse cultivator. These crops may be cut with the mower and 

 threshed with an ordinary threshing machine after removing the concave 

 and a number of the cylinder teeth. It is true that the labor involved 

 in handling these crops is somewhat different to that which we are 

 accustomed, but when it becomes apparent that it is to our advantage 

 to take up these new lines of production there can be little doubt but 

 what the necessary change will be made. 



THE FARMER AND THE STATE FAIR, 



H. C. Wallace, Des Moines, Iowa. 



The great annual festival known as the state fair should enable the 

 observant visitor to determine with considerable accuracy both the char- 

 acter of the people and of the principal industries of the state in which it 

 is held. Originally it was probably a sort of "harvest home" festival, or 

 rather the outgrowth of such festivals of the earlier time, where folks 

 from different parts of the state could get together, renew old acquain- 

 tances and make new ones, enjoy a few days away from home cares and 

 the daily grind, meet other people and absorb from them new ideas, and 

 in general to enjoy themselves. To make such a festival attractive, enter- 

 tainments of various sorts were provided. To add a personal interest 

 premiums were offered for excellence in the arts and industries. Wher- 

 ever the buying public congregates in numbers the man who has goods to 

 sell takes advantage of the opportunity to make a display of his wares, 

 and this feature soon lent interest to the state fair. As the population 

 of a state increases, the state fair evolves, if it evolves at all, from a 

 sort of basket dinner, harvest home, horse-trot and big pumpkin show, 

 where everybody knows everybody else and calls him by his first name, 

 to one of the greatest educational institutions of the state and a place 

 where in a few days' time the stranger can get a better idea of the real 

 character of the people of the state, and of its material resources than in 

 many weeks spent in traveling through it. 



It cannot be said that the visitor at our Iowa state fair, even if he 

 puts in all of the time conscientiously, can get as broad an idea of the 

 resources of the state as they warrant. He has, for example, very little 

 opportunity of learning of our mineral resources, our pearl button indus- 

 try, our shipbuilding, and many of the great manufacturing industries. 

 But the man who attends this lair and goes away without being thor- 

 oughly impressed with Iowa's greatness as an agricultural and live stock 

 state, and with the superior intelligence and orderliness of her people, has 

 used his eyes and ears to little purpose. 



As the Iowa state fair each year is considered, whether he wills it or 

 not, a sort of weather vane which indicates which way the wind is blow- 



