268 IOWA DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE 



AFTERNOON SESSION. 



Convention called to order at 1:30 o'clock by the President, C. 

 E. Cameron. 



The President introduced Hon. John T. Stinson, Secretary of 

 the Missouri State Fair, who addressed the convention upon the 

 subject of "State Fairs." 



STATE FAIRS. 



JOHN T. STINSON, SECRETARY MISSOURI STATE FAIR. 



Mr. President and Gentlemen. I think I fully appreciate the oppor- 

 tunity of coming to Iowa and saying a word or two to the men who are 

 interested in the greatest State Fair that is held in this country. I want 

 you to understand that I do not come here with the idea that I can 

 bring anything new, or make any attempt at any advanced ideas 

 along state fair lines. I accepted the invitation to come here for the 

 reason that the directors of this fair, and especially the executive com- 

 mittee have been kind to the Missouri State Fair management. The man- 

 agement of our Fair at Sedalia has always felt that they had the warmest 

 friends in the Iowa State Fair crowd, and when I had an opportunity 

 to come here I accepted the invitation on account of the warm feeling 

 that exists between the directors of the Missouri State Fair, and the 

 Iowa State Fair, and not with the idea that I could come here and tell 

 you anything that you do not already know. Another reason for being 

 tickled to death to come here is that I was raised in Iowa, and it makes 

 a fellow, especially as young as I am, feel pretty good when he can 

 come back here to Des Moines, after twenty years and still have a 

 reasonably good character. And I am glad that I can come here and 

 speak in this room for a minute or two. 



Now we realize in Missouri, and I know that the people of Iowa do, 

 that the State Fair is an important educational institution for the 

 reason that it reaches a great many people who cannot be reached by 

 the Agricultural College or the Farmers Institute or other educational 

 institution. There are a lot of people in this world who are so consti- 

 tuted that in order to convince them and interest them they have to 

 see something. I believe a majority of people are in that fix. The 

 people in that fix are no less intelligent than the ones who read the 

 bulletins from the Agricultural College and grasp them at once and 

 go out and make a lecture on them. But the men who are constituted 

 that way, if you do once convince them you have done more for them 

 in a week than you can do otherwise in a lifetime. I believe the 

 majority of men who are past school age and who have not had the 

 opportunities of agricultural education when they were young, are 

 reached through a state fair when probably they could not be reached 

 through any other organization. I believe that our state fairs have done 

 more — good state fairs I mean — have done more to interest a large num- 

 ber of people on the farm in better agriculture than any other organiza- 

 tion that we have. I feel that this is the case in Iowa. 



