2T0 IOWA DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE 



ful success of your institution here had more to do with the establish- 

 ing of a fair in Missouri than possibly anything else. The men who 

 were back of the movement in the establishing of the Missouri state 

 fair in 1900', were men who attended the Iowa State Fair. They got 

 their ideas here, saw the wonderful good that the institution was doing, 

 and determined to have a fair in Missouri. Our fair is ten years old, 

 has grown a little every year. It takes some time for the people of 

 the state to appreciate a state fair. But the people of Missouri, at least 

 from a legislative standpoint, have appreciated ours. Our appropria- 

 tions have been liberal, and our buildings are good, and the state seems 

 to stand ready to help the state fair as they do the other educational in- 

 stitutions in the state, and to consider it an educational institution. 

 Something in the neighborhood of half a million dollars has been appropri- 

 ated in that time for buildings and we feel very proud of them. Our 

 buildings probably are the best things that we have. 



Now I do not want to take up very much of your time because I 

 am not a good talker. I simply wanted to tell you that the people of 

 Missouri appreciate a fair as well as the people of Iowa, and I hope 

 that this institution will in the next twenty years make the same growth 

 that it has in the last twenty. It is simply marvelous to me. The first 

 time I had an opportunity of coming to Iowa after leaving here twenty 

 years ago, and visiting the Iowa State Fair, it was a wonder to me, 

 it was simply amazing. I believe you have the best balanced all around 

 fair and exposition at Des Moines that there is held in this country, and 

 from an educational standpoint it has no superior. It is simply the 

 greatest fair from an educational standpoint that I know anything about. 

 We have tried to make our fair in Missouri educational, we have tried 

 to push along on educational lines as much as possible. While we have 

 attractions to get the people there, we try to make them forget as soon 

 as they get inside the gates everything else but those things that are 

 placed there for their instruction and benefit. And as I say, we have 

 patterned after the Iowa State Fair in doing this. 



I want to thank you very much for listening to me, and if any 

 of you have an questions concerning our little institution down there — 

 which, by the way, as compared to the Iowa State Fair seems like a county 

 fair, and when I come up here it is slightly discouraging temporarily, 

 but we buckle down to it and hope some day we may have a fair that 

 will compare favorably with yours, but it will be a number of years 

 yet to come before we will be able to be in your class. 



The President: We have with us today a man who is secre- 

 tary of one of the coming county fairs of Iowa. I know from my 

 personal experience it has heen making rapid strides along the 

 county fair line, and it certainly affords me pleasure to introduce 

 to you, J. P. Mullen, secretary of the Big Four Fair at Fonda. 



