ELEVENTH ANNUAL YEAR BOOK— PART XII 805 



THE HOMESTEAD. 



DES MOINES, IOWA. 



The 1910 Iowa State Fair, held at Des Moines last week, will go down 

 in history as having the largest and best live stock and machinery ex- 

 hibits of any state fair held in the fifty-five years which Iowa has 

 been instructing and entertaining its citizens by exhibitions of its re- 

 sources and achievements. Other fairs have had larger attendance, but no 

 state fair ever held in Iowa before has exhibited so many time-saving, 

 money-saving and labor-saving devices and machines or has assembled so 

 much high-grade live stock. Iowa has come to occupy a proud and envied 

 position in the front rank of agricultural states. Its farmers have reached 

 a state of prosperity and material comfort second to none. Year after 

 year its millions of fertile acres have gone on producing crops to break 

 its own record, fill the granaries and feed the hungry of the world. It 

 is fitting that Iowa's state fair should grow and prosper in keeping with 

 the state and its citizenship. It is to the eternal credit of state and 

 citizens that no niggardly policy has been pursued as regards the state 

 fair. It is to the eternal credit of the state fair management that the 

 show has been kept up to a high standard as an educating factor making 

 toward a higher plane of prosperity and comfort. 



The Iowa farmer believes in the conservation of himself and his 

 live stock. He has learned that the genius of man is inventing and per- 

 fecting devices and machines which make farming easier and simpler. 

 He has learned that money invested in modern agricultural implements 

 is money cast upon the waters to return many fold before many days 

 have passed. He has learned that it is better to save his horses and 

 himself and depend on electricity and gasoline. He has learned that 

 neither himself, his wife nor his children need be enslaved to the end- 

 less round of multitudinous chores, but that mechanical chore-workers 

 are to be had for the products of a few acres. He has seen the cum- 

 bersome machines of his father perfected and simplified until today 

 they do the work of a dozen, a score of men, quicker and better than 

 man, with all his genius and persistence. The Iowa farmer has been 

 quick to realize the possibilities of machinery. It was therefore emi- 

 nently proper that the 1910 state fair should exhibit such a quantity 

 and diversity of agricultural implements as caused even the best posted 

 to marvel that so much has been done to harness the elements and the 

 mechanical forces to do man's bidding. Acres of ground were covered 

 at Des Moines last week with agricultural implements of all kinds. There 

 was no more interesting exhibit, none which attracted greater crowds 

 and attention. Chugging, churning, chortling machines puffed and snort- 

 ed their busy way from early morning until late at night and Iowa 

 farmers by the thousands looked on, marveled, learned and bought. The 

 machinery exhibit last week was fully 25 per cent greater than at any 

 previous fair. Iowa leads the agricultural states of the nation as a 

 market for agricultural implements. 



