828 IOWA DEPARTMENT OP AGRICULTURE 



TWENTIETH CENTURY FARMER. 



OMAHA, NEBR. 



The Iowa State fair, the greatest agricultural fair and exposition 

 held in the United States, rounded out its fifty-sixth anniversary last 

 week under the most nattering conditions of patronage and successful 

 exploitation of the interests and industries of the state that has ever 

 been brought to the credit of any commonwealth. The Iowa state fair 

 is, in the strictest sense of the term, an agricultural fair and exposi- 

 tion. This is not only strongly emphasized in the kind and character 

 of its exhibits, in all departments, but it is strongly impressed in the 

 great bulk of its patronage. There is a very small per cent of the 

 citified element to be seen on the grounds. 



Iowa is a great agricultural state, its interests and industries are 

 mainly along the lines of agricultural production, and these are so 

 closely allied to agriculture and live stock operations that its villages, 

 towns and cities have developed as an adjunct to the farm. Their 

 principal means of existence is through their business relationship in 

 helping supply the aids to farm and agricultural operation. Thus, the 

 towns and townspeople unconsciously become a part of the agricultural 

 production of the state. 



EVERYBODY INTERESTED IN AGRICULTURE. 



Everybody in Iowa seems to be interested in agriculture — they all 

 talk farm and crops and live stock. Lawyers, doctors, preachers, teachers 

 and professional people generally have farm and live stock ideas and 

 interests, or are allied in some way with agricultural operations. The 

 farm life and farm sentiment seems to be uppermost in the minds of 

 the people. This, to a large extent, may be attributed to the seed that 

 has been sown for many years at the Agricultural college at Ames, under 

 the skillful distribution of such noted agriculturists as Profs. Curtiss, 

 Holden and others of their co-workers, associated with the work at this 

 institution. 



The Iowa state fair has been well planned, well managed and is today 

 a credit and honor to the state. It is the greatest public enterprise in 

 the state, measured from an educational and advertising point of view. 

 It is the proof of things accomplished, things acquired. It is the place 

 where all the people go to see the results, and results are what every 

 man in business will tell you count, and they are what he wants. The 

 Iowa state fair is not only an up-to-date institution, but it is always 

 found out on the skirmishing line, it is in the front ranks of improve- 

 ment, preferring rather to set the pace than to follow. 



IOWA HORSE BREEDERS TO THE FRONT. 



The horse department at this fair was the admiration and wonder of 

 all who saw it. "Such numbers and such quality" was the exclamation 

 on all sides; 1,125 horses exhibited. Think, of this great array of fine 

 exhibition animals, everyone of them fitted and fixed for the show, a 



