August, '10] GOSSARD: FAIR EXHIBITS 331 



Fair ranges from 15,000 to 55,000 persons per day, most of whom give 

 more or less attention to the Station's display. Also some of our 

 county fairs are quite largely attended. The following figures record 

 the admissions in round numbers to several of our county fairs at 

 which our exhibits were shown in 1909. These figures are for the 

 entire term of the fairs and not for single days : 



39,000 9,000 20,000 26,000 



15,000 19,000 9,000 30,000 



25,000 16,000 19,000 21,000 



46,000 



The admissions for a single day at one of these fairs were estimated 

 to be 20,000, while the recorded admissions in one day at another 

 exceeded 16,000. There is a somewhat greater probability that a 

 larger percentage of the attendants at a county fair, than at the State 

 Fair, will examine the Station's exhibit, because there are fewer 

 other attractions to enter into competition with it. When we first 

 commenced making these displays at county fairs, we sometimes had 

 difficulty to hold our ground against the horse races, but our exhibi- 

 tion work has now been so generally exploited over the state that most 

 of the visitors have their expectancy aroused and are curious to see 

 the exhibit before they come to the fair. But the county fair visitors 

 seem, on the whole, not quite so discriminating and more unlikely to 

 comprehend the full significance of the exhibit, without help, than 

 those composing the State Fair crowd. Many of our Gountj^ Fair 

 Associations now regard the Station Exhibit as one of their star at- 

 tractions and one of the secretaries writes, in making application for 

 the exhibit this year, that he would rather ask his association to pay 

 $200.00 for the exhibit than to miss having it again. 



The entire work of arranging for and caring for these exhibitions 

 is in the hands, of the Department of Cooperative Experiments, and 

 •the only labor devolving upon the Department of Entomology in con- 

 nection therewith is to prepare the Entomological Exhibit and keep 

 it in repair from year to year. The repairs are usually comprised in 

 the replacement of a number of damaged specimens, revarnishing 

 some of the cases, cleaning up the glass entering into its makeup, and 

 in like small, but tedious operations. The numbering and inventory- 

 ing of the different pieces and of the shipping cases is all attended 

 to by the Department of Cooperative Experiments according to a 

 carefully devised system. In case of wreckage on the road, the in- 

 ventory would furnish the basis of settlement for the damage claim, 

 and in case new men are employed to work with the exhibit, they can 



