336 RURAL MICHIGAN 



culty and makes a pie difficult to distinguish from 

 apple." There were speeches and band-music, and 

 "it was a goodly sight to see the sturdy yeomanry 

 thus gathered together, and happily nothing occurred 

 to mar the pleasure or dim the splendor of the day," 

 for the eight thousand or more who were in at- 

 tendance.^ 



This was not the first fair held in Ann Arbor. 

 Twenty years before a "state fair" had been called 

 there for the autumn of 1839, and thither appeared, 

 it is said, only two exhibitors on the grounds which 

 lacked everything but space that a fair requires. 

 After issuing the announcement of the event, the 

 president of the agricultural society had forgotten 

 the appointed date and hence omitted the necessary 

 preparations. About 1870 the State Pomological 

 Society held its first fair on the grounds of the Kent 

 County Agricultural Society.^ 



Today the West IMichigan State Fair, held at 

 Grand Eapids, shares interest with the Michigan 

 State Fair at Detroit as the dominant event of the 

 year in Michigan agriculture. Much of the descrip- 

 .tion of either fair today, as well as the local fairs, 

 might be taken from the accounts of similar events 

 seventy years ago. with such modifications and addi- 

 tions as the passage of the years would suggest. 

 Electricity, farm motors, talking machines, social 

 work, governmental activities are represented now 

 as contrasted with the earlier epoch. The Grand 



^"Rept. Mich. Bd. Agr.," 1859, 585. 

 ''Ibid., 1870, 349. 



