SIO BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



Fencing is receiving considerable attention, large quantities of barbed-wire be- 

 ing used, as the farmer finds he must in some manner protect himself against the 

 pernicious habit that many have of allowing their stock to roam at large along the 

 highways. * 



A statistical report of the crops can be obtained from the report of the State 

 Bureau of Statistics. 



This is quite a shipping point for grain and cattle, Mr. Samuel Frazier has 

 shipped over 7,000 hogs and over 2,000 head of cattle, and other shippers have had 

 their proportion. M. L. Bowmaster has shipped 125 cars of wheat, and others in 

 the grain business an equal amount. 



This is the home of the inventor and owners of the Kimmel Steam Gang Plow, 

 the first siiccesrful steam plow ever made, and is attracting the attention of owners 

 of large farms, not only of this country but of the Old World. We feel justly 

 proud in claiming all this for our county. 



We will hold our fifteenth annual fair during the first week in September, 1885, 

 and, with proper encouragement, we see no reason why it should not be one of the 

 most successful ever held here. G. W. Shults, 



Secretary. 



DUNKIRK UNION. 



The Dunkirk Union Fair Association held their fifth annual fair on their 

 grounds, at Dunkirk, Jay county, August 19, 20, 21 and 22, 1884. The fair was a 

 success financially, thf receipts being sufficient to pay our premiums in full. The 

 weather was fine and we had a large crowd on Thursday. Our horse show was 

 splendid ; cattle, hog and sheep show good; poultry show a little above an average. 

 Floral Hall presented a very fine appearance. The Mechanical and Agricultural 

 Department was not quite as good as other years. Our speed ring was the best we 

 ever had. The races were all full and gave entire satisfaction to all concerned. 

 In fact, our fair was a success. 



Dunkirk is an enterprising little town of about one thousand inhabitants, situ- 

 ated on the Chicago, St .Louis & Pittsburgh Railroad, near the southwest corner of 

 Jay county, and near the lines of Blackford, Randolph and Delaware counties- 

 The people of the town and vicinity are full of enterprise, as the improvements in 

 the way of gravel roads, tile drainage, and improvement in farm stock will show. 

 We have in our town and in a radius of two miles, seven tile factories, all well 

 su23ported. All of the main roads running into the town are graveled— a contin- 

 uous gravel road from Portland, the county seat, through Dunkirk, to Indiana po 

 lis, a distance of ninety miles. The wheat and corn crops last year were an 

 average; other crops in proportion. Our farmers have no specialties, but all are 

 engaged in mixed farming, our soil being adapted to all the cereals of the north- 

 west. This part of Indiana used to bw known as that jjart of the State that used 

 no other kind of currency as a npresentative of value but hoop-poles and coon 

 skins, but we defy any other part of the State to make a better showing in the way 

 of improvements, for the last twenty years, than we can. Taking it all in all, the 

 hoop-pole county has come out of the kinks. J. J. Stewart, 



iSecreta7'y. 



