2 OBSERVATIONS "ON EASTERN FARMERS AND EASTERN FAIRS. 



of the 'science i'f vlomeitks Economy. One thing that tends to promote 

 greater interest in advanced subjects and methods among the Eastern 

 and Middle West farmers is their better organization, made possible 

 by a denser population. There is hardly a county in those states that 

 does not have an Agricultural Society, and Farmers' Clubs are almost 

 as common as country schools. This gives opportunity for contact and 

 agitation and leads to increased effort and emulation. Thus by organi- 

 zation much is done that individuals could not or would not do. The 

 club members can send an emissary in search of the best seed corn, or 

 the best wheat, or oats, and the members share in the benefit. The 

 club, by each member contributing, can buy an improved bred stallion, 

 an improved bull, boar, or ram, and these improved animals soon 

 manifest themselves on the stock of the community, and while the tax 

 on each is light the improvement is great and all in the district share 

 in the benefit. By organization and community effort the farmers of 

 the East, and particularly of the Middle West, are making great advance 

 in all the lines of their calling, and they consider State and local fairs 

 as essential to their interests and enlightenment regarding the best that 

 is being done in their line. 



STATE FAIRS. 



It was the expressed desire of the Directors of the State Agricultural 

 Society that while East I should improve the opportunity to visit the 

 officers and fair grounds of some of the successful Agricultural Societies 

 in the Middle Western States and glean suggestions and ideas therefrom 

 which might be of value in the work of building up the Agricultural 

 Society of California. 



In pursuance of this object I visited the officers and fair grounds of 

 the Agricultural Societies of Minnesota, Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, 

 Kansas, and Nebraska. In all of these states the annual fairs are looked 

 forward to as the farmers' great holiday season, where they not only 

 obtain diversion, but rest and visit and get acquainted, and learn from 

 one another as well as from the exhibits the latest and best of the things 

 in which they are interested, and as a result the balance sheet of these 

 societies each year of late has shown a surplus. This surplus, reinforced 

 by State appropriations from time to time, is used in extending their 

 field of usefulness or in the erection of new and modern exhibition 

 buildings. 



There is much effort, study, and money put into State Fairs in the 

 East. The people believe in them, and the farmer, manufacturer, and 

 merchant, as well as the State at large, profit by them. To summarize 

 the benefits derived from fairs as claimed by Mr. E. W. Randall, secre- 

 tary of the Minnesota State Fair : ' ' They are valuable to the historian 

 as mile-posts of progress; they provide object lessons on the resources 



