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TWENTY-NINTH FRUIT-GROWERS' CONVENTION. 



subsequently rented what is called the university grounds, with the 

 university buildings thrown in, buildings that cost over $1,000,000, pay- 

 ing $75,000 rent for them for one year. They have since leased what 

 they call there the Skinker tract, another large body of land; all of 

 which, added to the original domain, makes a body of something over 

 1,500 acres, and this against 600 and some odd acres in use at the 

 World's Fair in Chicago. The buildings there, the large Exposition 

 buildings, are fifteen in number — the smallest of which covers about 

 4 acres, and the largest of them about 20 acres — covering in the aggre- 

 gate 128 acres of floor space, as against 82 acres covered by the build- 

 ings in Chicago. 



The money required to open the gates of this Exposition, in the 

 aggregate, as estimated, will amount to about $50,000,000, as against 

 $28,000,000 expended in Chicago, and yet we who saw the Chicago 

 Exposition, held ten years ago, believed it was the triumph of the efforts 

 of man in this generation. I remember when I went in the gates and 

 looked upon those tremendous structures, so awe-inspiring in their 

 immensity, so grand and magnificent, out-rivaling anything that my 

 eyes or the eyes of ordinary man had ever rested on before, I was over- 

 whelmed, and stood there for the time and looked and looked again to 

 contem'plate and wonder that puny man could do things so grand. And 

 yet Chicago's exposition was small compared to what the exposition at 

 St. Louis will be. 



All the proportions of this St. Louis celebration are on the most 

 magnificent scale, and I want to say to you that everything is in a 

 splendid state of preparation. Already seven of those fifteen buildings 

 are absolutely finished, and when I say " finished " they are finished. 

 I have seen a great many exposition buildings, but I never before saw 

 one finished until the exhibits were in and sometimes after the exposi- 

 tion opens. When you get in there, you will see that the buildings are 

 clean, their floors are washed, the plastering on, and the floors marked, 

 all in readiness for the exhibitors to go in and put up the structures. 

 Some of them are marked 99 per cent finished and some 98 per cent 

 finished, and the one farthest behind — the Forest, Game, and Fish — is 

 accredited with being 70 per cent finished. In the aggregate, the State 

 buildings, foreign buildings, Midway buildings — or as they call them, 

 " Pike Buildings" — all the buildings of the grounds, including the Stock 

 buildings, including the Filipino buildings — 40 acres there — including 

 all road work, the canal work, the fagade work, and all the work of 

 installation of machinery, power plants, and all those things. Director 

 of Works Taylor reports the first of this month that, all told, 88 per 

 cent of the entire work was finished at that time; and 88 per cent is 

 just 40 per cent nearer completion than the Chicago World's Fair was 

 five months before it was ready to open its gates; so the indications are 

 that it is going to be ready — all ready. 



