Evening Republican, Volume 15, Number 185, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 7 August 1911 — SLOWGAN OF STATE FAIR [ARTICLE]

SLOWGAN OF STATE FAIR

-WIIW I II II ' I EDUCATIONAL WORK CARRIED ON FOR TWO GENERATIONS. "Back te The Farm” to Be Especially Emphasised at Big Exposition Wwk of Sept. 4. With "back to the farm’’ as its slogan this year, the Indiana State Fair will, during the week of September 4, get closer to the agricultural interests of the State than it has ever been before. The Indiana Fair has for nearly sixty years been a powerful educative force among the tanning and live stock element and, while never departing from this leadership In promoting the farming welfare, it has sought to quicken the interest of its visitors by offering rich programs of attractions. But for the coming Fair the exposition will concentrate practically Its entire energy in spreading before its friends a magnificent display of all that Is beet within the State that the farming element may see in a great bird’s-eye view what the agricultural and live stock resources of the State amount to. It la not proposed to measure these resources in dollars and cents, but by exhibiting the best horses, cattle, sheep, swine, poultry, orchard and field products, show what the State is producing in quality. From other States, too, as in other years, will come specimens of live stock which will offer means of comparison with these products from Indiana.

The "bapk to the farm” movement does not mean that the Indiana Fair is going to tie the men and women who visit It to sober programs requiring brain-fagging effort to get the educational values, but each day's affairs v will be spiced with clean and wholesome entertainment. Less emphasis will be placed on the lighter forms of entertainment, however, but the band concerts, live stock parades, the Parker midway shows will afford abundant diversions for the pleasure seeker. In the night shows, and in the day exhibitions of live stock- and other regular departments the displays will keep pace with the high degree of excellency which now marks country life in Indiana. The horse show will be of such quality that vaudeville features will not be necessary to enhance Its value. The farmer who is interested in shorthorn cattle will find these animals In such quality and abundance that if he desires he may spend two or three days at the Fair studying the good points of animals that are. brought before his eye. The farm woman who is especially Interested in poultry will find the Fair offers an endless amount of information along this line, or if she is particularly Interested in her home dairy she may spend the entire week at the Fair, if she so desires, and give the time to a study of dairy methods. The State Fair, in fact, proposes to become a higher school of information along all lines whloh will enable the farming people to Improve their crops, herds and flocks and in this improvement bring greater wealth to themselves.

A short course September school, when work at the farm may for the time be put by,—« school for the farmer, his wife, sone and daughters, an inexpensive end effectlye college course in agriculture and ifidustry*— this is the Indiana State Fair. Setting off one superb herd against another, one breed of poultry matched against another, field products from one portion of the State seeking greater favor than the products from another section, giving the visiting farmer opportunity to make comparisons* all will tend toward giving the visitors schooling of the valuable and pleasant sort Of oourse, it is the ambition of the exhibitors to win prise ribbons, may be to dispose of eome blooded stodk to a farmer that is ambitious to improve his home herds, that brings the highest quality of exhibits to the Fair, but this competition is lost sight of by the visitor who would make of the Fair an educational force and turn it to his personal account It Is this line of educational work that the Indiana Fair has been doing among the fanners for two generations, and the exposition may to very large degresube credited with having brought about better homes, better farming, larger and finer herds, more industry through the use of better farm machlnern increased happiness, more money in bank—tn fact a now era of better liifing at the farm homes of the Hoosier land.