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be attracted as visitors, and have the best facilities for viewing the entries in all the departments.

This is what the law contemplates-annual exhibitions in every county in the State of the products of the industry and skill of the country population, controlled by the country people, and for the benefit of the great industry they represent.

The people of the towns and cities, and the great centers of manufactures, mining, and commerce, are expected to encourage by their presence these exhibitions for the improvement of the industry that is, and must ever continue to be, the basis of the prosperity of every other industry and of every branch of trade and commerce. But the management in all the departments should be in full sympathy with the positive require ment of the statute, to wit, "to promote the agricultural and household manufacturing interests of the State."

Every delegate here present is presumed to be a representative of these interests, and I, therefore, think it not unreasonable to assume that the argument thus far submitted meets with their approval, and that they are ready to indorse the position that I have attempted to establish, to wit, that the annual fairs, to provide for which this State Board and all its officers exist, are to be exhibitions by the farmers and for the farmers.

It becomes now our duty to inquire whether, as a matter of fact, these meetings called agricultural exhibitions, held annually in most of the counties of the State, and aided by appropriations from the public treasury, are of the character specified by the law? Are they managed in the interest of farmers, and for the sole purpose of promoting improvement in agriculture? Can it be honestly claimed that this is the leading and paramount purpose in their management? On the contrary, is it not true, as so many of our best farmers insist, that these fairs have degenerated into mere shows, with various devices, having no connection with agriculture, to attract the thoughtless and giddy multitude?

Now, gentlemen, I wish to impress upon your minds the fact that no subject can engage the attention of this Convention of so much importance as the question of reforming these abuses.

You are assembled here, as directed by the law, "for the purpose of deliberation and consultation as to the wants, prospects, and condition of agriculture throughout the State." To these annual meetings the several reports of the county societies are to be delivered to the President of the State Board of Agriculture; and this State Board, of which each delegate is, for the time being, ex-officio a member, is required to furnish the county societies rules and regulations, prescribing the forms of their constitutions and by-laws.

It is, therefore, manifest that the law regards the county societies, with their annual fairs, as the basis of the whole system. They not only elect delegates to this body, who in turn elect the members of the State Board, but these county societies, by their annual exhibitions and reports as to the character of products and methods of culture, are to furnish the facts upon which the investigations and publications of the central department are founded.

In any view of the matter, therefore, the duty of looking to the interests of the county fairs is important and urgent.

This body, supposed to contain representative agriculturists from all parts of the State, is not subject to the local influences that so often press, with a power that is almost irresistible, upon county managers. You should, therefore, provide whatever safeguards may be practicable to pro. tect the local societies against these evil influences.

How shall this be done?

In the first place, by the example of the annual exhibitions of your own Board. You will observe that the law, while it makes the holding of annual fairs in the counties imperative, does not require them to be held by the State Board. But so long as the Board finds it profitable to the great interest it has in charge to hold these fairs, it seems eminently appropri ate that their management should be, in all respects, unobjectionable-a model, in fact, to be followed by the subordinate organizations in the system. I shall not take up time to enlarge upon the abuses that have crept into our management, numerous and detrimental to the work you are organized to accomplish, as impartial observers everywhere regard them. I proceed at once to specify some of the particulars in which reformation is needed.

First of all it may be observed that for profit to be derived from these fairs, as well as for the comfort of both exhibiters and visitors, the hurry and confusion which characterize the present management, causing innumerable mistakes, irritations, and disappointments, ought to be avoided. These rushing methods are evils to which the inhabitants of the towns have become somewhat accustomed, but they are especially annoying to country people, who have not yet been forced to adopt them.

This desirable reformation may be accomplished by adopting the plan that has long been practiced in New York and Great Britain, of having the entries closed, say, thirty days before the opening of the Fair, and publishing a catalogue of the same, with the names and post office address of the exhibiters-the catalogue to be ready for distribution and sale by the first day of the exhibition. It has been found that the proceeds of the sales of these catalogues have been about equal to the cost of their publication.

The benefits of this plan are many and important. It renders mistakes almost impossible; it furnishes the visitor a complete guide to the exhibits he desires to examine-a mutual benefit to him and the exhibiter. It is a most important and valuable advertising medium for the exhibiters, without as well as within the exhibition grounds.

The next particular in which a reformation is imperatively demanded. is the rigid exclusion from the fair grounds of every exhibit or device that is not useful as tending to advance the proper and lawful objects of the organization, and, more especially, such as on account of their excit ing character divert the attention of visitors from the legitimate objects. on exhibition.

If, for example, it were proposed to admit Barnum to the grounds with one of his "great shows," we should all be shocked by the contemplation of its demoralizing and distracting influence in such a place!

How much less objectionable, or less distracting, is the influence of horse racing as allowed and encouraged at the State and county fairs!

During the earlier years of the existence of this organization, tests of speed were not permitted within our grounds; and as late as 1864 only forty dollars were devoted to prizes for this purpose, to wit: "To the best and fastest trotting mare or gelding, twenty dollars, and to the best and fastest pacing or racking mare or gelding, twenty dollars."

Ten years later, we find that the Ohio State Board of Agriculture had appropriated no less than eleven hundred and fifty dollars to racing purses, for trotters and pacers.

At first, small premiums were allowed for speed, to be tested by time; then came the demand for the excitement of the animals "going to gether;" then the "half mile track," which was always prominently mentioned in our bills.

It is amazing how rapidly the evil grew! At first it was not racingracing, we were told, meant contests for purses by running horses, while here we were only giving premiums to encourage the breeding of serviceable horses in the useful trotting gait. This was the reasoning o a former President of this Board. of the Quaker persuasion in religion.

In a few years, however, all disguises were thrown off, and now, with the boasted "mile track" as the all important and paramount feature of the State exhibitions, "to promote the agricultural and household manufacturing interests," we have the announcement publicly made of "Races Every Day," aye, and running races too (perhaps less objectionable than the others), until it seems to be believed that without these races no successful fair can be held.

If this were true, the conclusion should be to abandon the fairs, rather

than lend the sanction of public approval to horse racing, with all the evils which necessarily attend it everywhere, under the false pretense that we are encouraging agriculture.

But it is not true, that these exhibitions' can not be successful without horse racing. New York never allowed a test of speed upon the State fair grounds, nor offered premiums to fast horses. In Great Britain, with all the powerful influence of the landed aristocracy in favor of horse racing-which also receives encouragement from royalty itself—no one has ever thought of distracting the annual agricultural shows, by introducing there sports of this character.

No, gentlemen, there is nothing in the argument that the people will not come to the fairs unless you have the races; on the contrary, the people who are to be instructed by these exhibitions are deterred from attending by these vicious and illegitimate features in our modern management.

If railway, and other special interests in towns and cities, that are constantly urging the adoption of these exciting devices, under the impression that they will attract crowds, must have sports of this sort, what we ask, and what we have a right, as representatives of the farming interest, to ask, is, that they be confined to meetings held expressly for such amusements, as they cannot be allowed at our agricultural shows without the most serious detriment.

In the nature of things, these devices, which stimulate excitement, must be increased from year to year, or the so-called "attractive features" will cease to attract.

Last year, at a State fair in the far West, to which the President of the United States had been specially invited, the chief attractions were "Barus" and one or two other well-known trotting racers; and a match between "Bogardus," and another man whose name I cannot recall, in shooting glass balls, half dollars, etc., to which the association contributed, if I mistake not, the sum of one thousand dollars. This latter was the special "event" the Presidential party was called to witness at the agricultural fair.

Gentlemen, the truth is, that there is no middle ground for us to occupy in this matter; the illegitimate and vicious devices must be banished, or they will banish the profitable, educational features these exhibitions were established to maintain.

Have you any doubt in regard to the evil influence of horse-racing at our fairs? Have you any doubt as to the desire of the great mass of intelligent farmers to have them excluded, root and branch? Acting here as the representatives of this class, is it not your plain duty to resolve

against the longer continuance of this discordant and distracting element in the exhibitions of your State Board?

You will observe that I have not urged the exclusion of horse racing on account of its immoral tendency, a matter which, however, the people of Christian communities can not, and do not, overlook. My argument rests the case upon the obligation of duty, under the law, requiring us to conduct this organization in the interests of agricultural improvement; an object with which the toleration of horse racing, or any other exciting devices to amuse and attract the attention of the multitude, are palpably antagonistic.

And on this ground alone, I insist that it is the plain duty of the managers of every agricultural society to exclude these devices. Gentlemen, we hear a great deal said about the timidity and want of courage of our public men-they will not do this or that, we say, for fear it may injure their popularity.

Is there any question among reflecting and intelligent men in regard to our duty here? Shall we shrink from its performance because we too are sensitive in regard to our popularity?

Will not the representatives of the agricultural interest, in this foremost of the agricultural States of America, have the courage to stand as champions of exhibitions for legitimate products of the people's industry against all opposing influences?

I shall have time to direct attention to but one other particular in which our practice needs amendment.

I have said that the first object should be to induce the mass of intelligent farmers to exhibit at the fairs, and have called attention to the provision of the law requiring the premiums to be so arranged as to encourage competition by small farmers, the spirit of the law being that the products of all cultivators are needed to stimulate general improvement.

Notwithstanding this, we find that the average farmer encounters many discouraging obstacles as an exhibiter at these fairs. Besides the vicious features already mentioned, we sometimes have, in the ligitimate products, a class known as professional exhibiters, who follow the business. for the money that is in it.

These men are at work throughout the year in preparing their products for the show-especially in the live stock department-where they feed and groom and train their show animals, from the end of one showing season until the beginning of the next. Their stock is in a condition that no farmer could afford to put his stock for any useful purpose-in such extravagantly high condition, indeed, that its exhibition is of no

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