What started out as a Grange farmer's picnic that brought out maybe 100 family members has over the past 54 years grown to become South Jersey's largest most extensive private fair. That doesn't even include the ten acres of parking, so I'd say we're a little pinched. It's a problem common to Farm Fair over the years, it just keeps on growing bigger and bigger every year. Included this year were the usual 4-H exhibits, antique farm equipment, amusements, horse shows, the queen's pageant and the ever popular kiss the pig voting. What was new this year, according to Spicer, was a renewed importance on agriculture and farming.
Participants can milk a cow and grab eggs from a hen as well as dig for potatoes and pick apples.
There is also a game where children must match grocery items with the grain that they come from. It's all part of our aim to educate people on the importance of agriculture. We even have a crazy maze made from bales of hay for kids to play in. That message found a mass audience as well over 70,000 people entered Lumberton's Village Green grounds over the fair's four days beginning last Wednesday and concluding at 11 p.m. Saturday night. He also reported that work has already begun for the the first Farm Fair of the new millennium.