The record-union. [volume] (Sacramento, Calif.) 1891-1903, 1892-09-07
WHAT Is THE FAIR FOR?
OId-Fashioned Suggestions, and Old
Style Purposes.
How TO Add to Net Proceeds and
Improve the Value and COM
fort of Our Homes.

A Yankee would guess that the cloth
attends the fair for coin and the crowd for
fun. The society says that its objects are
to encourage agriculture, foster mechan-
ical and household arts, and facilitate
mining interests. Nets proceeds are the
true basis of property values. He who
comes to the fair to learn how to pay off
his mortgage, also seeks to find in what
way he can manage to close next years
business with the best balance on his side
of the ledger.
If certain breeds of cattle will gain two
pounds per day on the ordinary feed that
increases his only one-half as much, he
wants to know that they do it, how they
do it, why they do it, and to what extent
they transmit their qualities to their off
spring.
In following out this line of inquiry he
learns to tell much there is of business,
and how much of fancy in scale of points
and pedigree, and to what extent indi-
vidual and family should influence price
1t is grass on one side and dollars on the
other.
ITO what is my ranch best adapted,
| from soil, climate, access to market, etc.
to produce? DO | want butter2 Then
what race of cattle has been bred and
selected to turn the largest percentage of
food into butter fat ?''
If il takes the proceeds of $50 pounds of
butter to pay for the feed and labor of a
years care of n COW, the one that makes
100 pounds yields ten pounds profit,
and is worth one-tenth as much in the
dairy as that which makes $50 pounds If
il costs 50 TO keep a steer the first year, $40
the second, and Sl5 the third, that steer
at thirty months N)D on1 hn
weighing 600 pounds, worth four cents
per pound, brings 81 so gain, while the
one weighing 500 pounds, worth five
cents, brings Sl7 90, or almost ten times
the profit.
Now, a well-chosen sire in the first
cross has often made, and will keep on
making, change as great as this be-
tween the producing capacity of native
and grade herds. The first money and
the largest percentage from improved
stock is gained by him who makes the
! first cross, and the care of the scientific
breeder should be to produce the animals
that have the prepotency to bring about
! such results.
! Light weight should be given to the
| fancy points of color, horn, tail or muz-
| zle. The leading question is: "How
many dollars worth of butter, or how
many dollars worth of beef for my acre
of grassp'
| Ofe Wants 10 KNOW HOW LD6Y leCU. as
| well as how they breed; and pedigrees
that show what ancestors produced are
| the ones that bristle with points of COM
nonsense appealing to the Judgment of
the farmer who is planning to swell his
! bank account.
The same rule of judgment holds good
! through all exhibits, and premiums
| should be awarded from this standpoint.
viz: The capacity to produce results.
This is no new idea, but an old one that
people keep straying away from.
In showing samples of wheat the cor
| rect name of variety, system of culture
condition of soil and net proceeds are not
given; men try to have more bundles,
aud bigger bundles, with longer heads
more evenly arranged, and tied with
| brighter ribbons than the other fellow.
| We get bigger jars and more of them.
aud fill them with redder apples, and go
proudly home with medal and banner TO
| boom our own county.
! The county display that counts is the
one that convinces the home-seelxer that
his money can be invested to best advan-
tage and his life passed under more favor
able conditions there.
The visitor who gets his money's
| worth out of the fair is he who confines
| his interviews chiefly to those who have
/ succeeded best in his speciality, and he is
| careful to learn what are the essential
about worn out, and he sees new kind
! that is more desirable, does cleaner work.
and runs easier. He learns from practi-
cal men what is the per cent. gained by
using a combined harvester; he learns
what is likely TO prove the more profit
able variety of fruit for next winters
planting; he changes his seed wheat and
| increases the net proceeds of his next
crop; he introduces new strain of blood
into his herd, and increases the capacity
for early fattening or producing butter;
he learns the points of different sheep, as
adapted TO wool or mutton, to large flocks
or small, to hill lands or rich pastures.
The mining exhibit suggests to him
that new systems of applying water
power, hitherto inaccessible. and new
processes of reducing rebellious ores,
| have opened a new era in mining, and
that legitimate investments may extend
to many mine the ores of which are of
too low-grade for profit under old meth
DDS, and prove permanent, safe and far
more profitable than large buildings in
towns where "To Rent" signs are al
most as plenty as windows.
HAVE. Beecham Pills ready in the
! household.