The Brookings register. [volume] (Brookings, Brookings County, S.D.) 1903-1971, 1910-08-04
STATE FAIR -.
IS CCZnNG
GREAT EXPOSITION - BE HELD
AT HURc 8
SEPTEMBER 12'S TO 18th
EXPECTED TO BE THE GREATEST
FAIR IN STATES HISTORY.

and profitable advertising than Is
afforded by the state fair September
Il to 16.
While nature smiles on every To-
cality, when everybody is prosperous
and opportunity is knocking at every
door, all that the most favored sec
ton can offer to the possible immi-
grant or investor is a fuller measure
of prosperity or a wider margin of
profit on his investment. He is doing
well-you ask him to let go where
he is established and cast his lot with
you in the hope of doing better. That
is all you can offer, but the sound old
maxim, Let we'll enough alone" rings
in his ear as he listens to you and
the conservatism inherent in every
man bids him hesitate to change.
But when he is not doing well;
when his bank account is dwindling,
when the balance is on the wrong
side of the ledger, when his granary
is empty after the harvest time is
past and his hay nov only half filled
when short feed forces immature
stock onto the market and the crop
is taken to pay the rent, he is not
only ready, but eager, to listen to
a promise of something better.
That is the condition today in
South Dakota's advertising field. as
it stretches away from her eastern
border to the Atlantic coast. Very
recently the writer of these lines
made a trip through Minnesota, Wis
consin, northern Illinois, Indiana,
Ohio, Kentucky and Virginia, pay
ing especial attention to the crop con-
ditions along the route. Except in a
very small sectiOn-three or four
counties in western WisconSin-he
did not see a single field Of cor
or small grain that compared favor
ably with the average crop anywhere
in the settled portions of South Da-
kota. Nowhere was the corn crop
so we'll advanced or of so good color,
and in the grain field the straw was
shorter, the stand poor, the heads
small and the grain dying for lack
of rain instead of ripening naturally
as it is doing here.
In propitous seasons the entire
United States is a magnificent grain
field. There is, apparently, but little
choice. But the adverse season, the
late spring, the early fall or the
year of scant rainfall is the crucial
test which brings out the latent pos
sibiities and comparative advantages
of the more favored localities.
We jewellers in this favored land
have known full we'll Of it's magnif-
cent u for years, but the bal
anoe Of the country does not know
and only one-half belives the en-
trancing story. You may hammer
statistics into a man for years; you
may tell him all about South Da-
kota's gorgeous wheat fields, her
miles of waving corn, her oats and
barley and rye, her potatoes and
pumpkins and cabbages; you may de
scribe accurately and in glowing col
ors her magnificent studs Of Per-
cherons and Clydesdales, her splen-
did herds of S%horthorns, Herefords and
Galloways, her S~hropshires, her Po-
land Chinas and Plymouth Rocks;
you may prove to him by cold figures
that the South Dakotan creates
more annual wealth per capita than
any other man, houses, feeds, clothes
and educates his family better than
any other mar simply because he
is able to do it-and that he is able
only because he tills a richer soil
under more genial skies than the
other fellow does; you may show to
him that a shar elm all these good
things are at his command for less
than half the price per acre Of the
stony hillsides in his boyhood home;
and he may believe you, in a dull,
uncomprehending fashion, but you
have not impressed him. How do
know? Why, simply because 95 per
cent Of them linger On the stony hill
side and they would not do it If
they comprehended and believed the
story.
But-talk to his eyes! Consider
every man a Missourian and "show
him." Show the grain, the hay, the
vegetables, the sheep, hogs, horses
and poultry that South Dakota can
produce in a year OF universal
drought, that she has produced this
ear when not one Of her most fav-
ored sister states can show half a
n1on pilo nm af our Sfafa fair such