The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1912-06-08
OFFER BIC MONEY
Liberal Premiums Will Be
Given for County Exhibits.
County Collective Displays Will
Be Feature of Fair.
WILL ADVERTISE KANSAS
sKansas Is Farmers Para
dise," Says Sec. III. L. Cook.
Five County Collective Exhib-
it's Already Are Promised.

County collective exhibits of agr1-
cultural products, open to all Kansas
&C unties, except Shawnee county, will
this year carry away $4,000 of Kansas
fair money The management, in fur
nishing this department, realizes the
Importance of putting agricultural
Kansas to the front, and that any edu-
cationaI work along this line will fit
Kansas better than any one thing that
could possibly be featured.
To show to the world that Kansas is
peculiarly adapted to agriculture is the
province of the Kansas State fair. By
backing up the boast that has always
been made that the Sunflower state is
prominently the farmers paradise,
and that investments in Kansas are
far away ahead of any proposition that
can be offered by any state, the argu-
ment is clinched.
Has Increased Population.
From county collective displays at
previous fairs held in Topeka, many
additions to the permanent population
OF this state can be traced" said Sec
rotary Cook recently. What has been
done can be done. On the broad prin-
cjple that seeing is believing, the actual
slowing made by a county is the great
est advertisement that it can possibly
invent. 1t is more convincing than the
best written story in cold type or the
portrayal by the most noted artist of
a county's possibilities. 1t is a like
advertisement for the great state Of
Kansas, the garden spot of the world.
The outlay is a bagatelle as compared
with the ultimate return
Experience of an Exhibitor.
An interesting detail of the expert
elIce of an ardent booster for Kansas
products who once made a county ex-
hibit on his own hook was told a re-
pc rter recently, and is here reproduced
substantially as related. The advant-
ages of a county display could not be
more graphically illustrated than by
this mans story as he told it. The
gentleman in question is no longer
Kansan, but is so near to the border
that if his name were given he might
yet receive constant calls for his ser
vices as an exhibitor, and he hasn't
the inclination nor the time to devote
to it.
Drawn westward by a visit to
Topeka friends and the Kansas
State fair in 1890, where he was
impressed with the resources of
the state on display, he located in a
central Kansas county on a farm. He
conceived the idea the following year
OF taking to the county fair a collec-
tive exhibit such as he had seen at
Topeka from other localities. 1t was
Cmething new in that section, and
easily carried off the blue ribbon The
premium, specially offered by the fair
after they seen the exhibit,
nearly paid his expenses of collecting
the material and installation at the
fair From the county fair he took it
to the district and state fairs, winning
first money at both.
At Topeka he encountered strong
from the professionals who
we're in the business for the cold dol
lars regardless of the good it might do
their localities. But they knew their
business, and had been giving arrange
ment and artistic decoration some con-
siderable study. But the new man had
been burning midnight oil in mapping
out and planning his display on paper