The Lancaster news. [volume] (Lancaster, S.C.) 1905-current, 1913-11-18
BENEFITS OF THE COUNTY
FAIR TO A COMMUNITY.
county Fair Real Necessity as
Social Institution, Aside From
Its Industrial Advantages.

Lancaster has fallen behind other
ounties in the matter of a county
lair, but we trust that next year this
#Gill not be the case. We hope all
pur readers, the farmers particularly,
VII read the following, written by
MISS Edna Cain, editor of The
pullman (Georgia) Free Press,
which is prize essay setting forth
& me value of a county fair:
Since education is a necessity the
county fair is a necessity because
lt is educative in the broadest and
most practical meaning of the term.
~ Is said that one of the greatest
5.drawbacks to the farmers life is his
Isolation; the individual farmer is in
the nature of things left largely to
8work out his own salvation on his
Farm. While this is not without GER
tain advantages, it has great disad-
vantages. 1t is to cause the
farmer to get into ut in the de-
velopment constantly being made in
agriculture. He may read farm
i journals and be informed as to
theories, but he needs to see with
his own eyes the concrete examples
OF improved agricultural methods.
An actual ear of corn with twice as
many grains on it as the average ear,
comi95, from field which produced
twice'As many bushels as the aver
age field, is far more convincing to
his senses than reading an article
about now seed selection and certain
methods o. cultivation will double
it's corn yield per acre.
And this is where the necessity
for the county fair becomes appar-
ent. 1t is at the county fair one sees
the biggest ear Of corn, the best hay,
the best products in every depart
ment are on display. A farmer who
is not greatly impressed to hear of
100 bushels Of corn per acre raised
at an experiment farm, will have his
attention instantly arrested when his
neighbor, Bill Jones, raises more
corn and better corn per acre than
had been thought possible. He seeks
out Bill Jones-whose corn took the
premium at the county fair, and gets
ideas about the importance of seed
selection, cultivation and fertilizing.
Ten to one, he arranges to buy some
of Bill Jones corn for seed. In do
Ing this he gets a new insight into
the possibilities of his farm, when be-
fore he had been content to go on
with the old methods, satisfied if he
raised as much as his father before
has its influence on many of the
farms whereas If 1t were not display
ed at the county fair comparatively
few people would hear OF it.
The value of big crop exhibits at
the county fair is doubled when we
come to the live stock exhibit. If
Brooks county were a advanced in
stock Setsing as in gra. nd hay pro-
ducts and in bacon, her wealth would
be vastly increased. At the coming
fair the exhibit of home-raised
thoroughbred stock will be a potent
example to every farmer in this sec
tion. The farmer who has scrub
stock will no longer be content with
understood, poor animals. Pie scrub
animals eat as much as the improved
one, while the superior animal can
be fattened quicker for market. or.
If a draft animal, will grow larger
and stronger on the same feed. The
prize pigs and home raised colts at
the county fair afford valuable COM
parison to the farmer who hasn't paid
much attention to the live stock prob
lem He realizes that it is better to
raise a few colts in his farm pastures
at a cost OF $25 per colt, than to buy
an animal in the market every time
he needs one.
These are two examples of the
practical value of county fairs to the
farmers. There are other considera-
tions which make the annual county
fair a necessity to every community
that would be progressive. The
South is just beginning on era of de-
velopment as the greatest section of
the whole country In agriculture.
These fairs, while they benefit the
o. nla Y-Nf hn
county to home-seekers. Progress
sive communities attract progressive
people, no live man is looking
the times, lest he, too, fall into a
rut and become a dead one. At this
particular period in south Georgia
the county fair Is a necessity more
than at any prveious time. Aside
fr0gi the purely material benefits of
the county fair, there is a certain
benefit which comes to a people in
community who get together and
work for a cause. 1t stirs community
pride: the man who devotes all his
time and thought to his own farm or
business is apt to grow narrow and
selfish. The county fair is a good
meeting ground for the farmer and
the merchant; IL brings them to-
gether in the best way to work for
something Whlch VIII De oi seheTdl
benefit to the county. The county
fair Is a real necessity as a social in
stitution, aside from its industrial ad-
yantages In working for 1t all the
people get better acquainted with
each other; in seeing ii they gain in
spiration for their individual work
on the farms and In the homes. And
the recreation feature is by no means
the 'east; the harvest festival is as
old as the art OF agriculture itself.