The Hays free press. [volume] (Hays, Kan.) 1908-1924, 1919-09-25

prepared by the United States Depart
ment of Agriculture.)
The fair.
What does it mean to you2
''Fair" is a very old noun. With va
riations in spelling it exists in many
languages.
Fair is akin to the ancient sizes
rus" and therefore cousin in some de-
gree OF the more modern feast" and
festival and the like.
Always and everywhere it has car
ried the away-from-work idea. It has
always been pretty much what we
mean nowadays by holiday" though
not what that word meant originally.
Holiday" was 'holy day." and sacred.
'FFair" has always been secular
wholly human sort of thing.
Fair time is playtime. That it al
ways was, that it always meant to
most people, that it always will be.
But for every play there must be play
ers, and two kinds of them, tOo-play-
ers who play playfully and players
who play laboriOusly, more or less, for
the entertainment of the others.
And "the fair" has a very different
meaning for the two classes. The big
bunch goes to have a good time, to be
carefree, to drink red lemonade and
throw confetti and toot tinse1 horns ;
to get the CLINT of twinkling horse
heels on a saffron track; to see the
broad-backed cattle, the prettily packed
jeIlies and jams, the big pumpkins, the
intricate needlework, the fulfilled
ears of corn and to mill around, going
nowhere in particular and not caring
especially if they never get there.
But with it all they are getting a
sugar-coated education. The fair is a
university in which the festive stu
dents soak up science unawares.
Then there must be the other kind
of p1ayers-the ones who 'put on the
show''-the professors and instructors
and tutors in this most accommodating
of academies. And there has to be
somewhere a sort of teachers college
for those people. There are, in fact,
lots OF normal schools for fair profess
sors, but the United States department
Of agriculture is the graduate college.
And one Of the queer things is that
any boy or girl still in the grammar
grades of the public school may be
doing postgraduate work in getting
things ready for the fair.
Much in Getting Ready.
Too many people, the department
experts say, do not know how much
depends on preparing exhibits in the
right way, on getting the pig or calf or
corn or canned stuff in just the right
shape to show to the best advantage
One of the boys club workers tells q
story in point.
zone of our club boys in Mississip
pi," he says, grew an acre of mighty
good corn and entered an exhibit in
the county fair. There were four
prizes, but he couldn't even get the
fourth one. The judge simply tied on
the ribbons and made no explanations
The boy was disappointed rebel
lious, but he wanted to know why his
good corn couldn't get prize. I went
over it with him. showed him that
some of his biggest ears had crooked
rows and how others had other de
fects. Picking out the best ear said
IF you had ten like this you could
win prize
'Well, that boy went back home and
carefully examined every ear OF his
corn. He found only nine that hC
thought were as good as the one haC
pointed out. He went back through
the whole pile again and finally found
the tenth ear. He sent those ten ear
TO the state fair-and won first prize
Do you see? Knowing a little Of how
to prepare the exhibit made a stat,
winner out of corn crop that was al
also ram at the county fair"
Manieuring the Pig.
Now the boy who is preparing a pi;
or q calf for the fair has a more com
pIicated task than the one who enter
some corn. With the corn boy tn,
whole problem is selecting the RICH
ears. With the others it is not onl,
selecting the right individual but do
ing a great many things to put tina