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THE OMAHA! SUNDAY BEE: - 'AUGUST 26, 1900.
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Iowa State Fair Considered as a Permanent Educational Enterprise
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POMOLOOICAL
Vil IVvir.H T Anv. 2.1 IRneninl
D Correspondence of The Bee.)
I TnwiL'a Slate fslr hail well entered
upon a new era an era of per
manent brick and steel buildings,
replacing board iiheds. The term "well en
tered" In used because, though there are
ome elogont and excellent brick and steel
buildings on the grounds, now, there are
till some of the board sheds. . .
Some years ago trie legislature created
the Department of Agriculture and the old
Iowa Agricultural society ceased to exist.
'When It did that the State fair became a
matter of interest to every citizen of the
state, and wise management of Its affairs
since has made It one of the great educa
tional features of the ste, ranking along
with, the State Agricultural college and edu
cating a class of cltlxens who could not
possibly be reached by any educational in
stitution other than the State fair. When
the Department of Agriculture was created
the legislature provided that permanent
ground should be purchased. At first
there was little money to build buildings
with, and, besides, there seems to have
been the idea that as the buildings were to
be used only for one week of the fifty-two
In the year, the board sheds were plenty
good enough.
Step la Right Direction.
When the old leased grounds in the west
part of this city were abandoned, for the
permanent grounds owned by the state la
.'' i
HON. CHARLES ALDRICH,
Curator Iowa Department of History.
Telephone Bell Has New Breed of Sheep and New Flying Machine
rr.r,vih iQftt hv Vrnnk CI. rnrrvner 1 num nd at nrespnt nrlcea will add $2,000.- th ewea bearlnir the embrronlo nlDDles had sheep which will almost always produce not been confined to my own sheen. I record of evnrv ahnnn tn th. muttura nnn. .,. .v-. v t ,
(Copyright, U04, by Frank O. Carpenter.)
f. . .ASHINQTON. D. C, Aug. 23.
I A 1 (Special Correspondence of The
" I ' I Bee.) Every man, woman and
ljfjjJ child has heard of Dr. Alexander
. i ' Graham Bell, who, by Inventing
tho telephone, annihilated distance In our
octal and business intercourse, and brought
the mouths and ears of the human - rasa
together. Every deaf person reveres Dr.
Bell as the promoter of his father's Inven
tion of visible speech, whereby the so
t called dumb talk and understand their fel
lows, and the scientific world knows him
- from his many experiences along original
, , llrvea arid just Viow especially for his new
discoveries as to aerial navigation.
There Is, however, a Meld In which Dr.
1 Beli has been working of which the world
. knows nothing. It is a strange field for
him, but. Ilka the others in which he has
been successful, one where practical . re-
' sults'are being reached by the patient ap
plication of scientific principles. It is In ex
porlmenuil evolution, and. that more espe
cially as related to stock ' breeding. Dr.
Bell has 'been working In this field for
about sixteen years, and his work has al
ready resulted In the origination of a new
breed of sheep. It has also brought forth
the discovery of principles, which, if car
ried out to their full, may In time make
great changes In our sheep Industry and in
the, physical make-up of that race of ant-
I mals throughout the world.
1 e .
Sheen Breeding- la Australia,
Dr. Bell's discoveries are. not like any
thing attempted .In the past. That sheep
can be Improved by selective breeding Is
well appreciated In all the great graaing
countries. Take, for Instance. Australia. I
havo seen " rams sold there at auction at
'$5,000 apiece for their wool-growing qual
ities, and have bean told that the aver
; age fleece of ' seven pounds had been In
t creased to tea pounds on Bocks of thou
sands. , In New Zealand, the chief mutton
count of tho world. 'the weight of the
lambs baa beea greatly bettered by proper
r breeding, and here in the United States,
where - we have something like SO. 000,000
sheep, our best stockmen are in the same
- way adding to their profits on wool and
mutton. Indeed, the breeding of fine
beep la now considered quite, aa important
as the breeding of fine cattle. Wool Is
selling for over $0 cents a pound, and we
are shearing from forty to fifty million
. sheep, every year. If we can add a pound
' to every fleece the increase In our wool
file will be forty, million pounds per aa-
DISPLAY AT THE IOWA HORTICULTURAL PAVILION.
the east part of the city It was a big step
In the right direction for the state fair,
and from that time it began to attract
greater attention. But the abandoning 'of
leased grounds for permanent grounds was
a small step compared to that now well
entered upon of replacing all the old frame
structures and exposition halls with per
manent brick and steel structures of much
larger proportions.
Every visitor to the Iowa State fair will
be confronted with this new era of brick
and steel. There are. two new buildings
erected by appropriations from the Twenty
ninth and Thirtieth general assemblies, the
$00,000 stock pavilion and the $76,000 agri
cultural hall, both of which were used at
the last state fair. These are tnormoui
buildings and the advantage to the fair
derived from each of them can be at
tested to by every person who has ever
visited the fair. Tills year there are two
new buildings to greet the visitor to as
sure him that the progressive movement is
to be continued. On the main avenue en
trance to the state fair grounds of the
amphitheater an entire row of board shacks
has been removed and at a cost of about
$9,000 a permanent brick and steel build
ing has been erected for a dining hall.
In this building there . are four spacious
halls with kitchen equipments In the rear,
so that it will no longer be necessary for
the public to patronize a place filled with
dirt and flies If be wishes a meal on the
num, and at present prices will add $2,000,
004 to its value. .
An even greater result can be obtained
if we could have more and better lambs,
for they form one of the chief receipts
from our sheep Industry.. They numbered
22,000,000 at the last census and- were the
offspring of 32,000,000 ewes, averaging about
two lamhs for every three ewee. Had each
of the ewes had twins our lamb crop would
have equaled 84,000,000 instead of 22,000,000,
and wonid have sold for three times aa
much.
Dr. Bell's Sheep.
These facta give some Idea of the prac
tical side of Dr. Bell's experiments. The
scientific aide Is even more Interesting and
far-reaching . in its possibilities, and it Is
the i one which appeals especially to him.
The " work is going on steadily upon his
country estate near Baddeck, Novla Scotia,
and now also at the farm of the Carnegie.
Institute on Long Island, where studies in
experimental evolution are being made.
Dr. Davenport, the head of the Carnegie
farm, has been furnished with, some of Dr.
Bell's sheep, and a set of carefully, record
ed experiments will be made by him under
the auspices of the Carnegie Institution.
But I will give you the story as Dr. Bell
told It to me Just before he left for Nova
Scotia a few weeks ago.
"I do not know that you are acquainted
with sheep," said he. "Many people are
not.x I have had farmers scoff at the Idea
that sheep have no upper front teeth and
have seen them surprised to find this the
ease. Indeed I myself knew little about
sheep until IKS, when I bought the farms
at Belnn Bhreagh, which now compose my
summer home. In Nova Scotia, near Bad
deck. Upon one f these farms I found a
. flock of fifty-one ewes, and the following
. spring I observed that about one-half of
the lambs produced were twins. Boms of
the owes had but one lamb, but many had
two, ' and I began to wonder if there was
, not some characteristic which would enable
. one to distinguish the twin-bearing ewes.
- To find out I made a careful examination
- of ' the milk bags of all mothers. No
the ordinary aheep bag has but two nlp-
' pies, and It la from those that the lamb
draws all Its milk. This was the case with
my sheep. I noticed, however, that Upon
some of the bags were embryonic nipples in
addition to- those of usual sise. In some
cases these were' barely perceptible, and
In none were they larger than good-stsed
pimples. Vpoa looking farther I found that
r--""-- .n.,!,,.. nil !.' .wm 'immu v 1 "J . ! v;
t-'" -jks i jr is
grounds. Besides being one of the most
appreciable Improvements on the grounds
in the matter of furnishing a cool and
clean place where a wholesome meal can be
obtained, this new ' building Is a most
important improvement in the appearance
of the grounds. The building Is 100 feet
deep by 123 feet frontage on the avenue.
Brick and Steel Cattle Barns.
The other -permanent building is a brick
and steel cattle barn just south of the
stock pavilion and east of the north and
south avenue. This cattle barn ' is the
second to be erected on the grounds. The
other Is a frame structure, but Is permanent
and not a mere shed. The two cattle
barns are built from the same plana, ex
cept . that . one Is frame and the other
brick. But these permanent buildings now
on the grounds are only the start towards
carrying . out a well planned scheme of
buildings and permanent improvements.
When the fair was first located on the
present grounds It seemed to be the Idea
of the directors that In order to make
an Impressive appearance there should be (
separate offices for every official and as
a result small shanties that did not cost
to exceed $50 apiece were built here and
there and everywhere about the grounds.
These sheds still stand, but they are In the
plans to be removed and inside of the next
year or two there will be a permanent
SCENE DURTNO STATE FATTl IN IOWA
the ewes bearing the embryonic nipples had
far more twins than those not so marked.
Of the ordinary ewes only 24 per cent were
twin bearing, while of those which had
these ' marks of an undeveloped milk sup
ply 43 per cent had twins. This seemed to
indicate that the marks meant something
and I then began to experiment to find
out how much."
Qaeer Breeding Experiments.
"Please tell me Just what you hoped to
ascertain. Dr. Bell?" I asked.
"In the first place, I wanted a find
whether by selective breeding those now
dead embryonlo pimple-like nipples could
be made alive and useful. I wanted to
know whether they would grow and fill
with milk; and whether, if they did so, the
sheep growing them would yield a greater
milk supply. In the second place I wanted
to know whether, after I had produced
a sheep with four good live nipples Instead
' of two, that sheep would have twins oftener
than sheep not so developed."
"TV hat did you nnd?"
"In the first place." said Dr. Bell, "I ex
perienced little difficulty In developing the
embryonic ripples. I was soon able to
raise sheep having four nipples, all yield
ing milk, and. indeed, for several years
past nearly every ewe born on my farm
has had four live functional nipples. In
stead of two. In recent years I have pro
duced a large number of which have six
such nipples, and I think there Is no doubt
but that I would eventually produce a slx
nlppled variety of sheep. Indeed, I have
already produced a four-nlppled variety.
Of the lambs dropped this year eight have
six nipples, and In addition we have now,
for the first time, a lamb with eight nip
ples. This Is the only one of that character
that I have produced and the only one I
have ever heard of."
Question of Twins.
i
"How about the twins, doctor V I asked.
"As to that part of my investigations I
have not been so successful. The propor
tion of twins born has been small, and the
sheep with the four or six nipples have not
proved more fertile than those of the ordl.
nary kind. .1 believe, however, that by
using twins only for breeding purposes
it may be possible to raise a twin-bearing
stock, and that Is what I hope to do
now. I feel that . I have eccompllsocd
what I set out to perform as to my first
proposition, and that by using my roultl
nlppled varieties, and breeding only from
twins, I will eventually have a breed of
hr1.lr ai1mlnl.tr.tlnn tillllrilnfl. IllMt WMt nf -Tnn. n . a fmy a 1 rva, mim, t9 K.u
the stock Davlllon. across the street. Ba- In eattla than Is shown at anv other
.... '
'r - . :l SS,W
ginning where ths secretary's office now
stands .there will be, before long, a steel
shed for the exhibition of farm machinery.
This shed win be a couple of hundred fret
wide and It will stretch west from the
agricultural hall, the length to be governed
'only by the amount of exhibits In farm
machinery. The legislature at the last
session was asked to make an appropria
tion for the permanent steel amphitheater.
It didn't do It, but there Is every hope and
expectation that It wllf make the appro
priation at the next session. The present
exposition building, a frame structure. Is to
be weatherboarded on the outside and sealed
on the inside so as to make it In every
way a modern building. This will leavs
nothing but the horse bams and the swine
pavilion to be taken care of and tha
scheme will have been completed. The
streets are being graded and paved and the
cement sidewalks laid a little each year,
the work being nearly completed.
List of Permanent BaCl!iasra.
Here is what the state fair has In per
inanent buildings:
Stock pavilion.
Agricultural hall.,
Two cattle barns.'
Dining hall.
Permanent walTc.
Woman's building.
Here 1 what it is planned to get Inslds
the next two or three years to complete
the plan of the buildings and grounds:
Steel amphitheater.
Brick administration building.
Swine pavilion.
Replacing rest of cattle barns.
Replacing all horse barns.
St-eel machinery hall.
In addition to these permanent buimingS
to be erected by the state there are sev
eral farm machinery manufacturers that
have already decided' to erect permanent
buildings for themselves and are only
awaiting some rearrangements' of the
grounds In order to secure a proper loca
tion. The International Harvester com
pany, the Avery Threshing Machine com
pany, John Deere & Co. and the Mollne
Wagon company will each next year erect
buildings on the grounds of brick and steel
that will cost In the neighborhood of $5,000
each.
As mn Educational Institution.
It has been the great aim of Secretary
John C. Simpson of the Department of
Agriculture to make the state fair an edu
cational institution and it is now his great
pride that this has been accomplished. A
little comparison will readily show the
vast amount of good accomplished by the
state fair In that line. The fair Is open
but one week of the fifty-two In the year
and It reaches a class of people who
are able to give one week or a part of
one week In the pursuit of knowledge, but
are not able to give more. They cannot
attend the State College of Agriculture,
and the knowledge they gain must be
from their neighbors, their reading and
their attendance at the state fair. In
states where the state fair Is located In
a large city the fair must be devoted
largely to attractions that will bring out
the city people. Iowa fortunately can
not depend on a big attendance from Des
Moines and so the attractions are all de
vised to bring the farmer, and the stock'
and Implement exhibits are the leading
and most important exhibits. Without
dispute there is annually exhibited at the
. ' sssfsnasnmnssnsasssnsssssTsTs's
'AtTniCTTLTTJTtAL PAVILION.
sheep which will almost always produce .
twins." have a catalogue which I published in
"Were these sheep all. born on your 1B04, containing the records of about 800
farm?" sheep of which (55 were born on Belnn
'The most of them were," replied f r. . Bhreagh, the others having been pur
Bell, "sly Investigations, however, have chased by me, The catalogue gives a
' X - : sf i - r T.
ALEXANDER GRAHAM BELL, ntiu
11IU.
A IF5 v
EXHIBITING
fair In America.
During the one week of the Iowa state
fair there Is an attendance of about ISO,
000 persons. The State Agricultural col
lege has a school year of thirty-six weeks.
The 180,000 persons attending the state fair
all in one week. makes an average dally
attendance of 36,000 persons, which Is the
equivalent to an attendance of 1,000 per
sons for thirty-six weeks. The attendance
at the State Agricultural college is only
slightly In access of this. At the state
college the farmer boy learns the sclenoe
of agriculture and nearly always does not
go back to the farm, but finds better em
ployment teaching at some college or edit
ing some agricultural paper or In some
scientific proferslon. The farmer himself "
attends the state fair. He watches the
judges as they award the prizes to the
stock and gets a practical lesson on stock
judging. He gains the same Information
of corn judging and gets a mine of In
formation from, the farm Implement ex
hibits, which he carries back to his farm
with him and puts to practical use.
This Tear's Stock.
All entries have now been closed for
some days for the state fair of this year
and the number of horses, '.cattle, hogs,'
sheep and chickens and the exhibits of
farm machinery will be the largest the
fair has ever known. " There are about
twice as many horses entered for the fair
this year as there Is barn room for the
" w.
not been confined to my own sheep. X
af W' saWsnBssnsana ; ' v ' . V.-A.
HIS Ts.4.vOHEDRONAL BODT BEHIND
m
!,'
STOCK AT THE IOWA LIVE STOCK
horses. Fortunately the new cattle barn
makes more space for cattle than the In
crease In that line of exhibits will fill for
this year, and part of the horses will be
taken care of In that way. The others
will be shown In tents. There will be fifty
carloads of fine horses shown this year, at
the fair and all of them will be In place
by Sunday, There will be sixty loads of
cattle of the finest breeding cattle there
are to be found anywhere. There will be
100 cars of hogs. Some of the swine breed
ers are this year to be disappointed. There
were more exhibitors wanted space than
there was space to be given, and as a re
sult some cannot bring their hogs. There
will be thirty carloads of sheep and sev
eral cars of chickens and 125 carloads of
farm machinery. The cattle exhibits will,
number about the same number of head
as there was last 'ear, which was a record
breaking year, but In everything else there-
has been an increase. '
1Q .
Schedule of Attractions.
Last year, as well as this year, the stats
fair management has made the effort to
make every day as good as every other,
day. The effort is being made to educate
the public to this Idea and to educate It
out of the Idea of the "one big day" fea
ture. There are plenty of attractions every
year at the fair to bring the crowd of
curiosity seekers, and this year there Is
an especially strong list of such attrac
tions, and every attraction will ba at the
HON. JOTIN T. mMTTTON,
Iowa Board of Control.
record of every sheep as to the matters
under Investigation, and it covers our
work from 1890 until 1904. In addition,
I have the records for 1905 and 1906."
"My search for sheep of this character,"
continued Dr. Bell, "was not confined to
my own flock. I was anxious for speci
mens from other flocks, and I gave tho
butchers of Baddeck a standing offer of
$10 for any slx-nlppled ewe they might
bring In. This offer has been open for
several years, but It has resulted in my
securing op'y one such sheep out of tho
many thousands thuy have handled for
killing, and that sheep was poorly marked.
A year or so ago I imported some horned
Dorset ewes from Uxbrldge, Ontario. The
Dorsets are very prolific, and each of
them gave me twins last year. This year
one has given birth to twins and another
to triplets, so that I have had nine lambs
within two years from those two ewes.
The Dorset sheep frequently have lambs
twice in one year. It is that variety that
I expect to use In my attempts to pro
duce a breed of twin-bearing sheep."
"Do you consider the additions you have
made to the milk bag a valuable one?"
"We find that It is so," replied Dr. Bell.
"Ewes having such bags can raise twins
quite as well as the ordinary sheen can
raise a single lamb. Indeed, they are far
more successful with tholr twins than the
ordinary sheep."
"Tell me something of the experiments
Which the Carnegie institution is making
with your sheep?"
"It is too soon to know what will be the
result of that work," replied Dr. Bell.
"Dr. Davenport, the head of the Carnegie
Institution experimental farm, has now
one slx-nlppled ram and two flve-nlpple.1
ewes, which I sent him about a year ago.
One of his ewes is black and the other
Is white. I recently heard from him to
the effect that the white ewe haj produced
twins, one of which has, six nipples and
the other four nipples."
Hew Things la Aerial Xavigatloa.
The conversation here ; turned to Dr.
Bell's most recent experiments in solving
ths problems of aerial navigation. lie
has a large laboratory on Ills farm in
Nova Scotia and this work goes on stead
ily throughout the summer. I in has male
great advances since I talked with hi in
about two years ago. He has discovered
the unit of which the flying machine cf
' the future is to be built, and something cf
ths 'shape in which It should be put to
gether. He has. In short, ascertained the
character of bis building Material Ue
.
PAVILION.
fair every day in the week. If there is
one day that Is this year bigger than any
other day it will be In attendance only, as
the attractions are just the same.
Of course the one big attraction this
year is the airship. It is the Knabcnshua
airship, that made several successful trips
st Washington, D. C, and New Tork. A
house has been built for It east of the old
machinery quadrangle and north of the
new dining hall. It will make one or two
trips every day, and after leaving Its
house will go straight down In front of
the amphitheater. It will circle around
the grounds and then down to the city,
circling the capltol dome and the business
district of the city, and then back to the
fair grounds.
Every afternoon In front of the grand
stand during the races there Is to be an
especially stronfr vaudevirle. The acts will
be given - between races. A number of
trained elephants are among the list of at-
tractions. There will also be Jugglers and
acrobats and an especial vaudeville has
been made Up for tho night attraction,
The races are always recognized as on
of V.a great attractions at the fair every
year. There are. fnnr ii mn nrU. h.
up this year; one of them Is for a 3:11
trot and one for a 2:18 pace. It Is ex
pected that there will be some fast work
In these two races, and a number of Ne
braska horses are entered for them. In
addition to these there are a number of
(100 purses and loving cups In addition.
JOHN C. SIMPSON,
Secretary Iowa Department of Agriculture,
now knows that he can make a body
which can be sustained In the air, and he
will now experiment on the motive or
propelling power, which will send suh
a body along its way through the air
and guide it hither and thither at the
will of its engineer.
In a former letter I described this unit,
when writing of Dr. Bell's aerial vehlole.
The unit is of the shape of a tetrahedron,
and when I last talked with him such
units were put together around large
open spaces. Dr. Bell now finds that they
can be massed close together, and tli.it
they will fly equally well. In other
words, he can make almost any kind of a
structure he pleases of such units, and It
will be easily supported by the atmos
phere. Dangerone Flight.
During the past season Dr. Bell had a
body I do not like to call it a kite, for
tho word kite gives a wrong impression
of the importance of the discovery lie
had a body of this kind which was about
ten feet high and twenty ' feet long. It
was conu'oned of 1,300 of these tetrahe
dral cells, arranged more closely together
than ever in the past, and yet it flstr
successfully. While It was high up In
the air fastened by a ropo to a stake In
the ground. Dr. Bell Instructed one of his
men to take hold of the rose and run
short distance and then Jump into the
air so that his photographers might take
a snap shot of a man apparently flying.
To his horror the kite carried the man
about forty feet from the ground, and
the picture showed a flying machine with
a man attached to Its tail. For a tint)
the doctor was greatly alarmed, and his
alarm kept up until the man reached the
earth again.
Inventing; r. I'ropeller.
In my talk with Dr. Hull he spoks of
possible propellers for flying machines,
saying: ,
"That Is the question I shall now at
tempt to solve. We have discovered the
unit out of which the body of our aerial
vehicle Is to be made. We know that it
will fi and what we need now Is semo.
thing to move It onward and turn It this
way or that when It has once risen from
the ground. You may remember that
many of my experiments have been upon
the water and that I have constructed
aerial vehicles which would float an4
which, when towed along by boats, at a
certain speed, would rise Into the air ao4
(Continued on Page BeveaJ,
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