Fair, an exhibit of wares and productions. The original fair was a market, a concourse of buyers and sellers who met in the shelter of temporary booths or in the open to sell and buy cloth, china, timber, grain, cattle, oil, or any of the great staples. The name has been taken over by the agricultural societies of English-speaking countries and applied to exhibits, particularly of live stock, produce, and machinery. The typical agricultural fair of the United States and Canada is conducted within inclosed "fair grounds," to which an admission fee of twenty-five or fifty cents is charged. The grounds include usually a race track, a "grand stand," or amphitheater of raised seats for viewing the races, stalls or buildings for the reception of live stock, and buildings for the exhibition of machinery, merchandise, fruits, vegetables, flowers, dairy products, needlework, school work, etc. The buildings of local fair grounds may consist of a few stalls for stock, and single buildings for exhibits that require shelter; or, if for a state fair, they may cost a million. The fair grounds at Hamline, Minnesota, one of the prosperous state fairs in the Middle West, may be taken as a type. The grounds embrace 322 acres. What with barns, a poultry building, a dairy building, an amphitheater for showing and judging live stock, a main exposition building, an agricultural and horticultural hall, halls for the display of machinery, and a grand stand, the property represents a value of over $1,000,000, about half of which has been acquired by legislative appropriations. The management is entrusted to a board whose responsible officials reside on the grounds and give their undivided attention to the interests of the fair. The attendance at this particular fair in 1908 was 326,743; and of this number a full half paid a second admission fee to the grand stand. This fair is twenty years old and has paid out $800,000 in premiums and purses. Most states and provinces grant aid to a central state or provincial fair, and to local fairs. The management is entrusted usually to state and county agricultural societies. County and local fairs are doing much to create wholesome emulation among the farmers. Of late, school exhibits have become a promising feature. Exhibits from rural school gardens and corn-growing contests are made a feature in an increasing number of county fairs. Exhibits of a single product are called shows, as live stock shows, corn shows, fruit shows, apple shows, etc. The fairs are one of the anomalies of the present time. If one is interested in the evolution of institutions and the persistence of customs, he can find here material for long and rewarding study. In great part the fairs are meaningless and are not agricultural institutions. They display the unusual and abnormal. They exhibit the prodigies; they encourage a class of professional exhibitors; they attract the gaudy and the doubtful; they are, in fact, largely exclamational. There is permanent discussion as to the allowing of racing and betting, and of mere performing; but these things are really symptoms after all, and the real solution is to redirect the whole enterprise. County and local fairs might well be part of a thoroughly organized state system, and be taken out of the influence of showmen and racetrack gamblers. The fair should be a kind of school, and its work and influence should exist continuously throughout the year. The fairground itself should not be idle fifty-one weeks in the year. Its facilities could be used for many exhibits and schools at other times; and a good part of the grounds could be utilized by school children or others to grow plants that should stand in exhibition and teach a lesson when the fair comes round. It is not too much to hope that fair grounds may some day contain school gardens. Such an associative organization should go with a fair as will keep intending participants--I do not like the word exhibitors--in a state of preparation and attention for the whole year. The fair should reach all farm children, and the significance of everything shown at a fair should be explained by a good teacher standing on the spot.--L. H. Bailey.