MR. CHAMBERLAIN.-The first resolution was passed, commending the Board for the purchase of the new fair grounds, and urging the legislature to pass the necessary appropriation, or the appropriation asked for by the Board. Now it would seem as if the Convention had already made up its mind, and didn't desire any further information. It had been the intention of the Board, had the weather been suitable, that we would run a little train up and let the Convention see the work on the new fair grounds, as was done when the State Horticultural Society was here. I think I may safely say that the gentlemen connected with that Society, as shown by their report, read here a few moments ago, were pleased.

The President's address, which was listened to better, perhaps, than any preceding President's address, especially the latter portion of it, so fully set this forth, that I don't think there is any further need for information. But I wish, on behalf of the Board, that those who have any doubts of the wise expenditure of the money, would visit the grounds some time when the snow is off, so that you may see the landscape, bridges, the grand stand, horse stables, and buildings for other animals, etc.

Now we need money for one large building for the finer products, and that is what the legislature is asked to make an appropriation for. The figures have already been given. All of the money appropriated, all the money the Board had on hand, all the money raised by the floating of bonds, has been expended, or contracted for. And now the time comes when we must float more bonds, or have an appropriation by the legislature, or both; so that the next fair may be held there, and be a credit to the State. I believe I have never made any remarks uncomplimentary to the old fair grounds. They were beautiful. The trouble was that the State of Ohio didn't own any part or parcel of these grounds, and there seemed to be no means by which it could become Therefore, there seemed to be a necessity for purchasing new grounds, the best that could be had. And so far as the buildings are concerned, those already put up on the new grounds, all will admit, are a credit to the State. And if the work can be carried on by the legislature and the floating of further bonds, I believe the legislature next year, if they have visited the fair, will be convinced that the work has been wise. If there are any questions any one wishes to ask of the Board, Mr. Bonham, Mr. Hurst, and others could answer them to the satisfaction of all. The weather is not fit to visit the grounds, and you would not enjoy the trip. I will not detain you by any further remarks.

owner.

A MEMBER. If this appropriation is made by the legislature for holding the Centennial, and the buildings are then put up, would there then be a necessity for the buildings spoken of now? Would they not be included within the If that should be done, couldn't the Board worry through another

$150,000?

year.

MR. BONHAM.-If the $150,000 appropriation should be made, it is not expected that it will be available for the erection of buildings within the year. And it would not be contemplated to prepare such buildings before 1888. Of course we would labor under great inconvenience until that time. As a matter of economy it would be very desirable. But you will see that the Fine Art Hall and Horticultural Hall are not provided for. We have all the buildings necessary for stock. The horses, cattle and swine will be provided for, and the Grand Stand and Machinery Hall, but we have no buildings for fine arts, horticulture, etc. Hence we need immediate help.

MR. CHAMBERLAIN.—I may be allowed to suggest, that if the building proposed by the Board of Agriculture to be erected this coming summer is put up, it will be wholly available for the Centennial, if it should be held. And it is

planned so that it can be doubled if necessary, as I understand it. And if that appropriation were made, or any portion of $150,000, it could simply be added to the work already done. And I have no doubt the committees of the legislature would take that into consideration, and would not be likely to duplicate any sum already given.

MR. ELY.-To make that matter of appropriation plainer, so that there may be no misunderstanding, I will state that if the appropriation of $50,000 is made to the State Board of Agriculture, we think that is nearly all that will be needed for this exposition. If we find when we make this building that we need any more, we can duplicate it and have two. We don't believe we will want any more. We don't ask $150,000 for the Centennial and $50,000 for the Board, which would make $200,000. We think the one building will answer. But if we find that it will not be sufficient, we can add a little more. That we can find out by fall.

BY THE CHAIR.-Is there anything under the head of miscellaneous business? MR. FOSTER.-I move to adjourn until half past seven o'clock.

MR. RANDOLPH.-That is pretty late. There is an entertainment in the other hall and the members are invited to be present.

MR. FOSTER. -I will state seven o'clock.

MR. BONHAM.-As we have a little time, there are some members of County Societies, who have a question or two they wish to propose to this body.

MR FOSTER.-I withdraw my motion for that.

A MEMBER -I would like to enquire if any of the societies throughout the State have adopted the plan of having one on the committee of judges instead of three? The question has been agitated considerable, and I would like to know.

We

MR. HURLBERT.-For the last two years we have adopted the plan of one judge upon all the stock, and we find it works very satisfactorily to the exhibiters; more so than a committee of three. We get a man not a resident of our county. To get a committee in our own county of three competent men to make an award, creates more or less dissatisfaction among exhibiters. have become satisfied by experiment for the list two years. that for one man to judge of stock, gives more general satisfaction, and we find less complaint and dissatisfaction, and we are satisfied with the workings of it. We shall adopt that plan until we are satisfied we are not taking the best plan. A MEMBER. -How do you appoint him?

MR. HURLBERT -Our Secretary confers with the Secretaries of other counties and requests them to send us a man to judge of certain classes, horses for instance. We ask them to send us a competent man to judge of such and such classes of stock, and they send us a man.

MR. BONHAM.-How about the compensation ?

ous.

Mr. Hurlbert.-Well, the men they have sent us have been very generWe have paid their expenses; but the men universally refused to take pay; but we have insisted on paying them something. We have had a man for the beef breeds of cattle, and another for the milk breeds. Last fall we had one man for all classes of cattle. One man reported on all the different breeds.

A MEMBER. And you had one on horses?

MR. HURLBERT.-Yes, one for all classes of horses.

MR. SEARS. Mr. Chairman, I represent Mahoning county. We have had the plan of one on a committee for several years, and our success has been very gratifying, as far as pleasing the different members of the fair is concerned. Much more so than when we had three. We considered when we started out on this thing, that an expert who knew his business could be selected for each

particular class, who would be a better judge than three men, who were selected at our fairs. In the first place, one man as an expert is generally selected, and the balance of the committee was made up of Tom, Dick, and Harry. Tom, Dick, and Harry, each had a vote. Tom and Dick could outvote Harry, if Harry was the competent man. So no satisfaction was given to the people. If the judge is a competent man, we regard his judgment, as better than that of any three that can generally be picked up. And the patrons of our fair have generally stated that they liked the plan very well. We don't select one man for all classes, for instance large and small hogs. We have one for large breeds and another for small breeds. No man can be selected, but is a little prejudiced against one or the other breed of hogs. One is not sufficient, we feel, for the two classes. So we selected a man for each class; and so on through the different classes of the fair; three or four horse-men through the different classes of horses, and also through the different breeds of cattle; Shorthorn breeds, a committee; Holstein breeds, a committee; and so on through the different breeds, and we have found it to work well. When we could not find the right kind of a man in our county, we got a man from another county. In the first place, our Secretary, would ascertain whether these individuals would attend. If so, then the Secretary sent them a complimentary ticket; and that is all the compensation we have ever offered to any outside committee. MR. WOOD.-We sent out of the county for judges on stock, and the universal judgment was that it worked very well indeed.

A MEMBER. Did you have a separate man for each class?

MR. WOOD.-We had two men on cattle; one for milk breeds, and one for beef breeds.

MR. BONHAM.-I would like to ask a question. How do the boards like it? MR. WOOD.-I will say that the year previous, the members of the board worked up their committees in the county. When the day of the fair came, there wasn't one in ten of the committe emen on the ground; but this year the judges were there on the ground, and the board had practically nothing to do. MR. MURPHY.-Do you permit exhibiters to object to the judges, and if so, then what do you do after that?

MR. WOOD.-The exhibiters know nothing about who is on the committee, and the committee, I would say, are not informed who the stock belongs to. MR. MURPHY.-We did the same in our county. I represent Butler county. But we always, when we bring our committee out, say, here are our committeemen. Have you any objections to their serving on the committee. Frequently some of them are set off, and we have to fill their places. In the cattle, sheep, and hog ring, there are frequently men who will say, "He is not the kind of man we want." Or, "He is prejudiced," or something of that kind. I know if that system of one judge would operate well, we would be glad to adopt it. And further, I think we would be very willing to pay the railroad fare and the hotel bill of the judges, while they are with us, if we could be satisfied that it would operate well. We have talked of it, but never adopted it. A MEMBER.-We had a great deal of trouble with the three judge plan. We selected our judges three weeks before hand. When we wanted the committee, they wasn't there. Sometimes there was one, sometimes two, and sometimes not any. Consequently we had to pick up a committee on the grounds; and in this way we found that it makes more dissatisfaction. But in the way we have adopted, in the one man plan, our exhibiters don't know who that man is going to be. Our committee were on the ground, walking about, and examining the stock, before the exhibiters knew it. I requested it, and told him to go among the stock, and not to let the exhibiters know it. In consequence he had a

little the advantage, and had the stock examined before the exhibiters knew who he was.

A MEMBER.-There is another matter that I would like to have spoken of. We have trouble with two classes of persons that want passes to leave the grounds. One class want to run out and in as often as they choose, and sometimes the gate-keepers let persons through without a pass. And then we have a class of exhibiters who desire assistance, and a good deal of it, and they desire passes. Now I would like to know if there is any County Society that has invented any rule that would do justice to all parties concerned, and yet do away with this trouble?

MR. MURPHY.-I believe that I will state to the gentlemen of this Convention, the liberal system that we have adopted in Butler county; and I think my friend Bonham, will bear me out in it. In the first place, we charge ladies nothing. We ask them to come in free. A one dollar ticket will admit a man and all his boys, under 21 years of age; the entire family. Single admission tickets, of course, 25 cents And then we furnish all the stock men, hay and bedding for nothing. And yet, I guess, our receipts are about as large as in any other county. We get a very large attendance. I believe Mr. Bonham will say, 25,000 on Thursday. We make a good deal in the way of selling refreshment privileges. We made this year over $2,000. No beer, or liquors of any kind, are sold on the grounds. We let the big snake and everything of that kind go in. Of course our exhibits are open to the world. Nothing is confined to the county. We issue, what is called a bond ticket—a ticket with coupons on it. There is one for each day of the fair, except Monday. When a man comes in with his family, the gate-keeper tears off a coupon. When he goes to the gate to go out, there is a gate keeper, who keeps checks. He shows him his family ticket, and he receives a check. When he returns, the question is asked, "Have you a family ticket?" He shows it. "Where is your check?" He has got to show his family ticket and give up his check. Since we have adopted the coupon system, we have found it very advantageous. We have taken in more money by it, with less trouble. We have a stamp, and stamp every ticket that goes out.

MR. KETCHUM.—I presume there is another question connected with the carrying on of county fairs that is more vexatious than this, and that is the question of deciding just how to meet out equal and exact justice to all patrons, and at the same time prevent imposition and fraud in the way of using and double using passes and tickets. This is a question that has been discussed and re discussed, and I presume our Assistant Secretary of the State Board of Agriculture has discussed and studied this question more than any of us. I know that he has discussed this question before societies previous to this, and I, for one, would like to hear from him.

MR. FLEMING.-I am not in the habit of saying anything before this Convention, but, as most of you know, I am a pretty good listener, and I generally store up the ideas I gain from the talk of others in the Convention, and make use of them in suggesting new measures that may cover some of the ideas brought out and that may be to the advantage or improvement of the working systems of our fairs. I fear, when I express my ideas about the admission features of our fairs, some of you may think they are not well founded. In the first place I should entirely abolish the complimentary system, and this can be done by having no complimentary tickets printed. I have always believed that the issue of complimentary tickets was productive of more harm than good, because when you compliment Mr. Smith, and fail to remember in

like manner Messrs. Brown, Jones, and some others, the latter, in many cases, feel slighted, and the consequence is, you have made one friend to the fair, but balanced up the account with three enemies. It costs money to run a fair; they are operated in the interest of improvements, whereby the whole people are benefited; the officers serve without compensation, and the people should therefore encourage the institutions by at least the price of an admission, and they should not expect the fair to succeed on dead head tickets. No complimentaries, will gain to the society the price of that many admissions, besides avoiding trouble at the gates by those holding them passing in and out at pleas

ure.

Of course there are some persons whom it is necessary and right should have free admissions. They are officers and members, persons engaged on committees, the members of the press, and others, who, by reason of their business, pay in another manner, for their admissions. These persons should be provided with a badge, to be worn conspicuously, an insignia of their office or business, and I venture to say you will rarely find the privilege extended by such badge abused by loan or transfer.

I have attended a great may meetings of fair boards, and have heard many discussions on the vexed question of the entrance ticket system, but as yet all the larger fairs, who have been giving serious consideration to the matter, are at sea as to the best and most practical methods.

At a meeting of the Ohio, Michigan and Indiana Fair Circuit, composed of representatives from fairs in Ohio, Michigan and Indiana, the admission feature was presented for discussion, and nearly an entire day was spent in its consideration. It was found that no two fairs were alike in their system, neither were any satisfied they had a system that was not defective and freely abused. It was admitted by all that certain concessions should be made to large exhibiters, who were at considerable expense in arranging their exhibits for display, and especially to the exhibiters of agricultural machinery, for which, by mutual consent, no premiums were offered, yet requiring the constant attention of the representative and his helpers.

Finally it was agreed to recommend the issue and sale of coupon exhibiters tickets, a ticket provided with four or five coupons, according to the number of days the fair was held, each coupon good for one admission. This gave the holder one admission each day of the fair. The price of the ticket was recommended at one dollar. For the help in the machinery department and the grooms in the live stock departments, who would have occasion to pass the gates during the day for tools or to look after repairs, supplies and feed, it was agreed to reccommend that blank passes be placed in the hands of the member in charge of the departments, to whom such persons should apply when it became necessary to go out on business connected with their stock or machinThese blank passes to be filled up with the name of the person to whom issued and the exhibiter represented.

ery.

These recommendations were reported back to the several boards and fairs represented, and were adopted by most of them. This made the system more uniform at the larger fairs, and while it worked an improvement over former methods and placed a guard against certain abuses that had been formerly practiced by a few unscrupulous persons, I am frank to say it is far from perfect, and I am inclined to the belief that we shall soon be able to present something still better and perhaps more simple.

One of the great sources of annoyance to fair managers is in the cases of those who purchase the privileges that are sold on the grounds. Many of the fairs