THE COMING STATE FAIR. Glittering Prospects That It Will Be the Largest and Best Yet Held. As the summer progresses towards autumn, the prospects for the coming State Fair grow brighter, and there is every indication that the management of this enterprise are going to have the most successful fair yet given. The preparations making have been upon a more extensive scale than ever before, and if hard work, intelligently applied by experienced men will have any effect, the public has a rich treat in store for them. Secretary Hook is up to his eyes in work. He keeps a force of four clerks busy at sending out mail matter, receiving and answering queries from farmers and all classes of exhibitors, etc., and some idea of the work being done may be gained when it is chronicled that over sixty thousand pieces of mail matter have so far been delivered over into the custody of Uncle Sam's postoffice employes. The largest amount of this has been the various sorts of Fair publications, but that has mostly been disposed of, and now the big bundles coming in or going out are made up of enquiries as to space, exhibits, etc. Secretary Hook said yesterday there seemed to be a marked revival of interest in the fair among the farmers within a radius of fifty miles of this city, and in West Virginia, to even a greater distance. They are realizing that the fair is peculiarly a farmer's institution, a sort of educational and industrial institute, held annually for his peculiar and particular benefit, where he can meet his farmer friends, make new acquaintances, see the latest novelties in farm machinery, add to his experience and knowledge of live stock, exchange views and talk over practical matters with others in his business, and besides, gain a much needed breathing spell from the dreary round of work. Its practical benefits are many. For instance: Farmers A. B. and C take choice samples of their new, and select the best of their old varieties of grain, vegetables, seeds, fruits, etc., and put them on exhibition. Each sees and notes what superiority exists in the varieties of the others, and ascertains where his own are deficient; and all are enabled to note the march of progress, make comparisons and selections, and gain knowledge to apply to the improvement of their own products that would cost them many days of study, search and experiment to discover by any other method. Let the interest manifested by the farmer be duplicated by the citizens of Wheeling, and the State Fair will be a great success, this year, and hereafter.
