州庆典将怀旧之情融入教育（在线收听）

State Fairs Combine Nostalgia and Education

州庆典将怀旧之情融入教育

Mechanized carnival attractions draw big crowds at the Maryland State Fair. But there is another side to this event. It is a scene that looks like it is right off the farm.

But it is actually part of a barnyard display at the Maryland State Fair, a yearly event that helps America's largely urban-dwelling population reconnect with its agrarian roots.

Guy Hohenhaus (a veterinarian working at the fair): "I think Fairs were originated hundreds of years ago in various forms and certainly the fair as we know it is about a hundred years old. It was a place for the agricultural community to get together and show off what they had done over the past year.

Dr. Hohenhaus is on duty at the fair's "Birth Center," a type of exhibit that has caught on at state fairs across the country in recent years.

Hohenhaus: It is something that has been going on nationally and at the state fairs and also at quite a few local fairs around the country and it's a way to bring people a little bit closer to the source of the food and the fiber products that we use every day and take for granted.

The veterinarian: They have it really tough. Not only are they the smallest when they are born, but a lot of times they lose out on the battle for a good teat at the udder. And they'll stay with their mom three or four weeks before they are weaned.

The hard facts of life on a farm are brought home at the birthing center, like the case of this piglet, too small to feed itself.

An attendant: What we'll probably try to do with this one is maybe bottle feed it or bucket train it and see if we can help it out.

Farmland scenes like this have become ever less common across the United State. But it seems they will always be preserved at America's state fairs.

George Dwyer, VOA news, Maryland.