For fans of deep-fried candy bars and horticulture expertise, of stomach-churning mechanical rides and prize-winning baked goods, of racing pigs and tractor pulls -- for all of those, it doesn't get much better than the next 10 days around here.

It is State Fair time, and it an extravaganza that autumn after autumn weaves decades of tradition with modern twists and up-to-date innovations.

The fair has been a part of North Carolina life since the State Agricultural Society held the first one in 1853. That year, 4,000 visitors showed up on the busiest of its four days, according to a history on the fair's Web site.

It has been far from an uncheckered run. First the Civil War and Reconstruction shut it down for several years, then it faltered for a couple of years with the demise of the State Agricultural Society in 1925. But the Department of Agriculture picked up the baton in 1928, and but for the World War II years, the fair has been staged every year since.

It has often given visitors glimpses of the newest technology: Electricity, still in its infancy, came to the fair in 1884. The first airplane exhibit was in 1910, only seven years after the Wright Brothers' historic flight some 400 miles to the east. WUNC-TV aired its first broadcast from the fair on opening day in 1954.

And, the fair's history notes, "J.F. Menius and his staff from State College operated an atomic reactor throughout the Fair as part of a series of exhibits under the theme 'Science Education in Action'" in 1958.

But we suspect the appeal for many modern fairgoers traces its origins to 1891 and the first midway ride (the "Switchback Railway") and 1900, when the first food booths appeared "run by churches and civic groups as fund raisers."

The fair is a North Carolina tradition that has survived, adapted and prospered through most of the past century and a half. As the fair marketers put it, consider a trip to the State Fairgrounds for "a whole lotta happy."