Helping to Make Good.

"Make Good" is one of the terse expressions that have been developed out of the business activities of these present stirring days. There is nothing superfluous about it, and it means just what its letters spell. The man who accepts a position has to make good, or there will be another in his place. The politician has to make good or his machine is overthrown. He may not be the sort of fellow a lot of us like to vote for, but he is a good shepherd to his own and they generally manage to constitute themselves a majority.

In these days of keyed advertisements the farm paper has to make good. The paper stands exactly in the position of an employe. So much space at so much per line is supposed to bring in certain results. The results are the advertising work of newspaper space. If it fails-doesn't make good-the advertising is canceled and given to some other paper.

No man ever held a position who did not believe that he was giving more than an equivalent for all the work he did. He might admit that he might work harder, produce bigger results. Few of us work up to our normal capacity, and that doesn't mean the strain that makes nervous wrecks, but that even-paced toil on which men thrive, grow healthy and keep good natured.

So, correspondingly, no editor could ever be found to admit that his paper did not give good value, considering his advertising rates. He might do better, he admits, but he is giving an equiva

lent.

And right there is where employer and employe always part. Giving an equivalent isn't making good. An even exchange isn't a fair exchange. The man who works must give more than he is paid in return. He must make a profit for the employer. The ad. must not break even or anything near it. It must make a profit, and a big profit,

for the advertiser. Just because it must do this is one reason why editors are called upon for reading notices. They may not do much good, but they show ad additional effort, and next to actual results, good intent is to be considered. Many a man and an ad. hold their positions because they are good intentioned. There are, however, lots of men who are making good. They do more than they are absolutely required to. They don't stop to inquire if certain work is theirs or not. They just do it, do it In a recent issue of Farmers' Review is an instance of making good in an advertising waydoing it, too, in the best way. It's not a boost of a certain manufactured article-a boost the insincerity of which is apparent but a solid talk along a line which will help not one advertiser but every advertiser in that line. We reprint it, not for advertisers, but for other editors:

well and rest content.

a broken-down old fellow who was born too soon. I would be on a farm now, if I could; and I believe that leaving it was the mistake of my life. If I could have farmed with all the labor-saving machines that have been provided for farmers since my day, I would be a hale and hearty worker today.

"I have been advising one of my country friends to buy a gasoline engine; for there is no end to the uses to which he could put it. With it he could pump all the water used on the farm, grind his grain and feed, saw his wood, run his separator or churn, operate his hay and manure carriers, hoist his grain to feed bins, and do almost any other kind of work that calls for applied pow

er.

The engines are light, simple affairs that any child can run, they can be moved any place where power is needed, or can be taken into a barn with perfect safety, as there are no sparks to fly. They have lots of advantages over steam engines which call for more expensive fuel in most cases and which require firemen to stoke them. The boiler of a steam engine is regulated by a steam gauge and safety valve and an intelligent engineer is needed to run it. In case you shut your machinery down for a time, you must still keep the fires going and the steam up in order to have your power when you want it, whereas the gasoline engine is always ready and immediately available. There is no loss when it is not doing work."

We gave him the papers he desired and succeeded in finding some catalogues and our visitor departed in good

spirits. His little talk set us thinking, however, about the immense labor-saving possibilities of these engines in country districts where help is so much needed and so scarce. Thousands have been sold and manufacturers with whom we have talked recently assure us that their sales are rapidly increasing, but there is still room for thousands more; for we agree with our visitor that an engine of this sort should be found on every good farm. We therefore feel justified in urging our readers to investigate the subject, believing it will be to their interest to do so. Full information concerning various makes may be had by addressing the manufacturers who use our columns, all of whom are reliable; and we shall be glad to give any further aid possible in answer to inquirers.

F

ARM folk more than any other class, perhaps, study advertisements. They are a curious and an inquisitive folk, these farm people, these days. They want to know and look anxiously toward every source of information and go into the reason of things with an appetite for knowledge that is not found in any other class of people.

There was a time when but few farmers studied their fields. In those days they plowed, sowed, cultivated and harvested their crops with but little more interest in them than had their oxen or horses. The farmer of fifty years ago never thought as he turned over the virgin soil from which he had hewed the forest, or as he saw the green ribbon of prairie sod roll from the moldboard of his breaking plow, that he was bringing to light the secrets of the ages or that the shallow furrow in which he walked was a path through a hitherto unknown country, over which the foot of man had never before passed. He did not feel interested in the pebbles that were brought to the surface, never giving them a thought, although they were mute witnesses of the mighty action of the glaciers which once ground down the ribs of the earth, flinging the pebblefragments of its tremendous work along its path from the north to the south. He knew that seed planted in the earth, germinated, grew and produced after their kind, but why they germinated, what they fed on to make their growth and all the phenomena of plant life and growth was a sealed book to him, which he did not care to study.

Now the farmer who reads-and the one who does not is still in a darkness through which the light of cleverest or most convincing ad ever written cannot penetrate the farmer who reads, we say, understands the nature of "" green things growing, all in the month of May." To him is opened a book as wide as the universe, its pages illuminated by the Artist who shaped the earth and set the stars in their places.

The reading farmer sits devoutly at the feet of Wisdom and his appetite for knowledge is insatiable. He reads his farm papers with a zest born of an out

door life and with an inspiration born of the tales he hears from the winds that blow and the birds that tune their pipes for him. To him the soil, the crops, the fall of the rain, the direction of the wind are all of interest. He is filled with an amazing desire to know all things, conquer all knowledge, climb to the hilltops and delve to the bottom, and in every way benefit himself.

The farmer does not read for the purpose of killing time. He doesn't dawdle over his papers or magazines, dipping into a story here, glancing at an illustration there, learning nothing, retaining nothing of what he has read beyond the passing moment. He reads intently, earnestly and understandingly. He reads his farm paper from beginning

to end, although it may treat of many things he is not personally interested in. He seeks knowledge in all its forms. He may be a stock-farmer, but he reads about the celery farms of Michigan, the fruit farms of the Ozark country, the melon fields of Rocky Ford, or the strawberry-growers of Illinois with a thoroughness that is equal to his perusal of the stock department. He reads the ads because they relate to his business, his comfort, or his betterment in some way.

Of class sense" the farmer knows nothing, cares nothing. Human interest to him is an interest in everything that is known or needed by human beings.

It is because these things are true of modern farmers, who read, that advertising to the farmer pays so well. He has come into his own, and has taken his He rightful place in the world of men.

is no longer a "clodhopper" with no ambition higher than plain food and plain clothes. He has been recognized and is proud of it. Farming is no longer a mere vocation; it is no longer a matter of brawn; it is a combination of science with art-science that seeks the reason of things and sets facts in orderly array and art that beautifies whatever it touches, that makes the unwrought plain a garden and transmutes the dust of the earth into golden grain or ruddy cheeked fruit than which the nectar and ambrosia of the Olympian gods were not more delicious.

It is characteristic of the farmer to weigh all things, prove all things, try all things in the crucible of experience. He is not one to take things for granted, notwithstanding the alleged humorists of the so-called comic papers. He wants to know the reason of things as well as to know of their existence. Since "Adam delved and Eve span" the farmer has been in darkness, until recentlyrecently as world-time is reckoned-and now in the light of his new condition, he must be given a good reason for the faith that is in him concerning anything.

Because of this new awakening of the perceptions of farmer folk, advertising that is directed to them must be different from that which is directed to the peopue who dwell in cities and towns. The farmer studies and acts from deliberation. The city reader observes superficially and jumps to conclusions. It is not the farmer of today who is gullible. It is his city cousin who is taken in by fakers and sharp practices. We are talking about the reading farmer, please remember.

An advertisement directed to farmers must give a good reason, or more than one, why he should use the articles advertised. A mere blatant assertion and a meretricious display of type or illustration has no power to move him to purchase. Display type and illustration are all right in their way and properly used may add force to the letter-press of an ad, but they will not secure the patFonage of the farmer for an advertiser unless reinforced by sound argument. Cleverness-merely cleverness-does not onvince the farmer. He wants reasons -hat self-centered deliberation declares to De sound, before he is moved to action.

It is because these conditions prevail -because they have been proven to preail-that expert service is more neces

sary in writing ads to farmers than is the case with any other class.

He who writes ads for farmers must know and respect farmers, before he can get in touch with them and reason with them in a way that is convincing to them and will secure them as patrons of the advertiser.

Much money is wasted in advertising to farmers, because the ads do not appeal to them. Secure the confidence of the farmer by presenting arguments that seem to him to be sound and he is the best customer any firm can secure.

Advertising for farmers is a profession by itself and requires a special knowledge of all the conditions to be met.

Sayings by the Wise Man

An ornamental ad is all right if it ornaments a fact. No amount of adornment will make an untruthful assertion permanently convincing.

The advertising that is not backed by an enthusiastic conviction in its truthfulness lacks one of the elements of success.

THE FIRST

ON

THE LIST

The Farmer's Review

Because it has a larger paid circulation than any other farm paper in Illinois, and there is no better territory in the country.

Because it goes to the best farmers in the neighboring states also, and carries weight with it.

Because it is always right in its teaching and always clean.

If there is any of the appropriation left spend it in the next best mediums.

The Farmer's Review

CHICAGO

There is a wide difference between a dignified ad and a stilted one. The dignified ad makes business, the stilted one fails to impress.

Plain common sense is the most convincing and impressive thing on earth. Used in advertising it makes an impression, creates conviction, awakes a desire for possession and builds up business.

"The longest way around is the shortest way home'' does not apply to advertising. The direct statement and the shortest way of saying the things to be said are what impress ad dealers.

Sometimes advertising is like going duck hunting with but two or three cartridges. One may get a duck or two but will never come home with a good bag.

Advertising is the door of prosperity. He who looks in, or steps in for a short time, will never get all the benefits that will be derived from staying in.

"Competition is the life of business,'' but advertising is the life force.

Publicity at bargain prices is usually a remnant sale of left-overs that careful buyers have rejected.

"The man

Josh Billings once said: who works for nothing and boards himself always gets as much as he earns. Which, being interpreted, means cheap service is always high-priced.

We believe in serial advertising, if well written. Begin at the beginning and go on to the end, making the ads overlap SO as to present progressively all the reasons why the article advertised should be considered.

We saw a catalogue of a very simply constructed machine the other day which the maker said was a failure, and he was wondering why. This catalogue contained several illustrations showing every piece, bolt and screw in the machine and referring to it by number. It struck us that the average farmer would be scared by that appearance of many parts and would not be attracted to a machine apparently so complicated. A catalogue can be too elaborate.

An instructive ad is often better than a clever one. The most forcible way of saying a thing is to tell the exact truth about it in the fewest words.

If you can't make a good ad by telling the truth it is safer not to advertise.

Ad-writing is not a science nor an art. It is an inspiration and no one can write a convincing ad until he enthusiastically believes the article advertised will benefit the people advertised to, if they buy it.

When an agent goes into the field to sell to farmer folk he does not argue in technical terms. An ad is an agent and the nearer it tells its story in the language of the people it is intended for, the more effective it will be in bringing results.

Don't make the mistake of thinking an ad must be startling in some of its features. In these days people have become educated to the point of reading ads, and absurd statements do not convince as much as do straight facts in well-chosen language.

exact

Placing advertising is not an science. Neither is practicing medicine nor foretelling the weather, but in either the man who has been working at it for a long time will do better work than the beginner.

The man who writes his own ads often saves himself a deal of bother. He doesn't have so many letters to answer or so many orders to fill.

Advertising is educational. It teaches people how to make life more comfortable and, therefore, more pleasant by calling their attention to articles of use or adornment that had not before been brought directly to their attention.

The same argument does not appeal to all people nor to every section, therefore it is good policy to use a variety of ads in each section of the country and ads written for every section covered by the campaign.

The editor of a farm paper who does not edit his paper with the advertisers in view, fails in his duty to subscribers and advertisers both, or does not have the right kind of advertisers.

The paper which publishes ads that the business manager does not like to boast about is somewhat knock-kneed in its principles.

The only kind of originality that counts in advertising is the originality of common sense.

Cleverness is not convincing. This may explain why some clever ads do not catch results.