T is quite frequently stated that rates in the farm papers are too high. This statement usually comes from the advertiser, and is discounted for that reason. The advertiser would naturally be expected to make such a claim. It is quite true, of course, that some advertisers are so in the habit of saying this that if a representative of a farm paper should quote a rate 50 per cent lower than the card rate, these advertisers would exclaim at once from force of habit, and almost involuntarily: "Your rate is a little high, isn't it?"

Nevertheless, the shrewd advertiser ought to be a pretty good judge of a fair rate, and he is not always wrong when he contends that the rate of a paper is too high.

For, after all, it is circulation that most advertisers pay for, and only secondarily for quality. Quality of circulation may or may not be desirable, and usually it costs more than it is worth.

We cannot subscribe to the statement of a mail order advertiser that any paper is a good medium if it has circulation. This is not true in the agricultural field. Nevertheless, if we had our choice between paying for quality and quantity of circulation, we should choose the latter.

The two, however, are not contradic tory, and a number of farm papers of large circulation are also papers of a high quality of circulation.

We do think the complaint of some advertisers familiar with the farm press has considerable justification.

A

good many farm papers, a majority, in the opinion of the writer, charge more for their space than it is worth. We are not going to tell what is a fair rate, because we do not know. Too many items enter into the calculation. Something will depend upon the territory, and something also upon the quality of the circulation and the character of the paper.

If the circulation be a paid circulation, a half-cent per line per thousand of circulation is a fair average rate, and the farm papers entitled to charge more than this are not numerous.

It would be a mighty good thing for the whole agricultural advertising proposition if the rates in the farm papers were more equitable.

It would, of course, be a good thing

These agencies, however, do not believe this publisher has anything like the circulation he claims. He could doubtless furnish satisfactory evidence regarding the circulation he actually has, but he has an unconquerable disinclination against showing up.

It may be said that these agencies do not care anything about his circulation, actual or claimed, but are interested only in return sheets from their clients. There need be no quarrel about this. The two situations do not differ materially.

There is a remedy for the difficulty. It is being applied all the time with more or less thoroughness. The remedy is a common-place one. It takes time to bring it about. The agencies can do more than any other factor to bring about the result desired. The "power of the press" will be more and more in their hands.

We have comparatively little faith in sworn statements as a remedy for inequitable rates. They have some value, however, as a certain percentage of advertisers have a confidence in them that is beautiful to see.

From what has been written above it is not to be understood that the rate situation is any worse in the agricultural than in other fields of advertising. The farm papers are probably not sinners above the magazines and the daily

papers.

T

HERE are just two classes of people to whom the advertiser

must direct his ads-the people who are ready to buy the article advertised of some one, and the people who may be persuaded to buy, although they feel no pressing need for it at present.

The first class needs no persuasion to buy the article, for the preliminary work of education has been done by some one or through some medium which does not interest the advertiser. Say the article advertised is a cream separator. There are a good many cow owners in this country who are convinced that they need a separator and intend to buy one this season. They are either absolutely withont prejudice, or they have a leaning toward some particular machine, or they

tiser. He needs emphatic ads to cause him to veer around.

The man who has his mind made up is the one who tries the skill of the adwriter. He has reasons for the faith that is in him, he is able to argue in favor of his particular machine, he remembers the result of public competition. To secure his patronage and sel! him a machine other than the ore he favors is a hard task, and to succeed in making a sale to him it is necessary to bring to the front every point of merit, every little advantage, every argument that will tend to show why the particular machine he is being persuaded against his first judgment to buy should be taken in preference to his favorite.

Every man in the three divisions of this class is going to buy a separator.

have decided in their own minds to buy a certain separator.

The advertiser of separators wants to sell to all these people. His task as an advertiser is to convince them that his machine is the one that should be bought. In the case of the unprejudiced man the task would be comparatively easy if it were not that a lot of separator makers are each telling him that he should buy their special machine if he would have the best. To sell to this man it is necessary to bring forth convincing arguments in language that forces conviction in order to make a sale.

The man who favors a certain separator, but is open to conviction, is a little harder to handle. Left alone he would eventually buy the one he first had in mind,, but if he is properly taken in hand he may be turned to the adver

If there were no other class to advertise to advertising would be reduced to the art of persuasion and to devising means to lure men into changing their minds.

But there is another great class to whom the advertiser must give attention. This is composed of those who need a separator, but have not experienced a sense of this need. They must be educated, and as there are numerous different makes of separators, this class must be educated to think the particular one our advertiser is offering is the best one for every man to buy.

Here is a lot of preliminary work to be done before any manufacturer can make a sale. A large part of this edu cational work is made effective in an indirect way. If only one manufacturer in this country were advertising separators, he would have a hard time with

this class and a very easy time with the other one. The first class would buy of him without advertising, as they have been educated to buy, but the second class would be hard to convince. A man in the second class would pay little attention to the claims of one man making a separator. He would think that man a plain liar, or at least over-enthusiastic in his claims and the statements made would lack force.

But, under present conditions, there is an indirect educational force working on him sub-consciously. Perhaps twenty manufacturers of separators are advertising with more or less regularity. The separator advertising of this country is of two classes. The dignified and gentlemanly presentation of facts and arguments and the knock-down-and-drag-out, rough-and-tumble kind. The former is happily the kind used by most manufacturers.

All of these separator advertisers, competing for trade and opposed to each other, are helping each other by educating and convincing the man who could profitably use a separator, but has never felt the need of one. He sees their ads and, while he may not even read them, he is gradually convinced that the separator is a good thing or they would not be made by so many different firms and advertised so extensively and continuously

He

Without consciously giving the matter any thought, he is convinced that separators have a mission to perform. knows that advertising costs money. He knows a good many separators must be sold or the manufacturers could not af ford to advertise. All this is impressed on him, without conscious attempt to obtain information. He knows that it is impossible to fool any part of the people all the time, and before he is aware of the fact his mind has been convinced that there must be something in separators, and soon he is reading the ads with more or less interest.

He

Then his education begins in earnest. He learns a lot of things in one ad, only to find them disputed in another. gets really interested and sends for catalogues, sending to the man who seems to him to make the best showing in his ads, or to several, in order to learn more about separators.

It

Here the newspaper's work ends. has brought the possible buver and the manufacturer together. The catalogue must do the rest. And the catalogue? That is another story.

FARMER'S GUIDE

Indiana Farmers are the best of their kind and

The Farmers'

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is the best of its kind. This ought to be pretty good com. pany for a reliable adver tiser to get into A guaranteed circulation of

28,000

in the agricultural territory of Indiana is more valuable than double that amount some other place.

REMEMBER

that to make the right sort of an impression on an Indiana Farmer, your proposition has to come through

The Farmers' Guide,

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The illustration on the next two pages may give the reader a hint as to outward appearance of the home of the Farm and Fireside, owned and operated by The Crowell Publishing Company at Springfield, Ohio. It does not, however, permit of the revelation awaiting one who will visit the building and go through its various departments where are made, decorated and sent forth, the big editions of the well-known Farm and Fireside-most happily named periodical, by the way. This building was constructed for the company, and is entirely occupied by it. As will be noticed, the light of day is let in upon every foot of its ample floor spaces. System reigns supreme here, and all is accomplished quietly, smoothly and without friction. Because of the modest size of the city of Springfield, a stranger visiting this plant is invariably surprised at its comprehensive scope and the largeness of the enterprise as a whole. Agricultural conditions are certainly encouraging to the business man who has a proposition of interest to the rural classes, and the substantial prosperity of the farmer offers an advertiser opportunity that the wise ones are not slow to take advantage of. Farm and Fireside is respected as a guide and authority by thousands upon thousands of the most progressive and prosperous farmer-folk throughout the country. With a cir culation of over 310,000 copies guaranteed, its rate is comparatively a low one. A product of the before described, perfectly equipped publishing house, it is a

pacemaker among farm journals, not only for solid worth of contents, but for good printing and effective illustration. Significant of the heavy mails is the fact that Uncle Sam has established a government post-office in the building itself, and government clerks weigh the outgoing mails, which are then delivered directly to the railroad. In more than 310,000 rural homes farmers welcome, literally with outstretched hands, their regular copies of the Farm and Fireside, while the women are especially interested in the news, stories and advertisements which serve to keep this semi-monthly periodical ever fresh and interesting. It is a fact that the advertisements found in this publication are perused with as great an interest as any of the departments. The wise advertisers have grown to realize the importance of enticing offers and reliable statements in this valuable space, and readers, who know that the publishers of their favorite periodical are practically behind every offer made by advertisers permitted within their columns, do not hesitate to deal freely with them. Such space is beyond the reach of those ad sharks who would bunco a community if they could, through its home paper. The reliability and good name of such a publication as the Farm and Fireside represent their most valuable assets. In the interests of legitimate publishing it is a pleasure to note the success of such periodicals; and, too, it speaks well for the good taste of readers who make the success possible.