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Agricultural Progress of Twenty Years

BY GENERAL C. H. HOWARD

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HAVE been much interested in the reminiscences by agricultural editors that have appeared in AGRICULTURAL ADVERTISING. It seems to me doubtful, however, whether anything in my somewhat later period would be worth the while to publish. There is something picturesque in the doings and methods of the earliest days of the agricultural journal such as were described by Gilbert M. Tucker of the Country Gentleman. So, also, the recollections of Mr. Chandler, of the Farmer's Review, have a little of the flavor of ancient history when they bring us to the triumphs, in the 60's, of Wilbur F. Storey of the Chicago Times, and tell of the two other Chicago dailies of that time. Some few of later personal reminiscences from me may, however, be desirable as a kind of background by which to bring out the progress made by the agricultural journal during the twenty years that I have been connected with the Farm, Field and Fireside. To indicate my point of view. I may mention that I was born and brought up on a New England farm. The hilly surface and stony, barren soil, the planting and hoeing of corn and potatoes and the digging of potatoes by hand, the mowing of grass by the scythe and the cradling and reaping of grain and the curing of hay by the slow and back-breaking methods of that day had given me an appreciation of the hard work of the farmer, though quite different from that of the prairie farm with the newer implements. The orchards, the dairy and the care for live stock were not materially different. Seven years in the army did not eradicate my love of the country nor my inbred sympathy with the farmer, but opened my eyes to the magnificent opportunities of our great western country. I first saw Chicago in January, 1864, having come up, on furlough, from the Army of the Cumberland, then in winter quarters around Chattanooga. The two things that have left the strongest impression on my memory are my first inspection of a great grain elevator and my visit to the

Confederate prison. With the thermometer 20 degrees below zero the "Rebels," as they were then universally called, were not altogether comfortable and happy in the wooden barracks with a single inch board between them and the freezing north winds to which they were little accustomed. I made careful inquiry as to their food supply, for our own soldiers in the Rebel prisons were being starved to death. The Confederate authorities claimed that they were on short rations from necessity, and that their own soldiers on the campaign were often hungry. Doubtless there was truth in this. But these Rebel prisoners in Chicago were too near the fountain head for bread and meat not to have plenty to eat. They acknowledged to me they had enough, such as it was. Evidently they missed the sweet potatoes and other toothsome articles that they were accustomed to have in their Southern homes.

Chicago was already big enough to bring about strange meetings of old acquaintances from remote parts of the country. The elevator visited was that of Orrington and S. P. Lunt, who had come from Maine, my native state, and S. P. had been my room mate at school.

The capacity of Chicago's elevators at that time was 7,000,000 bushels. The receipts of the principal grains (including flour reduced to grain) for the year 1864-5, ending March 31, '65, were fiftyfive million bushels. The population of Chicago for 1863 was 160,000. To indicate the development of the farming interests of the great northwest since that visit on that cold first day of January, 1864, I will add the comparative figures of 1904-just forty years later. The total elevator capacity is today 58,000,000 bushels. This includes 28,000,000 of what is known as "regular" and 30,000,000 of private elevators. The receipts of all grains for 1903 were 276,000,000 bushels. In 1900, which was an exceptional crop year, the receipts were 350,000,000 bushels.

Looking out upon the great northwest as the "perennial source of the nation's prosperity," the total grain product for

1904, as given by Secretary George F. Stone, of the Chicago Board of Trade, was 471,000,000 bushels; the estimated value was $606,000.745. From the same authority the number of head of horses, mules, milch cows, sheep, swine and cattle other than milch cows, is given for the past year as 56,000,448, and the estimated value at $1,047,000,000.

My brief inspection of a Chicago grain elevator in 1864 was for a Maine farmer's boy somewhat of an eyeopener. It was enough to stimulate the imagination and lead to plans for a return some years later. But the figures of today tell unmistakably where the center of gravity of the nation's agricultural wealth is situated. They demonstrate, also, that the producer of this wealth must be an important factor in the nation's trade and commerce.

Returning to the army, and remaining in it till the close of the reconstruction period, I did not come to Chicago to make my home until 1869. While in the Army of the Potomac I was a correspondent of the Portland (Me.) Press and the Boston Journal. After our transfer to the Western department, I wrote quite regularly for the Cincinnati Gazette. During my last year of public service, in relation to the freedmen and refugees of the District of Columbia, Maryland and Delaware, I was the Washington correspondent of the Advance, which was started in Chicago in 1866. When I came to Chicago to reside I brought one letter of introduction. This was written by Senator Lyman Trumbull and addressed to Horace White, then one of the editors of the Tribune. This, and my connection with the Advance, helped to bring me into acquaintance at once with journalism as it then existed in Chicago. White, who has since been distinguished as an author as well as editor of the New York Evening Post, was, of course, a comparatively young man, with dark eyes and hair and without beard. He was cordial and helpful to me in extending my acquaintance in Chicago. Andrew L. Shuman was the managing editor of the Evening Journal, a most genial gentleman, a thorough believer in the old Whig doctrine of protection to home industries. The steady conservatism of the Journal under Shuman and the absence of everything like what is now known as yellow journalism, suited the tastes and habits of many of Chicago's best citizens and gave to the Evening

Mr.

Journal a position of influence. Shuman, like Deacon Bross of the Tribune, was elected to the office of lieutenantgovernor of Illinois.

In the early autumn of 1873 I purchased an interest in The Advance, and later, the same year, bought out my partner, Henry L. Turner (since known as Colonel Turner, of the SpanishAmerican war), and became responsible both for the editorial and business management.

This brought me in direct relations with the advertising agencies of the country, and especially Chandler, Lord & Co., afterwards Lord & Thomas, who then made a specialty of the religious press. This firm, for some years, managed the advertising department of The Interior. They had previously bought space in The Advance, and it was suggested that they pay a net sum for the total advertising space of The Advance. This did not commend itself to my judgment and, instead, I devoted considerable attention to developing that part of the business. I found that the one or two other agencies in Chicago and the two or three prominent general advertising agencies in New York and Boston, and one in Philadelphia, were ready to co-operate actively in turning to The Advance advertising adapted to its class of readers. There was at this period some fire and accident and some life insurance advertising in our columns. Field, Leiter & Co. were quite regular patrons. The publishers throughout the country took space at certain seasons; also colleges and schools. Some medical advertisements were admitted, but not promiscuously. Sewing machines were largely advertised. Stove manufacturers had begun to put their claims before the public in the proper season. The Fairbanks scales was a standing advertisement. The Prairie Farmer advertised with us in the early winter; so, also, the Western Rural-the subscription price then being $2.50 per year, and the publisher H. N. F. Lewis.

After nine years (1873-82) I sold The Advance and, owing to impaired health, sought occupation which would keep me out of doors. Live stock was booming at this time, and with one or two partners I located a cattle range in New Mexico and stocked it with cows from Chihuahua, Mexico. In November, 1884, together with James W. Wilson, then connected with the Western Rural, I purchased the Farm, Field and

Fireside, then a monthly magazine, with a circulation of 75,000, and immediately changed it to a weekly.

About this time some of the general advertising agencies began to give special attention to soliciting advertising for agricultural journals; later, solicitors were stationed in New York, having lists of agricultural papers. But it was not until 1886 that an agency was organized with special reference to advertising in agricultural journals.*

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grange movement had much to do with directing our legislators both in Congress and in the State to the importance of education and scientific advance in agriculture. Increased attention given to the State Agricultural College and Experiment Station where they already existed, and new institutions of this kind were established where there had been none before. This "granger" movement, as it was called, developed a positive force in opposition to railway monopolies, discriminations in freights and the like. The Interstate Commerce Act was, no doubt, one of its fruits; the establishment of a Department of Agriculture with a representative in the

The circulation of agricultural papers had been greatly stimulated by the grange movements. The Patrons of Husbandry, started in 1867, had reached a membership of 30,000 in 1875. In 1877 the National Farmers' Alliance had reached a much greater number in the Middle West, and in 1880, with kindred organizations under different names, had spread like wildfire, and not only tended to increase the subscribers to agricultural papers, but brought about the establishment of several weekly and monthly publications as direct grange organs. This movement among the farmers had its social side and resulted in developing a new life in the rural communities. It tended directly to organization with reference to any interest common to farmers, and soon made itself felt in politics. The agricultural journal, both from its widely extended circulation and its recognized influence with a great body of citizens, came to be appreciated by advertisers as never before. It was found to represent the more intelligent and thoughtful, the wellto-do and progressive-in short, those who would want for their families the comforts and conveniences of the best rural American homes and for the cultivation of their farms modern implements of the best make. The great

cabinet was another and, indirectly, the founding of the Populist party. Many of the economic and political ideals set forth in the Cincinnati platform (1891) had direct relation to the farmer, such, for example, as opposition to land ownership by foreign syndicates, the call for the restoration of lands held by railroads or other corporations in excess of their need for operation, the regulation of railway freights and telegraph tolls by the government, or, in case this cannot otherwise be satisfactorily accomplished, the actual ownership and operation of these public utilities by the government. I refer to these questions, discussed in the granges and in the agricultural journals, to indicate the evolution that has been going on in the intellectual condition of our rural population, especially during the past fifteen or twenty years. This fact, and that of progress socially and in the betterment of home life and surroundings, has been shown and further developed by the increased attention, in more recent years, to farmers' institutes and to the county and state fairs, and especially the greatly increased attendance upon the regular and special courses of the agricultural colleges. Practical scientific knowledge of every department of

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Catalogue Cover Designed by LongCritchfield Corporation

*This agency was incorporated in 1892 as the F. B. White Co. to which the Long-Critchfield Corporation became the successor in 1903.

horticulture and agriculture, including, also, the breeding of live stock, is no longer the aim of a select few, but is becoming every year more general. What is done at the experiment stations -the effort there to better the breeds of cattle, sheep and hogs; to find out the best methods of caring for an orchard, including the extinction of noxious insects; the improvement of seeds, especially of corn, in order to produce a greater quantity and a better quality for feeding purposes-all these subjects of investigation are no longer regarded as technical, intended for the few, but are seen to be eminently practical, and the up-to-date agricultural journal is expected to report them in a readable form.

Even in our inducements to subscribers and to our subscription agents the methods have greatly changed. The Monthly Farm, Field and Fireside, before we bought it, ran up its lists by chromos. stickpins, cuff buttons, etc., etc. This year the Farm, Field and Fireside offers a cash prize of $500 for the best twenty-five ears of corn raised the present season by a subscriber. Three of the leading professors in our agricultural colleges have consented to serve as judges. Editorials and contributed articles on corn breeding and corn improvement will be published throughout the season. Some 300 other prizes, valued at over $2,500, consisting of articles for use to the farmer and his family, such as wagons, plows and

other farm machines and high-bred live stock, are offered as additional to the cash prize, so as to greatly increase the chances of winning something. This prize corn contest indicates the changed conditions and interests of the farmer before mentioned.

Coming on since the grange movement and in response to the awakened social life in the country, is the rural free delivery of the mail. This is extending with immense rapidity. Scarcely less important are the rural neighborhood telephones connecting usually with the nearest village or city.

The advertiser has already learned to think of the reader of the agricultural journal, not as the "hayseed" depicted a few years ago, the victim of the gold brick, the illiterate or stupid or beerbesotted peasant, lately from Europe, but as the American citizen who does his own reading and his own thinking and will, also, do his own buying with intelligence and judgment.

Believing that the agricultural newspaper should, like every other newspaper, endeavor to interest and meet the wants of its constituency, it has been our aim in the Farm, Field and Fireside to publish a paper which editorially and in its contributed matter and in its advertising columns, addresses itself to the American farmer as we find him today, not as he was a generation ago, or even twenty years ago. The agricultural journal is bound to be progressive because its constituency is progressive.

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Advertising To Stockmen

F. E. SANBORN

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OOD advertising is telling the plain, unvarnished truth about your goods in an attractive and condensed form. If there is any place where a good, straight advertising talk applies with more than usual force, it is among the progressive and successful stock farmers and stock raisers who make up the bone and gristle of this country. They are the producers. They live close to nature, much closer than the most of us do, and things are best presented to them in a natural way. They want to handle them with the bark off and without any veneer.

If you can stand squarely on both feet, look a stockman straight in the eye and talk your goods without a hitch, without having to back up or go around, with confidence that you can deliver the goods and with your heart in the deal until the sale is made-if you can do this, you can advertise your goods to him in a way that will attract his attention, secure his confidence and land his .order

The stockman is an up-to-date kind of a fellow. He is well-posted, broadminded, generous and business-like. His daily mail is brought to his door, he reads the best farm and live stock papers, has a telephone in his house, a good balance in the bank and a check book in his hip pocket. If there is anything he likes it is straight business and absolute candor. The exaggerated and overdrawn strikes him as a burlesque, and one trickster in a line of business has the same effect upon him as a scrawny steer among a car load. The whole lot is scaled down several notches on his account.

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"You and I" talk, until his desire to buy was as great as your desire to sell. The business you are asking for is a personal matter with him. Why shouldn't it be the same with you? Get your personality into it.

I believe firmly in reaching the stockman and farmer with business-like advertising talks in the best live stock and farm papers. Such advertising carries with it prestige and features of education that no other methods possess. Its results are far reaching and have a lasting value. It is not necessary that such advertisements be the largest to be the best, they may be small and still be the biggest; but they must say things and say them well. The amount of space used must be in proportion to the ability of the man behind it to pay for it until it begins to pay him, for it is constant hammering that counts.

It pays to reach the stockman by mail. It pays well to do it well, not once, but regularly, systematically, because his interest is aroused and his desire created gradually, a step at a time.

The farmer plants his seed in the spring and cultivates in the summer, in order that he may reap a bountiful harvest in the fall; and the advertiser who secures his patronage must work along the same line with the same patience and the same system.

There are a hundred other methods of advertising for the business of the stockman. There are signs and samples; and exhibits at fairs and racehorses and ninety-six others; but whatever kind is used, must be plain, business-like, attractive and serious. He doesn't want any fun mixed up with his paying. "He laughs best who doesn't laugh at all," when he is advertising his goods to the stockman.

But advertising won't do it all. It is the best fertilizer in the world; it will enrich the field and make a bountiful harvest possible, but it must be mixed with grit, grace and gumption. Grit to hang on and never say "die," grace to accept the results secured with a cool head and a warm heart, and gumption to know what to say and when and where to say it, and when to stop.

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