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At the Exposition

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The Exposition at St. Louis probably differs from other expositions in that it is upon a grander scale. The hugeness of it strikes you amidships immediately you enter the gate. If not more beautiful, it at least is more exhausting than the World's Fair of Chicago. The average reader of Agricultural Advertising, who visits the World's Fair, will probably realize, as did the writer, that would be impossible to take in the whole show. If he is an advertising man, he will probably not have money enough in his jeans to spend the summer there, and indeed it would take a Croesus to do this, as all St. Louis seems bent on grafting. Even the newsboys on the streets have raised the price of daily papers five hundred per cent.

The point of greatest interest undoubtedly to the agricultural advertiser will be the agricultural and manufacturers' exhibit. In these two beautiful buildings are housed many of our old familiar friends, whose wares are and have been advertised in the agricultural press.

Studebaker Brothers Mfg. Company is there with a full exhibit of carriages, wagons, harness and automobiles.

The Collins Plow Company can be found in Block 25 of the Agricultural Building. They are represented by J. A. Farmer.

The Louden Machinery Company, Fairfield, Ia., is represented by Mr. Frank Sullivan, Block 27, Agricultural Building.

The Kemp & Burpee Mfg. Company is showing its manure spreaders in the agricultural building and is represented by the genial Mr. H. R. Ryder, of Columbus, O.

The Aspinwall Mfg. Company, of Jackson, Mich., has a fine exhibit of its potato machinery.

The Avery Mfg. Company, Peoria, Ill., is showing separators, planters, cultivators and stock cutters.

A. Buch's Sons Company, of Elizabethtown, Penn., is exhibiting its line of steel troughs, corn shellers, lawn swings and land rollers.

The Bettendorf Axle Company, of Davenport, Ia., has a fine exhibit of farm wagons, farm trucks, engine trucks and meadow wheels.

The N. P. Bowsher Company, South Bend, Ind., is showing feed grinding mills.

The Brown Manufacturing Company, of Zanesville, O., shows its full line of farm wagons, harrows and walking and riding cultivators.

The M. Campbell Fanning Mill Company is well placed with a good exhibit.

The Champion Works of the International Harvester Company is in Block 33 of the Agricultural Building with an interesting exhibit.

The Chattanooga Plow Company, Chattanooga, Tenn., is showing plows and cane mills.

The Chicago Flexible Shaft Company is showing horse clipping and sheep clipping machines.

Deere & Company, Moline, Ill., has a strikingly arranged display of all of its line of agricultural tools.

Near them is the large exhibit of the Deere & Mansur Company.

The Deering Harvester Works has a fine exhibit, which attracts much attention. In the Government Building, the Deering Works are showing a large screen, illustrating the progress shown in harvesting machinery, all working automatically. This is the most striking illustration of progress in one line of work. The latest model of the Deering self

binder is shown moving across a field, cutting and binding the grain. Below it is shown the old models from the first self-binder to the present Deering machine. This will undoubtedly become one of the attractions of the exposition to farmers and agricultural implement men.

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The Indiana Wagon Company, Lafayette, Ind., has an exhibit farm wagons.

The Electric Wheel Company, of Quincy, Ill., has a large display of steel wheels, farm, logging, engine and special trucks, and the writer noticed a crowd of interested spectators about the booth.

The Milwaukee Works of the International Harvester Company has, in Block 34 of the Agricultural Building, a fine showing of its machinery.

The Johnson Harvester Company is at the Fair, in Block 30, Agricultural Building, with a record of awards of Philadelphia, Paris and many other expositions. They there with their sleeves rolled up to attract attention.

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The Morrison Manufacturing Company, Fort Madison, Ia., is showing plows, cultivators, etc.

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Parlin & Orendorff, of Ohio, are showing their full line of agricultural implements.

The Moline Plow Company takes considerable space for a very handsome showing.

The Moline Wagon Company shows a line of beautiful farm wagons, Block 15, Agricultural Building.

The Walter A. Wood Mowing and Reaping Machine Company is attracting attention with a fine exhibit.

F. E. Myers & Brother, of Ashland, Ohio, have a clever man in charge of their exhibition of hay tools, carriers, gate hangers, ladders, etc.

The Plano Works of the International Harvester Company, in Block 32 of the Agricultural Building, is making a fine show.

The Silver Manufacturing Company, Salem, Ohio, has, displayed, its line of feed cutters and power drills well in Block 2 of the Agricultural Building.

The Smith Manure Spreader Company is showing its endless apron manure spreader and attracting attention.

The Whitman Agricultural Company, St. Louis, Mo., is showing baling presses, grain drills, feed mills,

etc.

The Stover Mfg. Co., Freeport, Ill., has a fine exhibit in Block 19, Aisle B, of the Agricultural Building. They also have mills erected on the grounds.

In Block 20, Aisle A-B, the Olds Seed Company, Clinton, Wis., is showing seed potatoes, field seeds and garden seeds.

Vaughan's Seed Store of Chicago is making a special display of grass seeds.

Over in the dairy section there is a handsome display. The Empire Cream Separator Company is there, with a clever man in charge.

Along this same aisle the J. B. Ford Company, of Wyandotte, Mich., is showing its line of washing soda and prepared starch and dairymen and brewers' cleaner.

The Cleveland Cream Separator Company is showing a line of hand separators.

The Davis Cream Separator Company, Chicago, is showing cream separators.

The Omega Separator Company, Lansing, Mich., is showing its line of cream separators in a handsome exhibit.

The Creamery Package Mfg. Company, of Chicago, has a notable display of all sorts of creamery and dairy supplies.

The Colonial Salt Company, of Akron, Ohio, is showing its line of dairy and household salts.

There are undoubtedly a great many other exhibits that the writer did not run across in the short time ne had to spend upon the grounds. When one enters the general advertising field the big advertisers are scattered about on every hand to walk through the Transportation Building, the Manufacturers' Building or the Liberal Arts Building is, in a sense, like turning over the advertising pages of one of the high-class magazines.

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DSMITHS have well-nigh perfected their art. This is not saying that all ads. are even approximately perfect; there are too many worse than mediocre hands writing ads. to admit of such a condition. But it is indisputable that a very large amount of the publicity secured by merchants, manufacturers and dealers through the prominent agencies is of an exceedingly high order so far as the wording, designing and illustrating of the ads. are concerned. And these are the factors which determine the value of advertising. Yet it does not follow that the best ad., judged by the true standard-that is, the standard of art-is the most effective. The genuinely artistic ad., a star product of the adshop, is, in the ordinary medium, caviar-like an essay on mental therapeutics published in a country newspaper. For this reason many ads. are not of as high grade as their writers are capable of turning out.

It seems to be the idea among advertising experts that the pulling capacity of an ad. is governed largely by its make-up independent of other considerations. Without doubt this is a strongly supported conviction, but in the persistent clamor for "better ads." and advertising education we lose sight of the fact that much depends on the reader.

Thoreau asserts that there are more dull readers than dull books, and I am persuaded that there are more asinine ad.-readers than stupid ad.-writers. Aversion to thinking is a national disease in this country, and the ad.-reader as a rule declines to peruse an announcement if it requires any mental exertion on his part. It must say everything in A B C fashion in the fewest possible words. If it puts him at sea as to its meaning he remains there. Any

ad., therefore, which provokes thought and invites reading between lines is not so popular or effective as the entertaining, frothy ad. which is frivolous, superficial and ubiquitously conspicuous. This is an age of onlookers, not discoverers, of skimmers, of ephemeral information, not diggers of enduring truths.

Present methods of advertising are not calculated to educate the public up to an intelligent appreciation of the highest type of publicity. The effort is to get people to see and read, not to understand and ponder. Consequently there is not a predominance of high-art advertising running in the magazines and other publications. There is no occasion to protest at this time against any legitimate type of advertisement, whether it be exquisitely artistic or grossly crude; if it pays there is ground for satisfaction on the part of the advertiser who furnishes the money. But we who are not in thorough sympathy with the commercial madness and industrial strife which are making America a land of wealth and pomp instead of art and ideals, may be pardoned for voicing an occasional humble plea for the development of beauty and esthetic values in all forms of advertising. We prefer the continuous gentle zephyr to the periodic cyclone; the lingering, quiet, politely obtrusive ad. to the spasmodic, noisy, almost annoying, combination of ridiculous figures, wildly extravagant statements and striking color effects.

These are preferences in dumb advertising-in street cars, on fences and buildings, on any object stationary or moving, that will take paper or paint in country, village or city. As for live advertisements in agricultural journals, which brings somewhat nearer the interests of those who read this magazine, it is gratifying to record that progress is

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being made rapidly in the matter of artistic ad.-building. The agencies never turned out a better grade of ads. than they are placing in farm papers now. A casual examination of a few specimens will show that the space-wasting bungler has been superseded by the skillful artist whe knows the class of people for whom he is angling. Obviously there is much room for improvement in agricultural advertising, SO far as its several ingredients are concerned, and the agencies have by no means reached perfection in their work, but the trend is upward, strong and rapid, and the day of the lifeless, mechanical ad., devoid of art and cramped with type, is past. True, there are still many ads. of this character on duty in the farm press, but they are not from the hands of special ad.-smiths.

Some day it will be more generally understood that the nearer we keep in all business transactions to the laws of harmony and natural proportions, the greater will be the ultimate results. If we appeal, at first vaguely but with increasing force, in our purely commercial affairs to the esthetic nature of man as we go forward in the building up of our industries and trades we shall profit in dollars and grow in intrinsic manhood, and the latter, to those of

philosophical tendencies, is of transcendent importance.

According to my methods of analysis most advertisements are merely suggestions. Few of them are convincing appeals-nor can they be except in rare instances. It is the prime object of an ad. to suggest; if it tries to do more it is destined to fail.

It is time for some of the numerous builders of gasoline engines to change their advertising stories in word and type. The hackneyed statement made by many of them in their ads. that this one or that one is "the best" is not even a suggestion to the farmer: "The best" is a damaging superlative which ought never to be used in any kind of an ad. If it be employed the advertiser should be prudent enough to give it a broad justification. It is not for the advertiser to say how good or effective his wares may be; it is his business to demonstrate their points of excellence. This cannot usually be done in an ad., but more appropriate if less seductive phrases than "the best," "beats them all," "stands alone," and "has no equal." can and should be used. Less puffing and hot air and more facts and reasons are needed in some classes of ads. now before the agricultural public.

Keeping Track of Testimony.

A large number of letters were recently sent by AGRICULTURAL ADVERTISING to the names and addresses attached to testimonials appearing in various catalogues and a surprisingly large percentage of these letters came back unclaimed, the postoffice being unable to deliver them.

There is no disposition to doubt the authenticity of the testimonials in this case, but it brings up the thought that those who publish catalogues might very easily put themselves under suspicion provided any one ever undertook to investigate the testimony concerning some article.

Americans change their habitations with an ease that astonishes foreigners. As a people we do not take firm hold of the soil and our love of home extends no farther than the individuals

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composing the family circle. We have sentimental regard for our homes and localities. We give up the place of our birth without a pang if we think we are going to benefit by doing so. So a man may write a good testimonial this year and next year he may have gone to some other county, state or section of the country. Experience has taught that this must happen with considerable frequency. It would therefore be a good plan for those who publish testimonials to keep track of the people who write them. It is not safe even to publish this year testimonials from the sales of last year. It would be a very good plan to write to all whose testimonials are to be published, just before publishing them, to secure evidence that the witnesses who testify may be found of those who may desire to communicate with them.

The Special Representative

MILLER PURVIS

The special representative works miracles. With nothing more tangible than the blue of the summer skies and a faith that halts at no obstacles, he goes forth and builds up the business of the nation.

Brave as a lion or timorous as a dove, according to circumstances, he goes forth with the purpose of being all things to all men-and securing contracts. He is a gentleman always. No affront can ruffle him, no cordiality seduce him. His business is first to get contracts and next get rates. Set side by side, these compose the goal toward which he labors, and the number of times he touches this goal is the score by which he counts his success.

If need be he is eloquent and able to tell a story that would have made the songs of the sirens seem, by comparison, as the discordant sounds of a street piano or a gramophone. If the occasion demands silence, he can listen with every appearance of interest while the proprietor tells how he started in '48 with less than nothing and built up his business by sheer force of will power and the merits of his goods, with the usual diversions into the realm of genealogy and biography.

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He is prepared to show that his paper is absolutely necessary to the greatest success of any business, and that only through him and the publication he represents certain can lowest classes be reached cost. The people who take his papers need every manufactured article or natural product known to man. They are the most prosperous, the most liberal buyers, and the most able to buy of any people on the face of the earth.

To those who have never advertised he promises to open the doors of affluence and make the rugged path to a reputation level and smooth. To those who appreciate the benefits of advertising he offers

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In securing business he is as persistent as a life insurance agent and as long-suffering as a martyr. He reads a man's character in his face and the tones of his voice, the poses of his body, as easily as the ordinary man would read the lettering of a patent medicine poster.

He is endowed with tact to an extraordinary degree. He knows when to begin and where to quit. He recognizes the "psychological moment" instantly and knows when to present his contract for signature and when to go away without showing it at all.

His talent is something marvelous. He is able to talk on any subject under the sun, intelligently and in an interesting manner, and his conversation always has some bearing on the subject of contracts or rates.

He dresses in good taste and is a connoisseur in the matter of cigars. He knows the best hotel in every town in his territory, and is one of the few men who can address a hotel clerk by his first name with impunity. He has at his fingers' ends the time-table of every railway and the train which makes the best time in the most comfortable manner.

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