with the best in the way of poultry, incubators and poultry supplies.

We believe the best advertisement is a satisfied customer, hence we have always worked along this line, and our success is conclusive evidence that we are on the right track.

Good advertising, properly illustrated, well written and placed in the right mediums at the right time is what makes advertising pay.

Ross Brothers, Worcester, Mass.

We are not classed as one of the large advertisers; in fact, we have only been experimenting in a small way for the past two years. The

Last season we did none except to use two papers to advertise some surplus seed that we had on hand. The result from this advertising was that we did not sell as much seed from these ads as the space cost us. We had a chance to exchange for a little advertising.

Our advertising in newspapers was very limited. What was the result? Contrary to all arguments of publications and newspaper advertising agents, the net profits of the business were equal to the best years of the business. The gross receipts not quite so large, but as net profits are what we most need and what makes

year after year taken up the chase for them, but have as often found out that it is not all gold that glitters.

A. A. Berry Seed Co., Clarinda, Iowa. In some respects business has been extraordinarily good with us, especially on the mail order business, and our orders were almost double that of last year.

We cannot give figures yet exactly what the result was in the way of inquiries, orders and business from advertising, as we are working on that now. We are quite sure that it will make a good showing.

Hoosier Mfg. Co., New Castle, Ind.

We have very little to report from Our advertisements in agricultural papers. You will bear in mind that we started late in the season, really after many advertisers had stopped advertising for the summer season. We think, however, that these advertisements will in the end pay us.

Puffer-Hubbard Mfg. Co., Minneapolis, Minn.

The advertising we have done this year has not been entirely satisfactory to us. However, we are well aware of the fact that the matter of advertising is somewhat of a speculation. We may receive benefits another year from what advertising we have done this year, but that is a matter which the future must reveal.

The F. E. Sanborn Co., Omaha, Neb.

No man's business comes up at the end of the year just as he had hoped it would. It is the same with ours. The small leaks are more noticeable after the year's balance sheet has been made than any other time, because they are then all summed up in one total and in the aggregate look big by the side of the items that come along singly during the year.

We feel, however, that we have

made very fair progress during the year just closed. Our business has shown a fair increase, particularly during the past six months.

Our advertising campaign is yet new. We feel that some benefit has been received from it and that the continuation of the efforts and expenditures in that department will bring a retrospective earning power on the money spent during the past season which was charged to advertising accounts.

We are having the same experience that many others have had in advertising to build up demand, in that it is hard to show large profits while doing large building. We feel that were we permitted to invoice and inIclude in our inventory the increased good-will as a result of our advertising, the result would be very gratifying.

Hamer's Sure Cure Co., Vermont, Ill.

We can say that, all things considered, we are very well satisfied with the business of the year. While not as good as hoped for, still we can close the year and call it satisfactory.

The B-B Mfg. Co., Davenport, Iowa.

On account of the unusual amount of wet weather we have not sold as many Fountains to-day as we expected. There are still three months of trade, and we hope to dispose of a large number during that time. Of course, no one can regulate the action of Providence.

Cyclone Woven Wire Fence Co., Holly, Mich.

Our principal difficulty has been in our inability to turn out Cyclone Spring Steel Fence as fast as it is called for by our trade. This is a new departure with us, and it is a line on which we have directed our special efforts this season.

JUCH has been said about expert service in placing advertising, and many pages have been written in setting forth the dictum of those who have professed to have solved the great problem of profitable publicity. We have been told that "I"-with a very large I, please-have definitely determined that this, that or the other method of procedure will bring definite results.

In other words, those writers who have been in the habit of using the "perpendicular pronoun" with great frequency have professed to have reduced advertising to so exact a basis that they could promulgate laws so firmly based on the everlasting truth that the famous statutes of the Medes and Persians, which changed not, would seem as the idle chatter of a bevy of girls out for a half holiday.

The most notable example among those who have declared that they have formulated immutable laws governing the science of advertising, has made several of the most monumenta failures known in the history of the business.

The most expert physician would not undertake to diagnose a case without having seen the patient. He would not say off-hand: "Here is a case like one I had last year. Here is the treatment that was successful then. Use these medicines, follow the course indicated by these notes, which I took of that case, and I need not come again."

He knows that no two human beings are constituted alike and that no two cases on record had the same symptoms, the same complications, the same effect. The disease in each case is subject to the individual idiosyncrasies of the patient, environment, season, climate and all the factors that must be considered in treating it.

Hundreds of men have begun to advertise and after a time have turned back, dropped from public view, given up the struggle simply

and solely because they have been advised by so-called experts who depended on the kind of facts which John Gould, of Ohio, referred to when he said "the trouble with us fellows is that so many of our facts are not true."

The man or firm that poses as an advertising expert and makes pretensions to being able to plan a campaign that will fit any case, is ignorant or dishonest.

Planning an advertising campaign is like diagnosing a disease. Each case must b: treated separately and no precedent will apply. What would succeed in one case would fail in another. Wisdom in one case would be folly in another. There is no rule, no precedent, no universally applicable line of action.

Is advertising, then, a leap in the dark? A blind venture starting from no fixed place, directed to no definite end, a game of chance, a lottery, a mere casting of the die with the chances to win or lose equal?

If it were there would be no advertisers. The fact that advertising pays, when properly planned and intelligently executed, has been as surely proved as any other known fact.

The physician who examines a patient has no precedent on which to rely. He has never had a case that in every aspect was exactly like the one in hand. Some general rules there are in medicine, but to rely on these is to court defeat fame and reputation.

and miss

long ex

The physician, through perience in treating diseases, has become endowed with a peculiar sense, a sense that intuitively points in the direction which is most likely to lead to success. So it is with advertising. The beginner who tries to place his own ads relies on the plans that have succeeded with some one else. tries to apply a general rule to his specific case. Once in a thousand times he, being born with the advertising faculty, succeeds, and his name goes abroad as a successful man.

He

Not being of the elect, nine hun

dred and ninety-nine beginners, who do not employ expert and experienced service, fail to reach the success that they might have attained. They may succeed to a certain degree, but not one time in a thousand do they get results that justify them in ignoring the expert. There is hardly a case in a year where the advertiser could have made more money than he did make if he had paid an experienced advertiser to place his business.

He

When the advertising man who has had experience is called upon, he first studies the thing that is to be advertised, from every point of view. considers the demand, the territory from which the demand must come, the competition, the season during which the demand may be looked for, the merits of the article itself.

He tries to gather up and bring before his mind's eye every factor that enters into the problem. Then he plans the campaign. Ask him why he does this or that and he cannot put his finger on a single precedent

that might have impelled him in a given direction. He only knows that in his judgment the thing he does is the best thing to do. He has acquired the advertising sense, an intuitive quality of mind that, working sub-consciously, has become an instinct, a conviction that a certain line of procedure is the best one. He can no more explain to the uninitiated why he arrives at his conclusions, in many cases, than the migrating bird could tell why it flies south in the autumn and north in the spring.

The only things that have been definitely settled about placing advertising are that there is no rule that will apply in every case; that success almost invariably depends on experience or the advice of the experienced advertising man; that unalong der proper management and proper lines advertising is as certain to pay as that seed time is followed by harvest.

Successful advertising is very much like successful farming, in either occupation we must SOW before we reap. Some of my best friends, not understanding the situation, call me a business plunger, and verily it is true. On the other hand, farming is business plunging, the only difference. being the little immaterial features belonging to each occupation exclusively.

A successful farmer must necessarily invest in good teams and machinery. Then comes the plowing, harrowing, seeding and cultivating. Who knows about the future harvest?

He may get châff, or he may get grain, or, he may get a half crop that will run him in debt.

It is just the same in advertising. We must invest in good machinery and employ good mechanics. Then we must, so to speak, plow, harrow, plant and cultivate. We do not know what the harvest will be. We have made our effort and investment on our faith or hopes of what we may reap. In either instance, if we half farm we can reasonably expect a half Good farming and good advertising are very much alike.

crop.