stands and the difference in time and amount of cultivation given has made the corn crop generally exceedingly ragged in appearance and with a wide variation in the stage of development of fields in the same immediate neighborhood.

The corn situation so far as both yields and quality are concerned is now purely a weather proposition. Should good growing and maturing weather prevail so that the crop can continue its development well past the middle of September and then become fairly mature before killing frosts occur, there is every reason to expect a crop of normal proportions. The drouth conditions which so seriously curtailed the growth of corn a year ago are entirely lacking at the present time, and considering all the influencing factors there is as much reason to expect a normal corn crop as there was at this time last year.

The promise for potatoes is excellent. July brought a small decline in condition after the high mark of June, but less than is ordinarily expected because July is the month when the potato crop meets its most serious obstacles. In the potato producing regions west of the Allegheny mountains there has rarely been promise of a greater potato crop than at present. In spite of the plentiful rainfall which ordinarily encourages the development of insect and fungus pests there has been less damage from this source than in the average year. The potato crop is now made, and while digging returns are not available in the more northern districts there are ample indications of large acre yields and a satisfactory volume of the crop. Reports from some of the potato growing districts of Missouri give yields as high as 200 bushels per acre, and the state board of agriculture estimates a crop for the state double that of a year ago.

The apple crop is of more than average proportions throughout the western districts. The July drop of immature fruit was not particularly heavy and indications are that a heavier crop of apples will be harvested than for sev eral years. In Indiana, Illinois and Ohio the Crop will not be of record-breaking proportions but is easily above normal. In the far western districts and in the fruit growing regions of the southwest the crop is heavy. It has been a good year for fruit in general.

Sugar beets promise a record-breaking crop. The same weather conditions which enabled the growth of a record oats crop also favored the sugar beet. It now seems certain that tonnage will be at least normal, but the per cent

of sugar carried by the beets depends largely upon the weather at maturing time, which is late in September. Indications are that Colorado will take first place in sugar beet production, with California second, Michigan third, then Utah, Ohio, Wisconsin, Idaho and Nebraska.

The Live Stock Situation.

Live stock conditions are generally favorable from the viewpoint of the farmer and grower. What the live stock industry in this country lacks is volume. Hog cholera decimated the herds in the corn belt last year. causing a positive loss of untold numbers and heavy indirect loss through the premature marketing of pigs. The same condition forced tremendous numbers of breeding sons to market, and the result is now being felt in the curtailed volume of hogs going to market. Prices are high and farmers and breeders are generally taking renewed interest in the hog business. So far this season cholera has been reported from only a few isolated communities and it is rather unlikely that any widespread epidemic will occur.

Fat cattle have reached values unprecedented since the Civil war. Prime fat steers have sold on the hoof at the Chicago stockyards at $10.50 per 100 pounds and grass fat cattle from the western ranges have been eagerly picked up by the packers at $8.50. Receipts of cattle at the Chicago and Missouri river markets show a deficit of at least 300,000 head for the calendar year. The country is generally thought to be pretty well stripped of stock cattle fit for making beef. The cattle feeding situation is therefore unsatisfactory because of the curtailed volume, but offers an exceedingly attractive field to the farmer and feeder who has thin stock or is able to secure it.

The sheep situation is in a somewhat puzzling condition. The ranges west of the Missouri river, which support approximately 80 per cent of the sheep of the United States, have been very heavy shippers for two years past and in addition have encountered abnormally heavy winter losses. Grass fat lambs are now fairly abundant, but the supply of feeder lambs will hardly prove burdensome this year. The stock sheep situation is not, however, generally supposed to be so acute as the feeder cattle situation. Fat sheep are selling far cheaper than cattle and hog prices varrant. Dressed mutton is cheaper than live beef. From the standpoint of the farmer and feeder, however, lack of numbers is in a large degree counteracted by enhanced values. Fin

ished live stock, in common with all agricultural products, has unquestionably entered upon an era of permanently higher values.

The enormous volume of the cereal crop is having a markedly favorable effect on business throughout the entire west. New York and Chicago banks are reported to be making heavy transfers of money to the country in order to move the crops. The railroads are already warning shippers that the most severe car shortage since 1907 is imminent, and entreating them to move such material as coal, cement and machinery immediately so as to leave the way clear for the movement of crops beginning in October. A recent statement issued by the association of western railways compares statistics of car shortages and surpluses during the different months of the year for some five years. These figures show that should even the minimum car shortage during the next few months be encountered, a total deficit of some 59,000 cars would confront shippers by October 1. Should, however, the autumn use of cars increase in the same proportion that it did in the corresponding period in

1909, the shortage by October 1 would aggregate 179,000 cars. These figures are quoted to illustrate the volume of business which actually confronts the transportation facilities of this country without taking into account any added crop production that favorable weather between now and the time snow flies may bring about.

Never in the history of the United States has the excitement and uncertainty of a presidential campaign cut so little figure in business circles as is evident at the present time. The presidential year has always been considered an off-year in business. Nineteen hundred and twelve promises to be an exception to this rule, and promises to do away once and for all with that bugaboo of the influence of political changes on general business. The present optimistic situation has been brought about by big crops and by substantial business development in all sections of the country, and so far as these conditions prevail commerce in general, and particularly those phases directly affecting agricultural interests, are certain to be prosperous.

A

DS are like men-whether or not they can "come back" depends on where they have been and their record while away. And not this only-the time-worn assertion that an advertised article must "make good" means more than that the article must be right, and the business on the square; it means that the advertiser has nerve. He knows not brass, not cheek to bluff the thing through, but pluck and the nerves that hold; that as long as he's in the game he has a chance.

One thing that puts a lot of advertisers out of the game is talk of "business depression"— money scarce? No, sir. Nothing is scarce in this country. There is plenty of everything in business except Time, and, strange to say, time is the one thing that is periodically and unnecessarily wasted by giving up to that bugaboo "business depression."

Hard times, in America, is only a myth to frighten the imagination. Possibly there is method in Wall Street's madness, but it is time that the mass of the business world

stopped running when the panic scarecrow points its lifeless arms.

The advertiser whose ads come back in money and prestige, and all sorts of business success, is the man who isn't afraid; the man who takes advantage of the other fellow's scare to spend more money for publicity— to secure merchandise at scared-down pricesthe man who smiles away the clouds of panic; the man who keeps his head cool and his feet

warm.

A prominent advertiser once said that Benjamin Franklin was the greatest of all Americans because he coaxed a reluctant public in a time of panic, by sheer force of advertising. How his efforts "came back" is perhaps the biggest chapter in American history.

And it is so with all sustained and continuous purpose-the ads go forth, not only to make good, but to "come back" manifold; in money. And in the best of all returns, the confidence and support of the public.

T

HE advertising man of this little preachment is no certain man engaged in the business of advertising. He is not a type, or specimen. Neither is he a composite formation of all advertising men blended together. He is the general average.

The general average may not exist in one individual. A group of men may average 150 pounds in weight, yet not one of the group weigh exactly that amount. But regardless of their varying weights, if we are considering the group, we can point to any individual and claim that he weighs exactly 150 pounds.

Now, there is a law of averages running throughout all things. There is an average complexion of any group of men, an average of intelligence, an average of character.

Kipling somewhere says the strength of the wolf is the pack and the strength of the pack is the wolf. It is a splendid way of arriving at wolf characteristics. It also is the correct way of estimating the strength of the pack to take note of the strength of the average.

It is never necessary to explain Kipling's meaning. However, he has said so much here in so little, it may be interesting to follow his meaning into greater detail.

Do you know anything about wolves? How they hunt, how the hunting has formed their characteristics? It's interesting, whether you do or not.

Wolves hunt in packs—or did until man decimated their ranks, and plowed up their hunting preserves and destroyed the great game upon which they formerly fed. The wolf at this time has degenerated into a measley, mangy, sneaking thief, content to snatch a crippled lamb or wounded hare. But formerly he feasted upon venison, and antelope meat, and the haunch of bison. Then it was he hunted in packs, because the individual wolf was not strong enough to pull down, nor fleet enough to overtake alone the meat supply he so much enjoyed.

Through this pack-hunting he learned to yelp. It enabled his fellows to discover the chase from a distance, and to follow regardless of the scent. It developed cunning, this yelping, in that a wolf could ascertain the direction of the flight of the pursued and cut across corners, as it were, and thus gain upon the prev

The co-operation, for that is what it amounted to, taught the wolf the advantage of remaining upon good terms with his fellows, and to distinguish a member of his own pack from the straying member of another pack. In short it developed wolf nature to just what wolfnature ought to be.

All of which is here stated simply to show how the occupation-or the hunt-accounts for characteristics-and characteristics are evidence of character. So in estimating the advertising man it becomes an easy task if we but know his manner of hunting, or what he has to contend with in securing his food supply, or the obstacles which he must overcome in the struggle for existence.

Now, we find that the advertising man is unafraid-morally and physically. He has had to explore new fields, or sail uncharted seas. He is daring always, and not discouraged. He possesses great optimism-which is the height of courage. For, many is the time he has grown lean and lank while awaiting the developments, but always has he forced the fighting with courageous heart-and won.

He is intelligent-or perishes. His business is to plan, and that begets mental activity. He meets the brightest minds of the worldand gains something while giving much. He is opposed always; he knows not what it is to have his ideas adopted without a struggle. And it is only through opposition that we broaden or take on polish.

A voluminous reader, a close student, a keen observer, his memory is literally built for business through his own efforts. He understands his fellow man, perhaps, as his fellow man is not understood by any other class.

The advertising man is generous. The success of an advertiser depends upon his spending capacity, not upon his capacity to save. The fruitage of advertising like the fruitage of the wheat, comes after the expenditure of the seed; it can not come before. Advertising would indeed be a simple process if the advertiser could reap before he sows.

So the advertising man becomes accustomed to spending. He spends the money of other people for their benefit-and he can not conserve his own money for his own benefit. And this spending habit begets charity-real char

ity; charity for one's fellow man; patience comes with charity, or is a part of charity; compassion is the blossom of charity; sympathy and love are the fruit of charity. All of these things are as natural with the advertising man as it is natural for the wolf to assist his fellows in pulling down the stag.

That the advertising man is cosmopolitan goes without the saying. Advertising itself is universal. At home anywhere, the world is the workshop of the advertising man. He meets men of all characteristics. He adapts himself to the rough words of this man, or falls into the sweet whispers of that one. He speaks with a tongue of fire when heat is fashionable, or blows an icy breath where refrigeration is the thing.

He is polished, suave. He fits into every niche. He smiles when it is painful, or mourns when he had rather laugh-and all to be agreeable, not to be hypocritical. Rather should he be credited with diplomacy than being condemned as fickle or untrue.

As for industry, he leads the world. It has taken work, hard work, to develop advertising. It still takes hard work to maintain it. The genius of advertising is perspiration, just as is any other genius. Other men have their hours of toil. The advertising man toils incessantly. There is hardly a moment of his

waking hours when he is not figuring upon an advertising proposition, and his sleep is disturbed by dreams pertaining to the craft.

In stature he is well proportioned. He is splendidly poised at all times. He makes a good living and lives it good. He is marriedand affectionate. He is religious, whether he ever enters a church or spends his Sabbaths with a rod and reel. He is cheerful-possessing the cheerfulness of optimism, of course. Contentious, but kindly in his contentions; aggressive, but compromising within reason; sober, but despising not the sizz of sociability; honest, because no man on earth has that which he would covet or take the trouble to purloin.

Shake not thy doubting locks-or polished head-and claim the picture is untrue. Of course you know advertising men who do not come up to the average. But do you not also know advertising men whose virtues can not be written down on paper-men in the advertising game who would grace the courts of any clime on earth? For every advertising man you know who falls below the average, for every one of those who deserve not the tribute that is printed here, there stands another, towering high above the averagewhose height has not as yet been scaled by any pen.

F

ARMING in America has made radical changes in the last sixty years. In 1850 the farmer was still rich in opportunities with millions of acres of virgin soil open to him for settlement, but with markets restricted largely to local demands. Today there is almost no public land left in Uncle Sam's broad domain, but the markets, have broadened until there is a world-wide demand for the products of the American farm.

This trend is strikingly shown in recently issued figures of the Census Bureau which make possible comparisons by ten-year periods for the sixty years from 1910 back to 1850. Take, for example, the remarkable gain in farm acreage as compared with the total land area of Continental United States. There has been no change in this area for the entire sixty years, except a relatively small tract of 29.670 square miles, added chiefly to southern Arizona by the Gadsden purchase in 1853. This addition changed the total area by less than one per cent, and being in a then undeveloped wilderness may be ignored for the purposes of this article. The figures here given are confined then to Continental United States, excluding Alaska as well as all the outlying possessions. They include an aggregate land area of 3,026,789 square miles and an estimated total farm land surface of 1,903,000,000 acres. What progress has been made toward the development of this possible land area during the past sixty years is shown by the table that follows:

Total acres in farms

cent (see fourth column) of the entire land area of Continental United States. During the next ten years this farm area increased 38.7 per cent, which was the largest percentage of expansion for the entire sixty years. Then during the Civil War period it almost stood still, but began to expand rapidly again durthe decade from 1870. Today the total farm area of the United States is 878,798,325 acres or 46.2 per cent of the entire land area.

In some respects the most wonderful farm expansion of our history has been made during the last decade, but this does not appear in the gain in farm lands, which gain was but 4.8 per cent, though the gain in improved lands was 15.4 per cent during the same ten years. This would indicate that the limit has been reached for easy farm expansion, which is a fact now widely recognized. A large part of the remaining 54 per cent of our land is going to be utilized, but it will be through slow processes of swamp reclamation, great irrigation projects, extension of dry farming, and the like.

How improved acreage in farms has kept pace is shown by the third and last columns of the above table. Sixty years ago there were 113,032,614 acres of improved farm lands. This area has now increased more than four fold to 478,451,750 acres. Then it occupied but 6 per cent of the total land area, now it comprises over 25 per cent. In 1850 only 38.5 per cent of the land at that time in farms was improved, today the percentage has reached 54.4, and improved land area is increasing three times

*Of all lands in farms.

Percentage of Continent Total farms Improved

Percentage* Improved

Years

Acreage improved