H

OW long will it keep up? Where will it end? Is there not a limit to the amount of advertising that can be done? Is

is not overdone already?

More than one business man of business sagacity and business courage is asking himself and his neighbors such questions today.

And they are not entirely inexcusable. Where once the landscape was "dotted" by sign boards, it is now shut from view by one continuous hoarding. Where once your favorite publication carried a few advertising pages, in an apologetic manner, now the magazine consists of advertising pages fore and aft, with the reading matter sandwiched between. Where once the daily paper gave a few columns to "business announcements," now whole pages are given to flaring advertisements that almost equal the sensational headlines of the news columns in their obtrusiveness. Where once, one man tried to help his business by appealing to the public in print, now an hundred clamor for recognition and trade.

Is it overdone?
We think not.

And for two reasons.

In the first place, the volume of advertising, in spite of the strenuous efforts of advertising men, has not increased as rapidly as the volume of general business.

In the second place, the number of readers of the class of publications which pay best, have increased more rapidly than the volume of advertising.

With the number of readers increasing, and the volume of business swelling more rapidly than the volume of advertising increases, there is little danger

of advertising being "overdone" this year or next, or the next.

Not to say anything about the fact that advertising does create new buyers, new trade and new markets.

T

HERE is a fruitful field waiting for the genius who will show the publisher of the local paper, and the small town retailer, a way to meet the competition of the wicked men who sell by mail.

Secretaries of trade associations, made up of retailers, and publishers of trade journals devoted to the retail trade, have to give some excuse for existence and salaries, and fulminations against mail-order business seem to be the excuse most easily produced. Publishers of local newspapers fall into line, and with "original matter" largely supplied by trade association bureaus, attempt to educate the buying public into a proper realization of the enormity of the crime of sending money "out of town."

Even as clear a reasoner as William Allen White, of the Emporia Gazette, the Saturday Evening Post, the American Magazine, et cetera and so forth, is led in the interests of his local retail tail advertisers, to print in his valuable publication at Emporia, a heavy editorial, which intimates in no uncertain terms that the Emporia man who sends away from his home town for any commodity whatsoever, is a traitor and dog who deserves as the minimum punishment for his crime the boycott and social ostracism.

Nevertheless, the citizen of Emporia, and of 10,000 other towns, with his week's wages or his monthly salary in his pocket, will continue to spend it

wherever he can get the best bargain for his money. The average citizen wants to see his little Emporia flourish and all that, but at the same time he is much inclined to reason that the money he saves by buying by mail does Emporia just as much good in his pocket as it would do if he transferred it to the dealer's pocket, and he is absolutely sure that it does him personally a great deal more good.

He believes in charity-yes, but he likes the charity best that begins at home.

He would like to build up his "home town"-yes, but the best start toward that building is the building of his own home and his own fortune.

All of this is not saying that the local retailer has not a legitimate place in the scheme of trade-a place which the mail-order man can never fill-but he sadly needs a new line of talk, and coming of the genius who will give it to him is eagerly awaited.

P

UBLIC officials, who earn their salaries and justify their offices by rescuing the ignorant American public from the wiles of wicked business men, are often depressed by the seeming lack of gratitude on the part of the buying public. The Agricultural Experiment Stations are especially given to bewailing the hard fact that many of their gems of wisdom, dug out at great expense-to the public-fail to dazzle the public eye.

The average "experimenter" is firmly convinced that he spends his life in casting "pearls before swine."

There is a reason for it.

And the reason does not lie wholly with the public.

Take, as an example, the average Experiment Stations attitude toward "Stock Foods."

"Stock Foods"-you may or may not know are preparations bought by the farmer to mix with the regular feeding ration of his live stock as an "appetizer," an "aid to digestion," a "conditioner,"

etc.

Such preparations have been in more or less general use for an hundred

years.

The companies engaged in their manufacture have several million dollars invested in the business, and several million dollars' worth of such foods are sold every year in the stock feeding

states.

Their sale and use is increasing, in spite of the concerted opposition of the Experiment Stations.

Bulletin after bulletin have been issued against them-and yet the farmers continue to buy.

Why?

Very largely because the bulletins consist of absolute "Thomas Rot."

The erudite gentlemen who conduct the Experiment Station of the Iowa State College, have recently issued "Bulletin 87."

In their opening paragraph they say:

"The 'virtue' lying in the drugs of which such foods and tonics are compounded, is so varied that (if the statements of some condimental food companies are reliable) almost any one of these products will cure Texas Fever' which is caused by a tick and tuberculosis which is caused by a germ."

If the statement of some companies are reliable, almost any one will do thus and so.

In other words, if some manufacturers of a certain product make foolish or misleading statements, "any one" of all the manufacturers in that line is to be condemned.

And that's a fair sample of much of our publicly paid investigators' and experimenters' logic.

Do you wonder that their reports have so little weight with the great mass of people?

M

ORE than a year ago members of the Commercial Association of Chicago began working for a corn exposition to be held in Chicago. At that time more than $50,000 was pledged for this work. It was decided to wait until the fall of 1907, at which time the first great corn exposition will open.

Last week the members of the Commercial Association, who have this matter most at heart, met and organized the National Corn Exposition, electing officers and appointing committees. It was decided to expend something like $150,000 on this exposition, a goodly proportion of which will be paid out in prizes.

According to present plans the date of the exposition is from October 5 to 19, 1907. Adequate facilities will be secured for holding this big show. The building will be elaborately decorated, but the central idea of the great show will be "education."

Culture of corn has become a science, and it is the desire of the management to demonstrate that it is possible for the average corn grower to produce greater yields and better quality than heretofore.

During the past ten years the matter of seed selection has been worked out and it has been shown that by this alone it is easily possible to increase the yield from two to ten bushels per acre.

It is possible to select seed properly only when the grower has become familiar with the proper type of the car, bearing properly shaped kernels, possessing good germinating qualities and high vitality. These points will be illustrated at the great show and the object lessons here presented will be of inestimable value to corn growers everywhere.

It is the desire of the management to make the Corn Exposition as valuable to

corn farmers as the International Stock Exposition is to stock raisers. The worth of this latter exposition has been fully demonstrated. It is even easier for the corn grower to improve his product than it is for the stock man. Consequently the benefit which will come to corn farmers throughout the United States through the effort of Chicago's business men cannot be calculated.

The details for awarding of premiums have not yet been worked out, but in a general way are very liberal. Cash prizes will be offered and these will be so distributed that every corn section of the United States will be rewarded, provided it participates in this exposition.

There will probably be state prizes and district prizes, and certainly prizes for the farmer, the farmer's wife, the farmer's son, the farmer's daughter, etc.

If, for example, Connecticut grows good corn, prizes will be arranged for that section. It may not be possible for Connecticut growers to compete with Illinois or Iowa in certain respects, but it will be easily possible to arrange the premium list so that the New England growers will receive a just compensation for this effort.

Corn farmers of the United States are urged to plan now to assist this great show. Let them select their seed with that in view, picking out ears that are uniformly true to type and with a high percentage of germination. Let them select a first-class piece of land, prepare it carefully, plant the corn at just the right time, cultivate it thoroughly, and be in position to select show samples when the time comes.

Every locality should bear this in mind and take a personal interest in seeing that the visitors in the great corn exposition know just what that locality can present.