T

HE gentlemen who have preceded me in this course of lectures, no doubt, have fully impressed upon you the importance of the mission of the farm press, the extent of its opportunities for good or evil and the gravity of its responsibilities.

Had I time I should like to reiterate and emphasize again all they have said on that point, for certainly no editor today has greater opportunities than has the agricultural editor-and naturally none have graver responsibilities.

I say this, I am sure not from any sentimental reasons, nor because I personally happen to have a more or less intimate connection with the agricultural press, but because of the unique position the farm paper of today occupies.

It is, in a peculiar sense, an all 'round family journal. True, it is first of all a technical journal, dealing with the technical phases of agriculture, but it is more than that:

It deals with farm life as well as farm work, and it appeals to every member of the farmer's family.

Even its technical side should appeal to the whole family, because every member of the family is a farmer, having some specific farm duty, and a greater or less interest in every farm operation, from the seeding of the 80-acre field to the planting of the 8-foot row of celery in the kitchen garden.

But beyond this technical interest, the average farm paper makes special appeals to different individuals. Its departments are many and varied: A "household department," a literary page, a Sunday School page, a youth's department, a culinary department, a fashion department-these are the rule rather

No doubt a great many readers of the agricultural press, in common with readers of magazines and other publications, and I suspect here and there an enthusiastic editor, who is living a little too far from everyday affairs, look upon advertising as a necessary evil-a thing to be tolerated only because it must be. It is nothing of the kind.

If you young men who expect to engage in editorial work, do not remember another thought which may be brought out this afternoon, I beg you to remember this:

The advertising department of your paper, in the work it does, is of equal importance to the work of your editorial department.

I do not mean merely of equal importance to the paper and its incomeof course it is that-but of equal importance to the subscriber.

That is why the ideal agricultural publisher is both editor and publisher— he is able to maintain a proper balance between the two departments, and animate both with the same spirit, and actuate both by the same aim.

The farm paper is a trade paper. It is therefore just as much its duty to keep its readers advised of improvements in tools and utensils-the perfection of an improved corn-planter, or

a new cream separator for exampleas it is to give advice on the cultivation of corn or the care of cream.

Cannot the editor do this?

Yes, but the man most interested can do it much more thoroughly and more effectively than the editor.

Here is an illustration:

What percentage of the milk-producers of the United States own and use a Babcock cream tester?

A surprisingly small number.

And yet its use has been taught and advocated by every dairy school, every dairy editor, and every dairy institute worker, since Dr. Babcock's invention. It costs a comparatively small sum, and yet the vast majority of persons who would be so greatly benefited by its use, do not buy it. Why?

Because human nature is conservative. It takes something more than advice to get the average man to change his methods. Most Americans have been advised from youth up as to the way to heaven; nevertheless, something like a million priests and clergymen and ministers and preachers and missionaries and exhorters and teachers seem to be necessary to keep us hypnotized into doing our plain duty.

If, instead of generously giving his invention to the world, Dr. Babcock had taken out a strong patent, organized an over-capitalized syndicate, turned Captain of Industry and employed the hypnotic influence of straight-from-theshoulder advertising, we may well believe that today no dairy would be with

out a cream tester-even though the price was double what is now asked. Would not the dairy interests of the country have been immensely benefited by such a course?

The idea I am trying to convey has been happily expressed in the name given the advertising section of one of the great American magazines. Its publishers call it, "The Market Place of the World."

And that is what your advertising columns are "a market place❞—and surely you will admit that how a farmer spends his money has just as great bearing upon his prosperity and happiness, as has the making of it.

Your subscribers need the trade announcements in your paper-need them for education as to their own needs, and for information as to how to supply their need.

Of course, you can readily realize the importance of advertising to the publisher.

There is not, in the United States today-I am sure I am safe in saying this —a single farm paper whose net receipts from subscriptions pays the cost of production. In some cases the net subscription pays half, or a little more of the cost, but in very many cases, it costs more to get a subscriber and hold his subscription than the subscriber pays.

The advertiser pays the bulk of the cost of production, and whatever profits there are, when there are any.

So the subscriber needs the advertising columns, not only to point him to a market place, but also to enable him to secure a high grade paper at a low grade price.

The merchant and the manufacturer need the advertising columns to enable them to do business and keep the wheels of industry turning

And the publisher needs the advertising columns and needs them filled, because he needs the money.

So much for the importance of agricultural advertising.

And a game of poker is a game of poker

And a "hoss trade" is a "hoss trade"But none of them is business, and I take it that you young men are looking forward to an honorable business career and not to a gamble. You want to keep on speaking terms with your better self. While the gambler, the bunco-man, and the fakir-both in and out of business circles-go on the supposition that a new sucker is born every minute," "the people like to be humbugged," and the thing to do is to "do 'em good when you get 'em," the real business man believes that he has something of real value to give the world and he is willing to take a fair price for it.

The advertising man, who remembers that, will not go far wrong.

And he will go wrong if he forgets it. He cannot lend his columns at any price for exploiting a proposition that savors in the least of fraudulent-he owes that much to his subscribers.

And he will not make inducements to advertisers to use his columns, unless he thinks there is a reasonable chance of their advertisements paying--he owes that much to his advertisers.

Don't understand that a publisher must feel called upon to assume a guardianship over the purses of his subscribers or of the bankbooks of his advertisers. Not at all. But as a mere business policy he wants satisfied customers, and he is willing to make a good many temporary sacrifices in order to satisfy both advertiser and subscriber.

If you are a publisher, you will endeavor to give both, what our president calls "a square deal." If you believe itinerant doctors and so-called "specialists" are quacks, you will say so, and decline their advertising. If you believe patent medicines are fraudulent in their nature and in their claims, you will

not accept their copy. If you think the Experiment Stations have made their point against "condimental stock foods" you will come out in the open and help the station, and not endeavor by a policy of silence, to carry water on both shoulders.

On the other hand, if you accept an advertiser's money in good faith, you will give him the support he needs to help "make good"-even at the expense of a little extra effort on your part. In short, you will give him “a square deal."

You cannot afford to do otherwise.

And now as to Methods:

Farm papers, in common with publications of almost all other classes, receive advertisements from two sources. Direct from the individual advertiser, And from advertising agencies.

The advertising agent has, in recent years, become more and more of a factor in the business of advertising. He is specializing in it, and is attempting, in a way, to make it something of a profession.

By study and experience he has acquired-or professes to have acquiredexpert knowledge of the art of advertising and special ability in its application. His method of procedure is something like this:

He contracts with a firm-manufacturing or merchandizing-to take charge of the firm's advertising for a specified time. He makes a careful study of the firm's business in its every phase-the commodity it is offering, and the people it wants to reach, and then with as many facts as he can gather about the business before him, writes the most persuasive copy he is able to produce. If illustrations are necessary, he makes them; then puts the advertisement in type with attractive display, makes electrotypes of it, and sends the plates to as many publications as have been se