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BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



who passes the gates and does not carry a complimeutarj'; the man who 

 passes the gates and carries what he has paid fifty cents for. How are 

 you going to interest that individual, how are you going to reach him, 

 and how are you going to get him to pay railroad faro and money to get 

 through the gates? This tiling has been a factor in business ever since 

 business has been transacted, and there is no condition of affairs that 

 confronts the American merchant or manufacturer or American fair man- 

 ager that is more important than how to reach the people and interest 

 them in what ho has to sell. 



The field of advertising is so broad and the ideas so diversified that 

 it would be impossible for me to cover this field in any talk that I might 

 give here. . I believe the most potent i^ethod of advertising in America 

 today is the newspaper. 1 lielieve a local ntnvspaper can do a fair more 

 good or more harm than any other agency in the community. I believe 

 that every county fair and every State fair that goes to the people for 

 support must have the moral as avoU as the financial support of the 

 country press. The way to get that is to get it as a business man would 

 get it, on a square business proposition. Say that y,ou want so much 

 advertising and you are going to alloAv so much for it. If the newspaper 

 man has any interest in you or in the community you will get the worth 

 of your money. When 1 first came on the Indiana State Board of Agri- 

 culture there was a system of advertising that is not in existence now. 

 I have always believed that advertising pays. If you can make the peo- 

 ple believe that what you say is true, it will alAvays pay. Never adver- 

 tise anything you havn't got; never advertise anything in your county 

 fair that you are not going to have, never advertise a premium imless 

 you are going to pay it. Always carry out what you advertise. The great 

 advertisers of this country gained their pi'omiuence from the fact that 

 they always did wliat th(\v advertised to do. Those men advertised what 

 they had to sell, and they .sold it as advertised. That is exactly what a. 

 county or State Fair must do to make advertising pay. I heard a criti- 

 cism made upon the report that was read here some time ago. A man 

 near me nearly fell off his chair Avlien he heard the item read, ".'fri.OOO 

 for newspaper advertising." He said that ten years ago they did not pay 

 out a thousand dollars. He might go back farther than that and say that 

 twenty years ago they did not pay five hundred. There is nothing in 

 American business today that has become so necessary as advertising, 

 and nothing in American business has grown in expense like advertising. 

 When I was in the newspaper business ji great many years ago the ad- 

 vertising department was not the one we paid most attention to. Today 

 the newspaper is run on different lines. Newspaper advertising has 

 grown to be a business, and consequently when you go into a newspaper 

 office and ask for space you have to pay for it. Years ago when my 

 father was Secretary of a county fair he used to get about five hundred 

 bills printed, put pie in an old spring wagon, with a bucket of paste, and 



