328 Missouri Agricultural Report. 



serve to stimulate interest in rural life, and aid in the "back-to- 

 the-farm" movement. Then there is a field of individual items 

 that the country editors should industriously till. Quite often an 

 item like this appears: "Tom Jones shipped a load of cattle to 

 the city Tuesday." A good item, real news, but is that all? Of 

 course the first question is, what did he get for them ? Also good, 

 but is that all? Where and when did he get them? What did 

 he pay for them and what did they weigh then? What did he 

 feed them? What was the gain per day? Did he feed the same 

 ration? Did he use a ration tried at the college experiment sta- 

 tion, or did he find a better one? Did he encounter any problems 

 that may affect his doing the same thing again? That six-line 

 item may be expanded into sixty, every word fraught with deep 

 interest to every farmer in that vicinity. The good that may come 

 from such an item may not be calculated either in cash or in 

 the stimulation of a desire for better farm methods. Was Tom's 

 success due to a ration recommended by the college experiment 

 station? Then the publication of that fact will do 100 times as 

 much good for the college as a two-column editorial on "Sending 

 the boys to Columbia." Every achievement of the farmer, every 

 time he leaves the beaten path, every attempt at improvement, 

 whether a modern home, the purchase of pure-blooded stock, 

 phenomenal yields, the result of scientific methods, should be fully 

 "covered" by the country paper. And let me emphasize, the plain 

 facts will do more good than ten times the advice along those lines. 

 It is simply a matter of human nature. Neither you nor I will 

 take advice — we don't need to, you know — but if you will show us 

 something good that has been done, we will slip around quietly 

 and investigate and then gradually, just to show you we will not 

 be influenced by you, we will adopt it ourselves. 



To measure up to his field, the country editor must keep 

 abreast of the march of things agricultural. He must be a reader 

 of the leading agricultural papers and keep posted on the achieve- 

 ments of the colleges and experiment stations. Otherwise he is 

 liable to write an item like this: "Bill Smith, true to his investi- 

 gating turn of mind, is trying an experiment in feeding a bunch 

 of stock. He does not feed all corn, but adds cottonseed meal and 

 clover hay in certain proportions. This is called a balanced ration 

 and is something entirely new." Or in speaking of late dis- 

 coveries, he may include cowpeas as a soil builder. He may not go 

 as far as one opinionated brother who wrote: "We don't think 



