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Missouri Agricultural Report. 



Both the deserving and the undeserving will despise him, for both 

 will see the ulterior motive. And that which should be a power 

 for good, for encouragement, for upholding right standards, will 

 be but the flimsy paraphernalia of the traveling mountebank. 



L. M. White. 



ADDRESS OF L. M. WHITE. 



(Mr. White is one of the Editors of the Mexico (Mo.) Lodger.) 



Mr. Hobart's remarks concerning the editor that does not know 



anything about agriculture recalls to me 

 my experience shortly after I left a metro- 

 politan paper to come back to Mexico to as- 

 sist my father. I was very much enthused 

 about the farm news column, and in an en- 

 deavor to improve it, sent out some post 

 cards, and these were mailed out to the vari- 

 ous farmers in different parts of the county 

 at different seasons to learn the status of 

 the crops, what the yield was, what was the 

 acreage, etc. I remember I came home in 

 the fall of the year, and on the first card — 

 I think sent some time in November — was 

 a question as to how much oats had been 

 planted that fall. I certainly heard from that. I remember that 

 very well. I have learned since, and I think that all the newspa- 

 per men of Missouri, especially those that have not had the oppor- 

 tunity to learn more about agriculture, ought to come to Columbia 

 and take at least this week and get the benefits of this short 

 course. Of course, the country newspaper itself is like any other 

 newspaper, and I believe that the co-operation which the speakers 

 at the meeting have urged, would have been possible sooner had it 

 not been that a great many country newspapers, being run for 

 political or personal purposes, have maliciously colored the news to 

 suit themselves. If we allow our personal opinion to dominate, 

 the public service the paper is capable of is absolutely lost. 



I might cite a case, if you will pardon my entering into per- 

 sonality. In the past advertising, as it has been done by the 

 patent medicine people and in the early days by the circuses, was, 

 in part, just one big fake story, and after you investigated any of 

 these propositions you found that a lot of it was what we are 



