620 IOWA DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE 



vidual stocks may be advertised advantageously, but to do so one must 

 understand the art, for such it is. It would be well for the man who has 

 goods to sell to consult an ad writer, but for the bee man the cost would 

 be prohibitive, therefore he must do it himself, and perhaps I may be 

 able to give you a few hints to aid in future efforts. 



I am going to begin by telling you a great advertising secret, and that 

 is that no man alive can tell what an ad will do until it has been tried 

 out. I made a considerable number of postcards before a fool thing 

 caught the popular fancy and brought me a great deal of trade. I assure 

 you solemnly that millions of dollars are annually wasted in advertising, 

 particularly trying to popularize some secret nostrum, commonly called 

 patent medicines, while injuclicioits advertising costs honest advertisers 

 vast sums. 



Now that I have started telling trade secrets I will confide to you that 

 the fewer words there are used in advertising the better. The reason is 

 that one person may wade through a two-column ad in a paper; two may 

 read a one-column ad; one hundred may peruse a half-column display; 

 five hundred will see a four-inch story, a million will read two lines, 

 while even the kids on the street will see and read the one word HONEY. 

 They know what it is, and want it. But this one word says and tells 

 nothing about my particular goods, so I added the word Bonney, for no 

 other reason than that it has a sort of a jingle. Bonney Honey. To show 

 that it is an ad I hitch on the word Eat, making it read: Eat Bonney 

 Honey. Only three words, but in connection with a picture on a post 

 card they were enough to sell my crop. 



Most ads are far too long, while some are carelessly written. "The 

 more you drink of our soda water the more you will want of it," is not a 

 good ad for a thirst quencher, but it was displayed over the front of a 

 drug store for years, and I remember a pamphlet gotten out by Mr. York 

 while he was editing the American Bee Journal which stated plainly that 

 if you saw a cake of honey in a jar surrounded by liquid honey it was 

 proof positive that it was adulterated, yet that little book circulated for 

 years and probably a million of them were sold before I called their 

 attention to it. Dr. C. C. Miller, who wrote it, responded to my howl, 

 thanked me for calling his attention to it and changed it. At the best, 

 however, it was a poor ad, for it was far too long, because people will not 

 wade through so much matter, and if they did they would find a lot of 

 literature about honey as a food and a medicine. 



Regarding the food value of honey, I think ink is wasted in lauding it, 

 because people do not buy honey on account of its nutritive value, but 

 simply because it is a delicious sweet. Of course I know that our goods 

 is a concentrated food, and predigested at that, but I also know a man 

 Avould starve to death on it in a short time, for man must have a mixed 

 diet, cereals, meats and sweets, and he can live longer on the coarser foods 

 than on the finer. 



Much is written about the medicinal value of honey, but, as a rule, by 

 men who have no medical education. Let me assure you that honey has 

 no medical properties whatever, and my authority is the United States 

 Dispensatory, which is the last word on medical substances and drugs. 



