FOURTEENTH ANNUAL YEAR BOOK— PART IX. 621 



This work says honey has a slightly cathartic action. I think it is slight, 

 for I have often eaten a pound at a sitting, or a standing, rather, while I 

 was at work and noticed no results save a loss of appetite for my meals. 

 As to cooking recipes, people will not use honey in place of sugar, be- 

 cause it costs too much. Of course the manufacturers of cookies use 

 some, but only the cheaper grades, and the consumer pays. 



The next thing to be considered in an ad is the illustrations used. 

 Mr. York, again, used to get out a postcard for sale — with a bear, and a 

 spoon and a skep on it, and a text: "Come spoon awhile and bee my 

 honey." I wrote him about it, and I remember that he resented my 

 criticism. However, I do not see it advertised any more. It was not a 

 good honey ad. Neither a bear nor a spoon have any place on a honey ad. 

 Of course the same criticism might apply to one of my cards, but the 

 proof of the pudding is in chewing the string, and a picture of an auto- 

 bile wreck with a squalling baby, a dog on top a sign and all the rest 

 merely called attention to the sign, which read: "If anything happens 

 while you are traveling near Buck Grove stop and get some Bonney 

 honey." One of those cards sent to the Council Bluffs postoflace brought 

 orders for a hundred pounds of honey, and I had several similar ex- 

 periences. 



To be of permanent value an ad must be true. This applies to foods 

 and other things, but need not to patent medicines, whisky, breakfast 

 foods and face powders, for no one knows what they are made of. 



And don't brag, for somewhere, in some other puddle is a toad as big 

 as you are and he may be a deal better looking. No one cares for your 

 family history when looking for honey. The fact that you and yours have 

 been beekeepers for generations will not add one little bit to the pulling 

 power of an ad. Go hide yourself in a honey can. 



Aside from brevity oddity in an ad is a good thing. Theodore Hook 

 made a bet with a friend, a century ago, that he would get up a word that 

 everyone would be using by morning, then went out and wrote QUIZ all over 

 Londontown. Today someone would snap it up to use in advertising 

 a pill. 



It is useless to advertise when you have nothing to sell, and for that 

 reason it is impossible for the most of us to profitably advertise honey 

 continually. Our crop is often limited, and when once we stop adver- 

 tising we are forgotten. Under these circumstances it is a waste to put 

 much money into advertising. 



It does not pay to spend two dollars to sell a one-dollar article. 



It does not pay to advertise prices unless they are low, and honey 

 prices should never be. 



I have only touched on some of the salient points of advertising, for 

 it is a mighty question, someone is even using the daily papers to print 

 extracts from the Bible; advertising the Good Book, of course. Will it 

 pay? Not where only eight or ten lines are used in the entire paper to 

 quote a text while w-hole pages, illustrated, are given over to detailing 

 what a crazy murderer is doing, the story of an ocean disaster or some 

 horrible murder or other revolting crime. 



