Fairchild: Advertising New Plant Foods 



157 



ter of salesmansliip. In the one case 

 the growers of the Scuppernong grape 

 cannot sell their product because they 

 have no salesman and cannot atTord to 

 engage one. In the other, an already 

 established industry creates a market 

 for a new drink by skilful advertise- 

 ment. 



The question which I want to ask 

 is : Why should not the Government 

 have expert salesmen? 



large; fie;ld for corn and rice: 

 Had the success of the corn campaign 

 in Europe been followed up as it should 

 have been years ag'o there is little doubt 

 but that the ignorance which has pre- 

 vented the Belgians and English from 

 eating corn cakes and other corn prod- 

 ucts would have been immensely mini- 

 mized. Had salesmen been employed 

 to teach the people how to cook rice and 

 encouraged its consumption we would 

 have, instead of the paltry consumption 

 of seven pounds per capita, some- 

 thing approaching the amount which 

 we ought to consume. An active rice 

 campaign might have prevented the 

 overbalanced sugar consumption of 90 

 pounds which we now have, largely as 

 the result of the advertising placards 

 and newspaper urgings, and the inces- 

 sant hammering of thousands of sales- 

 men along the line of natural small re- 

 sistance. These chocolate and candy and 

 ice cream and sweet drink manufac- 

 turers have had free access to the pub- 

 lic, and have developed in the children 

 of the coming generation a sweet tooth 

 which will require the sugar planta- 



tions of the AA^est Indies and the East 

 Indies as well to supply. And this, too, 

 in the face of the fact that the sugar 

 habit, like the alcohol habit, has ob- 

 jectional:)le features about it which the 

 doctors have long ago pointed out. 



The conscious direction of the food 

 consumption of the people will, I con- 

 ceive, bring into existence the govern- 

 ment salesman, and with it the develop- 

 ment of what has already come in other 

 lines government advertising and gov- 

 ernment street car posters and fence 

 advertisements. 



discrimination against products . 



The newspapers and magazines have 

 always looked upon the stories about 

 new foods in the light of news, and 

 they have always been glad to spread 

 any items of interest which would help 

 the sale of things in which the farmer 

 is interested. They have drawn the 

 line when it comes to the advertising 

 of any manufactured product — that 

 was advertising and should pay its way. 



The path of the government sales- 

 man should be made easy since he 

 would not be working for any one 

 small set of men, but for the develop- 

 ment of a new plant industry which 

 would be free for all to enter, and 

 Avould support, on the land, families 

 which would add to the building up of 

 the country. When the industry 

 reached a stage where it could afiford 

 to organize and engage its own sales- 

 men then would be the time for the 

 Government to withdraw its support. 



Ohio Germination Tests Reveal Lack of Good Seed Com. 



Most of the corn harvested in Ohio 

 in 1917 is not fit for seed, according 

 to the Ohio Experimental Station, which 

 has been testing nearly two thousand 

 samples representing almost every 

 county in the State. Crib and field lots 

 range in germination from 1 to 40%. 



Corn gathered and stored under arti- 

 ficial drying conditions before the freez- 

 ing weather last December show 90 t(D 

 100% germination in these tests. Halt 

 of the corn kept from the crop of 1910 

 tests this high, and three-fourths of such 

 sannles are above 



Seed corn this spring must come 

 from three sources: A few farmers 

 stored their corn early so that it was 

 well dried out when cold weather came. 

 Some corn matured comparatively early 

 in southern counties and can be used 

 in that part of the State. All old corn 

 from 1916 should be held for seed and 

 tested for germination. 



Since local seed corn is always safest, 

 from three sources: A few farmers 

 to buy as near home as possible and to 

 test each ear before planting. 



