338 MINNESOTA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



to compete intelligently and successfully with other industrial pur- 

 suits. 



Second, the public readied: A farmer may take half a dozen 

 papers in these days without taxing- his annual, expense account to 

 any great extent. The cost of papers is so low that few intelligent 

 farm homes in the country are now without at least one paper that 

 treats of agriculture in one or more of its branches, so that the 

 agricultural press already may be said to reach people concerned in 

 this occupation very generally. 



The constituency reached by the agricultural press has likewise 

 changed and is now in process of great advancement in agricultural 

 knowledge, due to a number of influences which could be named, 

 chief of which are the agricultural colleges and experiment stations 

 and the governmental recognition of the supreme importance of fos- 

 tering our agricultural industries. The Secretary of Agriculture is 

 now a member of the cabinet — and it is a most remarkable fact in a 

 country depending as ours does so largely for its prosperity upon the 

 products of the soil that its relative importance to the best interests 

 of the country at large did not dawn upon us earlier. 



Today we are reaping the benefit of laws adjusted to favor 

 American agriculture and are to some extent already supplying a 

 world-wide demand for our farm products, which demand is des- 

 tined to go on increasing in proportion as we intelligently compre- 

 hend our opportunities and take advantage of them. 



We have in this country agricultural colleges and experiment 

 stations in every state, and many men and women educated to im- 

 proved methods are back upon the farms, each one an influence for 

 good in their respective localities. These are the people reached and 

 to be sought, whose influence and example is of much importance 

 in their respective communities. Little wonder then that with an 

 increasing demand for the best light on current thought and farm 

 experience the farmer is looking to an enlightened agricultural 

 press to keep him posted. 



The third factor suggested by my subject is the advertiser: 

 This is the man who through the medium of the agricultural press 

 seeks to reach and interest a reading people in his wares. We have 

 treated in what we have said chiefly with the character of agricultural 

 papers and the nature of their readers, now we consider the re- 

 sponsibility of the press as to its advertisers. While there should 

 be a direct relation between the advertising department and the edi- 

 torial stafif. it is too often the case that the two departments do not 

 harmonize and differ in opinions as to policy and practice. We are 

 to deal, however, with what we believe to be the responsibility of the 

 agricultural press to its readers in its advertising department. 



