THE FARMERS' PUBLISHING CO. 113 



controller, a man of broad and liberal mind, 

 however, made it plain at the outset of the 

 meeting of publishers held at Ottawa, that the 

 Farmers' Publication was not to be considered 

 a newspaper, and that on request from them 

 they would receive their fair share of newsprint. 

 No account of the early activities of the 

 Farmers' Publishing Company would be com- 

 plete without some reference to a special edition 

 of the paper issued in January, 1919. It should 

 be borne in mind that not until the first of April 

 of that year was The Weekly Sun acquired, and 

 therefore no regular paper was published until 

 after that date. Following the annual conven- 

 tion of 1918 the directors of the publishing 

 Company thought it advisable to publish a 

 special edition in which would be recorded, not 

 only a full report of the convention, but also 

 many other interesting facts concerning the 

 movement. The material was compiled, the 

 character of the edition decided upon, and all 

 was proceeding merrily until the manager came 

 to register the name of the paper. Then, to his 

 surprise, he found that the name "The United 

 Farmer" had been already copyrighted. 

 Further inquiry brought out the story that an 

 enterprising city editor, having heard of the 

 intentions of the farmers, conceived the idea of 

 copyrighting their title in his own name, and 



