120 THE THAI" NEST TEXT BOOK 



verv often feel that they should not tell him. If they do tell him, their 

 sincerity and disinterestedness may be doubted. 



Germany has a law 1 hat forbids 'an advertiser lying or appearing to 

 lie in his advertising. The exact truth may be burred unless it be self- 

 evident, "The best in the world," even if true, as it quite frequently 

 must be, will not pass the censor. 



Some enterprising American Manufacturers are said to have been un- 

 able to circulate their expensive and convincing literature in Germany 

 for that reason. We have no such law here. This is a free country. I 

 have before ine the literature advertising two brooders. One I know 

 to be a good one, the other has not a single feature that would recom- 

 mend it to any person who knew any thing about brooders. It is an 

 expensive, worthless contraption, from my point of view, yet its claims, 

 advertising and illustrations are the most pleasing of the two— to in- 

 experience. 



There is a great difference in the character of the testimonials, how- 

 ever. 



Most people are sufficiently doubtful. Ton much so as a rule. In 

 talking with people about commercial products in general I find a com- 

 mon tendency to doubt about everything that is true and useful — and 

 costs something. The love of money appears to be the root of much 

 ignorance as well as evil. 



On the other hand many will swallow the most absurd proposition, 

 bait, hook, line and bob, and gleefully pay the price. The fact that 

 such a large part of our population is of this class accounts for the very 

 condition of things that I am describing. They apparently have no 

 use for honest business men or methods. 



In all comparisons of appliances, breeds, foods or whatnot, the poultry- 

 keeper is up against this condition and he should know it at the start. 



The only thing for him to do is to think, reason, -and learn as much 

 as possible from the disinterested opinions of others, if he can find such. 

 The man who has his own bigotry, prejudices, or pasl opinions to sus- 

 tain is not a disinterested adviser. 



There are a great many honest men selling goods. There are a thousand 

 dishonest men among buyers to one among sellers. Twenty-five years 

 of intimate observation of a mail-order business that dealt with people 

 in various parts of the world, has given me some idea of human nature. 

 The poultry keeper who advertises stock or eggs has got to beware of 

 the crafty buyer. A large per cent, of the dissatisfied customers of 

 mail-order business men are those who tried to cheat the seller and 

 failed. 



We run more risk when sending goods to strangers in advance of 

 payment than we do when paying for goods before we get them, yet 

 many very good people don't seem to realize it. 



The idea that the poultry business is a short and easy road to wealth 

 is not quite as common as it used to be, yet the old pipe dreams are 

 sometimes resurrected and the, victim's money distributed around. 



Colonel Seller's argument that there must be ••millions in it," because 

 every one has sore eyes and would buy a bottle of his eye wash at $1.00 

 per. is not valid in the poultry business. Every one docs not want 

 fancy poultry or fancy eggs, and all of those who do will not buy ours, 

 even if a fortune spent in advertising happens to attract their attention. 



Some people assume that the majority of poultry keepers are simple- 



