WHEN AND HOW TO ADVERTISE. 
the situation, the inertia of long-settled habit 
keeping most of them in their accustomed 
channel of trade. 
I also recall an instance in my own farming, 
when 1 had a lot of turkeys to dispose of, as I 
hoped, at a fancy price. I sent one wagon 
load to a wealthy residence town and another 
to a manufacturing city, the two men in 
charge being about equally expert as salesmen. 
The lot sold in the manufacturing city brought 
twenty cents a pound (two cents above the 
price current of best turkeys), while the lot 
sold in the residence town brought twenty-five 
cents and sold quicker. The manufacturing 
city was the larger place of the two, but it had 
not the class of people who were willing to pay 
outside prices. 
Another instance that comes to my mind of 
advantageously seeking a good market, regard¬ 
less of a considerable distance, is that of a 
New England farmer whom I know well. He 
lives in a very fertile reach of country, but his 
farm is fifteen miles from the nearest railroad 
station, and from there fifteen more to the 
city. Most of his neighbors “trade” at the 
country store, but this farmer goes twice a 
week to the city, taking with him large quanti¬ 
ties of butter, eggs, poultry, fruit and farm 
produce. In the city he hires two wagons, 
one to deliver the wholesale orders, and the 
other for the family trade. 
It is needless to say that he pays more for 
these teams than he would for the same accom¬ 
modation in his native town, and one of his 
neighbors reflecting on this “blame inordinate 
expense,” observed that “payin’ out what that 
crazy cuss does in car fares and for teams in the 
city, he didn’t see how he made his dum’d 
business pay—and he didn't more’n half b’leeve 
it did pay, either.” And yet the “crazy 
cuss” is today rated as one of the wealthiest 
men of his town, while his critic, though 
owning by inheritance a larger and better 
farm, is comparatively poor. It is right for 
me to add, however, that the latter is an 
acknowledged oracle in the country store, an 
accepted authority on all things, from points 
of theology to the digging of wells—to say 
nothing of his neighbors’ affairs. It is not 
given to one man to compass all the heights of 
greatness, and personally I never knew a 
thrifty, prosperous farmer who was a country- 
store oracle. 
How is a good market poorly utilized? By 
dumping into it cartloads of stuff to be sold by 
commission houses, thus losing not only the 
middleman’s profit but sharing with the 
commission man a large part of the profit that 
properly belongs to the farmer himself by 
letting gilt-edged fancy goods go along with the 
indifferent or poor to fetch what they may 
chance to bring; and last but not least by 
sending inferior goods which bring so low a 
price as hardly to offset the cost of transpor¬ 
tation. The competition in farm products of 
ordinary quality is tremendous, often running 
the price down to a very low figure. It is the 
superior goods that pay and that place the 
farmer on such a footing in the market that he 
can boldly state what he asks for them, instead 
of humbly inquiring from some third-class 
dealer what he will give. Be assured that in 
every large city there is a class of 'people who are 
willing to pay the very best of prices for farm 
products if they can have the very best of goods. 
This brings me to the proper means of 
reaching this class of customers and introduces 
another important factor in the marketing of 
goods, advertising, a thing as essential to the 
farmer as to any other business man. It is 
true that, having once got a foothold and 
established a reputation for his goods, he may 
need much less advertising than at the start; 
but it is doubtful if he can wholly dispense 
with it at any time. Advertising in various 
ways, has long been practiced by one class of 
farmers—the stock-breeders; indeed we should 
hardly know how to get along without it. To 
my mind it is clear that it would very often 
be of just as much value in other branches; 
but custom—a strange thing, I have sometimes 
thought, in the powerful grip that it has on 
farmers—has long restricted advertising to 
stock-breeders alone. 
“Advertisin’ never created a customer!” 
said a country sage to me once. Perhaps it 
does not create customers—though I have 
known cases where this might be questioned— 
but it brings together the man who wants to sell 
and the man who wants to buy. 
The whole matter of marketing farm products 
resolves itself into what is necessary in any 
well-conducted enterprise: a careful study of 
the situation and the exercise of common sense* 
1 would say, in conclusion, what I have often 
said before when speaking of the possibilities 
of agriculture, that, as the demand for the 
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