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EVENING LE-nftER?HlTJADELPHIA TUESDAY, JUNE 15, 1915;,
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The third of four advertisements descriptive of The Country Gentleman
Farming today is a highly technical business.
A farm paper, to serve its readers fully, must
qualify as a technical authority. It must be able to
give advice on a range of subjects as wide as all
agriculture and as deep as all science. This advice,
too, must be on a plane equal to that of government
bulletins, and of the best experts.
Such service must be prompt, for growing
crops and destructive pests do not wait It must
be personal, for the inquirer asks only the difficult,
unusual questions to which he cannot find an answer
in the experience of his own neighbors. It must be
thorough, for thousands of dollars investment may
hang upon one decision.
It is this authoritative, prompt, personal and
thorough service which The Country Gentleman
gives its readers, and which has won their confi
dence and support.
Tne service is ren
dered through the mails
by a department in The
Country Gentleman known
as the R. F. D. Letter Box.
The farmer writes a
letter to the R. F. D. Letter
aBox Department, asking the
question that is troubling him.
In two or three days, or a
week at most, he receives his
answer and can at once put
into effect the practical sug
gestion it brings.
More than 100 experts
aid in rendering this service,
They are picked men men
prominent in the Federal De
partment of Agriculture, state experiment
stations and colleges, successful operators of large
and small farms, orchards, dairies, poultry plants.
Only skilled specialists in some one branch
of modern agriculture are chosen and each advises
only on his specialty. And although this service is
gratuitous to the reader, the adviser is paid a fee for
these replies, in proportion to the knowledge and
attention they require. This, together with the deep
interest which each of these men himself takes in
the progress of scientific agriculture, ensures careful
and complete treatment of the questions.
The rapidity with which the Volume of this
correspondence has grown shows its true usefulness.
Often more than 100 letters, a day are answered.
A Nebraskan asks what kind of a container
should be used for peas and beans to be shipped
twelve miles to market by express,
Some of the questions from readers answered
by The Country Gentleman
Replanning an old farm
The kind of clover to sow
Varieties of apples to plant
A man in Minnesota asks about draining a
peat bog.
A Californian asks about the feed values' of
milo maize and cotton seed when fed to hogs.
An Indianan requests a plan for a basement
stable.
Hundreds of these letters come from persons
who say: "We followed your advice before with
such good results that we want to ask you some
more questions." And there are many farmers who
regularly depend on The Country Gentleman and
come back over and over again.
) H fr
A significant feature of the correspondence is
that 25 of the letters are either signed or obviously
written by women. They emphasize that country
women are closely concerned with actual work on
the farm and that they read The Country Gentle
man and rely upon it quite
as much as do their husbands.
Pruning the raspberry
Fertilizers for celery
Growing flowers for market
Remedy for asparagus rust
Spray for strawberries
Nuts to grow in the North
A plan for shrubbery planting
Lime for alfalfa
Ground barley for milch cows
How to smoke pork
Treatment for foundered horse
Crops to grow for pigs
Dry mash for poultry
Installing the water wheel
Forms for concrete posts
Where to buy bean threshers
Plan for farm tool house
How to find customers for eggs
How to lay out a homestead
The best books on bee keeping
Breaking bad habits in a dog
How to can string beans
Pasture crops for bees
Tanning rabbit skins
Control of Canada thistle
Cost of cold storage
Selling buttermilk cheese
Cost accounts for a farm
How to keep farm help
Treatment of hog cholera
Kitchen sewage disposal
How to clean soy bean seed
Recipe for sweet cider
Alfalfa for silage
Old auto for farm power
Plan of convenient kitchen
'
This whole service has
two results of importance to
the manufacturer who is
judging The Country Gentle
man as a medium for reach
ing the farm market :
1. It develops among the
readers a downright con
fidence in the publication,
a reliance and a habit of
responding to what they
read in it. This respon
siveness is illustrated" by
the fact that one article
in The Country Gentle
man recently sent 10,000 letters to the
Department of Agriculture from o5r
readers. This responsiveness adds much
to the value of the advertising columns.
2. This correspondence also means that the
readers advise the publication. They do
this unknowingly, through these same in
quiring letters. The questions, tabulated
and classified, -show the trend of thought
among farmers what they are thinking
and doing, what they want to know about
where they need help. To the editors,'
therefore, these letters are, every month
, the inspiration of new features for the pub
lication itself, which bring it closer and
closer to the true needs of its readers.
, i
TH CURTIS PUBLISHING COMPANY, INDEPENDENCE SQUARE, PHILADELPHIA '
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7 Ladies Home Journal
The Saturday Evening $ast
; The Country Gentleman p: