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Show RESCUING THE FARMER Former Governor McKelvie of Nebraska recently called attention atten-tion to the fact that while the business men of the United States annually spend $850,000,000 in advertising their wares, only $30,000,000 of this outlay goes toward acuainting the farmers with what the merchants and manufacturers have to sell. Mr. McKelvie added that the farmers each year have a potential purchasing pur-chasing power of $10,000,000,000. There may be some reasons for this apparent discrepancy in advertising for the business of the farmers. Doubtless the disproportion dispro-portion is not so great as apparent, owing to the fact that as a general gen-eral rule the advertising rates in the local papers going to the farmers are not so great in proportion as in the high powered magazines mag-azines and newspapers which do not cover the rural field. And it may be that the national advertisers have been discouraged by the bear stories which have been going out from the agricultural states to the effect that the farmer is on the verge of sinking to the level of the European peasantry. At any rate the advertisers are making a mistake by not paying more attention to the rural advertising field. The farmers have money to spend and they spend it. And they are best reached by the local newspapers. The farmer is the most careful reader of the newspapers and periodicals which he takes and the best way to reach him is through his local newspapers. National advertisers ought to get acquainted with this fact if they do not already know it. And it is the duty of the local newspapers to acquaint the national na-tional advertiser and the world with the fact that the farmer is not broke, that he lives as well as his brother in the city, if not better, and has money to buy the things which the business men advertise for sale. |