4 U t » )
Published Every Saturday at
RALEIGH, N. O. STARKVILLE, MISS.
COMMUNICATIONS REGARDING ADVERTISING OR SUBSCRIPTIONS
MAY BE ADDRESSED TO EITHER OFFICE. ENTERED AS SECOND CLASS
MATTER AT THE POSTOFFICE AT RALEIGH, N. C., UNDER THE ACT OF
CONGRESS OF MARCH 8, 1879.
Lnder the Editorial and Business Management of
TAIT BUTLER and CLARENCE POE.
Prof. W. F. MASSEY.Associate Editor.
E. E. MILLER..Managing Editor.
JOHN S. PEARSON.Secretary-Treasurer.
Advertising Representatives: Fisher Special Agency, New
York; Albert H. Hopkins, Chicago; S. M. Goldberg, St. Louis
and Kansas City ; J. L. Mogford and C. F. Koonce, Field Repre
sentatives.
We Guarantee Our Advertisers.
WK will positively make good the loos sustained by any subscriber
as s result of fraudulent misrepresentation made in our col
11 mns on tbs part of any advertiser who proves to be s deliberate
swindler. This does not mean that ws will try to adjust trifling
disputes between reliable business houses and their patrons, but in
anyease of actually fraudulent dealing, ws will make good to the
subscriber as we have just indicated. The condition of this guaran
tee is that the claim for loss shall be reported to us within one
“on™.after the advertisement appears in our paper, and that the
subscriber must say when writing each advertiser: I am writing
you as an advertiser in The Progressive Fanner and Gazette, which
guarantees the reliability at all advertising that it carries. ’'
Average Weekly Circulation for Six Months Ending
March 31, 1010, was 00,521.
SUBSCRIPTION RATES:
One year, $1.90; six months, 66 cents; three months, 30 cento.
Tm Imducm mam aubaeriftiana. amt new urn btcriber and amt old
iiMcrfftcj may both get the paper one year for $1 60.
Editorial Gleanings.
THE INFANT mortality in America—400,000
babies dying every year, over 1,000 a day,
and half of this number dying unnecessarily,
1>7 reason of the ignorance or carelessness of their
parents—amounts to a national crime and a dis
grace to our civilization. We have long wished f ir
a definite and authoritative group of articles on
this subject, and we are glad to have them at last
in the papers furnished by Mrs. Stevens, reflecting
the counsel of the best medical and scientific
thought in America. These articles alone should
be worth in any average family more than our
iwioi ouuDi;upuuii price iur a )ear.
j*
A writer in one of our exchanges tells of
finding a school house in a prosperous village, with
the doors unlocked for the summer, the desks dis
arranged, the books in the library scattered about
and mistreated, the glass broken in the windows,
the floors dusty, the whole building open to any
one who chances to come by. Such neglect of the
schoolhouse discredits the community, and the
commissioners whose business it is to take care of
it, and the patrons whose self-interest should
prompt them to do it, ought to feel ashamed
whenever such abuse or neglect of the school
building is permitted.
Once again we must ask you not to write to us
without signing your name and postofflce very
plainly. When you send us an inquiry unsigned
or signed only with your initials, all that is left
for us to do is to throw it into the waste basket.
More than this, both business and courtesy de
mand that when you write to anyone you sign your
name and give your address.
We are going to keep reminding you to plant
things in the garden, and also to can or otherwise
preserve fruits and vegetables for winter. Those
little hints on page 42 7 will be followed by others
along the same line.
There is considerable hog talk in this issue, and
next week there will be more of it, including some
instructive letters from men who are making
money at the business. The hog is an unsurpassed
money maker for the man with small capital. He
must have, however, good feed, pure water, a clean
place to live, and good treatment.
J*
Read the articles on page 417 on how to kill the
boll weevil, and then go out and put the advice
they give into practice. If others can make good
cotton crops in spite of the weevils, why can t you
Jl
We appreciate greatly the scores of letters that
have come to us from practically every State In
the South in hearty approval of our stand on pat
ent medicine advertising. Some of these letters
will appear next week.
J*
It can not be said too often that the lack of
cleanliness is the great cause of the poor quality
of most farm butter. Two other great causes
are too long churning and too sour cream.
Our Educational Specitl.
WE HAVE JUST been asking a number of
the most distinguished educators of the
South to contribute to our "School Spe
cial,” June 25; and now we want to ask those
readers who do not claim to be educators at all -
the plain farmers and farmers' wives to come In
and do their part in making this the greatest Edu
cational Special we have ever issued.
We want them—no, you—we want you to write
us and tell us about your schools. What are they
doing, and how are they doing it? What might
they do for the children that they are not doing?
What do they do for you—the grown-ups. who do
not attend? What are you doing to make them
better and more efficient? What special problems
have they to deal with; and how much study and
work have you and your neighborhood given to
these problems? Among specific things we want
you to tell us, are: the kind of teachers you have,
their salaries, the relations between teachers and
parents; what is done to teach the principles of
agriculture, or to train the girls in domestic
science; the kind of buildings and grounds you
have, the care that is taken of them, the number
of books in your library, the local tax you pay
for schools, etc., etc.
Let us hear from you. Make your letters brief
and to the point. We may not be able to print
(hem all; but we wish to hear just the same. So
write us right away, as all letters should be In our
hands by June 15th.
Cotton Acreage and Condition.
WITH SOUTHERN MILLS .lr,.d, Mndln(.
to Liverpool to get cotton shipped over
there to supply English manufacturer*,
there is naturally unusual interest in the condi
tion and acreage of the cotton crop. The Oov
ernment report, issued June 2. which is substan
tially the same as other estimate*, indicates an
increase of 2.8 per cent in acreage over last year
and a condition of 82 as compared with 81.1 last
year and a ten-year average of 80.9. The report
by States as follows:
m- Condi.
a ' rt»»e t|on
SUte. Ac"»f« ovor M«y
Virginia ,91U >M Z6
”rg‘nia . 34.000 JO «jo
North Carolina . 1.477,000 4 g4
South Carolina . 2.601,000 •> -«
(;f°r,gHia . 4.811,000 i JJ
,.. ‘da . 270.000 g g0
. 3.641,000 2 m
Mississippi . 3,312.000 .4 o,
*'OU,B,ana . 1.089.000 M 7“
[efaB . 10.504,000 4 go
irkan8as . 2,446,000 3 g,
. 7”.°»» » ««
SC. • «
r, ... , “,*“S,000 15 84
il,lf0rnia. 18,000 . . f<0
United .States .33,196.000 X2 0
‘Decrease.
—
Why Patent Medicines are "Frauds.”
POINT OUT WHICH of our patent medlc|n.
ads. are frauds" has been the cry of pap6r
and agents loath to give up the blood-»m„*
ed shekels this vicious advertising has brought
them. To all such there is Just one reply to b«
made:
The patent medicine business Is in its very e*
senee and nature a fraud, and Hie fart that *Br
man is proposing one general prescript ion for a
miscellaneous aggregation of sufferers whom he
has never seen is in itself all the evidence of
quackery that is needed.
In other words, while the Ingredient* 0f
some patent medicines may be good for special
cases, still there are virtually no g«*od ^
medicines—that Is to say. no medicine ha* tTer
been compounded suitable for use in the general
and indiscriminate way in which patent medicines
are advertised Rnd sold.
The fart that neither honesty nor sense Is re
quired of any patent medicine makor this in
itself if enough to keep any man from making
his body a garbage-can receptacle for concoctions
he knows nothing of; but even if a patent medi
cine maker were honest and did have a knowledge
of medicine, it is still true that to advertise an*
one prescription a* a general remedy for a dts
ease would be a fraud In very warp and woof, be
cause In the very nature of the rase no medicine
has ever been compounded suited for such Indie
criminate use under such general conditions. Tbs
reasons for this statement can not perhaps be
bettor set forth than In the following editorial
statement In The Progressive Farmer and <iat«u*
a year ago:
“Consider first that the number of com
plaints from which man and his domestic
animals suffer runs up Into the hundreds.
Likewise there are hundreds of remedies need
In the treatment of these diseases. More
over it Is a well-known fact that the first asd
most difficult step In the treatment of any
case Is to ascertain the nature of the disease
Now, what does the use of patent medicines
mean?
"(1) It means that the patient must diag
nose his own case, and with his lack of
knowledge of anatomy, physiology, end of
/I I 4ft ift 4ft A .1 4ft A 4ftft Jill- S ft ft ■ ft ft
-- . - uw.wvnig, U1H Uia^UOMI, Iff nOUIlQft
better than a rue** He may be suffering
from any one of a hundred different disease*,
and as he has only one guess, the chances ar*
a hundred to one that he mlsaes It.
*' * Bui even If we rashly suppose that
the user of patent medicines diagnose* bis
‘ ase correctly, he must then select the rem
edy. There are a few of the hundreds la
use which will fit his particular case, and
only a few. And here again he must guess.
"Again, tho remedy which would be Indi
cated for use In tho first stage of a dlseas*
niay be positively Injurious In the more ad
'anced stage* of the same disease. If he
Kolects a patent medicine he must take th*
»ame remedy, not only for all stages of th*
disease, but in most cases the same medl
clno for a great variety of disease*
"In other words, the use of patent medi
cines Is based on two guesses If In either
case tho wrong gues* Is made, positive injury
s ' ,,nr* £,nd In both gueH*«* the chances for
tna lag tho wrong guess are more than one
hundred to one
'' hilo a healthy man or beast doe* not nood
medicines, a sick ««« ._
the re,ned.es appropriate to The particular
disease and the particular stage of that dis
ease from Which he 1* suffering.
”A.ny °th*r po,,C3r ,B "Mous. and harmful.
• i«to |m no reason In the common feel
. that there are medicines which If they
n, ° Kood will do no harm it I. pretty
a e to State that a remedy which will do no
1 W7°'‘ Wro,,K W,U do «o good at any
o. am a remedy which in forceful enough
do good when right will do hart., when .
wrong. •
A Thought For the Week.
KK HELD a scanty and penurious Jus
• l,,lrtake of the nature of wrong. I
' lo *n It* consequence, the worst
can pf y,n tbe w"rld- In saving money. I soon
ro|., nt up aU ,h« kond I do: but when, by a
stunt i."iry’ 1 *da8t the abilities of a nation, and
may ,i 7 prowlh of *,H active energies, the 111 I
1 iiirk • ?, *yond u" ‘alculmlon.- From Edmund
Hurke s Letter to a Noble Lord ••