The progressive farmer and southern farm gazette., August 13, 1910, Image 1

About The progressive farmer and southern farm gazette. (Starkville, Miss.) 1910-1920

Image provided by: Mississippi Department of Archives and History

                
G&EAT special OFFER: 28 Cents Till January 1st to 'New Subscribers!
Volume XV. No. 32._SATURDAY, AUGUST 13. 1910._Weekly: $1 a Year
A PERSONAL LETTER TO MR. SUBSCRIBER
Office of
THE PROGRESSIVE FARMER AND GAZETTE,
August 4, 1910.
Dear Mr. Subscriber:
This. Mr. Subscriber, is a personal letter, a
very personal letter, to you whose name ap
pears on the little label herewith.
I want your help.
You see, while Dr. Butler does somewhat more
editorial work on The Progressive Farmer and
Gazette than I do, he leaves me to do more of
the work of circulation-building, and I have a
problem before me right now.
In the first place, I have long said that I was
going to start around the world this fall.
I am going.
But 1 have also said that before starting I was
going to get 20,000 more subscribers than there
are now on our books.
I must get them.
That much is settled. I have told you before
about Uncle Hemus's story of Bre'r Rabbit climb
ing tho tree. You remember Bre’r Wolf with
blood In his eye had chused Bre'r Babbitt relent
lessly, closed right in on him, and in an another
minute would have his teeth clamped right on
Bre’r Rabbit’s back—
"And right then,” Bald Uncle Remus, "Bre’r
Rabbit, b« dumb a tree.”
"Climbed a tree?" exclaimed the Little Boy.
"But you know rubbits can’t climb trees.”
"Mebbe dey can and mebbe dey caln’t,” said
Uncle Remus. "All 1 know is that Bre’r Rabbit
was Jest erbleeged to climb a tree—jest erbleeged
to do it—en‘ he dumb It.”
I am "Jest erbleeged” to get 20,000 more sub
scribers this month—and I am going to get ’em.
» » »
Take your own Individual case, Mr. Subscriber,
I know you have u number of neighbors and
friends who ought to be taking the paper but are
not. It would not only help them to take the
puper, but It would help the neighborhood.
And now that crops are laid by, I want you to
help us get these folks into the fold.
But you may say that farmers have little money
at this time of year. Very well, we have fore
seen this objection and have headed it off com
pletely.
Von needn’t ask any man for a dollar for a
year’s subscription. To insure these 20,000 sub
scriber, and to make it dead easy for you to get
the three, four, live, or six we are expecting from
you, we have decided to make the following re
markable and fetching offer:
To any man not now getting The Progressive
Farmer we will send it every week from now till
January 1, 1911,—nearly five months—for only
25 cents.
Anybody can give you a quarter and as the
regular price till January would be 45 cents, this
is nearly half-price—and we’ll give any man’s
money back if not satisfied.
• * •
Now, such an offer just can’t be resisted, and
all you’ll have to do is to tell your neighbor.
Even if he seems a little coy at first, his declin
ing will be like that of the Asiatic belle in those
eloquent lines:
“There was a young lady from Siam,
Who said to her lover named Priam,
To kiss me, of course,
You’ll have to use force;
But the Lord knows you are stronger than
I am."
With an ofTer like this—half-price and money
back if not satisfied—the Lord knows you are
stronger than any little indifference on your
neighbor's part, and you won’t have to use much
force to land his subscription, and if you do, we’ll
pay the costs.
* * *
And now to the work. You have some kins
folk, Mr. Subscriber, whom you can get under
this 25-cent offer; you have some neighbors who
are not kin to you; you have some tenants; you
have some town friends who own farms: all these
should be captured, and again the watchword
should be: “Let no guilty man escape—no man
guilty of trying to farm or keep house without
The Progressive Farmer and Gazette.”
I am enclosing a subscription blank with this
copy of The Progressive Farmer and Gazette, hnd
I hope you will put it in your pocket, and keep
your eyes peeled for every non-subscriber who
gets in sight of you these next few weeks. At
your neighbor’s house, at the mill, at the store, at
the picnic, at the Farmers’ Union meeting, at the
Saturday church meeting: be ready for every
guilty man and nab him.
You remember the old Puritan of Indian days
who, when asked, why he always carried a rifle
believing, as he did, that when a man’s time came
to die, he’d die anyhow, and that was all there
was to It, answered: “True enough, but what If
I should meet an Indian whose time had come,
and me without a gun?” And so as religiously
as the Puritan carried his rifle, so we hope you
will carry our subscription blank: you never can
tell when you may meet some non-subscriber
whose time has come—not to die but to subscribe.
More than this, we are going to pay you, and
pay you handsomely, for all the work you do for
us. For every 25-cent subscriber you get we’ll
credit you two months on your label (unless you
choose some other premium), renew you a whole
year for six quarter-subscriptions, and in addition
to all this, we are going to give an extra cash
prize of $1 for the largest list received each day
from any subscriber, while the subscriber from
whom we receive the largest list each week will
get $5 cash. For the very largest list sent in be
tween August 10 and September 10, moreover, we
shall give a $75 buggy; for the next largest list
sent by a woman, a first-class Be wing machine,
and for the next largest list sent by a man, a pure
bred Poland China, Berkshire, or Duroc Jersey pig.
These prizes will not not be open to persons
regularly employed as agents, but only to sub
scribers. Even if you get only one or two sub
scribers, you get well paid in credit on your la
bel; put yourself to a very little trouble and you
may get the daily prize besides, while a deter
mined effort any week may get you the weekly
prize or the $75 buggy. But don’t worry about
the big prizes: what we are most anxious for is
to get every subscriber to send us from one to six
25-cent subscribers.
* * •
Of course, you know the paper well enough to
talk it, and talk all its features, and you may al
ways tell a man that if he isn’t satisfied he may
have his money back for the asking. And then,
as I said in the outset, I am going to start around
the world for The Progressive Farmer and Ga
zette the last of August and write up all my
travels and experiences for the benefit of our
great Progressive Farmer and Gazette Family.
These letters will begin in September, and every
25-cent subscriber will be in time for them.
You will find the blank in this paper, and I
hope you will make use of it. Fill it up and
send it back.
Hoping to have a big list from you, I am,
Yours cordially,
CLARENCE POE,
Associate Editor and Manager.
FEATURES OF THIS ISSUE.
“Cheated Out of Several Pounds Per Bale”. . 3
A Water-Works System for $150. 4
Farmers’ Bulletins You Ought to Have. ... 5
The School Girl—Bless Her!. 7
The Parable of the Hedgerow'. 9
How to Fatten Your Hogs This Year. 10
One Experience With Patent Stock Foods. ... 12
How 1 Was Converted to the Hookworm The
ory . 13
Our All-Important Problem is the Saving of
the Soil . 14
Some Books the Farm Boy Should Read. 16