Home › How To Do Things, The Farm Journal, Wilmer Atkinson Company, Philadelphia, 1919.

Foreword

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[Illustration. Caption: A Farm Journal Farm]

Our folks--by which is meant the four million subscribers and readers of "The Farm Journal"--live in homes such as the one pictured above. They are the cream of the agricultural people of America. They have solid, substantial homes, big barns with tight roofs, money in bank, fertile land, the best stock, the biggest apples, the richest milk. It is for their benefit that"The Farm Journal" is published, and to them this volume, "How to Do Things" is offered.

[Illustration. Caption: And Here We Have--Peter Tumbledown's Farm]

No one can read "The Farm Journal" and be a Peter Tumbledown too. Many have tried, but they have to give up one or the other.

Foreword

In introducing this volume to the millions of readers of The Farm Journal—the great family of rural Americans whom we often call with respect and affection “Our Folks”—only a very few words are necessary.

At intervals for the last forty years we have had friends of The Farm Journal come to the Editors and say, “why don’t you make a book of the best things out of the paper? It is a shame,” they say, “to have this wealth of information lost, or to force readers to make scrap-books to preserve special articles that interest them.”

The Editors have always agreed that such a book would be a good thing. From their daily contact with subscribers all over the country, the countless letters and inquiries they receive and answer, they know very closely what farm folks are interested in and want to know about. On this contact they are accustomed to base the choice of what goes into The Farm Journal, and they have always believed that a book containing these important things would be appreciated by many.

It was more a question of finding the time and energy to do the job. Other matters pressed, the family of Our Folks kept getting bigger and bigger, and demanding more and more information and advice. The Great War came on, and so on and so on. However, the time came at last, and here finally is the long-desired book, full to overflowing with interesting and important matters.

[Illustration. Caption: “The Editor’s Desk”]

The “Contents” pages which follow a little further on, and, even more, the thirty-two pages of “Index” which come next, will sufficiently show what is in the book, and where it may be found.

To many other millions of farm folks to whose eyes this may come and who are not familiar with The Farm Journal, we believe some special explanation may be due. In spite of its more than forty years’ existence, and its enormous circulation in every State and in every civilized country of the world, The Farm Journal still remains unknown, or only vaguely known, in many American farm homes.

We believe it may be interesting and may help to account for the publishing of this book, if we devote a few pages to a brief history of The Farm Journal.

 
[Illustration: The Farm Journal]

[Caption: The old familiar heading of the biggest little paper in the world.]

its foundation, growth and present position as the foremost farm and household magazine. We shall not feel badly if impatient readers skip these few pages, or only pause to look at the illustrations, but in that case we shall hope that they will return later, and learn something of the periodical from which the rest of the book is reprinted.

  • The Farm Journal came into existence in the month of March, 1877, and is therefore near middle age.
  • The Editor was reared at the plow handles, and all his ancestors on both sides were farmers since the time of William Penn.
  • The first number was an eight-page paper, and 25,000 copies were printed; now we often print a hundred and twenty or more pages and every edition exceeds a million copies.
  • The Editor did not then aspire to other than a local circulation; now this magazine goes to every State in the Union, to Canada, and to many distant countries.
  • At first two small rooms held the entire plant, and all the work was done by less than a dozen assistants.
  • The Editor successfully canvassed the county fairs personally for subscribers.
  • The subscription price was 25 cents a year, cash in advance, and "stop when the year is up."
  • John Wanamaker was just starting his great department store, and for a time was the principal advertiser.
  • The growth in circulation was not very rapid, but constant; when we obtained a subscriber we held him until he died, and then his children and grandchildren took his place. It often required several copies for the children and grandchildren.
  • The first office of the paper was at 726 Sansom Street; the second, 914 Arch Street; the third, 144 North Seventh Street; the fourth, 125 North Ninth Street; the fifth, 1024 Race Street, where we were for seventeen years; thence we moved to our present location on Washington Square. All the other offices could be placed inside of this one.

[Caption: Poor little chaps in a big, cold world! The Farm Journal will help you keep them healthy and happy.]

[Image: Fair Play guarantee]

[Caption: This is the guarantee that appears every month on Page 1. Since its first insertion in 1880, nearly every first-class farm paper in the country has followed our lead and makes some such promise.]

From the first, unreliable and shady advertisers were excluded; but the Editor felt that something more was necessary to safeguard the interests of subscriber and advertiser alike. So in the issue for October, 1880, we put up the “Fair Play” notice, substantially as it may now be seen on the first page, and we have held firmly to it ever since. The Farm Journal was the first periodical in the world to print such a notice. Many others have since adopted the plan. Any subscriber dealt with dishonestly by an advertiser is protected from loss by the publisher.

In July, 1879, Jacob Biggle, “a retired city merchant,” began his letters from Elmwood Farm, and Aunt Harriet, his wife, took a hand at times. Old Peter Tumbledown also began to figure about this time.

In the February issue, 1880, the Editor stated that “you can count on the fingers of one hand all the farm papers of the country that have more subscribers than The Farm Journal.” By this time it had outgrown the local field, and subscriptions poured in from all the States.

[Image: baby]

[Caption: The best crop on the farm.]

  • It required six tons of paper for the big edition of December, 1880, which was pretty good for a youngster of four summers.
  • In 1881, the Editor announced that he wanted one hundred thousand subscribers and was bound to get them.
  • By 1884 he did get them.
  • The Farm Journal announced that it was “a tub that stood on its own bottom,” and this has always been its policy. It never has had any side issues of any kind. “Do one thing and do it as well as we can,” is our motto.
  • The Farm Journal entered its sixth year “healthy, happy and spunky.”
  • In 1882 the Editor established the custom of taking a journey through the country every summer, visiting subscribers and points of interest. These trips were and continue to be eye-openers.
  • It was during the following winter that the 100,000 mark was reached.

[Illustration: two country lanes converging.]

[Caption: Farm and village people up and down these roads and all about your neighborhood and all over this broad land read The Farm Journal and speak in praise of it.]

and the claim was made that no other farm weekly or other monthly had so many. In proof of this, our subscription books were offered for examination. They have been open ever since for that purpose.

  • The next year The Farm Journal started in for 200,000 subscribers and announced that “we are bound to get them.” “Our paper does not wear a long face,” the Editor said, “it is hopeful, cheerful, looking on the brightest and best side of everything, and it likes fun—a grin better than a groan.”
  • In March, 1884, the Editor said: “The Farm Journal now enters its eighth year,” and was “never happier in its life.” By December of this year the 125,000 mark was reached.
  • In 1887 we began to take subscriptions for a longer term than one year—two years at first; then, after finding the system to be right, we extended the time to three years; now we seek only four-year subscriptions. We have many subscribers who are paid ahead for twenty years; some for thirty, and one until 1957.

[Illustration: hog]

[Caption: The rent-payer and mortgage-lifter. The Farm Journal tells the How of Hogs from beginning to end.]

[Illustration: hens]

[Caption: The hen turns grass into greenbacks, grain into gold, and even coins silver out of sand; The Farm Journal is full of hen lore and chicken wisdom.]

It is often hard to get the one-year idea out of the heads of new people who do not know The Farm Journal. But when they have read it for awhile, and understand why we take only four-year orders, and the saving it makes, it is very easy to get their renewals for as long a time as we choose to ask for.

  • The number of subscriptions kept creeping up steadily to 1890, until 200,000 was almost in sight, and a clerical force of seventy or more was needed to handle the business in the busy season.
  • In September, 1891, the Editor announced that he was after 1,000,000 subscribers, a mark which he has now reached, after eighteen years of steady effort.
  • In 1892 The Farm Journal appeared for the first time stitched and bound like a book. New type was bought and better quality of paper used. In March, 1893, a thirty-two page paper was printed for the first time.

[Illustration: haystack comparison from test plots]

[Caption: Scientific fertilization means profitable crops. The Farm Journal constantly teaches that on the farm, as elsewhere, knowledge makes wealth.]

  • During the winter of 1893-94 the plan was adopted of having all subscriptions begin with January and end with December.
  • In August, 1894, appeared the first half-tone illustrations (engravings made direct from photographs of the objects).
  • By the following spring the editions had passed the quarter-million mark.
  • From 1895 to 1898 the paper ran along smoothly with no important events to chronicle. Its circulation was growing right along, and its advertising patronage increasing every year. In March of the latter year the paper became of age, having completed twenty-one years of life.
  • In 1899 the publishers concluded that some better way must be found for printing the paper. Heretofore the work had been done by outside printers under contract, and often as many as ten presses were at work printing an edition, with as many as sixty men and girls at work folding and binding it.
  • Not having close enough control over this work, the deliveries of the paper were often delayed. It was therefore decided to put in our own press, and this was done in the fall of 1899, in time to print a part of the October number. For six years this press turned out all editions of the paper at 40,000 copies a day of a forty-page magazine. In 1905 it was replaced by a new press of the same size but equipped with several important improvements.
  • In 1902, for the first time, the circulation of the paper went permanently above the 500,000 mark, and the claim was made that two and a half million people read every issue.

[Illustration: the twin presses of The Farm Journal in Philadelphia.]

[Caption: The big twin presses on which The Farm Journal is printed at the rate of two hundred a minute. Driven and controlled by electricity throughout. Come and see them when in Philadelphia.]

  • About 1903 The Farm Journal began its great fight against the San Jose scale, and redoubled its efforts to secure parcels-post and postal savings banks for the farmers of the country. Both have now been secured.
  • In the summer of 1905 our second big press was installed. In February and March, 1907, it was necessary to print sixty-page magazines for the first time in our history. About this time, too, a complete new outfit of type was secured.
  • In 1909 the big printing press again became inadequate for the demands of our growing family of subscribers, and the whole building (1024 Race Street) was overcrowded. After some trouble, an abandoned church property which stood back to back with us on Cherry Street was bought, and this was remodeled to house the printing and mailing departments. At the same time we installed press No. 3, a huge machine as large as both the old presses put together.
  • This was followed by press No. 4, a duplicate of No. 3, and these wonderful pieces of machinery, each driven by a 30 horse-power electric motor, now print The Farm Journal. Each of them will print, trim, fold, wire-stitch, count and deliver 45,000 eighty-page Farm Journals a day, or about 1 ½ copies per second.
  • In the early years of the paper subscribers’ papers were addressed with pencil, but this was so slow and inaccurate that it was necessary to put all names in type by type-setting machines and have the addressing done by mailing machines, each capable of 10,000 per day. In 1908 this system was in turn replaced by an improved method using light aluminum plates instead of the heavy lead type. While more expensive, the clear-cut addresses given by this system, insuring prompt receipt of each issue by the subscriber, more than justify its cost.

[Illustration: workers stamping addresses on aluminum plates]

[Caption: Stamping subscribers’ names on aluminum plates for the mailing list. The machine works something like a typewriter.]

Even with the Cherry Street church and the property next door to it, which was bought in 1911, the magazine continued to outgrow its home, and it was apparent that we must enlarge again. A large lot on Washington Square was bought and erection of a new building was begun in the summer of 1911. This was completed and occupied fourteen months later, and there we are now “at home” to our friends.

Here we have three large, airy, well-lighted floors, each one of them nearly as large as any building we ever had before. Two more floors above are rented for a term of years, and we can get them for our own use at the end of that time. If necessary, the concrete foundations and framework are heavy enough so that we can put still another floor on top.

In 1913 The Farm Journal first offered to subscribers a straight guarantee that subscriptions might be discontinued “at any time for any reason, or for NO reason,” and the subscription money would be refunded. This in-

[Illustration: woman with sheep]

[Caption: Sheep are the most profitable livestock kept on the farm, next to the boys and girls, and there are few farms for which they are not adapted. They live on the least expense, breed and grow two crops at the same time—wool and mutton. The Farm Journal will help you on the sheep question.]

[-]sured a list of subscribers, all of whom read and want the paper, since those who would rather have their money back can get it without fuss or delay. This “Guarantee to Subscribers” is now printed in every issue of The Farm Journal. No other periodical has done this.

The vast multitude of well-to-do persons who read The Farm Journal each month and have confidence in its pages have insured a gratifying advertising patronage; yet we have endeavored to see that the quantity and quality of reading matter should more than keep pace with the advertisements.

On the editorial page of The Farm Journal you may read under the title the words, “Unlike Any Other Paper.” This states a truth that is obvious to those who form the habit of reading it.

[Illustration: threshing crew and machine]

[Caption: In the great oats and wheat States, where the threshing crews pile their glittering straw mountains, The Farm Journal is best known and best loved.]

  • For one thing it says a thing and stops after it has said it.
  • For another it is cheerful and hopeful, and wants everybody to have a good time. It is young in spirit if not in years.
  • For another it is full of snap and ginger, and hits the nail squarely on the head.
  • It never has printed and never will print a quack medical advertisement, or other advertisement of doubtful character. (We could easily obtain $50,000 worth of such advertisements per year were we so inclined.)
  • Hence, its columns are perfectly clean and pure; it does not have to be hid from the children, nor carried out of the house with tongs.
  • For another, it prints no long-winded, tiresome essays, and it knows what to leave out as well as what to put in.
  • It is at home in every State, in all latitudes and longitudes, and welcome from the rising to the setting of the sun.
  • It treats every branch of farming—gardening, stock breeding, dairying, poultry raising, bee culture, sheep and swine husbandry, fruit growing and trucking.
  • It thinks the humans of the farm are the best stock on it, yet it teaches the kindest, wisest care for every species of farm animal. Its teachings are practical and therefore profitable.
  • It is a woman’s paper of the purest and best type, and all the young folks of the farm find the keenest delight in it.
  • Its purpose has always been, and now is, not how much profit will accrue, but how much good it can do. If our business were a mere matter of dollars and cents, we would quit today.

Responding to our desire to encourage and benefit Our Folks, we have the assurance of countless messages day by day, brought to us by every mail, that four million readers wish us well and rejoice in our prosperity, and this cheers us and gives us unspeakable comfort and happiness.

If we should sum up in a few words our feelings about The Farm Journal and “How to Do Things,” we would say something like this: “A favorite description of The Farm Journal is to say that it is ‘Cream, not Skim Milk.’ The contents of this book have been selected as the very best of The Farm Journal contents. We therefore present it to Our Folks, old and new, as the ‘Cream of the Cream.’”

WILMER ATKINSON COMPANY, Publishers.
Philadelphia, Pa.
April, 1921