The progressive farmer. [volume] (Winston, N.C.) 1886-1904, 1904-01-12
EDITORIAL
THE EDITORS CHAT WITH THE READER.

other at the outset, and thus be able to work to-
gether to the best possible advantage! For we
want to make the paper of the greatest possible
service to you and to your home, and IT you are
to take a paper, you want to know its ideals and
aims and feel that, in a certain large sense, 1t is
your own paper-in sympathy with your own
spirit and interested in your own welfare. Let
us. therefore, lay aside the usual formalities that
stand between us and talk shop for awhile-just
admit that we are going to talk shop, and if that
be crime, let the world make the most of it.
First of all, we are really going to try to make
The Progressive Farmer your paperAOur great
object is not to air any opinions of our own, or to
forward any ambitions of our own, or to help any
organization of our own, but simply and solely to
make a paper that will be of the greatest possible
help to you and your family and to other North
Carolina farmers and their families. And we
want your criticism and your cooperation. 1T
there is any way in which the paper could be made
of greater value to you, write to us and tell US
about it. If there are any features which you re
gard as especially useful, let us know in order that
we may emphasize these features and develop them
to the fullest practicable extent. And then we
want your cooperation as well as your criticism.
Do not let your subscription get behind; do not
wait for a bill before renewing. And if you have
Il uGlSlDOT WHO ought W TAKE Jut paper, IS "
get him acquainted with the paper and then get
his subscription. For the more subscribers We get
the bigger will be our capital, and the better pa
per we can give you.
t~lOf course, we don't expect you to agree with
us all the time. And you wouldn't have any re-
spect for us if you believed we tried to make the
paper meet your views III every instance. What
is more to the point, sometime when you disagree
with US, you will be right and VIC wrong-for we
are certainly going to make some mistakes. But
if we know our own heart, they will be honest
mistakes, and we believe you will trust that paper
that is full of good red blood, but makes occasion
al mistakes, in preference to one that makes the
perpetual mistake of keeping a timid silence for
fear of offending some one or of losing some sub
scriber.
And when you disagree with us, we shall be
glad to hear from you about the matter-but we
shall look to you for light, not heat. An angry
abusive letter will do no good; it will not lead us
to see our error, if error it be. But one of our
favorite notices, as you have doubtless noticed,
is that sentence from old Marcus Anreluis: eff
any man is able to show me that l do not think or
act right, l will gladly change; for l seek only the
truth by which no man was ever injured. But he
is injured who ab'des in his error and ignorance"
If this is the proper attitude for the writer, it is
no less true that Lord Bacon has set forth the
proper attitude for the reader in that memorable
phrase of his: Read not to contradict and con-
flute, nor to believe and take for granted, nor to
find talk and discourse, but to weigh and con-
sider."lIf we shall only try, you and I, kind
reader, each to regard the other with something
of this spirit, it will be much better for both of
us.
Then there's your subscription account. May
be you hate to get a "dun"-for people have a
habit of calling a statement of account from a
general business house a "bil," but from a news