The Big Sandy news. [volume] (Louisa, Ky.) 1885-1929, 1906-07-20
THE FARM.
The Story Of My Farmer Boy.

Whites Class Advertising Co. 10 It's
patrons and friends Hon w. B, OF |
we'll. Of Illinois. delivered the follow
ing address, which Is good reading
for boys and men too:
number of years ago the first
farmers institute of my county was
organized, and they elected the Hon
orable Senator David Gore as the
president and they elected me as
secretary. Mr.. Gore told mo to 80 to
work and get up great big meeting
Of farmers, and knowing little about
advertising, as did, | went to work
and had a program gotten out and
printed it in thirteen different county
papers, and got large hangers and
put the programs on them and hung
them in all the show windows of the
county. wrote column after col
umn about the coming farmers insti-
tute that was to take place down at
I. Carlinville, and then | gave the jan
|itor of our great big Macoupln county
court house-you may have heard of
our court house down in Macoupin
county. You need not smile. for when
we get $4,000 more paid on il we
will have it all paid for daughter
told the janitor of our court house
to get the big iron doors open that
morning TO accommodate the immense
crowd of farmers that | knew would
be surging around there, and ii ever
l told the truth in my life, When the
president called the meeting to order
at eleven o'clock that morning there
were the president and the secretary
and the chaplain, and that was every
blessed soul that was there. And the
chaplain. bless his heart, got up and
offered fervent prayer for the
officers of the institution
tapped him on the shoulder after
wards and said: "Parson, If you will
just pray a little for those old hay
seeds that We're not there. it will help
us some The officers are doing
everything in their power that they
know to do"
Well, the next year | decided that
would fool the farmers Farmers,
you know. can be fooled easier than
anybody else in this world, So /
went down to the printing office and
! had some nice pink colored envel-
opes with bright lines across the back
printed kind of like wedding invita-
tions; you know that will get every
body. uaughter..)
put two-cent stamp on each one
and sent 1t out, and | had a nice
program gotten out, and | had the
leading men in the state to talk about
cattle and horses and about the soil
and mailed out five hundred OF
those programs to farmers in my
county, telling them about the farm
ers' institute, with just about the
same results as the year before.
There weren't present at any meet
ing of the farmers institute two
dozen farmers.
Well. as a result. the president
resigned in disgust and they elected
me to that honorable position ! de-
termined at once that would make
or break the whole shebang, and ]
did not have far to go to break it.
l determined upon this little plan
which / will tell you about. and you
can Judge, yourselves, as to whether
II has been a good one or not.
sent to the states of Iowa, Indi-
ana and Illinois and procured twelve
samples OF seed corn that | thought
was pretty good corn. Then | called
twelve farmers together, one Saturday
afternoon, and told them what my
plan was. Told them to pick out the
best corn for me, and they worked on
that corn for four hours. and they
finally picked out little kernel corn
that did not look very good to me,
but they knew how to raise corn
before | was born.
So ! sent away to the grower of
that corn and | told him about my
plan and asked him to furnish me a
number OF bushels of that corn. Well
i got this corn and then / advised
every farmer boy in my county that
IL he would write ! would send him
a package of corn for two cents in
postage, and told him about the
prizes for the boys raising the best
corn. Well, a pillow firm down there
gave me a pillow for the sweepstake
premium, and | got other prizes to-
gether, and soon had five hundred
boys scrapping for these prizes.
Do you know, at the coming farm
ers' institute ] did not advise sin
gle farmer to be at the institute. |
did not send out a single invitation
for man to be there. told them
politely they could stay at home
had told them everything else under
the sun and couldn't get them there,
50 turned my attention to the