Rocky Ford enterprise., 1915-04-23

~
"~ to spread useful agricultural and
@V household Information among the
\kN' people through the medium of the
! press of the country. The attempt
has been highly successful. per-
haps the readers Of newspapers do
not need to be told for the interesting and and at
times compelling writings of the service men have
been before them from day to day.
In the department of agriculture there is an Of
fce of Information which created in June, 1913.
Before its establishment there had been no active
effort to give directly to the people the results of
the departments work Walter H. Page, at pres
ent the American ambassador to Great Britain said
on this subject of getting agricultural information
to the people that the department Had been
voiring an enormous mass of information collected
with the peoples money and which the people were
entitled to get"
In the past there issued at frequent inter-
walls publications largely In bulletin FORM but with
the exception of more less perunctory notices of
tneir appearances comparatively little was done to
make the public aware that they were at its dis
posal One of the first things that the office of in
formation did, therefore, was to develop system
by which absolutely accurate newspaper stories
pased on the material contained in these bulletins
could be sent out to such newspaper which II
seemed reasonable to expect the nature of the
various subjects, would be interested in publishing
them for the sake of their readers. This work still
forms a large part OF the activities of the Office
Some time ago there was criticism of what were
called the publicity efforts Of the department of agr
culture. The critics did not understand at all the
nature of the work which was being done They
tablished simply for the purpose of booming the
activities of the agricultural department with view
perhaps, as some of the critics may have thought
OF saying something kindly occasionally about the
officials of government concerned in the work
Criticism passed quickly for congress was told in
letter to Speaker Champ Clark of the house of rem
resentatives of just what the information work Of
the department consisted. and sharp line was
drawn between the nature of the information which
was being sent out and the usual stun which is
turned out by a publicity bureau which is not at
an inf atfnp hura,,
In the letter to the speaker of the house the sec
retary of agriculture said this:
THE nation is spending through the depart
ment many millions of dollars in acquiring agri-
cultural Information. It would be little short of
criminal to spend millions of dollars to acquire
Information and not to every possible ef-
cient agency available for placing 1t at the dis
posai OF the people as promptly as possible It
is the purpose of the office 1.-THE office of informa-
toni, with as little delay possible. through
every proper medium to give the knowledge
which the department possesses the result OF
Investigations and field work to all the people
who desire 1t or should have it. The office
dertakes to deal solely with facts, with sugges
tions of remedies, and of methods of applying
them in every field of agriculture"
Prior to the time that the office of information
was created nearly all the printed matter
veying information was in the form of bulletins
and circulars and the issues not very vol
luminous. Frequently great deal of time
required finally to prepare the bulletin. to print
1t and to distribute 1t. 1t inevitable for
reach the great of the people who would
be- interested in them. Many farmers did not
know that the service at their disposal
They knew nothing about the bulletins which
of them would be helpful to them, did
they know how to secure them. Moreover. the
publications largely technical, diff
fcult to interpret, to understand and to apply
One of the particular duties of the depart
ments office of information is to put the matter
which from the different bureaus in tech
nical or scientific form into language which lay
readers understand. 1t seemed easier and
better TO the department officials that the office
of information should choose the matter of spe-
cial value to particular districts sections Of
the Union and to have It distributed to such
tions quickly 1t had been found that delay in
issuing the official printed bulletins and in mall
ing them often defeated the ends of real service.
In case of the appearance In some district of
insect plague of a disease that menaced the
stock, quick action, of course. 1t was realized
necessary to accomplish results.
The inauguration of the service of information
1t is at present carried out necessitated most
efficient mailing system which would enable the
office to circulate its material among those
classes of publications and In those sections of
the country which could derive benefit from 1t.
and at the same time avoid distribution that
would be expensive to the government and
less to the newspapers and II they should pub
lish it, to their readers.
Now there is a mailing system installed and
under operation by the division of publication
and by means of it the publications of the coun-
try classified geographically and by their
character. Now it is possible to transmit
story to all the newspapers in the United States.
to all the newspapers in any city group of
cities to all the farm publications in the country
or in any state, emitting the general newspapers,
to the trade papers of any. all of the
trades, to daily newspapers in big cities alone,
to those in small county seats alone-in short
practically any desired combination of publica-
tions is possible,