The Kansas City sun. (Kansas City, Mo.) 1908-1924, 1915-04-24

enect that the demand FOR Farmers Bulletins
was A per cent greater than during the previous
fiscal year. OF course a certain proportion of
this percentage must be laid to the increased
number of publications and to the increased
population, but making all allowances 1t seems to
be plain that the public was much better in
formed about the existence of the bulletins and
much more interested in them than ever it had
been before.
While the department extends the usefulness
of the Farmers Bulletins among the people by
famiharizing them with the publications con
tents and value, it also sees to it that stories are
prepared for publication that are much more
strictly news from the point of view of the news
paper editors. These stories are usually warn
ings of frauds or of pestilence, or decisions and
announcements connected with the enforcement
of the meat inspection law and food and drugs
act and other statutes of regulation which are
administered by the department of agriculture.
In the days before the creation of the office Of
Information the only organized method of spread
ing news of this character, which is almost al
ways Of considerable and even great commercial
IMPORTANCE, was to send it out through the mails
in the form of circulars. The delay frequently
was costly to the people and the interests con-
cerned and it was necessarily unsatisfactory,
Under the present system information is sent
out at once from the departments Office by tele-
phone or messenger to the press associations and
to representatives of newspapers which are like
ly to be Interested in the matter and who are
within reach.
The usefulness of this work is shown in the
prompt publication of every quarantine order
affecting the foot-and-mouth disease. This sub
ject, however, had attained such proportions that
it is likely the newspapers themselves would
have secured the through their own
representatives, but there are other cases and
many of them, where the stories could not be
covered because if the department did not give
out the information voluntarily nothing would be
lnnuyp pf ~ A pasa ip pnipt uhiob NAV he oifod
was an elaborate attempt to palm off on the
farmers in the corn belt region a preparation
alleged to cure hog cholera. The sellers pre-
tended that the preparation was recommended
by the department of agriculture. This fraud
was suppressed when through the office of in
formation the newspapers in the territory con-
cerned received a full statement of the facts
in the case.
Many of the departments activities, moreover,
have to do, not with the farmer, but with those
who manufacture farm products into food or
handle, store, or market them. The departments
specialists are constantly making discoveries for
preventing losses, devising methods for manu-
featuring new products or improved methods for
handling or manufacturing old products. Here
tofore it frequently happened that one progress
sive manufacturer would learn of these things
and thus gain an advantage over others in the
same trade who had no knowledge that the in
formation was available. Under the present
. Az OAlNC VI lILOI QUICKLY COm-
municates the details of these discoveries or i'm.
provements to all trade papers in the class af-
fected and to all important dailies in the ter
%ritories where such manufacture is a prominent
industry.
The office of information in addition to the
service OF the character outlined prepares a
Weekly News Letter" to crop correspondents
which has taken the place of the Crop Report
err" This Weekly News Letter" is sent to all
the voluntary crop correspondents serving the
department, to inspectors, agricultural colleges.
correspondents, and to other persons in a posi-.
ton to make use of the material It has a cir
culation approximately of 100, 900 weekly.
In all the work Of the office of information tn,
effort is simply to place at the disposal of the
people the information .'hich the department Of
Agriculture primarily was organized to obtain for
their benefit. In none Of the material is there apy
attempt to gain prominence for any individual or
branch of government, or to praise or to criticize
anyone or in any way to influence legislation.