The mirror. (Stillwater, Minn.) 1894-1925, 1917-06-21
Almanac Making is on the
Wane


free of charge, but not nearly so many
millions as were sent broadcast in this
country number of years ago. Then
nearly every man who owned printery
printed an almanac for local use, to
advertise his paper or to show the work
from his printing establishment, and,
incidentally. to turn an honest penny by
filling up as many pages as possible with
advertisements. Some of them were very
neat and useful pamphlets, and not few
of them contained compilations of valuable
local records. The most of them have
ceased publication, driven out by COM
petition or by the high cost of paper.
The great bulk of the former-day
almanacs were issued 10y patent medicine
concerns. These were printed by the
millions and were on the counters of every
drug store in the cities and every village
store throughout the country. Many of
these have passed away because the
promoters of the medicines they advertised
have gone out of business or have died and
the medicines are no longer on the market.
Some few of them were started over
seventy years ago and are still issued, with
their tales of wonderful cures, their
astronomical data, their 'useful infor-
nation" their agricultural advise, their
weather representations and their humorous
paragraphs. But the high cost of paper
has played havoc with many of the patent
medicine almanacs, and the aggregate
number issued is much less now than few
years ago.
There was a kind of uniformity in all
these almanacs; first came the picture of a
helpless man without clothes, surrounded
by a dozen different creatures. Mark
Twain thought this was indelicate and had
quite different picture of the zodiacal
signs made for his own special almanac;
but the old symbol stills holds its place.
Next came eclipses for the year, moon S
phases, tides fixed and movable ami
versaries, the monthly calendars with their
old fashioned season pictures, and finally,
the ola podrida of useful and curious
knowledge. Thirty or forty pages were all
these freely distributed almanacs could
boast, but the great almanacs of today have
from 500 to l, 200 pages (including advertise.
ments), sell for twenty five cents each, and
are encyclopedias of concentrated religious,
charitable, social, educational, astronomical
and political information.
The freely distributed almanac will still
hold its place, though in reduced numbers,
because it is useful, is such handy adver-
Using medium and has been so long
established. The first almanac was issued
about the twelfth century, in manuscript.
Roger Bacon got one in 1892, and John
Somers another in 1880. The earliest
English calendar in the British Museum is
for 1431; the first printed almanac was for
1457. The "Bloody Irish Almanac was
issued in 1647. The British almanac,
which was started in 1928, still exists. In
our own country Benjamin Franklin started
his ''Poor Richard Almanac in 174O, but
his was not the first, for he bitterly assailed
a rival whom he drove out of business.
Not even with wall calendars, desk calen-
dars, beautiful girl calendars and pocket
diaries can we do without the almanac.
With one exception it is the best book in
the house from January to December 81.
-Newark Neaos.