Morgenthau to Gannett

Frank Ernest Gannett, chubby, full-faced publisher cf the third largest chain of U. S. dailies,/- last week bought his first magazine. It was The American Agriculturist, oldest (92 years) farm publication in the U. S. The seller was Henry Morgenthau Jr., Secretary of the Treasury and gentleman farmer in Dutchess County, N. Y. Secretary Morgenthau sold not because he had lost interest in a sheet he had issued twice a month from Poughkeepsie for the past twelve years but because an old Federal Law prohibits the Secretary of Treasury from holding a majority stock interest in any business. Publisher Gannett bought for several good reasons of his own.

The Gannett papers supported Herbert Hoover in 1932 and are still dry enough to refuse all liquor advertising, but since the first indications of a managed currency Publisher Gannett has been an ardent New Dealer. Secretary Morgenthau is one of his friends. So is Professor George Frederick ("Rubber Dollar") Warren of Cornell, whose views the Agriculturist has long reflected. Publisher Gannett saw a chance not only to oblige his friend and neighbor, but also to turn a pretty profit if the New Deal works out as he hopes.

The American Agriculturist, founded in 1842, was run from 1853 to 1883 by Orange Judd, a crony of Horace Greeley, who after the Civil War used it to combat his friend's opinions on reconstruction problems as well as to advise farmers what to feed their pigs. From 1883, when Long Island real estate speculations forced Orange Judd to sell his interest, until 1922, when Henry Morgenthau Jr. bought it, the Agriculturist went slowly to seed. Owner Morgenthau's Editor Edward Roe Eastman doubled its circulation, now 161,145. Last May the Agriculturist, beneath its masthead of cows, a tractor, an orchard and a silo, was the first U. S. paper to make a practice of printing gold prices.

Despite its ripe old age the Agriculturist is by no means the biggest or most important among farm journals. Its readers are truck and dairy farmers in New York, New Jersey, and eastern Connecticut. Biggest farm magazine in the U. S. is Curtis Publishing Co.'s Country Gentleman, with a national circulation of 1,738,853. Close behind are Crowell Publishing Co.'s Country Home and Wilmer Atkinson Co.'s Farm Journal, with 1,500,000 apiece. Successful Farming, published by Meredith Publishing Co. in Des Moines with special attention to stock raising, has 1,150,000 readers. Capper's Farmer (Topeka) and American Farming (Chicago) have just under 1,000,000 as has Webb Publishing Co.'s Farmer's Wife which contains recipes for apple dumplings as well as hog wash. Biggest of the regional magazines are the monthlies--Progressive Farmer and Southern Ruralist published in Birmingham, Ala. with five different district editions, and Southern Agriculturist published in Nashville, Tenn. Combined circulation of all U. S. farm magazines, by far the largest single group of U. S. trade papers, is more than 22,000,000.

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