Room with a View

As publisher of the monthly Farm Journal, biggest farm magazine in the U.S. (circ. 2,870,380), Graham Patterson had an office ideally located to keep an eye on his closest competitor. Right across Philadelphia's downtown Washington Square, he looked into the offices of the Curtis Publishing Co., owner of the Satevepost, Ladies' Home Journal, Holiday, Jack and Jill and the monthly Country Gentleman, second biggest farm magazine in the U.S. (circ. 2,566,314). Publisher Patterson enjoyed the view but not the competition. Last week he found a way to keep one and eliminate the other. In the biggest magazine sale in years, for an estimated $6 million, Farm Journal bought Curtis' Country Gentleman, and will combine the two giants of farm publishing into one monthly magazine, called Farm Journal-Country Gentleman.

Publisher Patterson had seized a rare opportunity to buy a big magazine on its way down. In the hotly competitive race for the farm market, Curtis' venerable (102-year-old) Country Gentleman has been stumbling. "The magazine," says one competitor, "has become a sort of a Mother Hubbard, covering everything and touching nothing.'' Since its peak war years, Country Gentleman has been gradually losing advertising. Curtis started to try to bail out the sick monthly last year by changing its name to Better Farming, but the transformation had barely started when along came the offer from Farm Journal.

Heartbreak on the Staff. Country Gentleman's 75-odd staffers, who will not go along with their magazine to Farm Journal, were taken completely by surprise. "It breaks my heart," said Satevepost Editor Ben Hibbs, who for 13 years (1929-42) was an editor of Country Gentleman. But for Curtis the sale was no heartbreak.

As one of the biggest U.S. magazine publishers (gross income 1954: $173 million). Curtis has been increasingly concerned with the fortunes of its other magazines. The company is not in serious trouble, but in the first quarter of 1955 its earnings were down to an uncomfortable $385,918 (v. $1,308,735 for the same period last year). By dropping Country Gentleman, Curtis can now concentrate on the Satevepost, Ladies' Home Journal, Holiday, Jack and Jill and the new quarterly it is bringing out this summer, Bride-To-Be. Said Curtis President Robert E. MacNeal last week: "Aside from the fact that Farm Journal made us a very attractive offer, we see definite advantages in concentrating our efforts on the other magazines of the Curtis line."

Up on the Farm. The purchase was the latest in a long series of successful changes made by the Farm Journal's Graham Patterson, 73, a good-humored, pink-cheeked publisher who ran the Christian Herald before he took over Farm Journal in 1935. Patterson watches his health as closely as he watches his magazine, keeps fit with frequent bowls of oatmeal, always sprinkled with a laxative which he carries with him wherever he goes. Once in Manhattan's Waldorf-Astoria Hotel, a friend approached tiny (5 ft. 3 3/4 in.) Publisher Patterson and prankishly asked whether the grits on his oatmeal were a growth stimulant. "No," answered Patterson. "I've been taking this stuff for 25 years and haven't grown an inch."

But Patterson's diet for the Farm Journal has made it grow every year since he took over. He threw out the magazine's ponderous, technical farm features, replaced them with over-the-fence news for farmers. To separate his rural but non-farm readers from farmers, in 1943 he bought the newsweekly Pathfinder, later changed its name to Town Journal (circ. 1,592,615), and reset its editorial sights to lure small-town nonfarm readers. To increase Farm Journal circulation, Publisher Patterson and President Richard J. Babcock, 43, started three regional editions, printing specialized news and information for farmers in all sections of the U.S. Ad revenue climbed from $300,000 in 1935 to nearly $10 million last year; circulation more than doubled in the same time. Now. with Country Gentleman in his barn. Publisher Patterson hopes to apportion the Curtis magazine's circulation to Town and Farm Journal and boost the circulation and ads of both magazines even more.

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