From a bulletin of the U.S. Department of Agriculture a writer prepared an article on "the most successful farmer in the United States" and what he did with twenty acres, for the department of "Interesting People" in the American Magazine.
The results of a municipal survey of Springfield, Illinois, as set forth in official reports, were the basis of an article in the Outlook on "What is a Survey?" Reports of a similar survey at Lawrence, Kansas, were used for a special feature story in the Kansas City Star.
"Are You a Good or a Poor Penman?" was the title of an article in Popular Science Monthly based on a chart prepared by the Russell Sage Foundation in connection with some of its educational investigations.
The New York Evening Post published an interesting special article on the "life tables" that had been prepared by the division of vital statistics of the Bureau of the Census, to show the expectation of life at all ages in the six states from which vital statistics were obtained.
A special feature story on how Panama hats are woven, as printed in the Ohio State Journal, was based entirely on a report of the United States consul general at Guayaquil, Ecuador.
Scientific and Technical Publications. Almost every science and every art has its own special periodicals, from which can be gleaned a large number of subjects and much valuable material that needs only to be popularized to be made attractive to the average reader. The printed proceedings of scientific and technical societies, including the papers read at their meetings, as well as monographs and books, are also valuable. How such publications may be utilized is illustrated by the articles given below.
The report of a special committee of an association of electrical engineers, given at its convention in Philadelphia, furnished a writer with material for an article on "Farming by Electricity," that was published in the Sunday edition of the Springfield Republican.
Studies of the cause of hunger, made by Prof. A.J. Carlson of the University of Chicago and published in a volume entitled "The Control of Hunger in Health and Disease," furnished the subject for an article in the Illustrated World. Earlier results of the same investigation were given in the Sunday magazine of one of the Chicago papers.
From the Journal of Heredity was gleaned material for an article entitled "What Chance Has the Poor Child?" It was printed in Every Week.
"Golfer's Foot, One of Our Newest Diseases," was the subject of a special feature in the New York Times, that was based on an article in the Medical Record.