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Farm Journal

United States agricultural trade magazine

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General referenceInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionSep 25, 2025
Entity authorityQ5435508 ↗
Source-derived summary

Farm Journal is a United States agricultural trade magazine that was established in 1877, and is the leading United States farm magazine.

History

Wilmer Atkinson founded the publication in Philadelphia in March 1877 as a small eight-page monthly magazine. Atkinson was editor for 40 years.

After advertising revenue dropped greatly in the early 1930s, the publication went into receivership in 1935, and new owners installed Graham Patterson as its publisher. Patterson revived the publication, tripling its advertising revenue of 1935 by 1937, and adding 338,000 subscribers. The Farmer's Wife was acquired in 1939. In 1955, the magazine (with a circulation then of 2.8 million) acquired The Country Gentleman (circulation 2.5 million), the second most popular agricultural magazine, from Curtis Publishing Company.

As of 2001 (its 125 anniversary year), its circulation was 700,000.

According to the magazine's website in 2022, the magazine currently publishes 13 issues a year and has 335,000 subscribers. Clinton Griffiths has served as editor since 2019.

Editorial summary

Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Farm Journal” is united States agricultural trade magazine. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Farm, Journal and United, not as a finished interpretation.

Editorial reviewA dependable orientation record for establishing vocabulary, names and a first evidence trail. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1877, 1935, 1937, 1939—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1877. For this dossier, Farm, Journal and United is the immediate research focus.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The phrase “united States agricultural trade magazine” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.

Evidence profile

The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 25, 2025. The linked authority identifier is Q5435508. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1877, 1935, 1937 and 1939.

Critical limits

Overview language is designed for orientation and should not be treated as a substitute for the evidence cited beneath it. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.

Best used for
  • Subject orientation
  • Search vocabulary
  • Locating named sources
Verify next

The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Farm Journal”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Farm Journal primary sources, Farm Journal archive and Farm research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Farm Journal”?
  2. Which cited source is closest to the event, object or claim?
  3. What terminology or title could unlock a more precise catalogue search?
Subject index

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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Farm Journal” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.