A word of thanks to Walter Little as Cotton Farming marks it's 50th anniversary

Our colleagues at Cotton Farming magazine this month marked an important milestone - the magazine's 50th anniversary.

One of the high points in the anniversary issue is a column by Walter Little, who founded the magazine as part of Little Publications, the company he owned and operated during much of the last half century. Mr. Little sold Little Publications several years ago to Vance Publications, which has since sold it to its present owners, Mike Lamensdorf and Lia Guthrie. They now operate it and its sister publications - Rice Farming, Peanut Grower and Soybean South - under a new company banner, One Grower Publishing.

Walter Little offered me a job once, back in the 1980s when Debra and I were living in Nashville, Tenn. I declined the offer for reasons that had nothing to do with him, his company or the salary he was offering. If I had gone to work for anyone at that point, it would have been Walter, and the salary he offered was very attractive.

The initial call about the job started when Walter was reviewing subscription cards and came across one I had mailed in, requesting to be added to his cotton list. I had noted on the card that I was a freelance writer, and that caught his attention and prompted him to check into my background. He called to find out if I would be interested in becoming the editor of a magazine he had at the time that covered the custom applicator trade. Aside from the fact that I alraedy was writing about agriculture, I had grown up in an aerial application service, which meant that I had some background in the application industry.

The most important thing that came out of that first conversation - for me - was realizing that Walter actually reviewed every subscription card his company received.

"I like to know who my readers are," he explained.

That thought stayed with me, even though I had no idea that I would begin publishing my own newsletters just a few years later and have to deal with subscriber lists, myself. I've always made it a point to review, as Walter did, every subscription request that we receive. I think one of the secrets to his success was that he always knew who his readers were. I've gathered that Mike and Lia, likewise, review every subscription form. I suspect that Lia, who worked for Walter before he sold the company, learned to do that by his example.

When publishers distance themselves from their readers, magazines suffer. That's been the downside of a save of consolidation in publishing over the last 15 years. Corporations have accumulated wide and often illogical mixes of magazines, broadcast properties and web enterprises. Sooner or later, the people at the top are so disassociated from their readers that they lose focus.

Walter never did.