Iowa voter. [volume] (Knoxville, Iowa) 1867-1874, 1873-06-26
Farm Life for the Aged.

1t is often said that farm life is hard and
it's profits small; that commercial life is
an easy one, and that it is in the walks of
trade and commerce that money is to be
made. Those of us who have had exper-
fence know that this is not true; that
though farm work is hard work at certain
seasons, it is not so hard on the system as
the constant wear of city and Office life is
and although the five chances in one hun
bred of getting one hundred thousand
dollars for one thousand in five years, does
not happen so often on the farm as in the
counting-rOom, yet figures show that in
twenty years, of one hundred farmers and
one hundred merchants who started life
together, the collective worth of the prop.
erty of the farmers will be five times the
amount of their mercantile friends
Nor can it be said that there has been
any great recompense in pleasure to the
citizen as he goes along. City life is fascin-
ating for awhile, but it soon pals; and it
is very rare indeed to find person who
has lived few years in the city who does
not pant after life in the country, as, in
the language of the Psalmist, the chart
panteth after the living waters" while
not in thousand farmers who have spent
the early part of their lives in the country,
will there be found one who has the
slightest hankering after city life.
And, after all, what is wealth usually
sought for but that we may get "compe-
tence?" so that in the latter end of life
we may take the world easy, and enjoy
quietly the glorious sun of our existence
as it goes down But competence" alone
is not all that is required to carry us
through the peaceful valley. Habits of
industry, the love of doing something's
it be only little-is far more necessary
to the healthy old man than to the one of
middle age There is nothing which con-
duces to these excellent habits like the
life on country place; and it is one of
the greatest inducements to those young
men who are tempted by the apparent
brilliancy of city career, to remember
that old age will in all probability reach
them, and that laying up OF store OF
pleasure for that time is quite as worthy
an object as the getting together of money
for Immediate effect and show.
We have known of many who have felt
while pursuing mercantile affairs, that II
they could only enjoy nature in their ad
vanced days of life, they would be su-
premely happy; and large numbers have
toiled early and late at their desks to get
money that they might buy place in the
country when their day of rest came. But
when that time arrived, and the farm was
bought, there was no taste left for natural
endowment The want of cultivation will
as surely destroy the mental growth as II
will the growth of our fields, and we
have seen some of these disappointed
men whose lot was melancholy indeed.
We hope that these remarks may en-
courage those who may be inclined to
think farm life hard one, and that it is
deprived of the pleasures and attractions
they might find elsewhere. Any one will
tell them that for the decline qS life there
is no place like the country 80 TO get all
the pleasures from it which it is capable
of giving, we must live up and grow with
it.
We have been drawn into these remarks
by reading the report of recent meeting
or reunion of some of the original mem
beers of the Massachusetts, Agricultural
Club It might not have interested US 80
much, but we happened to know per-
sonally many of the hale, hearty old fellows
who compose the association. We ques-
ton very much whether miscellaneous
lot of mere city men could ever be brought
together of the same age as most OF these
are, of the same strength and vigor, physl-
caliy and intellectually, and who enjoy
life-old aged life-so thoroughly as they
do; and we know that this has been
brought about in great measure by their
early and continuous love of rural life
Forneys Weekly Press.
The plan of visitation for the South
ern Methodist Bishops includes thirty.five
conferences, divided into eight districts.
Among the conferences named are four IN
Texas, one in Illinois, and three ON the
Dc.:E. D:.hov, EorIv ia now entirely