The Milan exchange. (Milan, Gibson County, Tenn.) 1874-1978, 1875-03-11
Farmers Boys.

1t is great source Of regret nowadays
to thrifty farmers that their sons will not
stay contented on the home farm. They
leave it the day the law allows them to,
and all the while they are obliged to stay
on it. they work under protest. Average
farmers are only vexed at this perversity.
They set it down to the degeneracy of the
times. " Boys nowadays are so afraid of
little hard work-they despise home
spun, and want to dress finer every day
than their fathers used to on Sundays"
They are sarcastic and fault-tinding
enough, but their arguments are not very
powerful persuasives in inducing the boy
TO change his mind. 1t has been done,
however, very effectuaily in quite another
way. Some of the miserable drudgery of
farm work, which all dislike, was shifted
off on to the hired man. instead of giving
it all to the boys. He helped to turn the
grindstone at times, and clean the pens
and pump out the cistern when it needed
cleaning. They were given incoming as
we'll as the men, and not expected TO ''im-
prove the time" by doing little odd jobs,
when so tired they could hardly drag their
feet after them. They were not jeered
about "spring fever" when they rose up
reluctantly to go on an errand of half a
mile after a hard days work. Unless in
case of great emergency they were not
sent out when they needed rest.
| Their fathers went a step further than
this-they gave them share in the pro-
| fits of something. Either it was garden
spot TO cultivate, or a dozen chickens to
raise, or likely calf to bring up by hand,
always taking care to deal justly and keep
| to his word when the time to realize
something on the article came around. |
| have seen too much of the system OF
"John's calf, but fathers cow" practised
among farmers. 1t is about the poorest
paving investment, however, that the
! farmer ever makes. 1t alienates the
child's heart from home and parent, and
| fills it with resentment at the injustice
done. 1t undermines his faith in his
| fathers word and sours him generally.
Keep your promises and deal justly with
your child, to the very last penny, if you
wish him to grow up an honest, truthful
man.
1t is surprising what spring it gives to
all the powers, to have the element of self
interest introduced into all the work. An
invalid was directed to try gardening for
a time every day as medicine. He tried
it one season but derived no benefit from
it. The next year he was told to try again
| for ga share in the profits" That year he
gained rapidly and became in time sound
man-his mind was interested. Get your
bows mind wide awake on the subject OF
the growth of his melons and onions, and
you will have no reason to complain that
they are not well cultivated. If you have
a narrow soul that grudges your boy his
hard-earned dollars, then he does right to
leave you when he becomes of age, if only
in self-defense. If he stays he may grow
like you, which would be a worse calam-
ity than losing his right hand.
A farmer near my former home encour-
aged all his boys and girls to have some
little projected enterprise of their own on
hand. Even the little ones had their hills
of popcorn, which they learned to culti-
vate. and when the grain was dried 1t was
shelled by their own hands and then pop
ped and stored in bags, ready when the
market wagon went to the city. Every
week the farmer drove his market wagon
into Philadelphia, and whatever the chill
dren had to sell was disposed of to the bes
advantage, and the money carefully count
ed out to them on his return. You vii
hardly find thriftier, happier, more in
telligent farmers family. Each had az
interest in his own, yet all worked to
gether most harmOniOusly. With theil
combined savings, and a little help from
mother, they bought nice melodeon, on
which the boys learned to play as well as
the girls. The value of such possession
in refining and elevating family of chill
dren cannot be estimated in dollars and
cents. 1t was the aim of the whole house.
hold to make home pleasant, and farm life
was to them the most delightful in the
world. There is little probability of theil
sons going into some other business as
horr fnt1 flr- AIFao
too pleasant, profitable and healthful tC
take their chances at something else ABOUT
which they knew nothing.
Make the farmhouse pleasant; plant
trees about it in abundance, ornamental
as well as fruit trees, Oh, those bleak
bare, red painted houses, ''blistering in
the SUM-" which we see dotting so many
wide farms, are a disgrace TO the land. NC
wonder that we find within
Shrill, querulous women, sour and sullen men
Untidy and old before their time,
With scarce human interest save their own
MonotonOus round of small economies,
Or the poor scandal of the neighborhood.
j Don't let the children's minds be nar.
rowed down to the petty concerns OF thell
small world, but give them books anC
good newspapers in abundance, which
Shall furnish bright outlook to the great
beaming world which lies beyond anC
+ around them, so near and yet so far away
without this medium of communication
with it. A home without newspapers /;
almost as cherries as a home without
windows.
While you make it a rule that the boys
shall not lounge around stores and saloons
; in the evening, be sure if useful enter
tainment, like an elevating concert, in
structive panorama or lecture comes to
your village, to give ALA chance to attend
Scrape up the money somehow, if you
hurry off pair of fat chickens to marke
to get it. Farmers folks have the leas
excuse of any for denying their children
these advantages, for they are great advan
tages in many respects, and not the leas
among them is the happiness they attort
and the store of pleasant memories they
lay up. Oh what a penny wise" policy
; it is to grudge them the money for these
simple enjoyments.
1t is an old Spanish proverb that ther'
) are no ungrateful children" If we have
given our children childhood to be CRATE
full for, they will not fail to keep our mem
ories green and fragrant when our head
have long laid under the willows. If oul
, training has developed only hard and sci
fish traits of character, we shall not fail t
, reap as we have sown.-Nev Erlgtdnt
Farm.
70 DIov tho piana