Iron County register. [volume] (Ironton, Iron County, Mo.) 1867-1965, 1880-12-02
Farmers Homes.

| idyllic life; have but few cares and re
sponsibilities, and their lives are passed
in breathing the perfumed breath o
fancy cattle, and making and eating
| gilt-edged butter, with bread and hon
ey! These ideas emanate usually from
''city folks,'' who, glad to be relieved
| from the imprisonment, and stale garb
age of cities. imagine every thing in thu
country paradisiacal, and babble only o
brooks and green fields. Others, an(
| they are the majority, consider the lift
of farmer too isolated, and his worl
too continuous; are sorry for his wife
| who works from morn to eve, and fol
his children, who have too few compan
ions; and, comparing his condition with
that of the artisan or mechanic, would
prefer the social lives of the latter to the
more solitary existence of the dweller or
the farm. In fact, in the Eastern and
Middle States, there is a golden mea1
between these two extreme views
and the well-to-do farmer is neither
above nor below his fellows IN this mat.
ter of conditioned society, enjoyments
and health, and it is his own fault if he
finds or makes life irksome, or his family
are wretched and disconnected. The
pared, in this matter of affluence,
with the limited number who thrive
and grow rich by trade, commerce,
and speculation; but, entering the lists
with the large majority who toll and spin
for living, his life is seen to advantage,
and his opportunities for enjoyment and
Improvement, as well as comfort, are
usually superior. Neither he nor his
70 w - cd
drudgery, if honest labor may be so
designated, as is the mechanic in the
various branches of manufacturing the
clerks and statesmen in the marts of
commerce, or even the professional men
in cities and large towns. The farmer
does not receive, perhaps, in actual
money, the same nor as large an annual
amount as the mechanic or petty trades
man, but he gets its equivalent in the
owning of the house he occupies and
the products of his farm, and then, in
stead of being tied down every day to
one kind of labor, he has a variety of
employments, and he and his family can
drive out, make calls, visit on the way,
and control their own time with a much
greater latitude than the workers in me-
chanical employments and trades. The
farmer is no better. nor worse than his
fellow men who compose the great
masses; and there are farmers who get
rich by their employments, though the
large majority do as the greater num-
Der of other workers, that is, live mod
erately, keep their heads above water,
and leave but small patrimony to their
children; but usually that consists of J..
house, which prevents the survivors
from being turned out to the cold COM
forts of the world, as is too often the
case with the widows and children of
others.
The great disadvantages of farming
life heretofore have been it's isolation
too many burdens thrown upon the
too little recreation allowed the
children, and bad diet. The encroach-
ments of population, the propinquity of
and the consequent more fire.
quent gathering of the peoples together,
the invention of machinery, the teach
ings of the newspapers and of the lee
turers have in great measure modified
these evils, and the farmer is now in all
upon par with all other citi-
zens, and it is his own fault if he does
not improve his advantages. In the
matter of food he is yet behind the age,
up his family too much on pork
and pastry, which his outdoor life en-
ables him to digest, but which imparts
to the other inmates of the house their |
pallid and spotted countenances, and to
their bodies an unnecessary attenuation.
Everywhere else, even in small towns,
and in the families of city mechanics, !
one will find the children, especially,
on oatmeal and fruits, es- |
chewing pies and sweets at dinners, and |
making the last meal light one, whilst |
The New England farmer yet compels |
mis- wife to keep him supplied with pies
I'd libitXna, and, worse than that, to |
make pork the principal meat diet, and |
70 bring up their children upon the same
rigid fare, which fits them in adult life |
20 be apt candidates for 'streason, strata
gem and spoils." -~
Some one has said that if he could write |
,he songs of a nation, he cared not who |
made its laws, and we might emulate
hat by remarking that, let us feed the |
people and furnish their drinks, and we |
would answer for all the mischief and |
misery which they would be capable of
doing. A people temperate in eating |
and drinking are sure to be well be-
haved, and it was no useless allegory |
which derived all consequent evils to
The human race, from an abuse of appe-
lite.
Our farmers sons, too, need some re-
fining process which will divest them of |
. coarseness not natural, but acquired |
from bad associations, and make them
equal in all respects to the best about
,hem We have observed a great |
change in this respect of late years, and |
now that there is free high school in |
every town, there should be no cause
Tor their failing to get the advantage of
\ good education, which will tone down |
III their roughness. There is no suffi-
Gent reason why farmers, their wives
md children should, in any respect,
With ali the advantages to be derived |
rom their associations and the society |
about them, be different from other
olks :" or why, with the agricultural
md other papers to instruct them, and
heir own good sense to profit thereby, /
hey and their families should not walk !
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