Barbour County index. [volume] (Medicine Lodge, Kan.) 1880-current, 1881-09-01
Art and Agriculture,

greSS which the industries that minis
ter more directly to the household, have
made in taste during the past few
years, especially since the Centennial
Exhibition. Valuable as art is every
where, it is particularly so when it
moves downward, touching and i'm
proving the more ordinary enjoyments
of the mass of men. 1t then acquires
much Of the benefcence and elevating
force of a moral sentiment.
Agricultural classes, taken as a whole,
are reached more slowly by the refine
ments and refined sentiments of socie-
ty than any other portion of our citi-
zen5. There are strong reasons for
this, which have almost uniformly pre-
vailed in the worlds history. The
negligence which is possible in agri
culture without entirely FORGETTING the
results of labor, the seclusion of the
agriculturist, and the coarse character
of the work, especially when it is
coarsely done, tend to depress this call
ing, and have often carried it, not only
below the limits of art, but below those
Of comfort and the condition of a hui
name and progressive life. There are,
on the other hand, compensatory infiu-
ences Of the utmost moment, that, once
recognized and freely operating, tend
to elevate this form of labor above
most others, and give it peculiar at
fractions for the moderate, yet indie
pendent and self-contained mind. If
we are to judge nation like our own
collectively as to the firmness and suf-
ficiency of its social life, the comforts,
habits, and intelligence of farmers form
one of the safest tests. If the amelio.
rating forces in society are fully at work
here in the body of the nation, we may
be reasonably sure of their general
prevalence and power.
There is one art, landscape garden
ing, which especially affiliates with
farming. 1t is the elements and rudi-
ments of art rather than fine art, that
touch our domestic life, but this mild,
diffused appearance of refinement is
not less valuable than its more costly
prod ucts. Tee handling of nature in
reference to beauty comes late in social
progress. Fine architecture slowly
impreSses some order and arrangement
on near natural objects, but men learn
only hesitatingly to love natural beauty
in all its secondary forms, and to draw
it about themselves everywhere.
One of the first things that strikes
one in region of poor agriculture is
the constant abuse that nature suffers
at the hand of man. There is no good
reason for this, but every good reason
against it. A little taste, and a very
little labor, and this labor well-reward-
ed, may easily make a purely agricult-
ural region one of delightful beauty.
There may be human presence in it
we would not miss; a most enjoyable
sense of man and nature working to-
gether for their common enlargement
The manifest link between village
and village, farm and farm, dwelling
and dwelling in the country, is the
highway. This is the common inter-
est and expresses the common life.
Now the highway, instead of being the
kings highway, the peoples royal way,
has, with us, suffered every form of
neglect and violence. A possible line
of travel is all that has ordinarily been
arrived at. The highway, even in its
own improvement, has been dug into
roughness and ugliness; has been made
the receptacle of cast-away rubbish,
brush, stones, weeds; has been the
catch-all of neglected tools and vehi-
cles as it approached the dwelling; and
found its only kindly treatment at the
hand of nature in the wild under
growth gathered in its unoccupie1 por-
tons. Some villages are starting a
very notable improvement in removing
fences, making the street truly COM
mon, and directing to it their first at
tention. Social life and public taste
receive an immense impulse from this
method. If art and taste, and a hu
name spirit, are to penetrate the coun-
try, they must do so along these same
highways, winning public interest for
them, protecting them from neglect,
aud making them in every way serV-
iceable and enjoyable. Nor is this a
costly taste, but quite the reverse. The
badly ordered road is more expensive
than the well-kept one, while the road
side, which is usually lost to agricult-
ure, can easily be saved to tree culture
and grass with very little additional
labor. If the inhabitants of a town.
ship could be brought to concur in the
common improvement of well-ordered
roads, touch of art would find its
way along them to every household.
Fine roads are the framework of the
country, and give every well-cultured
farm, every neat dwelling, its proper
setting.
A farm that is skillfully managed,
requires but little additional attention
to fences, borders, farm roads and farm
buildings, to make it a distinct and
beautiful member in a beautiful land
scape. Art and utility here thorough
ly concur. That cultivation which
reaches cleanness, neatness and good
order - and nature will do the
rest surprisingly well in the coun-
try-is the most economical till
age. Tie neglected out-buildings and
the abused and scattered tools are as
costly as they are unsightly. The rag
ged edge of cultivation which stops
. where the pillow and harrow end, is no
more in keeping with clean fields, and
the full service of every foot of land,
than it is with our human sense of
work well and completely done. How
ever it may be in the city, it is not
beauty that costs, but ugliness; not
! cleaning up that makes life drudgery
but the evaporation of things in the
} way, things out of the way, and things
. not worth having when found.
Art, when it costs most, often brings
: a sufficient reward; but in its first prin-
ciples in the country it hardly costs
} anything, and is still liberal in its gifts
Let the farmer simply aim, as the ba-
sis of operation, at clean grass, fine
trees. snug buildings, and tools in their
! places, and while he has saved many
} dollars from waste, and can hardly b.
said to have expended one dollar fol
: ornamentation, he has the staple Of