West Virginia freeman. (Parkersburg, W. Va.) 1881-1886, 1881-05-11
Muskingum Farmers Club.

This Association of Washington
county, Ohio, is rich in pleasing
and profitable fruits to the farmers
of the county. We give below a
part of an excellent address at re-
cent meeting of the Club, with clos
ing remarks from others:
How shall we make our Ohio ag-
riculture better, her farms more pro-
ductive, her homes more attractive?
How shall we counteract the un-
easy longing of our sons to enter
the whirl Of business excitement in
our cities, or try their hands and
seek their fortunes in the
larger, broader, more wastefll and
exhaustive farming of the great
West? We shall make our sons
content to settle on our Ohio farms
by showing them that we are by
no means satisfied with past attain
ments in Ohio farming, and by
helping them and getting them to
help us to attain to better results in
the future Farmers, take your
sons into partnership; send at least
one of them to some good college
with the distinct understanding
that he shall there have time and
opportunity to learn whatever sci
ence can teach of advantage to ag-
riculture-and it can teach i'm
mensely much-and then come
home to use his knowledge in ele-
waiting the agriculture on the pater-
nal farm. The fathers experience
in farming, the sons scientific
knowledge of the foundation-princi-
piles of agriculture would form the
basis of the most successful partner
ship. The number of farmers and
the net total of farm products can
be doubled in ten years by a better
system of agriculture, A few hints
to better agriculture: fence, less,
pillow more and better, underdrain
more land, till it better, breed and
keep better farm animals, and have
better and more cheerful homes.
Shall l venture on dangerous
ground and say, that many farm
ers might greatly improve in the
matters of etiquette and of personal
neatness? Your wives and mine
like tasteful and well7arranged ia
BILE, and I think they have right
to expect neatness in those who. sit
at meals, or in the house in the
evening Ladies don't relish the
horse-stable in the dining-room.
Ny men and boys shall have time,
cit takes but few minutes) to doff
overalls and dirty boots, don slip
pers and clean coat, and make
themselves clean and respectable for
meals and evenings.
Gen. A. J. Warner-No part of
the lecture pleased me more than
that in regard to "home life" Farm
life as it should be is the pleasant
est +; there is no comparison between
it and a city lot 80 feet front.
Young men, stay on the farm; be
educated, cultured, intelligent far
mers; when these qualities are join
ed with agriculture, there can be
no limit to the good accomplished.
How long will it be before we have
reached practically the limit of our
food supply? The great problems
before the future generations and
the one now born, will be: How
shall we supply the people to be,
with their first want? How shall
the amount of food per acre be in
creased? What new varieties of
food shall be grown? Two of our
present land products, Indian corn
and the Irish potato are, indeed, of
comparative recent date.
Mr.. FL. Cutter-During one of
my western trips, | came near get
ting the western fever but when,
on my return, found myself in one
ofour delightful palace cars between
Parkersburg and Marietta, my en-
thusiasm in regard to the West be-
gan to die out, and when I stepped
into our comfortable, homelike de-
pot, lightened with the lights as
when l left it three months before,
it had fled entirely.
After vote of thanks for the en-
tertainment afforded by the above
gentlemen, the Club adjourned to
meet at Mr.. Theo. DevoPs.