Huntsville gazette., 1882-06-17
Sociability as a Farm Crop.

The extremes of domestic life are
widely separated One may be repre-
sented by the pioneer who, with his
family, resides in a new and unsettled
country and has little or no intercourse
with his fellow men. The other is the
wealthy, kind hearted and social man
who dwells in the better part Of a great
city, and enjoys with his wife and chill
dren the frequent visits of his many
friends No one will say that the lonely
pioneer has the social privileges and the
enjoyable intercourse of mind with mind
that is granted to the man of wealth
and influence in the closely built-up city.
The one may envy the other ia some
points, but, taken all in all, the city FAM
lily can live the most because it has su-
perior advantages for the highest form
of existence. Man does not live by bread
alone, nor does he live to himself alone
when he lives at his best.
I am not saying word against the
pioneer; we must have him; but it is a
pity that so many families must lose SO
many of the comforts of friendship that
are impossible in the life, the lonely and
separated life, of the settler of the new
country. The family that lives on the
prairie, dozen miles from any other
family, may escape some of the annoy
ances of neighbors that may be too
neighborly, but at the same time its
members lose many of the blessings
which only come when other families
are near. at hand. Living by themselves,
as they must, the separated family lives
too much for itself, and, it may be,
grows thoughtless of the duties that one
family owes to another as such. This
spirit of independence may last even
after the sound of the pioneers ak has
ceased to ring through the forest, and
as result of the isolated family life
there may be lack of intercourse be-
tween neighboring families after the
time has come when a ready inter-
change of thought and sympathy is pos
sible.
There is one crop that has been neg
lected by the American farmer. He
could not grow it when the trees were
being cut to clear a place to yield him
the necessary food. In taking up new
land there was no opportunity to be very
social, and, as q result, sociability has
not received much attention as farm
crop in the early days of our agricul-
ture.
The time has now come when it
should be more extensively cultivated.
If any one asks me why the farmer boy
and girl long for the city, l only answer
that they think the society is better
there. On the farm they grow lone
some, and their young, active natures
crave more life and change than the
farm, as we too frequently find it pro-
vides for them. Some one has beauti-
fully written: "No one wants too much
of anything, even of the serene, COM
panionless quiet of a beautiful country
region, and the happiest existence must
be that which can command, along with
green fields and singing streams, some
thing of the good cheer and inspiration
of congenial fellowship both in social
and business life" Man is a social be-
ing, and this part of his nature asserts
itself at very early years. A child loves
to be with other children, and in the in
tercourse with each other the better
qualities of the child nature are quick
ened and expanded.
The country, perhaps, can never offer
all the advantages found in the city for
a rapid and easy interchange of thought
and feeling; that is, the people in town
may be more social with less expense
than those who dwell in the rural dis
tricts. But this is no reason why the
farmers should not be much more neigh
borly than they now are. There is no
serious reason why the farmers and their
families in every township in the older
portions of the country should not have
a society for mutual improvement and
social growth. There are many of these
clubs already formed, but the number
is small in comparison with these that
might be-may | say, ought to be?-
formed.
AS our country grows older the lines
of distinction between the city and coun-
try people must be broken down. The
city will go to the country and teach
many things, and perhaps learn more,
while the country boy win be not so very
different from the one who has been
brought up in town. Year by year the
social nature of the farmer will be ex-
pauded, and along with the wheat and
corn, roots and clover, there will be an
other crop grown, in the care of which
all the members of the family, and 9TH
ers, will gladly take part, and socia-
bility will be regular and most profit
able farm crop. Upon the proper
growth of this crop rests much of the
best progress in the future agriculture
of our country.-B. A., IN Christian
Union.