News and citizen. [volume] (Morrisville, Vt. ;) 1881-current, 1882-04-13
A FARMERS HOME,
From the Hon. Paul A. Ohadbourne's paper,
read at the Massachusetts State Board
Meeting

A FARMER'S HOME.
From the Hon. Paul A. Ohadbourne's paper,
read at the Mass achusetts State Board
MeetingJ
see, or think see, great probabili-
ties in the farmers lifeyet to be reached.
Agriculture is now, and must, from the
nature of the case, ever remain, the en-
ployment OF the great mass of people in
the world. They cannot live on the
products of the mine or mill. It is of
the utmost Importance that the great
mass of humanity connected with farm
life should be able to secure the best
possible conditions for human develop
ment and employment. The home is
the centre of life, and the farmers home
we wish to improve-to carry on more
rapidly and intelligently that good work
that has been going on for the past fifty
years. When picturing the farmers
life of the future we must remember
that we live in an age of invention and
discovery, and some new element may
come in of which we at present know
nothing. There must be food for all,
and such variety of food as will call for
great amount of hand labor and there
must be material for clothing, wool and
cotton. These come from the field.
The question then arises, Is the ten
dency in the future to be division of
land into small farms or a swallowing
up of small farms into large estates !?
Great estates must fall to pieces. The
tendency North and South is to small
farms, as diversified industry increases
and diversified crops are called for,
those that require an increase of hand
labor. The time is coming, though per-
haps long way off, when the surplus
product of our land will come from a
multitude of small farms, representing
pleasant, thrifty homes, instead of from
great plantations representing nothing
but land robbing and unsettled, wander
ing wage labor. And the products of
our soil will be more and more con-
sumed in our land as new branches of
manufacturing spring up to supply the
material now purchased abroad. Hence
we ask, What can be done to make
homes what they ought to be?
The first thing we want to see prom
inent on every farm is that its chief end
is home, and that the end for which
all others are simply conditions is men
and women. We counsel the owners of
farms to see that the fruits are the best
that can be raised, that the animals are
of the best breeds, but we want above
all that every son shall go forth from
the farmhouse with good education,
trained to honest labor, with sense of
his duty toward his fellow-men, his
country, and his God; and every
daughter with equal training, certain
then that she will find her own sphere
through that womanly spirit implanted
in her nature which needs only culture
and fair chance to make her the bless
ing to the world which all good women
are.
The first thing in the choice of a
farmers home is that it be in as health
full a locality as possible. As general
rule, the buildings should be placed on
the highest ground of the. farm if it is
easily accessible. If water can be Sc
cured from spring that comes directly
from the deep strata of rocks so much
the better. Don't fear the cold breezes.
4k 1>n Io1 Aof - ~
worst as the damp of the valley below,
and they can soon be wonderfully modi-
fed by evergreen screens properly
placed. Make the location as near good
neighbors as you can. Vicinity to
school and church is great advantage.
Let the permanent work of the farm,
the planting of trees, the cutting of
trees, and all other farm changes, have
reference to the ultimate place of resi-
dence on the farm.
Then let the inside of the house be
pleasant. 1t may be small and plain,
but let it show signs of taste and Gull
ture; make the home pleasant to your
children, and make happy childhood
for them. Send your children to school
and fit them to be citizens, but never
send them to college; let them go of
their own choice. I believe the farmers
home of the future will continue to i'm
prove, and that it will be q place of
honest labor, of generous culture; the
best place to begin life, good place to
spend it, and the best place for it to
come to close. The only entailment
of property we want is the continuance
of the old farmers homestead from
generation to generation in the same
family, because it is place worthy o
preservation for it's conditions of high
physical, intellectual, moral and social
ife.-,S1,ringtield homestead.