The Aberdeen examiner. [volume] (Aberdeen, Miss.) 1866-current, 1883-02-01

making more healthful and attractive
rural homes.
| attach great Importance to this.
| do not hesitate to say that if this
work be performed we'll, as have no
doubt it will be if the present head of
the Department be continued in that
position, that alone will justify the
expenditure of all the money which
the Department will cost. The family,
sir, is the unit of our civilization. 1t
is the base of our free institutions. To
make its members happy is the end
which they seek to attain.
The family can exist in perfection
only at the family home. Scattered,
driven abroad by necessity, repealed
from its sacred precincts by disgust
ing or offensive surroundings and
associations, the members cease to be
what they were designed to be, the
mutual support and stay of each other
and of the family as a whole. There
must be household gods, there muss
be domestic affairs, there must be the
common hearthstone around which
the family may gather. To have
these, to have true and perfect fam
ily,to have the comfort and happiness
attendant on progress and purity, the
homes of the people must be attract
i've as well as healthful.
Then, sir, there is the work for
women and children provided for in
this bill. There are methods already
existing Or in the easy reach of intel
ligent inquiry and experiment, which,
if adopted and simplifed, would Sc
cure rural employment for women
and children more suitable to their
strength,more attractive i'll its details,
more healthy and more improving,
and at the same time more remunera-
tive. AS things exist now, there is to
a large extent an enforced idleness
on the part of women and children In
the rural districts, or compulsory
engagement in work hard and repul-
sive, unsuited to their strength, and
in the main unremunerative. These
toilers have none of the pleasure of
taste, none of the stimulus of active
intelligence applied to labor, none of
the incentives Of the hope Of gain to
relieve the dreary drudgery of repel-
lent work. Especially, sir, is the
rural work of women too often of that
kind which demands a sacrifice of
their personal attractlveness.
This bill seeks to make change
in all this-a change which when fully
accomplished will confer more real
happiness, more substantial comfort,
more independence in means and in
character,more elevation and progress
than can result from any other single
measure. The life, sir, of farmer
is, at best, one of hard toll, of embar-
RAISING and annoying care, and of
small profit. 1t means labor from the
rising of the sun till the shadows Of
night have made work no longer
possible. 1t means exposure to the
heat of summer and the chilling
blasts of winter. 1t means disap-
pointment from unfavorable seasons,
storms, and drought. And should he
safely escape all these accidents and
at last, under the smile of benef-
cent Providence, gather into his barn
a rich harvest, his expected profits
are often turned to loss from the ma
nipulations of the markets by specu-
lators. These workers deserve bet
ter fate
This country owes its greatness to
the farmers more than to any other
class. All its industries, all its great
wealth, have their foundation in their
productions. The failure to raise one
single crop would destroy all our
prosperity and reduce to beggary and
starvation more than half of our pop
ulation. We are almost without ex-
ports besides our agricultural pro-
auctions. Our foreign trade rests on
them our domestic commerce and
and manufactures are. equally de-
pendent on them. Denied the right
under our tariff system to exchange
their productions for foreign goods
which they need, the farmers are fore
ed to furnish home market for man
ufacturers at price which enriches
the seller and impoverishes the buy
er. If, sir, with all these burdens
which they bear for the benefit of
others, with all these disadvantages
under which they labor, it is in our
power to extend to them the help and
aid which this bill offers, it is certain
ly our duty to do so.
Mr.. President, there are many other
benefcent provisions in this bill
which should commend it to our sup
port. Among them is the co-opera-
ton between the Department and
the agricultural colleges in the work
of experimental stations, aud, to quote
the language of the bill, "the ascer-
tanning of the fertilizers, building s,
varieties of seeds, vines, plants, fruits,
and crops best adapted to the several
sections of the country"
The importance of these provisions
can not be exaggerated. Our coun-
try has every climate in which the
strongest races of men and the best
domestic animals and the most useful
productions can attain their highest
perfection. Including Alaska, it is a
world in itself, fitted for the profitable
and successful raising of everything
that any part of the globe can pro-
duce or that any part of the human
race can desire.
1t is destined, too, in no very long
period may say it is its manifest
destiny" to expand still more, es-
pecially in the direction of the equa-
for Nothinu can preyent this hut