Savannah morning news. [volume] (Savannah) 1868-1887, 1885-12-21
THE ILLS OF FARM LIFE.
How They Could be Relieved by Timely
Recreation.

How They Could be Relieved by Timely
Recreation.
In an article on "Rural Recreations, I"
in the magazine Outing, Mr.. j. r. Dodge
makes some telling points against the
neglect of farmers to allow themselves
and families suitable recreation to COM
pensate the common wear and tear Of ru-
raj life. The writer saws:
There is hardship as we'll as privilege,
drudgery as we'll as elevating labor
There is exposure to summers storm and
winters cold; trampnR in the mud OF
seed time; toiling early and late to Sc
cure the harvest. The haymaking day
has as many hours as that of the street.
car driver. In northern districts the
best part OF the summer is spent in max.
ing hay, and the winter in feeding it.
with little results in milk and meat. When
ten pounds of milk make one of cheese
mat sells for cents, the exercise OF lift
ing mortgage is not q reassuring reore-
alton. When purchaser OF Dakota rail-
road lands is offered but 80 cents per
bushel for wheat at the station elevator,
ne sees no eleVating prospects of meeting
MS deferred payments. Nor does the East
ern farmer find either poetry or profit in
"picking rocks,'' or making stone wall.
There is many an investment in rural i'm
provement that promises butinsignificant
dividends in cash.
1t Is not strange, then, that we see far
mers worn with weary labors, bent with
rheumatism, wearing in their faces deep
| lines OF care, and showing the need of re-
| Operative influences. 1t has been said,
upon an assumed foundation OF statistics,
that the proportion OF the insane from the
country Is greater than from the city. If
| true, as II should not be, what can he the
cause? The farm. worker who performs
most OF his labor by the muscles, with
minimum use of the grain, unrelieved by
sociality or sentiment, uses only one set
of faculties, while the better side of his
nature rusts with dsuse. The isola-
ton OF the country thus becomes a
greater solitude; with cares, apprehen-
slons, and sometimes forebodIngs OF pecu.
mary dependence, solitude Geepens INFO
melancholy, and insanity sometimes fol-
lows.
The mistress OF the farmhouse is often
greater drudge than the farmer. The
routine of daily duty is more uniform and
eXacting; the confinement is more cir
cumscribed, and naturally becomes more
lrksOme. She is too often hOusekeeper
nurse, cook, governess, chambermaid,
seamstress, dairywOmau, as we'll as the
farmers wife. Such a substitute for
mald-Of-all-w should be made OF iron
The farmer is accustomed to hard work
himself, though 1t is relieved by the amel-
torations OF pure air and free lOcomOtiOn,
and he fails TO see the slavery to which
his wife is doomed because his mother
was just such a slave. His IDEAS come by
inheritance, and are fortified by personal
experience. He nj ght relieve her by ree-
eating the dairy to factory, by labOr-say-
ing appliances. by hiring more help, some
times by doing a little of this domestic
drudgery himself; but he doesn't think of
il, and, perhaps don't like to have one
Jog his memory. Under these evils and
hardships, saying nothing Of trials of dis
position and fluctuations of temper, is it
a wonder that the farmers wife is
sometimes compelled to exchange her
home of hardship for a hospital of mind
| deceased? These may be extreme cases,
but they occur, and, were il not for
wholesome Influences of the country,
would come to hight with greater fire.
quency.
The Ills of isolation and the heavy
weight of care are not the only causes of
physical and mental strain and collapse
in the experience OF country life. There
are avoidable uUsanitary surroundings
utterly out of keeping with the purity and
healthfulness OF natural rural conditions.
! The barn-yard may be too near the well /;
/ cessp0ols and surface drainage may aid
the pollution by percolation; decaying
vegetation in the cellar may fill the house
with poisonous gases. The resisting pow
or cf high health may long withstand in
fuences so Injurious, until, some summer,
dysenterv or typhoid fever may select for
a victim the flower of the family, or carry
of the hard-wOrking mother, the guar
dian angel of the household.
In view of such facts, which have eX-
cited much attention without exertIng a
sufficient influence, the need of respite
from strain of monOtOnous toll upon the
farm must be apparent. Some form of
vacation. short though it must be in sum-
pOrary change, frequent yet radical, OF
the tone and tenor of ordinary routine, is
essential to the highest results of the
work and the highest health and happi.
ness Of the worker.