Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1885-12-24
THE ILLS IN FARMLIFE.
How They Could BE Relieved by
Timely Recreation.

In AIM
How They Could he Relieved by
Timely Recreation.
In an article on Rural Recrea-
tions," in the magazine Outing, Mr.
j. r. Dodge makes some telling point
against the neglect of farmers to al
low themselves and families suitable
recreation to compensate the common
wear and tear of rural life. The writ
er says:
There is hardship as we'll as privil-
eye, drudgery as well as elavatipg la
Dor. There is exposure to Summers
storms and Winters cold; tramping
in the mud of seed time; toiling early
and late to secure 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 making hay,
and the Winter in feeding it, with lit
tie results in milk and meat. When
ten pounds of milk make one of
cheese. that sells for z cents, the exer-
else of lifting a mortgage is not re-
assuring recreation. When a pur-
chaser of Dakota railroad lands is of
fered but so cents per bushel for
wheat at the station elevator, he sees
no elevating prospects of meeting his
deferred payments. Nor does the
Eastern farmer find either poetry or
profit in picking rocks" or making
stone wall. There is many an invest
ment in rural improvement that
promises but insignificant dividends
IN cash.
It is not strange, then, that we see
farmers worn with weary labors, bent
with rheumatism, wearing in their
faces deep lines Of care, and showing
the neeo of recuperative influences.
upon an assumed foundation of stats
tics, that the proportion of the insane
from the country is greater than from
| the city. Ii true, as it should not be
what can be the cause9 The fsrm-
worker who performs most of his
labor by the muscles, with minimum
use of the brain, unrelieved by social
ity or sentiment, uses only one set of
faculties, while the better side of his
nature trusts with disuse. The isola-
ton of the country thus becomes a
greater solitude; with cares, appre-
tensions and sometimes forebodipgs
of pecuniary dependence, solitude
deepens into melancholy, and insan-
| ity sometimes follows. So 60 sa.
The mistress of the farmhouse is
often greater drudge than the farm
er. The routine of daily duty is more
uniform and exacting: the confne-
ment is more circumscribed, and nat
urally becomes more irksome. She
is too often housekeeper, nurse, cook,
governess, chambermaid, seamstress,
dairy woman, as well as the farmers's
wife. Such a substitute for maid of
all work should be made of iron. The
farmer is accustomed to hard work
himself though it is relieved by the
ameliOrations of pure air and free To-
comotion, and he fails to see the slav-
cry to which his wife is doomed. Be
cause his mother was just such slave
mis- ideas come by inheritance. and
are fortified by personal experience.
He might relieve her by RELOCATING
the diarysto the factory, by labor saw
ing appliances, by hiring more help,
sometimes by doing little domestic
druid gerry himself, but he doesn't think
of it, DOM like to have one jog his
memory. Under these evils and hard
ships, saying nothing of trials of dis
position and tribulations of temper, is
it wonder that the farmers wife is
sometimes compelled to exchange her
home of hardship for a hospital of
mind diseased2 These may be extreme
cases, but they occur. and, were it not
for wholesome Influences of the
country, would come to light with
greater frequency,
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. These are avoidable unsanitary
surroundings utterly out of keeping
with the purity and healthfuln ess of
natural rural conditions. The barn
yard may be too near the well; cess
pools and surface drainage may aid
the pollution by percolatlon decay
ing vegetation may fill the house with
poisonous gases. TIE resisting power
of high health may long withstand
influences SO injurious, until, some
summer, dysentery or typhoid fever
may select for victim the flower of
the family, or carry off the hard
working mother. the guardian angel
of the household.
In view of such facts, which have
excited much attention without exert
ing a sufficient influence, the need OF
respite from strain of nonotenous
toll upon tAe farm must be apparent.
Some form of vacation, short though
it must be in summer, is evidently
necessary. Some temporary 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 happiness of
the worker.