The pioneer express. [volume] (Pembina, Dakota [N.D.]) 1883-1928, 1886-02-05
Some of the Ills of Farm Life.

All dFIlcle OH 'tufal hccfeaClOnS, IN
Outing, Mr.. j. Il. Dodge makes some
telling points against the neglect of
farmers to allow themselves and fami-
lies suitable recreation to compensate
the common wear and tear of rural
life. The writer says:
There is hardship as we'll rs privilege.
drudgery as well as elevating labor.
There is exposure to summers storm
and winters cold tramping in the mud
OF seed-time; toiling early and late to Sc
cure the harvest. The hay-makins dav
has rs many hours rs that of the street.
car driver. In northern districts the
best part OF summer is spent in making
hay, and the winter in feeding it, with
with little results in milk and cheese,
that it sells at seven cents, the exercise
OF lifting mortgage is not a reassuring
recreation. When purchaser of Da-
kota railroad lands is offered but sixty
cents per bushcl for wheat at the sta
ton elevator, he sees no clevating pros
pect 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
investment i'll rural improvements that
promises but insignificant dividends in
cash.
1t 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
need of recuperative influences. Il 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 it should not
be, what can be the cause? The farm
worker who performs most of his labor
by the muscles, with minimum use of
his brains, unrelieved by sociality of SEN
timent. was only one set of faculties,
while the better side of his nature rusts
with dsusc. The isolation of the cot,n-
try thus becomes Il greater solitude;
with cares, apprehensions, and some
times forebodngs of pccuniary dcpcnd-
ence, solitude decpens into melancholy,
and insanity sometimes follows.
The mistress of the farmhouse is
often greater drudge than the farmer.
The routine of daily duty is more cir
cumscribcd and naturally becomes moro
irksomo. She is too often housekeeper,
nurse, cook, governess, chambermaid,
seamstrcss, dairy-woman, as well
as the farmers wife. Such a
substitute for nlaid-of-all-work should
be made of iron. The farmer is ac-
customed to hard work himself though
it is relieved by the ameliorations 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 slave. His ideas come by Inherit
ance, and are fortified by personal ex-
pericncc. He might relieve her by
relegating the dairy to the factory, bJy
labor-saving appliances. by hiring more
help, sometimes by doinga liutlc of this
domestic dr',dgery himself; but he
doesn't think of it, and perhaps, don't
like to have one jog his memory.
Under these tolls and hartlships, saying
nothing of trials of disposition and tribu-
lations Of temper, is it Il wonder that
the farmers wife is sometimes compcll-
ed to exchange her home of hardship
for hospital of mind diseased? These
may be extreme cases, but they occur,
and. were it not for wholesome in
tluences of the country, would come to
light with greater frequency.
The ills of isolation and the heavy
weight of care not the only causes Of
physical and mental strain and collapse
in the experience of country life. There
are avoidable unsarlitary surroundings
utterly out of keeping with the purity
and henlthfulncss of natural r,ra! condi-
tons. The barn-yard may be too near
the we'll; ccsspools and surface drain
age may ail the pollution by pcrcola-
ton; decaying vegetation in the cellar
may fill the house with poisonous gases
The resisting power of high health may
long withstand influences so injurious,
until, some summer. dyscntcry or ty-
phoid-fcvcr may select for Il victim the
flower of the family, or carry off the
har'l-working mother, the guardian
angel of the household.
In view of such facts. which have ex-
cited much attention without cxerting
sufficient influence, the need of respite
from strain of monotonous toll, upon
the farm, must be apparant. 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 ordin-
ary routine, is essential to the highest
results of the work and the highest
health and happiness of the worker.