Wichita eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1886-1890, 1888-03-30
THE AMERICAN FARMER.
A LACK OF WELL KEPT LAWNS
AND FLOWER GARDENS.

Want Of Interest in the Production OF
Fine Vegetables and Small Fruits In
tho west-"Hired Men"-EmPloyment
of Machinery.
Farmers are often blamed because they
do not have well kept lawns and flower
| gardens in front Of their houses, orna-
mented walks about the premises, arbors
and shaded seats. Many state that lack
OF taste accounts for the absence OF al
these things. They are common IN VII
lagos, and they declare they would be
common on farms if their owners had any
appreciation Of them. Farmers are also
criticised because they do not raise great
variety of choice vegetables and small
fruit for home consumption. They are
often reminded that they could live much
better than they do, and be at no greater
expense for food, if they would only set
out and cultivate fruit bearing vines and
bushes, have a hot bed and raise fine
vegetables, such as celery, asparagus and
egg plant. They are reminded that city
people have fine vegetables and small
fruits on their tables almost continually,
while farmers rarely ever have them.
They are also informed that all these
things ''cost money! in town, while they
can be had in the country for the trouble
OF raising them.
LUCK IN LITTLE THINGS.
American farmers especially those liz
ing in the west, are informed that farmers
in France, Belgium and Holland obtain
the food for their families almost entirely
from their gardens and poultry yaTds, and
are thereby able to convert nearly all the
product of their fields and pastures into
money. 1t has even been shown that
French farmers receive several million
dollars per year for the eggs they send to
England. Farmers in the prairie region
are often informed of the important part
the garden plays in furnishing food for the
farmers in the eastern states, and they are
told that the rich soil in the west is much
better for producing vegetables than the
hard and stony soil of New England and
the central states. Still it must be
acknowledged that not much progress is
made in increasing the production of fine
vegetables and small fruits on western
farms. The men who follow farming as
business in the west and endeavor to make
money by it have few lawns, but little
shrubbery, small plantations of fruit,
smaller flower gardens, and only apologies
for vegetable gardens
But for all this, and for all that, they
are not deficient in good taste, and not
unappreciatiye of the charms of beauty,
and not insensible of the ''joys of the Ia
ble." They like beautiful surroundings
and are fond Of good living. A combina-
ton of unfayorable circumstances gen.
orally prevents them from identifying
their farms, from fixing up things"
about the house, from raising small fruits,
and from supplying their tables with
choice home grown vegetables. Western
farms are generally large, and the produc-
ton of field crops is conducted on an eX-
tensiye scale. Labor is scarcer and dearer
than in most of the eastern states, and
very much scarcer and dearer than in
those foreign countries where SO much at
tention is given to the productiveness of
small fruits, choice vegetables and fancy
poultry. Most of our ''hred men" are
new greenhorns" are in
competent to do anything but the coarse
and rough work on the place. They re-
quire large amount of directing to en-
able them to do this properly. The farmer
has too many things to look after to en-
able him to devote too much time to fruit
raising and gardening.
OFF TO THE TOWN.
Hands available for farm work appear
to become scarcer every season. Anbi-
tious young men who are acquainted with
field and garden work are anxious to OBJ
tain farms for themselves while land is
cheap. Almost all who work for wages
so to the large towns to seek employment.
The consequences are a scarcity of
farm labCrerS, poor service and high
wages. In many places men competent
to raise fruit, to lay out and plant grounds,
and to do work in flower and vegetable
garden cannot be obtained for the money
that farmers can raise from the sale Of
crops, wool and meat at the prices they
must now be sold for.
The general employment of machinery
on farms has also eXerted an unfavorable
influence ON small fruit culture, land
scape, vegetable and flower gardening.
Persons who have become accustomed TO
the use of machines in the field do not
like to engage in doing work involving
the use Of hand tools. 1t may be very
light work like preparing beds in a garden,
setting out strawberry plants and prun.
ing bushes that produce flowers and fruit
it may be a change from ordinary field
labor--but they nevertheless dislike it.
The substitution of machines drawn by
horses or operated by steam power for
tools that must be used by the exercise Of
human strength has had tendency to
diminish skill in most sorts of manual
labor. The man who has used a gang
plow, riding cultivator, mower, hay
rake and self binding harvester for several
seasons has lost the skill he once pos
sessed in the use of the spade, the garden
rake, the hand hoe and the pruning
knife. He is no longer handy" at any
kind Of garden work, and as conse-
quence he neglects it.-Chicago Times.