Fort Worth gazette. [volume] (Fort Worth, Tex.) 1891-1898, 1891-08-09

has lately been turning loose upon the pub
lie an essay on agriculture. In his effort he
leads off by declaring that variety is the
spice of life" according TO the old maxim,
and that, if the said old maxim be true, the
farmer has enough of life's spices to get
along with frSt-rate-more of them, perhaps,
than are enjoyed by anybody else. His life
may be hard and his labor rough, as writers
usually tell US is the case but it is well
seasoned and made palatable and pleasant
by its ever-changing duties. Most people
who are not farmers have but three ideas
about the business, and these are the plow
and the hoe and the hot, burning sun COM
ing down. Some, who are better ac-
quainted, give US credit for reaping the
grain, and gathering the corn, and picking
the cotton, and rejoicing over abundant
crops; but they mix all that with toll and
sweat and cookie burrs and Spanish needles
and pack-saddles and heavy dews, and all
that sort of thing to endless extent.
Bill says he was Illuminating over the
farmers daily life-nOt the laborer's, who
is hired to work on the farm but the farmer
who is either working landlord or a work
ing tenant, who is well-to-do and lives upon
the same farm from year to year. He was
thinking about himself and his tenants, if
he had any. Not rich enough to be indie
pendent nor poor enough to suffer- he moves
along happily from day to day and year to
year. In the course of this thinking he
jumped to the conclusion that farmers are
the producers, the jurors, the road workers,
the breeders of a hardy, healthy, industrI-
Gus stock. 1t is their sweat and toll that
support the rich and sustain the schools
and churches of the country. They visit
the sick and help the needy, and dig graves
and bury the dead. They have their pleas
ures and their pastimes; they tell their
latest stories and crack their jokes, and
laugh without strain Their chi ldren are
as happy when riding a stick or corn
stalk, as rich boy when mounted on
Shetland pony. The little, poor girl, who
has to nurse the baby, is as happy as the
rich one who spends the evening in visiting
with fan aud parasol and high-heel slippers.
Work, useful work. that helps maintain
the family and lightens the burdens of
Others is the panacea for all diseases of the
mind, as well as the body II is not the
laboring men who ill the asylums or the
jails.
There is something peculiar in the effect
that manual labor or bodily exercise has
upon the mental health of man, continues
Bill Arp. 1t seems to balance him and
compose him. A man con sit around, or
stand around and do nothing but work his
mind until his body becomes disordered,
derauged, demoralized. He has long since
realized that he can think better after he
has been at work, and he certainly enjoys
his rest better Furthermore, he is sure
that workingmen are never cranky. These
city folks who work nothing but
their brain and their chin, are the
fellows apt TO go off on sensations.
They are apt to be either too high
or too low. One generation may stand it
pretty well, but the next will be puny.
Good stock is not raised in a city, but goes
there from the country. All the best look
ing men in the cities We're raised in the
country. The variety of life upon a farm
contributes to health. 1t brings every
muscle into play, and every lobe of the
brain. They tell US that Il horse will
last longer on a billy road than a
level one, and just so with man
with 4 fence or water gap to
fix, or a shed to build, or an axe TO grind,
or wagon to repair, or single-tree or
plow stock, or an axe-handle to make, or
who has to go to mill, or have mule shod,
or haul some lumber, or hew out some tim
Der, or split some boards, or work on the
roads, or go seining, or squirrel hunting, or
do hundred other things too tedious to
mention. The work of most every day is
change of schedule.
The humble farmer, as you may consider
him, the man who really feels an interest
in farming as such, and has no axe to grind
away from home, is the most independent
man in the world He belongs to nobody.
His time is his own. He can stop and talk
to a neighbor if he wants to, and it is no.
bOdy's business. There is nobody watch
ing him. When the time comes he will go
to town and vote and then go back to work
again and let the political machine run it
self until it runs down. On the whole, it is
hard to tell who has the best time in the
world the subject or the king. But for
himself Bill Arp can say truly, and with
deiberation, that 4 good farmer has bet
ter chance for happiness than anybody else
that he knows Of