The Cecil Whig. [volume] (Elkton, Md.) 1841-current, 1891-07-18
COUNTRY LIFE
unconsidered Ways which the Farm
Pays, and is Educator

unconsidered Ways IN Which the Farm
Pays, and is Educator
The farmer has better chance for 'all
round" education and accomplishment
than the follower of any other vocation
SO many increased avenues of enjoyment
radiating from him.
Health and good farm. If young
men in the country appreciated these
two things, and knew the trivial nature
of all that these two do not comprehend,
how slow they would be to exchange
the country for the city life. What is
wealth without good digestion. What
are fame and travel compared with the
secure enjoyment of a rural home, bear
ing thousand touches of adjournment
and improvement virtually made with
ones own hands? The country home is
handsome affair, is easy-fitting has
grown up about you. But to the city
house you must adapt yourself; fit into
its narrow walls. You cannot stretch
the brick boundary MOI widen the view
in that narrow, stony street. In the one
case you make your she'll, like the
chambered nautilus; in the other case,
the shell makes you.
The intelligent farmer knows some
thing of all trades aud of good many
sciences
Robert Bonner hires men to heat the
iron, pare the hoof and drive the nails;
but he is the greatest authority on horse
shoeing in the country.
So with many other trades to a con-
siderable extent farmer may become
his own musician, architect, carpenter
painter, plumber, tinker, surveyor, photo
grapher, chemist, botanist, physician
1t will not pay for him to rely on him
self for all such services, but when the
need arises he can be prepared for it.
And how much greater is the pleasure
taken in a porte cochere added to your
house with your own hands; how much
more valuable is the photograph or
sketch you made and framed in the
beautiful grain of the wood grown on
the farm. Is not the botanical collect.
ion made by your girl or boy worth all
the treasures i'll the city museums?
The old farmer knows great deal of
chemistry, botany, geology, natural
philosophy, astronomy.
How did he learn it? Why, here
little and there little. He can see
more now in half-mile drive through
the country than the city man who talks
50 glibly. He can read soil with his eye
by the stone cropping out; by the grass,
trees or crops on it. He knows what
not the land is well drained, what layers
of clay, gravel or rock he is likely to
strike if he digs a well. That is geology
practical geology.
Just so, he knows, or may know, what
manures best benefit certain crops of
fruit trees, and what foods produce
most fat, or muscle, or milk. What
is that but chemistry?
He walks through fields Or WOODS and
names the flowers, trees, birds or animals
knows the use or habit of each knows
what timber Is toughest, what lasts well
il the ground, what under cover what
plant is poisonous, what medicinal. We
see that the old farmers is his own botan
list zoologIst, druggist.
He uses the siphou, the screw, the
inclined plane, the lever, the scores of
appliances of natural philosophy every
year. He is surely natural philoso
pher. And then he keeps track of the
moon and reads the heavens better than
many of the almanacs and weather pro-
phets; when he says It is going to storm,
or DE cold, or be hot, look out. he's
"posted."
These facts ought to encourage the
farmer, make him realize that be does
know considerable of the sciences, many
things that the professors are ignorant
of, and it should lead him to study more
in books to see what else is being illus
trated free of cost right before his eyes
in natures laboratory.
A farmer should know, generally
does know, considerable of all these
sciences, also entomology, physiology,
engineering, political economy, ETC., big
names that comprehend many simple
facts. Let the farmer realize all this
and hold up his head
Finally, let him remember that the
country is only refuge for health,
virtue, and religion, but for the political
conscience. AS the farmer casts his in
tiuence, So the nation is swayed. The
common sense of farmers is the court of
last appeal, when the question OF sus-
tanning war or great change of q
policy comes up. To be prepared for
this responsibility, let farmers think for
themselves, read, widely, and discuss.
Form reading clubs, SO you can see the
leading magazines and newspapers.
Send your most sensible farmers to the
Legislature and to Congress. In these
and many other other ways you will
learn to conclude, and the whole country
with you, that the farm pays.