Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1891-07-30

took his departure for the west to be on
hand in time to attend to the haying.
1t is common thing when a rich man
dies in the city to discover through the
customary obituary notice that he started
in life in some remote town-if not on the
outskirts of it-in a very humble capacity,
and that he came to the city at an early
age and went at the first thing that turned
up. No gilt edged position was awaiting
him, in which he would have nothing to
do but read the papers and smoke twenty
five cent cigars, and sleep off a champagne
luncheon on an oriental divan. Yet he was
soon far in advance of the city bred young
man with The big position given him to graf
ify his father If he, the farmer, got polit-
ical position, his earliest pursuit was illus
trated on the transparencles and banners
! and the papers pointed with pride to tt e
fact that he was not reared in the lap of
luxury, but that he was self made, and had
started out in life a barefoot choreboy,
with one suspender, and a geyser of bright
red hair gushing through the crown of an
old felt hat
But how fares the city man when he goes
to the country? Many a man who has
lived in the city all his life takes it into his
head to buy farm and settle down to a
into the business of farming as success
| fully as the countryman can go into al
most anything that turns up in the city he
would be all right. But he cannot do this.
| Everything goes wrong, no matter how
conscientiously he works He lays out
money enough in year to run a hat fac
tory, and gets nothing but friction, dis
comfort and disappointment in return.
| He has such confidence in his ability that
! he doesn't dream of defeat, so he plants po-
tatoes in clay that holds the water and rots
| them, and other things that require moist
earth he plants in sand and the rain goes
| right through without touching the roots
and they all come up like pug's tail and
fade softly away like a silk umbrella He
sets out fruit trees that die, and makes
| blind drains that only drain his pocket
! His cattle get sick, the chickens die or are
stolen, and the first thing he knows he is
| putting in the capital he saved in the shoe
business in the city to keep the farm from
| slipping through his fingers and into those
of the sheriff.
| If be wants to take a good nap in the
morning he does so, if the COWS are not
MIXED until noon, and if he wants to 20
anywhere at night he goes, if the pigs are
not fed until midnight. If he could only
| see through the country business as wei
as the countryman can get the hang of
anything he goes at in the city, he wouldn' It
have to be buying vegetables from his
neighbors; but this he has to do, and
through neglect he loses his cows and tries
to pull along on condensed milk. Then
the real farmers laugh, and he is funnior
in their eyes than they could possibly be in
his, even if detected in the act of blowing
out the gas. After awhile history repeats
| itself, and the man who made a fortune in
shoes in the city squanders it on farm, of
whose ways he knows absolutely nothing,
and returns to his last.
! If there is anything in this world that is
funnier than another it is the city man
trying to get along in the country, and if
| you don't believe it ask any countrym&n.
and you will begin to realize that after
all the countryman in the city is not such
humorous institution as the humorst
would have you believe. As monument
of humor and mirth provoking joy the
countryman in the city cannot be success
fully compared with the city man in the
| country. r. K. MUNKITTRICK.