New Ulm weekly review. [volume] (New Ulm, Minn.) 1878-1892, 1892-01-13
THE FARMERS COLUMN.
MATTERS OF INTEREST TO THE
AGRICULTURAL WORLD,
Farming Yesterday and To-Day
Winter Feeding Of Sheep--Val-
ue Of Experiments--HoW He
Called the CoW--Eggs In
Canada.
Farming Yesterday and To-Day.

| Farming Yesterday and To-Day.
Farmers whose memories date back
forty, fifty or sixty years can recall
how much harder the la5ors OF the ag-
rlculturalist were then than now! The
vast improvements in farm machinery
and implements Of all kinds have
/ greatly lessened his toll and CORES
pondingly increased his power. What
an enormous difference there is, for in
stance, between the moving and reap
ing implements of former times and
now. Moving with a scythe was good,
stalwart, manly exercise, but it was
slow and laborious business compar-
ed with the ingenious moving machine
OF to-day. And grading grain-what
| tedious, toilsome work it was! So,
too, was the threshing with the hand
fail on the barn floor. Fine athletics
it was when two sturdy young fellows
beat the grain with alternate strokes,
and filled the air with the rhythm
Of their fast-falling blows. But
it was tiresome labor, and how
inefficient compared with the machine
that now SO quickly accomplishes the
task! 1t is calculated that the power
OF the Individual has been about
doubled by the change from manual
to machine labor.
! We are so accustomed to these and
similar wonderful mechanical con-
| trivances that we do not realize how
great a changeth invention of them
has wrought in the methods and re-
! quirements Of human labor. There
are men still living to whom, in their
| boyhood, the mode of travelling was
essentially the same as when the
Founder Of Christianity walked about
the hills and valleys of Judea, or rode
| upon an ass's colt in his triumphal
entry into Jerusalem. But now the
humblest laborer may be whirled
along in royal state at the marvel
Gus pace OF fifty miles an hour And
equally great has been the revolution
in the arts of husbandry. The New
England farmer of half century ago
reaped and threshed his grain with
implements hardly less rude than
were welded by the reapers whom
Ruth the Moabitess followed in the
fieldsof Boaz. But the use of machin-
cry has emancipated him from the
heaviest drudgery OF the farm. The
wonder is how any man found oppor-
tunity, in those ''good old times" to
eat or sleep or think. Good old
times" forsooth! The good times are
now, to-day, and will be tomorrow
in even greater degree, as further
labor-saving appliances lessen the de-
mand for manual toll
| These changes have been so gradual
| that we do not Gully realize their
broad import. But they mean much.
They mean increased opportunity
in refinement, for increased comfort
in the home, for the betternent OF
every man and woman and child as
ISOLATED with farm life. To be sure
the farmer is still obliged to work, and
work hard, to obtain the things deem
| ed essential to comfortable and sub
stantial living. But his work counts
tor more than in former days; and
while, perhaps, he works as hard as
formerly, he does not have to work SO
long, and the labor is in consequence
| not so wearing to mind and body. He
now has time, if he will for rest and
thoughts and the enjoyment OF the
| good his labor has secured.
There is, in fact, no life more envi-
able than that Of an intelligent, pros
porous farmer, who owns his land and
knows how to make the most of his
farm and of himself. He is working
with and in the presence of nature,
and if, in such kindly companionships
he is not happy, why, he ought to be
heartily ashamed of himself.