The World. [volume] (Martinsburg, W. Va.) 1891-1896, 1892-01-01


It viii be the most fashionable occun..
ton Of the time century hence, win
farming. according to the picture drawn
| by G. s. Plumb IL the New England
Magazine. Rich mems sons will rush
into it as they now do into the learned
professions, rich men themselves will
turn to it as they now turn to fancy steam
yachts and fast horses 1t win be the
fad. Children will cry for it. The man
most looked up to in the community
the handsomest, SWEETEST, brainiest and
most influential citizen of affairs gener
ally we are to infer will be the farmer.
Agriculturists will have nearly all the
lawmaking to do, because this is an
agricultural country.
A few of the minor improvements are
to be noted as follows: Five average
strawberries will make a quart. The
same will be true of blackberries, goose
berries and raspberries, and the seeds
will have all been educated out Of them,
like bad manners in two or three gener-
ations of family. None of the cattle
will have horns. Jerseys will give pure
cream. Holsteins will give milk. All
the roads of the country will be asphalt
pavements. Horses will be needed no
longer except for racing and for their
flesh, which will be a table deIcacy.
Wagons will have pneumatic tire bicy-
Gle wheels and will be run by electricity.
They will be noiseless when they fly
along the roads.
Nobody has any farm larger than fifty
acres any more, and most of them are
ten acres in size in the year 20O0
Wheat produces always fifty bushels to
the acre; corn, 200. The soils and farm
products have been SO carefully ana
| lyzed that the agriculturist knows ex-
actly what kind of fertilizer to feed the
ground to produce a given vegetable
growth, whatever it is. Farmers ara
college graduates and there is an agri-
cultural experiment station in every
county. Machinery does all the work.
Pneumatic tubes underground connect
house and barn, SO that conversation
can be carried on between them. More
over, the insect pests which do damage
to crops are rapidly in course of exter-
mination by means of the cultivation Of
other insects that destroy them. "Fleas
have other heas to bite EN-" as it Were
and eat them up. Each farmer has his
insecticide breeding pen, in which he
cultivates carefully the insects that de-
your those which are inimical to his
| fruit and grain. The population num-
bers 500, 100000 in the year 1000, and
people use an immense quantity Of dairy
foods, deeming them most healthful
Hens that lay 365 eggs in a year are
the ones in demand, and milking, like
all the other hard work, is done by ma
chinery.
Farmers raise all the sugar we need,
much Of it from the sugar beet, at cost
of one cent a pound. Electricity playsa
part of unreasonable importance in the
rural life of the year 5000. 1t cuts grain,
mows away hay and plows. Electric
shovels and brooms work miracles.
Whatever on the farm is hard or dirty
! to do, that this obedient servant of man
kind steps in and accompanies with
neatness and celebrity. Every farmhouse
has an electric plant. Fruits and vege-
tables of superior kinds are grown by
electricity. But it is in the household
that this magician performs its greatest
marvels. It does everything, and farm
ers' wives dwell III a sort of earthly par
adise. With prophetic eye our author
sees this vision:
tricity; doors and windows are opened and
closed by pressing an electric button; butter
extractors are operated by electric power; an
motor, is passed over the floor TO sweep,
quiring simply the guidance of hand power;
| dish washing machines are run by the light
ninglikc fluid, and likewise the elevator in
houses two stories high all cooking is conduct
ed in electric stoves. and all clothing is washed
and ironed by simple, inexpensive machinery
run by electricity. AS result of this tighten
ing of women's labors on the farm, while
century ago the larger percentage of the wom-
en- in our insane asylum were farmers wives,
today these form the smallest percentage OF
those from any walk in life In fact. woEn-
en- in America find greater enjoyment in Their
homes than do our farmers wives.
| Miss Nellie Wilson ia an Arkansas