The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1895-01-27
THE FARMER AND HIS CHILDREN.

Why the Boys Leave the Home and
the Girls Are Disseminated.
A good deal has been written first
and last as to why the boys and girls
leave the farm, but Judging from the
condition Of things on many farms it
would not appear that the reasons are
very we'll understood by those who are
most nearly concerned, the farmers
themselves. 1t is a vital NATTER con-
corning not simply the family from
which the sons and daughters go, but
society at large as well, writes Webb
Donnell in the Practical Farmer. We
have felt this matter very deeply in
New England, from whose farms there
has been a particularly large outflow of
sons and daughters to the cities and
! TO the great west. I have studied this
subject quite carefully and I know
some of the causes that induce young
men and young women to leave the
farm, and am going to recount them
! for the benefit of those whose sons and
daughters have not yet got a distaste
| for farm work and for the home life
of a farm. Is it any wonder that daugh-
| tiers grow up, and seeing the hard
worked, tired-faced, lonely mother, with
her unceasing round of work from
morning until night, with her few
| pleasures and the little variety in her
Iife-is it any wonder that the daugh-
| ter's heart is steeled against the kind
| of life Which produces such results? She
prefers the work of a store or shop
where she can mix with companions
and feel the stir and rush of hfe-even
! if the new life has as hard work in it
| as the one she has left, and she prefers
| to marry a clerk or some other Salaried
man in town or city rather than some
| young farmer, whose nome may be for
! her what her mothers home has been.
The young people have caught the
| spirit of the times. They long for some
! of the stir and hustle of life and if the
farm is not brought d little more in
touch with present day life we
may expect the young people
to seek what they desire else
where. Dark kitchens, stiff, bare
rooms, few books and papers, anti
quated methods of farm Work-these
are not the surroundings that cam hold
young people who have caught a
glimpse of the honlelike cosiness, the
siveness that is to be seen and felt in
| the world today A motley collection
of furniture, bare floors, unpictured
walls and absence of any suggestion of
comfort and cosiness, may do well
enough for the boys or girs's chamber,
| but it isn't the kind of thing that
makes a boy or girl have much love
| for their home.
The trouble at the root of the whole
matter seems to me to be the utter lack
| Of any attempt to get the children I'm
! terested in their home, proud of it, and
ambitious TO make it better, prettier,
and the land and stock more produc-
/ tive. But how can one expect such an
attempt to be made when the farmer
| himself never appears enthusiastic over
| his work, nor ambitious to make his
| farm and farming frst-claSs Instead
| of seeking an eager interest and pride
in his business on the part Of his father,
| the boy who is growing up on many a
farm hears continually the complaining
assertion that farming doesn't pay"
| Is it any wonder that the boy is not
| attracted to the business? Again, al
most as soon as he can toddie about,
| the boy on many farms is set to work
He drops the beans and peas. He picks
up rocks and apples; he goes for the
| hours for them in the bushes; he is
sent in a hundred different ways during
the day on errands, on the ground that
| young legs are spryer than old ones,
until the young legs ache so that their
! owner is kept awake at night with the
| pain-only to have them called "grow-
! ing pains" As the boy grows he has
steady work with the men, but, unlike
them. he receives no wages. If ne gets
| spending money, he earns it by odd
J jobs for some neighbor in the rare In