The Vermont watchman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1883-1911, 1898-07-27
AGRICULTURAL.
The Farmer and His Mail.

who by reason of his occupation is gen.
orally forced TO live at distance from
the post-office. The administration Of
the unlamented Grover Cleveland did
all in it's power to discourage and re-
tsrd every effort made to obtain better
postal facilities for the farmers. 1t was
its settled policy, faithfully carried out,
to do all it could for the cities and moth
ing whatever for the farmers. But
Congress has made a beginning in
free delivery of mails in country dis
tricts, and it now looks as though it
was only question of time when farm
ers would be treated fairly by the gov
eminent in this matter. But it will be
a long time before the farmers will
have the benefits of free delivery, and
there are many things to be considered
in making the best of the present situ-
alton. There are farmers who live
near enough to the local post-office to
get their mail every time it comes in,
and such are usually all right as to this.
Some member of the family can gener-
ally go to the office once or twice day,
and such can realize what blessing it
is to have such privileges. Then there
are those who at this season of the year
can i'll afford to leave their work and
home duties to ride two, three or more
miles to visit the post-oflice. Unless
one takes daily paper or is pretty sure
that there is something in the office, he
will hardly afford the time to go such a
distance. But there is little to encour-
age farmer living at such distance
from the post-off1ce to subscribe for
daily, for if he does, he feels bound to
go every day to get it, and when man
has to 60 from three to six miles to get
daily, it becomes pretty costly lux
ury. We doubt if farmer, unless it
be under exceptional circumstances,
ought to go into such an extravaganza.
He may have to carry his milk to the
creamery every day; then he is all
right to get daily mail, if he goes near
the office. Or he may send his milk by
a neighbor and arrange with him to get
the mail. Or he may be able TO arrange
with some one who goes after his mail
daily to bring it, or community living
a distance from the post-office might
hire some one to bring the mail every
day. But there are some who must be
content TO get their war news only once
or twice week. And they have some
things to console them. One is that
the weekly does not contain batch of
rumors and filling, made up too often
of false statements. The writer OF this
has lived where he had to get his mail
only once week especially at certain
times of the year, and he did not find
it great hardship. The weekly paper
is by no means relic of past age, in
fact we'll edited weekly read in the
quiet of farm home usually gives far
more real satisfaction than the huge
daily hastily scanned by the city man
as he rushes to his business, or snatches
a few moments to devour the news. 1t
must be said that there is great
deal in habit as this. If man is in
the habit of reading daily, he feels
lost without one, and the farmer who
is in the business of keeping city board
ers will, this summer at least, find it
necessary to provide his guests with as
early copies as possible of the dailies,
or his patronage will be very small.
But the man or woman whose hori-
zon is bounded by the ordinary daily,
cannot be as we'll informed as one who
supplements this by other periodi-
calls. Almost every trade and employ
ment has its papers, and we have ear
nestly advocated the reading of farm
papes by the farmers. Then there is
field of thought and literature which is
represented by such publications as the
Revie,c Of Revie,cs and the Literary Di-
gest. The writer has tried both and
has found for himself that he can OBJ
tain vast amount of information from
the Literary Digest which could not
possibly be obtained by one who con-
fined his reading to daily papers. A
paper like the Literary Digest is need
ed by those who read the dailies, to
supplement the information gained
from them. For instance there are
probably to-day not one in ten thou
sand of the readers of the dailies who
have any just idea of the way the for
eign press views the war. Something
is known, of course of the English
press, but when it comes TO anything
printed in any other than the English
language, there is for the most part
absolute ignorance. But the person
who has read the Literary Digest has
had week by week translations of arti.
cles in the leading foreign papers, and
knows just what people in other coun-
tries are thinking and writing about