The Chanute times. [volume] (Chanute, Kan.) 1897-1913, 1899-08-04
Why Farm Life is Unpopular
Prairie Farmer.

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the Supremacy respectable avocation.
To be a farmer was to be a gentle
man. The townsman was a mere
shop-keeper, erjumper, who
stood ready to carry his goods to
the curbstone for inspection when
the farmers wife and daughter drove
in from their country residence.
Now they are the last to be waited
upon and even then with only such
politeness as will retain their custom.
They are contemptuouSly referred
to as socially an inferior class. The
shop-keeper, pill-peddler and jack
legged lawyer, now usurp the place
in public esteem once occupied by
the real aristocracy. When Thomas
Jefferson was asked by an anxious
father what he should make of his
boy he said: eff he is fool make
him a preacher and no one will find
it out; if he is honest but not very
smart make him doctor; if very
smart but not honest make him a
lawyer, but if he is both smart and
honest make him farmer" Cicero
gives fine picture of agriculture
when he says: ~ come now to the
pleasures of husbandry in which l
mostly delight. They are not inter
rupted by old age and they seem to
me to be pursuits in which a wise
mans life should be spent" But
why do SO many abandon this de-
lishtful pursuit and seek to live in
the heat and dust and noise of the
crowded town? May it not largely
be accounted for because in the rap
id evolution in affairs the farmer has
scarcely held his place? While
modern machinery has done as
much for farming as any other IN
dustry yet in most if not all other
respects the farmer lives much as
his ancestors did thousand years
ago Indeed he seems to study how
to make life hard while others try to
make it easy. The modern house
has done more to make urban life
enjoyable than any other one thing,
yet they are unknown in rural dis
tricts. There is no reason why a
farm house should not be heated by
hot air or steam and supplied with
water and bath. Their cost would
be Just as small as in the city and
their maintenance far less. What
a luxury for the tired, dusty, farmer
to take a plunge before retiring and
how much it would add to the zeSt
of living. Any farm house can have
a system of water works at an insig-
nifcant cost.
A furnace can be supplied with
fuel and the whole house made com
Portable at a less cost than the wood
can be cut for by laying in carload
of coal. Farm hands can be secur-
ed at reasonable wages but servant
girls can hardly be had at all. 1t
may be that wages have something to
do with this. A good woman read
lily gets 81 week in the city. This
would brighten the average farmer
out of his wits. A good man and
woman get $40 a month and their
board in the city but in the country
they can be had for much less Then
the city boy has his rubber-tired
buggy and his bicycle because he
has well-pavei streets for riding on.
If farmers took as much interest in
their roads as town people do in
their streets, country life would be
infinitely more attractive and farm
lands greatly enhanced in value.
These are some of the reasons
why farm life has fallen into decay
The farmer has scarcely kept up
with the procession. Until he de
cides to quit renting and to improve
and live on his farm as a home he
may expect continued decline in ag-
ricultural pursuits.
J. NJ. LOWE,
Missouri.