The progressive farmer. [volume] (Winston, N.C.) 1886-1904, 1899-08-01

forage plants for trial among cur
Northwestern farmers.
OF all places perhaps the farm is best
suited for the production of manly
men and womanly women. There the
commercial spirit should be less DOM
nant, and there alone are the beauties
of nature and Divine Handiwork seen
to best advantage. The farmer, there
fore, should take a broader view Of
life than does the man in the Office or
bank, and the child raised on the farm
should have a higher measure of value
than the almighty dollar. Some of
the higher duties of the farmer are
cheerfully set forth in the following
paragraphs picked up here and there
from the writings Of Prof L. H Bailey,
of Cornell, one Of the ablest Of all our
agricultural writers:
IT am convinced that farmers need
education in flowers and other Incl
dental things quite as much as they do
in wheat or potatoes; for it is the lack
of cheer and color and interest about
the home which is largely responsible
for the dissatisfaction OF the young
people with the country. The moment
that a farmer begins to take living
interest in some restful occupation for
his leisure hours will his interest in
farm life begin to grow.
''One's training for the work of life
is begun in the home and tostered in
the school. This training is the result
of direct and conscious effort on the
part of the parent and teacher, com
bined with the indirect result of the
surroundings in which the child is
placed. The surroundings are more
potent than we think; and they are
usually neglected. 1t is probable that
the antipathy to farm life is formed
before the child is able to reason on
the subject. An attractive play
ground will do more than profitable
wheat crop to keep the children on the
farm.
Flower loving is sentiment and
emotion, kindled with Imagination. 1t
depends vastly more upon the person
than it does upon the f0wer. Some
persons would like to love flowers. but
they do not know how; and there are
others who think that they love them
because they know their names and
how to grow them. But suspect that
no one ever really loves flower when
he is conscious of an effort to love it.
When a person once places himself in
fully sympathy with nature and learns
the art Of seeing everything at it's best,
he is in position to reap the joy Of a
garden; and it really does not matter
s } much whether the plants are dahlias,
sweet peas, or bull thistles.
What is nature study9 It is seeing
the things which one looks at, and the
drawing OF proper conclusions from
what one sees. Nature. study is not
the study of a science, as OF botany,
geology and the like. That is, it takes
the things at hand ard endeavors to
undera tand them, without reference to
the Systematic order or relationship of
the objects. 1t is wholly informal and
unsyssematic, the same as the obj j9cts
which one sees. It is entirely divorced
from definitions, or from explanations
in books. It is therefore supremely
II simply trains the eye and
the mind TO see and comprehend the
commend the common things OF life;
and the result is not directly the &C
quirement of science but the establish
ment of living sympathy with every
thing that is."