St. Tammany farmer. [volume] (Covington, La.) 1874-current, 1900-09-22
FARMER PLANTER.
KEEP THE BOYS ON rHs FARM.


In the closing years Of the century
there has been a disposition among
the boys and young men Of tho farms
to leave their country homes ind cast
their lot in the larger cities Of our
country. In very many of these cases
the boys and young men could have
worked out their salvation better ON
the farm. No doubt there are periods
in most young life. when full Of vigor
and adventure, that farm life seems
somewhat slow, lonely and obscure,
and the more this is true with those
young people of our farms who think
the cities ono round Of attractions and
enjoyable thiags. They falsely think
that entertainment and pleasure is
about all Of city life.
How false such views! All is no
more gold that gli.ters in the cities
than in the country. Tie young man
changes the pure, health-giving air OF
the country for the more impure air
Of the shop, the store or the little
room up several flights Of stairs that
he calls his home. Brain, intellect,
capacity was never more needed on our
farms than to-day. Taking period Of
the Last fifty years, those men who en-
gagged in farming and stock raising on
this fertile soil in Illinois have had
greater success financially rs whole
than those who at that time took np
city. life. The men who stayed in the
country worked for no overseer or
superintendent of a great concern or
company, their work hours were As
long or as short as they themselves
chose 10 make them, while those in the
city, If five minutes late, might lose
the ir place and be thrown out of work.
There is a vast difference between
working for ones self and working for
u company or corporation. Think of
working for another for dollar day
and some day you find gold mine.
The farmer who owns his farm is as
independent and comfortable rs it is
possible to be. And while he has no
expectations Of ever Icing possessed OF
fabulous wealth he also has no fear OF
ever facing poverty. as it must often
be faced in our large cities. The work
of the farm now is as nothing COM
pared with what it nsed to be before
the improved machinery was brought
out. Think of the days Of reaping. OF
cr.dling, of rakiny, of binding and
moving, of threshing with \ fail and
winnowing with the wind, and now
think Of the reapers and binder on
which the farmer rides through his
fields and threshers and shelters run
by steam in which even the horse is
sn rcd some of the harder work and 1t
will be easily seen that it is not SO
much hard labor that is now needed on
the farm rs it is men who have the
capacity to manage The hundred and
one things that come under the head
of general and stock farming. In
these days OF rural free mail delivery,
giving the farmer = daily mail at his
door, Of telephones, Of electric rail
ways, of almost innumerahls stes m
roads running westward from Chicago
toward the Golden Gate! What young
man can think that farming under
these conditions is anything but COM
Portable and honorable alike, thereby
proving, as well, what the great Wash
ington neutrality-suspicious. is the most
hcalthful, the most sefnl, the most
noble employment of man.-T. f., in
Drovers' Journal.