The progressive farmer. [volume] (Winston, N.C.) 1886-1904, 1900-06-12
THE i; WIVES OF ; FARMERS,

He was accompanied by the patient
wife, the result of whose faithful
domestic labor was partof the money
in the farmers hand. Dressed in
her best-and yet how shabbily i
with a little one clinging to her,
much in need of proper clothing, the
wife wistfu1ly looked at the money
being deposited, and finally touched
the farmers arm and plead for a
small share of that deposit. The
farmers brow clouded at such I'M
looked-for appeal, but being in good
spirits after the successful sale of his
crop, he recognized the occasion as
meriting generosity, and, reaching
ing into his pocket for a we'll
filed purse, he fshed out from
it the magnificent coin of one-half
dollar, and givingit to his wife, told
her go and buy what she wanted.
"Oh, yes! The same ~scornful ex-
preston 1 see on your brows came
over that woman's face, and, if 1 re-
member right, the editor said he
heard her murhur, God pity your
small soul But is such an incident
an isolated one? Is it an exception
to the rule, or is it not a fact that
only in degree, but not in substance,
the treatment of the wife by the
husband is often that of the brute
the editor wrote about? Not on the
farm alone, but in the homes of the
city do men forget that the 'obe-
dience' woman promises at the altar
must be preceded by the honor and
love- also promised, and how can
love survive whenit is met byindiff-
erence, and how honor when mean
ness stamps the object to be hon
ored? If there is any pursuit of life
where man and woman, become one
by the sacred rite of matrimony,
should be co-workers, co-equals, it
is on the farm. Of necessity the
conditions of city life are here con-
centrated, and the 'multum in par
vo' is the device of the farmers 8 sur
rOundings. How often could the de-
vice of city life be 'Parvum in null
to-, little in much'-little comfort,
little satisfaction, though surrounded
by the mUltitUdious appliances of
the congregated life of a community
how universal should the farmers
device be, 'Multum in parvo, much
in little, when applied to the re-
sources of the individual life of the
farm. 1t is by justly approaching,
rightly fostering the possibilities of
that family life amid the surround
ings of Gods nature that the farmer
can become the envied of his brother
tOwnsman.
by the natural fitness of things !
the work of the farm has divided it.
self into the outside larger opera
tions and the work pertaining to the
homestead and its immediate sur
roundings of the dairy, the poultry
yard, the garden, etc. The former
have fallen to the share of man, the
latter to the share of women. 1t is
not often a fact that nearly the whole
proceeds of both divisions of the
farm go into the field operations, at
tempting to make possible a five
cent cotton crop or an equally unre-
m~unerative crop, whilst the dairy,
the poultry-yard, the garden suffer
the fate of every quantity that has
to yield a periodical percentage of
reduction, and has no equivalent or
greater percentage of increase? It
is only question of time when the
exhaused dairy, empty poultry yard
and neglected garden will be sad IL
Illustrations of farming done without
a just prOportioning of the farms
resources to the farms productive
industries. Is it the true position of
the farmers wife to be the head of a
part of farm work that is to contrib
ute TO the farm assets, but IS to re-
ceive no help, no working capital
from the same?
eff there is truth in what I have
heard those say, better informed
than L, and which meets me as an old
chestnut in the papers of the South,
Inat Investigation of crops and the
production of everything the smaller
industries are capable of adding is