The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1901-05-09
A Plea for the Country Home.


God made the country and man
made town. is trite saying chat will
never lose its force. For there may,
at times, be an unnatural influx of
people to the cities, draining the
country of youth and manly strength
and productive energy, but reaction
is sure to come. When hard times
prevail; when disappointment and
despair seize the honest toiler on the
farm, he begins to think he will have
better opportunity for success in the
city, and off he goes. In nine cases
out of ten the change proves disas-
trous, and he who was once the indie
pendent worker in his own fields, as
free and untrammeled as the air he
breathed, becomes the humble EN-
ployee of some soulless corporation
a service exacting in its demands, in
imical to personal liberty and de-
structive of all the noblest aspirations
of true manhood.
And then he who fled to the city to
escape the horrors of the country
longs for his old home. He remem-
bers his joy as a boy rambling over
/ the farm, listening to the song birds
and the babbling brooks, making pets
of the young animals, and enjoying
all the many pleasures of the country
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his own children participate in the
pleasures and enjoy the health-giying
advantages of a home away from the
busting city's din. With his savings
he buys small suburban lot, builds
himself cottage, plants a few trees
and vines in humble imitation of the
rural home he holds in sweetest MEM
DRY. If, perchance, the once country
boy has met with commercial or pro-
fessional success in metropolis, and
amassed a fortune, his most natural
impulse seems to be to have his
sumptuous country home, to stock
his farm with improved breeds of cat
tie, and lavish his wealth in adding
| to the beauties and blessings of
nature.
Thus in every sphere of life man in
stinctively seeks the country. He
may not care to make it always and
at all times his home, but his life
seems unsatisfactory, his JOY incom-
plete, his recreation imperfect, unless
he can get where the cows low and
! the lambs bleat; where noises some
times cease, and where with unob-
structed view he can see 1.-The morn in
russell mantle clad, walk DER the
dew
With the advent of rapid and con-
venient transportation the city is be-
coming more and more the place for
business and the country the place
for living. Every year marks the al
most magic appearance on the hill
sides and in the dales of hamlets
where the restless population of the
cities find semi-rural condition of
life. The near future is destined to
bring greatly increased demand for
small farms, and with the small farms
will come greater thrift, higher cult
walton, more scientific methods, bet
ter roads and proportionate comfort
and pleasure in living in the country.
The day of the large plantation, re-
quiring force of laborers and a boss
to superintend them is passed-cer-
tainly except in sections very remote
from cities.
The small farm, fully equipped,
thoroughly stocked, highly fertilized,
with its permanent pasture lots and
orchards, with improved appliances
for the dairy and modern convenien-
ces for poultry raising, with bounti-
full garden, and, lastly but not least,
with its attractive, commodious, con-
venient and comfortable cottage
makes the ideal home of which poets
may sing and lovers dream. If the
master of such home is a practical
farmer himself, fully informed, as he
should be, in the minute of crop
raising, in horticulture, in the care of
livestock, he can with unskilled help
conduct his business with success and
pleasure. If he works with intelli-
gence, thrift and frugality, he will al
ways have something to sell, be thor
oughly independent, and if in close
proximity to steam or electric road,
his family can have many of the ad-
vantages of city life, while at the
same time they enjoy the freedom,
independence and healthfulness of
their country home.
If the gentleman of the house has
business that takes him to town daily,
for reasonable salary he can employ
a competent man to superintend his
farm work, and still participate in
the keen pleasure which the lover of
agriculture always finds in the burst
ing buds, in the ripening crops, and
in the increase of hocks and herds.
1t is the soothing contact with nature
that tends to develop the physical,
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