Omaha daily bee., 1902-11-09

prove they should quit their old homes
where their money has been made and
throng into towns.
Parents and older people need outings
much more than children. Most Of the
youth will seek education away from home
and their travel will come then. 1t will
soon be the regular thing for young people
to have some education away from home.
The narrow idea that the country school
course is all that a farm boy or girl needs
In preparation for life is passing away.
And how much more that country school
course itself will mean when passed amid
the new community which l am predicting?
This bettered country community will
not come while farmers postpone all pleas
ure for a long term Of years in order that
1t may be a more welcome guest when the
work is done. Work is never done, and it
is better so. Work is the greatest blessing
of life and is the medium OF ali enjoyment.
It is the continual contrast Of pleasurable
relaxation and strenuous effort that gives
spice and snap to life. To put aside pleas
ure until a distant season is to rob oneself
of it entirely, then as well as now. We
rAust educate ourselves to enjoyment as to
labor and unless we begin that education
early we lose the faculty; so that, after
years of toll we find ourselves hopelessly
warped and unable to At the moulds Of nor
NAL life. OF course there are periods in all
lives when, for the performing OF some
special task or the mastering of some crisis
all else must be set aside for a short time,
but We must never forget to resume the
proper balance when these periods are past.
There are no lives whose powers will not,
In the long run, be strengthened by making
pleasure and labor partners.
urge the vacation plan for farmers first
Of all as the best way to broaden and en-
rich farm life by teaching 1t to mingle the
Joys OF life with the labor; to learn by
travel and observation progressive ideas Of
comfort and beauty in the home.
But there is another side Of this question
that is quite as important. 1 refer to sug-
g~estions the farmer will gain by an outing
now and then as 10 improved methods in
his vocation. A life time spent in reading
agricultural papers may easily fail to give
the farmer the practical help that one sum-
mer trip would bring. For years / had read
OF irrigation. supposed that knew a
great deal about it. But when I saw farm
ing actually carried on by that method it
was as though l had never read a word
upon it. so different was the reality from
my book conception. I returned home
blessing as never before the country that
was watered from the sky!
The average western farmer has little
idea OF working with fertilizers. The east
ern farmer has so little idea Of working
without them that It is a common thing
for him, upon hearing OF some large yield
upon our western farms, to write and in
quire as to the sort OF mixture used for
producing such results!
The farmer who gets about knows and
understands the agricultural conditions IN
various parts of the country because he has
seen for himself. He is quicker at finding
new ideas which he can adopt TO improve
his own methods. These new ideas have
a money value and the man who discovers
them most plentifully is apt 10 have the
best paying farm.