The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1905-01-14
LOOK AT SCENERY
Rev.Charlss n. Sheldon's Advice
to Farmers.
.TeIIsThem tOEnjoy the Beauties
of Nature.
USE OF 4 CAMERA.
Urges the Farmer to Take
Pictures of Things.
JsE OF A CAMERA.
Would Devote Time to Moral
and Mental improvement.

One of the features of the meeting
of the State Board of Agriculture this
week was the address of Rev. Charles
NJ. Sheldon Of Topeka on What
Would Do if I Were a Farmer?" II
is herewith given complete:
I have always been thankful that
my immediate ancestors were farmers.
My grandfather on my fathers side
moved from Berkshire county, Massa-
chusetts, to western New York in the
early part of 1900 and cut his way
through the woods in Genessee coun-
| ty to the farm upon which he located,
enduring all the pioneer hardships
connected with the clearing up of the
timber homestead. My father was
born in a log house which his father
built with his own hands and was a
farmer up to the time of his leaving
the homestead for college. And
am proud to say it is still tradition
in the county that he could cradle
more wheat in a day than any other
young man in the township. Ny own
boyhood was spent on a farm in South
Dakota before the territory was d.
vided into two states and 1 have had
the good fortune to know what it
means to break prairie sod with
mule team all day and the melancholy
experience of standing by a wheat
field that would probably go thirty
bushels to the acre being moved
down by the great American grass
hopper, a lineal descendant Of the
Old Testament locust. If it had not
been for this farmer ancestry and my
own vivid if somewhat limited ex-
perience as a farmer, I would hardly
have ventured to say to an audience
OF Kansas farmers what I would do if
were now one of them. My only
apology, if one is needed for the title
this c in 20 or
that I sometimes anticipate ending my
days on a farm as I began them, as
perhaps an ideal way to spend the
last days of ones life if he were per
mitted to choose for himself The
suggestions I have now to offer in
brief are not altogether impra cticab BILE
and certainly not impossible of attain
ment- Taking for granted that if I
were a farmer would be on an aver
age Kansas farm without too large an
encum brance in the way of debt. with
health and strength physically and
that share of intelligence which I take
for granted is possessed by the aver
age Kansas man on the farm, I would
like to say what I would do if were
in such condition. Speaking partly
out of the experience have afreadv
had, and asking Indulgence for the
use of the necessary first personal
pronoun, which will ask you to sink
out Of sight as much as its use will
permit.
Enjoy the Scenery.
First-R were a farmer, I would
take some time in the course of my
life on the farm to enjoy the scenery.
A famous New England uainfer of
animals, one who specially won repu-
tation for his painting of cattle once
said gravely that he thought a COW in
her grazing picked out the places in
the meadow or the hillside where the
scenery was of the best If a COW can
enjoy scenery man ought to. I can
remember the time when even a bow
as I followed the breaking plow along
the slope of a gently rolling prairie CT
the homestead, I caught some real en-
1oyment from a. Dakota sunrise or sun
set Some people who do not know
what the prairie is or who have never |
lived any farther west than New York
think there is no scenery except where |
there are mountains or rough country |
contend there is as much scenery in |
prairie country as in mountain coun- |
try, If only one has eyes to see it. And |
OF all men, it seems to me the farmer |
is especially privileged in living away |
from the snoke-covered cities where he /
can see out of the rim of things, and |
If were a farmer I would not make !
the mistake that some do by shutting |
out of my soul the things that God has |
made for the enjoyment of the eve and |
the delight of the ear. Last summer in /
Arizona / ran across a. man living on |
the edge of the Grand Canon, who had |
been born in that neighborhood. He |
spoke of the Grand Canon as a crack /
in the ground, and apparently from |
his brief conversation I CLEANED his |
only interest in that magnificent view
was its power to attract tourists up 10
the place where he kept a refreshnent /
bar. from which he dispensed certain
liquors at so much a drink, and notice.
ably his bar was so built in his saloon
that from it, looking out of the door,
neither himself nor his customers had
any view whatever of one of the great
scenic wonders of the world. I do not |
think if were farmer again I Should
n the course of the year lose any par
ocular amount of wealth or be any
ess a good farmer if were occasional
" to say whoa" to my team and sit
Down at the end of the furTow and
rink in the beauty of the field and lis