Connecticut western news., 1908-10-29
ROOSEVELT'S TIP
 ON COUNTRY LIFE
LETTER FROM INDIANA FARM HAND
Says he has Been Farm Hand Long Enough to Learn Why Sons, Daugh- ters and Competent Help Leave the

Enough to Learn Why Sons, Daugh-
 ters and Competent Help Leave the
 Farm.
 An Indiana farmland has written a letter to President Roosevelt about the work which the Country Life Commis- sion of the Department of Agriculture at Washington is carrying on. The President has turned the letter over to the Country Life Commission and the commission has asked the farmland to write some more. #..e
 ssI have been farmland just long enough" says the Presidents correspon- dent, ito learn the cause of so many sons and daugters and well-meaning reliable farmhands leaving the beautiful farm and country and going to the city. A lack of order and system on the farm and too long hours for day is what is driving the best minds from the farm to the city and shop. What can we expect of hand, or the farmers wife and her posterity, in the way of intellectual de- yelopment when they get out of their beds at 3:3O in the morning and work from that time until or p. m.? And no attention paid to the sanitary condit- ions of the home, and necessary con- yeniences on the farm for doing the farm work with the least labor and and time"
 TIL: L.o hn 71tr fel Commission some very interesting first hand information about rural conditions and recommendations based on long experience in farm work and farm life. He has worked for all kinds of farmers, good and bad, he says, and he has al- ways had hls eyes open to detect the causes of their success CT failure He has drawn hls own conclusions and sets them forth in downright, straight for ward fashion. Education pays in farm ing, he says. "The farmer who plans out his work and carries it through in systematic, business-like manner, just as the city man does, will be able to shorten the hours of labor. "So many farmers measure everything on the farm from the standpoint of muscle, he continues, land are extreme i'll some things and slack in others. I decided several years ago that life is too short to work for Peter Tumbledown farmers"
 "Now, Mir President he writes, '.you can take this for what it is worth. I have not given you half of my experi- ence." The Country Life Commission has written him that his suggestions are so useful that they hope he will send more.
 "Compel the farmer to be a business man." he says. "Go into the homes of some of the farmers, and the so-called farmers, and ascertain how they live, and learn of their methods of doing the business in which they are engaged. And you will be surprised what vari- ety you will find. Ascertain what they read, and what stress they put on the literature that comes into their homes eff any comes) bearing on the business they are engaged in. See what per cent study their business.
 "Give me the educated farmer as a boss and the educated farmland as hand. When I come i'll contact with hand or farmer that studies his busi- ness find him advancing, and it IS pleasure to work for such men.
 ''The majority of the farmers are eight-hour men, that is, eight hours in the forenoon and eight in the afternoon. Eight or ten hours on the farm cannot well be adapted in all cases, but it need not be from fourteen to sixteen hours. If the family arise every morning at 5 o'clock and the wife and daughters at tend to the household duties, and the farmhands and sons attend to the chores and go to the field at 7 o'clock and work until II or Il: 80 and go to the field again at 1 and keep at it until o'clock, and go to the house and eat the supper and then do the evening chores, they have done farm days work. Regular hours for work, and regular hours for meals, and regular hours for sleep, and regular hours for rest and recreation, with plenty of standard papers and books, including the best agricultural papers and books, and full faith in God, and good grub Is wanted.
 "The family should rise at o'clock on Sunday morning as we'll as on week days and do the necessary Sunday morning chores and then go to church and show the business man in the city that Sunday on the farm does not con- sist in changing the stock from one field to another, or salting it. or unload ing load of hay that was brought in on Saturday evening.
 "Coming to the meals at the meal