The herald and news. [volume] (Newberry S.C.) 1903-1937, 1910-03-18

AOu lIle 1lCtACet '141eSe' IASAS - :"
rural mail box.
This box is attached to a rural
telephone pole, which stands by
the side Of the turnpike leading to
the village and past the village to
the city.
There they are together-the Big
Three-the rural mail, the rural
telephone and the improved rural
highway, the three big things in
country life Of the present, big for
the service already accomplished,
and big with the vastness of things
yet to be achieved.
The over-enthISiastIc have de-
elared that each Of these things will
revolutionize existence on the farm.
Calmer persons have asserted that
the three together will effect a revo-
luton. Those who are satisfied with
nothing but truth literal in its ex-
actness say that these things have
added new charms to farm life and
nitigated to a considerable degree
its chief drawback, isolation.
Revolution does not seem the
right word to apply to the farm.
Things do not come 10 pass on the
farm by revolution, but by growth.
Growth is evidenced everywhere. It
is the central. interest throughout
the year, eagerly watched, because
its product is the harvest and its
bounties.
The rural mail, the rural tele-
phone, and the good rural roadway
are the seed, therefore, which have
already produced growth of Won
derful beauty and benefcenee, yet
to ripen into a more magnificent
fuhfllment.
Fam Life.
What is the matter with farm life {?
The national country life COM
mission seriously investigated this
question, and solemnly pronounced
that it was, chiefly, monotouy, the
grinding sameness that sends the
housewives Of the farm to the in
sane asylums and hurries the youth
Of the farm to the towns and cities.
Perhaps It's So. But what is mo-
notony save a state Of mind-a
viewpoint, a habit Of thought run
ming in rut?
Let this be affirmed: The monot-
ony We are considering is the result
of ignorance and lack Of apprecia-
tion of conditions and opportunities.
And this further affirmation: The
mail, the telephone and the good
road can and will lift this veil Of
ignorance and turn this lack of ap-
probation into love for the farm
and for farm life.
To these three factors should be
added fourth-the farmers auto
mobile. It has not yet arrived, but
it is arriving. In the automobile
every farmer Will own his own troll
ley and freight car, and the good
road will be his rails and his right
of way. And the Big Three will
then become the Big Four.
f'Don't you get mighty 7c,iesome
out here, with every day the same"
asked the young city man of the
young country man whom he was
visiting.
''Not at ALL" replied The country
man "On the farm no days and
no seasons are alike. Each brings
with it its varying duties and pleas
:ures.'' a. :;
To the mind that "is pleased with
- a rattle and tickled with straw"
that sees nothing but enduring de-
light in the cheap and superficial
pleasures and associations of the
city, to such a mind the country is
am acute agony.
But the young country man was
not Of this kind. He had changed
viewpoint. He had dipped into the
realities at his own door. He had be-
come possessed of what has been
we'll described as "the fatal desire
to see things grow"-a desire
pleasure of divine origin which,
when once attained, is never lost.
For the young. man it can become a
passion, and for old age there is no
greater solace.
Joy in Fields.
II is indeed a great joy to minister
thus at the processes of nature in
the gardens and the open fields, but
the capacity for this joy can only
be acquired from knowledge such as