The Jasper weekly courier. [volume] (Jasper, Ind.) 1858-1922, 1914-07-24
Poetry Of Farm Life.

ONO1 ~ l. Ct1 LII
Raising crops is not all OF farming This should be
Catching fish Is not all of fishing" to the angler
In the Report of the Kansas State Board of Agri-
culture for the Quarter Ending March l9l4"---which
is one OF the interesting publications which rebound to
the fame of Secretary +. d. Coburn-.we find an ad-
dress by Mrs. Margaret Hill McCarter of Topeka at
the forty-thrd annual meeting of the board which
eOquenty sets forth this great truth If the farmer
appreciated this truth there would be less heard of the
'ure of the city" and the census returns would tell
another story
POETRY OF THE FARM.
In Mrs. McCarter's address, "The Farm Four
Square, dre the following passages, which are well
worth reproducing:
The last limitation for the farm is the love measure.
Ten years ago tonghtit was nay privilege to ad-
dress this body. spoke that night about farm life
prose-. make plea tonight for the poetry of life
the farm; for wider appreciation of the beauty
there; the beauty that sets line OF glory about the
dull commonplace life, drifting toward the wearing
dudgery of toll the narrowing lust for lucre the
coarse hard bonds of selfshness Nature who never
did betray the heart that loved her. has been most
kind to the farmer. The misty glory of sunrise and
the majestic grandeur of sunset, the cooling breath
from the summer shower the smiling fields of ripen-
ing grein, the frosti spendor of autumn--all
his. Into eyes that car see this beauty comes the
vision OF larger purposes IN work than the days can
measure. The farmer who looks down the long fur
rows may see down the long years the harvests of
nober pantings--may picture the bigger farm the
bigger increase, the bigger oppor unity and influence
for himself, the bigger broader BET ter life for his
children. Some clever poet it who wrote the lines:
Turn the electrical light neither
And set yourself down here beside me
On this velvet. imported divan
Fur heartto-heart talk of the old time
When we lived in house built of sod.
And didn't have nothin' speak of
But trust in old Kansas and God
q We took up this hundred and sixty
An old soldiers homestead. and here
We scrimped and we saved for hvin'.
An slim one too year after year
An what with the drought an the hoppers
Things often looked desputy gray,
But we kept the cid faIth-pot a biin'
Till things got to comm our way, y
It was this very 'trust in oil Kansas an God" that
has brought at last these fabulous per cents of farm
values cited little while ago. The farmer who
bounds his farm foursquare with this of love
where beauty and inspiration and hope and vision have
place, must find time not only to work. but to let go
of work. We have too many retired farmers in our
cities retired galley slaves who spent the years
when life should be most wholesome and joyous in
one endless round of tread-mill toll claiming their
boys to long hours of labor and few hours of leisure
These read sermons to the boys of the evils of city life
and preached the gospel of staying on the farm the
while they strained muscle and nerve to the very
breaking point in order to earn and money enough
to retire from the farm and spend their useless old
days in the city.
Frankly, the city doesn't need them. They never
assimilate WELL Their money is invested outside its
borders They object to public improvements they
join the taxpayers league and fight the commercial
club They vote with the grouchers and prophesy the
speedy going of the whole country to the dogs These
are beyond help now But to you farmer men, to-
night, they teach by adverse example the lesson of
letting co. of living as you work; of love for the
farm that shall build into your lives and the lives of
your children the blessedest memories of happiest
days. Time is money, not alone time filled up with
work, but time now and then filled up with play.
The fourth dimension of the four-square farm
bounds the children most They are the hope of our
country. They are 'the dogs" to which affairs are
tending 1t is the right of the farm-bred boy and girl
to have the best education and opportunity-to be
city broke" while they live and love the life of the
country. Money invested in children exceeds in value
all the per cents of crop and stock increase. Would
you be successful farmer? As whose life for
three decades close to the SOIL let me urge you
tonight to your farm foursquare by the land
that you claim, by the labor of your hands, by the
&c nd tha ar,d