The Washington herald., 1914-03-18
NATURE KIND TO THE FARMER.
by EMORY J. HAYNES.

L PN0P'S "SiS pfoiounuiy uistuiOct
as they meditated at their home win
dows. Have you food in the house fol
three days? Have you fuel for the
immediate need? Could, the gigantic
city subsist month on the food stored
in the warehouse and markets?
The farmer has wood for three
months. He could not freeze. He has
potatoes, roots and vegetable food in
the cellar for many weeks. demand. He
has chickens, lambs and calves that
could be put to immediate slaughter,
and he has appliances for properly
dressing the meats. Generally he has
hams in the smokehouse, a dressed pig
refrigerated and hanging in his simple
cooler. He has milk in abundance.
Flour and meal he buys by the barrel. In
long months imprisonment by snow
drifted roads he might get short of
coffee and tea. Maple sugar he makes,
and keeps few tubs for himself.
1t is i'll this sense that the farmer
is The most independent OF men. All
the necessaries of life arc at his COM
mand. He fears and trembles when
there is sickness under his roof For the
physician can hardly reach him. He is
often without the mail for days, and
misses the newspapers when the rural
free delivery is hopelessly snowbound
But if the telephone holds in the long
storm, he gets the world touch just the
same as the city man.
We say nature is often most unkind.
Not so to the man on the hillside. The
great earthquakes of history have de-
stroyed cities, not farms. Famine, pes
thence, mighty storms, have rarely dealt
wide destruction TO the servants of the
soil. Fire has often been merciless TO
the man in the country, but it is about
the only enemy that he fears. Near to
natures heart, the rural dweller is ma
ture's favored child. Is it not strange
that, knowing this, the farmers son is
drawn to the city in such numbers? He
consents to be enticed to abandon his
throne and crown for city slavery.
Go back TO the soil, men, back to
freedom, to independence and to Sc
curity. Nowhere else on earth are
these three things so certainly yours.
Are they not the prizes OF life: Where
else can you so live your own life?
Where else can you dress as you please?
Where else can you make the figures
on paper and be sure not to spend more
than your income? The torture of debt
by extravagant habits, by expenditure
which you would never have made cx-
cept others tempting you, all this misery
you escape. You buy what you want.
not what the fashion says You want.
You elude the eloquence of bargain SELL
ers. You fear no rent day.
You never think whether trade is brisk |
Or dull. For the soil is etcrnally ready
for work Things will grow if you
plant and water and weed And what |
grows has always the price at a profit.
All the while YOU are working you know |
this certainty, this security. You arc
he one secure man on earth, YOU tillcr
IF the soil
What is the flaw Why are not the
farms in greater demand? Ii is the
reason that OUR social nature plays on
Is. Man is a social animal. He hun
gcrs for the other fellow. Human So
,iety is a magnet. He wants some one
o swap thoughts with: he Graves the
ound of human voice. To see an
,ther man and woman is more than the
light of the grandest mountains. We
annot visit the crowd.
We must belong TO something and go
o the meeting once week at least. Cows
nd horses are not our kind. Hello, you
ramp along the country highway Stop
" the stone wall and let us talk bit.
ell me where you come from, where
ou are going and what the news is.
How are you, neighbor? Pull up the
ae and | will stop hoeing the corn just
D visit minute Great is gossip. 1t
:Ins the kings court. the stock exchange ,
ne church. 1t is ali right to say that t
he farmer is the only secure man. But '
hat is security if one hears no gossip?
The security side of life on the farm
its solitudc. We are members one OF
mother. 1t is written that every man {
half bear his own burden" but the a
revious line is Bear We ono another's
urdens." There are things better than I
and security. The touch {
fellow mans hand is better. We :
lust get to this other man. The news" .
all about the other man. We would
lther be companions in peril than soli-
ry in our own security.
There must come again the country y
lurch, the singing school at the cross h
,ads. the dance in the village. Roads. I
we us good roads. There is a thrill
the flag because it means the other
an, hundred million of him. What is q