Arizona republican., 1915-03-14

family managed to get along somehow in the makeshift home
 The worst feature Of this system is the danger of getting used to it. So that after a while, one is unable to measure properly the needs of the fam Fly over against the need of further farm improvement, and in too many cases we see the big rcd barn. mod ern buildings for houses cattle and hogs. with a full equipment of the lat est improved farming machinery. all before a move is made to tear down the dnGy cramped house where mother still churnS with a dasher churn. runs her washing machine by hand. and per haps carries her water in d pail from the near by we'll"
 very lovely woman once expressed such frank astonishment at the very ordinary comforts and modern convcn- fences of my own country home and explained shyly that her husband had no patience with her desire for bath room and water piped into the kitchen though hc had gasoline pumping
 
 with pipes conveying water to modern cement trouShs in various lots for horses and cattle, and very nice one Tor his hogs, but she and her daughter had always been expected to carry all the water for the house. as the distance was not great. They had owned the l6o acres on which they lived for over twenty years, and had since bought two new forties and the good woman had gone without every comfort and labor saving device, all her life. finally to break down in health. and leave her family in the far off Minnesota farm nome. while she came to the sunny climate of Arizona to regain her health. which by the way she never did. One by one the dear bright boys and girls grew up and left this hard. empty home, taking up professions. that would take them forever away from the kind of life mother had Her husband was a good man, she said. one of the county supervisors and i a highly respected farmer. progressive except as to his home and family. She ! had only thought of the lack of com | forts and-iabor saving helps wistfully as most of her neghbors. and she was Il patient good woman.
 Henry Bakef in a recent number of the Missouri Valley Farmer, says:
 Life is too short to wear it away ir drudgery. Improvements In home ant 1, home living rot only conserve the health and happiness of mother, but the health and general well being ol the whole family. No money is saved by not having them. by paying out in- stead. as much if not more money thar they would cost. in doctors bills or fol a funeral.
 l have been much interested in Will liam R. Lighton's letters Prom Father to Son" In one of them he says:
 When I began helping my father. as a boy, there wasn't such 6 thing in al the world as piece of modern farm machinery. We did everything labor. iously, painfully. Making a crop ther was literally a brute-strength wrest- ling match with the gods-and tho struggle often left us flat on our backs bruised and sore.
 As for the literature of farming there wasn't any. We had books il our house. plenty of them: but they didn't relate to farming; and the lib raries of most of our farmer -neigllbors held nothing but a family photograph album and an almanac
 They were great people for almanacs m those days. Nine out of ten planted ''by the moon." The whole business ot crop growing had in it more of blacl art and superstition than of exaci ,knowledge-yes. by long odds. There was no such thing as exact scientific knowledge
 There isn't a state in the un ion today without an agricultural col lege. Some states have half q dozcl of them.''
 Besides. there's hardly school 0 any so!t in the land now that doesn'