Year: 1877

1t may seem strange doctrine to be
advanced by somewhat enthusiastic
farmer, but it is q doctrine that has
been slowly accepted after many years
observations conviction that has
taken possession of an unwilling mind


that the young man who takes his
Young wife to an isolated farmhouse,
dooms her and himself and their chill
dren to an unwholesome, unsatisfactory
and vacant existence-an existence
marked by the absence of those more
satisfying and more cultivating influ-
ences which the best development of
character and intelligence demand. 1t
is common experience of farmers
wives to pass week after week without
exchanging a word Or a look with sim
Gle person outside of their own family
circle.


The young couple start bravely, and
with determination to struggle against
the habit of isolation which marks their
class; but this habit has grown from
the necessity of the situation; and the
necessities of their own situation bring
them sooner or later within its bonds.
During the first few years they adhere
to their resolution and go regular to
church, to the lecture, and to the social
gatherings of their friends; but home
duties increase with time, and the ca
gerness for society grows dull with neg
leet, and those who have started out
with the firmest determination to avoid
the rock on which their fathers have
split, give up the struggle at last and
settle down to humdrum, uninterest-
ing and uninterested performance OF
daily tasks. ..


In saying all this-and I speak from
experience, for | have led the dismal
life myself-it is hardly necessary to
disclaim the least want Of appreciation
of the sterling qualities which have
been developed in the American farm
household. But it may safely be in
sisted that these qualities have been de-
veloped, not because OF the American
mode of farm life, but in spite of it; and
as I think over the long list of admira-
BILE men and women whose acquaintance
I have formed on distant and solitary
farms, Lam more and more impressed
with certain shortcomings which would
have been avoided under better social
conditions If any of these is disposed
to question the justice Of this conclu-


sion, I am satisfied to leave the final de-


cision with his own judgment, formed


after a fair consideration Of what is


herein suggested. .-t..


If Amer lean agriculture has an un-
satisfied need, it is surely the need for


more intelligence and more enterpris.


ing interest on the part of its working


men and women. From one end Of the


land to the other, its crying defect


recognized by all-is that its best blood
Or, in other words, its best brains and
its best energy-is leaving it to seek
other fields of labor. The influences
which lead these best of the farmers
sons to other occupations is not sc
{ much the desire to make more money
? or to find less laborious occupation
as it is the desire to lead a more salts
) factory life-a life where that part o
t us which has been developed by thu
/ better education and better civilization
5 for which in this century we hav'
3 worked so hard and SO well, may flint
: responsive companionship and encour
| aging Intercourse with others.-Col
S Geo. E. Waring, in Seribaer's for April