age of twenty-one they left the desolate and dreary farms and rushed to the towns and cities. They wanted to be book-keepers, doctors, merchants, railroad men, insurance agents, lawyers, even preachers, anything to avoid the drudgery of the farm. Nearly every boy acquainted with the three R's—reading, writing and arithmetic—imagined that he had altogether more education than ought to be wasted in raising potatoes and corn. They made haste to get into some other business. Those who stayed upon the farm envied those who went away.
4. Never Be Afraid of Work!
There are hundreds of graduates of Yale and Harvard and other colleges who are agents of sewing machines, solicitors for insurance, clerks and copyists, in short, performing a hundred varieties of menial service. They seem willing to do anything that is not regarded as work—anything that can be done in a town, in the house, in an office, but they avoid farming as they would leprosy. Nearly every young man educated in this way is simply ruined.
Boys and girls should be educated to help themselves; they should be taught that it is disgraceful to be seen idle, and dishonorable to be useless.
5. Happiness the Object of Life
Remember, I pray you, that you are in partnership with all labor—that you should join hands with all the sons and daughters of toil, and that all who work belong to the same noble family.
Happiness should be the object of life, and if life on the farm can be made really happy, the children will grow up in love with the meadows, the streams, the woods and the old home. Around the farm will cling and cluster the happy memories of the delight-ful years.
6. The Sunset of the Farmer's Life
For my part, I envy the man who has lived on the same broad acres from his boyhood, who cultivates the fields where in youth he played, and lives where his father lived and died. I can imagine no sweeter way to end one's life than in the quiet of the country, out of the mad race for money, place and power—far from the demands of business—out of the dusty highway where fools struggle and strive for the hoi ow praise of other fools. Surrounded by these pleasant fields and faithful friends, by those I have loved, I hope to end my days.
7. Farmers, Protect Yourselves!
The farmers should vote only for such men as are able and willing to guard and advance the interests of labor. We should know better than to vote for men who will deliberately put a tariff of three dollars a thousand upon Canada lumber, when every farmer in the States is a purchaser of lumber. People who live upon the prairies ought to vote for cheap lumber. We should protect ourselves. We ought to have intelligence enough to know what we want and how to get it. The real laboring men of this country can succeed if they are united. By laboring men, I do not mean only the farmers. I mean all who contribute in some way to the general welfare.
8. Roast the Beef, Not the Cook.
Farmers should live like princes. Eat the best things you raise and sell the rest. Have good things to cook and good things to cook with. Of all people in our country, you should live the best. Throw your miserable little stoves out of the window. Get ranges, and have them so built that your wife need not burn her face off to get you a breakfast. Do not make her cook in a kitchen hot as the orthodox perdition. The beef, not the cook, should be roasted. It is just as easy to have things convenient and right as to have them any other way.
9. Cultivated Farmers.
There is no reason why farmers should not be the kindest and most cultivated of men. There is nothing in plowing the fields to make men cross, cruel and crabbed. To look upon the sunny slopes covered with daisies does not tend to make men unjust. Whoever labors for the happiness of those he loves, elevates himself, no matter whether he works in the dreary shop or the perfumed field.
10. The Wages of Slovenly Farming.
Nothing was kept in order. Nothing was preserved. The wagons stood in the sun and rain, and the plows rusted in the fields. There was no leisure, no feeling that the work was done. It was all labor and weariness and vexation of spirit. The crops were destroyed by wandering herds, or they were put in too late, or too early, or they were blown down, or caught by the frost, or devoured by bugs, or stung by flies, or eaten by worms, or carried away by birds, or dug up by gophers, or washed away by floods, or dried up by the sun, or rotted in the stack, or heated in the crib, or they all ran to vines, or tops, or straw, or cobs. And when in spite of all these accidents that lie in wait between the plow and reaper, they did succeed in raising a good crop and a high price was offered, then the roads would be impassable. And when the roads got good, then the prices went down. Everything worked together for evil.
11. The Farmer's Happy Winter
I can imagine no condition that carries with it such a promise of joy as that of the farmer in early winter. He has his cellar filled—he had made every preparation for the days of snow and storm—he looks forward to three months of ease and rest; to three months of fireside content; three months with wife and children; three months of long, delightful evenings; three months of home; three months of solid comfort.
12. The Almighty Dollar
Ainsworth R. Spofford—says Col. Ingersoll—gives the following facts about interest: "One dollar loaned for one hundred years at six per cent., with the interest collected annually and added to the principal, will amount to three hundred and forty dollars. At eight per cent, it amounts to two thousand two hundred and three dollars. At three per cent, it amounts only to nineteen dollars and twenty-five cents. At ten per cent, it is thirteen thousand eight hundred and nine dollars,
