Rensselaer Union, Volume 2, Number 47, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 18 August 1870 — Realizing an Ideal. [ARTICLE]

Realizing an Ideal.

Though the farmer is mainly occupied with material things there is no field of toil where ideas are more important, or work greater changes than the farm. Every one who has cultivated the same acres for a dozen years or more, can see prettyjclearly what his ideal has been. If there have been no improvement in the soil, no trees planted, no barns built, no comforts added to the home, no better style of living, the main idea has been animal existence. He has raised potatoes, corn and wheat, beef, butter and pork, and clothed and fed his family, and possibly sent his children out to shift for themselves with as poor views of life as his own. The soil that has yielded him subsistence is no way blessed by his presence. Its capacity to bless others has probably been greatly diminished, and he bequeaths to his successor pastures doubly cursed by brush and brambles, and meadows seeded with rank growing weeds for the next generation. It is of the highest importance to the man himself, and to society, that he should have something in his mind better than what ho sees in his farm, when he takes it in hand. Even if he never fully realize hia, ideal, he will, be striving for it all the while, and will' accomplish more for himself and for society. If he get but ten bushels of wheat to the acre he should see thirty

Just ahead. If he have swales yielding only sour grasses, he should see tiles underneath discharging copious streams at the outlet, and sweet fields of living green above the swelling flood. If he have that vision in his mind it will keep working until it Is realized. Every time he mows over that swale he will be thinking of the clover and timothy that might be, instead of the poor stuff be is gathering; of the fat cattle that might be on his ideal fodder, instead of the lean kine that starve and shiver on the bog hay and moss. He will feel a pang akin to the half fed brutes, and not rest until the tiles are down. If the roads that approach his dwell ng are treeless, he should seco long rows of elms, maples, or oaks adorning the street. They will be planted by and by. If the wife and mother have hard well-water to wash with, he should see a cistern to catch all the rain from the roof; and a pump to bring it into the room where' it will be wanted. There are a multitude of worthy wives suffering discomfort a lifetime tor the want of a few practical ideas in the heads of their husbands. Their labors mighty be made lighter, their whole life brightened if there were conveniences for doing the necessary work of the household. They cost very little time or money, but they do cost a considerable thinking and a little sacrifice of personal ease after the chores are done. —American A'jricutturut.