Rensselaer Union, Volume 11, Number 35, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 15 May 1879 — Does the Farm Receive Full Credit ? [ARTICLE]

Does the Farm Receive Full Credit ?

If the majority of farmers could have the actual cash first pass through their hands, which all the products, necessaries and luxuries, conveniences and privileges which they enjoy, actually cost others who have to expend money for them, before they are enjoyed, we are inclined to think that most farmers would conclude that they are doing a reasonably fair business. Nineteentwentieths of the men most actively engaged in business in the towns and cities, after ten or fifteen years of busy, stirring life, filled in a great measure with anxiety, find that they have made, by prudent care and economy, very little, if any, more than a respectable living. A great deal of money has passed through their hands during that time, much more probably than through the hands of double the number of farmers in the same period, but it has been principally absorbed in furnishing, for the families in towns and cities, the necessaries and comforts of life, and in less profusion and abundance than have been enjoyed in farmers’ families. More special cases can be cited among trading men where large wealth has been acquired in comparatively short periods of time, but on the other hand bankruptcies among the latter class are many times greater than amongst the former, which should stand as full offset to those shining examples; but mankind in general has an unfortunate disposition to make up its judgment by examining the prizes in the lottery, and entirely overlooking the blanks. A farm has many advantages in raising a family Which are not found in cities and villages. One of the most important is a strong, healthy growth, if the children are blessed with intelligent, sensible parents. One other advantage, which is seldom mentioned, but is not of less importance than the greatest—the children learn to use their hands, they learn to work. When a boy or girl has learned to do actual work as all work that pays has to be done, life’s battle is already half fought and won. And this in the main accounts for tho marked success which so often attends country boys who go to the cities, and why business men in the city prefer A smart country boy to a town-raised boy. The latter has learned bad habits; the country boy has learned to work. It may be that the new work differs somewhat in kind, but the hand and brain which have been taught the fundamental principles of labor very soon apply khowledge to the dmss of work claiming their attention. ' . Farming is slow business says the impatient yonth, but he is met with the proverb that “ The race is not always to the swift.” It is results in the long run to which we should look if farming is to be judged on its full merits. You cannot force a farm or a yoke of oxen much beyond a natural, steady gait, but treat both kindly and feed them well, and there is no other medium created for man’s benefit that will draw a heavy load through muddy roads (real or metaphorical) as safely and surely. There is another omission on the part of farmers, by which very many advantages derived from the farm are lost sight of, and this is the habitual neglect of correct farm accounts. If the farm was justly credited with all its supplies and charged with all the outlay it receives, it would receive many credits which is lost to it. This practice of keeping farm accounts, fallowed with regularity and the exeroise of sound judgment,‘would frequently be the means of detecting expensive outlays and unprofitable crops whioh could be avoided, and many sources of profit which escape notice would by this means be discovered and reoeive more attention. Whoever examines this question as an impartial searcher for truth will be sure to answer that the farm does not receive full credit.— . Kansas Farmer, --y- - —We are environed with a thousand influences that threaten our lives. Cold seeks to benumb us—heat to burn us—miasm to envelop us in its deadly man-tle-poison lurks in the things we daily taste and handle—while contagion stalks threateningly on either hand. The power that overcomes all these dangers, lies within our own organism. While in health we daily ana unconsciously repel myriads of, foes to our life. The body is like- an impregnable fortress to attacks from without until some wilyioe gains admittance within, and with traitor hand ruabars the door to merciless hosts.— Dr'. Foote's Health Monthly for May. —There are living at Fall River, Mass., a married pair whose united ages are more than 205 years. The husband, Francis Miner, was born in St. Marys, Canada, and was 102 years jold last January; the wife waa born in St. Charles, Canada, and will be 104 years old next November. The woman M ths more vigorous of the two, but both are obliged to keep their beds most ' of the time.