Publisher's Synopsis
Excerpt from Farming for Profit: A Handbook for the American Farmer, a Practical Work, Devoted to Agriculture and Mechanics, Fruit-Growing and Gardening, Live-Stock, Business Principles, Home Life, and Showing How to Make Money, Preserve Health and Secure Happiness on the Farm
The farmer should keep himself and his family supplied with reading of the best quality, and plenty of time in which to use it should be taken. Like the men in all other callings the farmer needs books and papers which are devoted to his special pursuit. The attempt to get along without them is ruinous. In these days of close competition the man who is to succeed must be well informed. Ignorance cannot successfully compete with knowledge. The boys, too, need these books and papers in order to give them an intelligent comprehension of the methods which should be pursued, and to lead them. To take an active interest in the farm work. But they should not be restricted to this class of reading. The best papers for the young should be furnished, and the newspapers should also be supplied so that they and their sisters may know what is going on in the world. The wife and mother should not be forgotten, but some good home magazine should be taken for her especial benefit. She needs something of this kind still more than the other members of the family. She is tied more closely to the home, her duties are very exacting, and her health is often poor. The monotonous drudgery of isolated farm life has a terribly destructive effect if it is not counteracted by the rest and recreation which is always needed but seldom taken. When the ceaseless round has been too long followed the health of body or mind, or both, will give way. The asylums for the insane contain a very large proportion of farmers' wives brought theic by the combined effects of overwork and a monotonous life. The magazine and newspaper lead the thoughts into new channels, occupy the mind with subjects outside of its ordinary routine, and thus refresh the body while preserving the health of the mind.
The farmer and his family all need periods of rest and recreation. An occasional day spent in visiting friends will be positively beneficial to the health, and will give an increased efficiency to the labor which is performed as well as properly develop the social feelings. The grange has proved an immense aid to farmers and their families in these as well as in other directions. There was a great need of something which should lead them out of themselves, and break up the isolation and routine in which their lives were involved. Lectures and occasional concerts should also be attended, but all low shows, and even the ordinary grade of the circus, should be carefully avoided. A good managerie is an excellent thing for children and grown people to see, but many of the shows which travel around the country are of little value, and in some respects are extremely harmful. It is a good plan to give the last half of each Saturday afternoon to the boys and girls for their own enjoy ment. Instead of trying, as too many do, to crowd about a third more work into Saturday than they perform any other day of the week, the farmers should make its labor lighter, and finish it early.
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