378 Bureau of Farmers' Institutes. 



"And now the honest farmer packs his apples up for town, 

 And this is the way they look on top, 





 

 



And this way further down." 



















There is never an effect without a cause, and why is the farmer 

 caricatured in the newspaper? On the stage he is " Uncle Josh." 

 Is it not because the unwritten laws of courtesy he often refuses 

 to learn? Rivalry is not considered a high motive, but, to raise a 

 heavy weight, we must have some kind of a lever. 



You may have all heard the story of the two rival farmers. 

 When one built a fine barn the other built a finer. When one got 

 a nice herd of cattle the other got one nicer and more expensive. 

 It went on in this way until one of them got in the cemetery and 

 the other rode past and saw his monument, on which was in- 

 scribed, " Snug as a bug in a rug." He ordered a monument for 

 himself, taller and nicer every way, and on it had inscribed, 

 " Snugger than the other bugger." 



To make your home nicer than your neighbor's is not a high 

 ambition, but it helps a community and increases the value of 

 real estate, and we should not be discouraged. Rural society is 

 better than it- was. People do not display their grief as much. 

 A funeral is no longer " a howling success," even in the back 

 neighborhoods. You need not be the slave of the woman who 

 wants to borrow flour and sugar and oat meal and coffee and eggs 

 and .the flatirons all the same day. Or the woman who visits you 

 twice a week (on her own invitation) and stays to dinner and 

 supper, and then goes and tells all the wide world, who will listen 

 to her, everything that is said and done in your house. The 

 sacredncss of home is nothing to her. The husband may make or 



