farmers' institutes. T15 



womanhood; but life will be sweeter, fuller, aud haijpier if there has been 

 beauty, aud love, aud teuderuess along the way. 



Hardy shrubs aud vines, our native wild flowers and ferns may be had 

 in profusion. Once planted, they make of the farm home, '"a thing of 

 beauty aud a joy forever." 



The love of the beautiful is a power everywhere, let it have sway on 

 the farm. Every farm home should have an abundance of small fruits. 

 A farm without fruits is like a wilderness in a desert, while a berry patch 

 well-tilled is a health giving, happiness-producing investment, which helps 

 to make country life delightful. 



Much has been said about the drudgery of farm life and the discon- 

 tent of farmers' sons and daughters; but work is not drudgery if we love 

 to do it. It is the fret aud worry aud discontent that makes any work 

 irksome. Energetic, interested, enthusiastic work of any kind is not 

 drudgery. 



Much sympathy is being wasted on "The Man With the Hoe." Many 

 a farmer's son or daughter sighs and longs for city life. In the city they 

 sti'uggle miserably and hopelessly as an underpaid and overworked no- 

 body, when they might be enjoying the broader, freer, safer, better life 

 on the old home farm. 



Many a treadmill merchant in the city is homesick for the green fields 

 and sunny skies of his boyhood days, and longs to rest his tired head in 

 the lap of Mother Nature. 



"Ay! he's the man- to pity and point the tale of woe. 



Who hath no place to plant a seed and help to make it grow. 



Whose heart is brick and mortar, whose life is soulless barter, 



A million miles from God's sweet world, 



The man, without the hoe." 



The average farmer of this section should cultivate a smaller area 

 and cultivate better. The smaller farm can be brought to a higher state 

 of fertility and by thorough tillage the ettects of drouth may be at least 

 partially overcome. 



How many farmers in Fountain County cultivate to the point of the 

 "dust mulch" to insure a crop in the times of drouth? Yet, in such culti- 

 vation lies the only hope of a crop without rain. 



We must utilize the waste land on the farm I)y making permanent 

 pastures for stock and yards for poultry. Thou remove unnecessary 

 fences; thus reclaiming fence rows and weed patches for valualile crops. 



By intensified farming, simplified living aiid careful economy the 

 farmer and his household may find time for reading and self culture. 



Farm work should be so planned, systematized, and so energetically 

 pursued, that the sons and daughters may be given leisure to find rest 

 and amusement in favorite sports and games, to read a good book, to 

 swing in the orchard, to climl) up into llie old linden free that stands in 



