SOCIAL LIFE OF THE FARMER. 123 



to surprise you. There will be found not a little, in the 

 mutual admiration thus elicited, to heal family jars, and to 

 bring back the experiences of courtship and of the honey- 

 moon. 



NEIGHBORHOOD FELLOWSHIP. 



As a further means of improvement, let more be made of 

 good-neighborliood fellowship, not only in the way of occa- 

 sional social gatherings, but by stated organizations that 

 shall combine some object of information and intellectual 

 improvement with social enjoyment. A debating-club or 

 reading-club, kept up regularly during the winter months in 

 the district schoolhouse, or at the farmhouses in turn, 

 would do wonders, in the course of years, to remedy the defi- 

 ciencies in the farmer's life. Magazine and book clubs 

 would supply, at slight cost to the individual good, reading- 

 matter for whole neighborhoods. In my town we have a 

 farmers' club, now more than twenty years old, that has ac- 

 complished much, not only in improving the methods of 

 agriculture, but in quickening the intellectual and social life 

 of its members. Why should there not be a similar organi- 

 zation in every town? It is not a thing to be deplored, that 

 some of the social customs of the fathers died Avith them. 

 The husking-bees, and other similar gatherings, with their 

 rum and hard cider, with their late hours and coarse jollity, 

 are mainly extinct ; and may they never return ! But may 

 there not be something in their pilace, of a different kind, to 

 meet the more refined wants of the present age ? 



INTERCOURSE WITH MEN. 



Again, let the farmer consider it a duty which he owes to 

 himself, to improve to the utmost his opportunities for min- 

 gling with his fellow-men. Let him imitate the example of 

 professional and business men in taking a brief yearly vaca- 

 tion, when he may freshen up his mind by contact with new 

 men and new scenes. Let him make an occasional trip to 

 the city. Let him not shun public duty when it falls natu- 

 rally to his lot. Do not seek office, but, if it comes, consider 

 it as much your duty as anybody's to suffer and draw a sal- 

 ary for your country's sake. There is no telling, you know, 

 nowadays, where the political lightnings may strike; and 



