1884.] THE EDUCATIONAL INFLUENCES OF THE FARM. 189 



education in forethought, in making some provision for the 

 future. 



The ground is plowed, that it may be sown to grain, but even 

 this is not an end ; the seed is sown for a crop to be harvested long 

 months ahead. It is a provision for a future want. The crop is care- 

 fully tended, not for to-day's dinner, nor to-night's supper, but for a 

 distant harvest. The wood is cut and hauled, no matter if the 

 weather be warm and fair, it is needed for the winters storms some 

 months ahead. Even harvest is not the end ; the grain must still 

 be threshed. Potatoes are dug and stored for future use; secured 

 with toil to-day, housed, where, perhaps in the way, and all submit- 

 ted to as a provision for a future want. There is even much look- 

 ing ahead still further. Fields are cleared of stone, fences made, 

 drains dug, sheds built whose use is to be for long years to come. 

 He sees animals anxiously reared which will require years of care 

 before they have value for use. Orchards are set out which will 

 not bear fruit for years; and so on through all the varied work of 

 the farm, scarcely anything is for to-day, all the operations are for 

 the future. All th.e toil, and exposure, and care, are for results 

 that are not immediate and sure; they must be waited for, and even 

 then are uncertain. Moreover, for much of this, it not only requires 

 preparation long before for a successful result, but it also requires 

 anxious and often laborious care continually during the interval; 

 one continual looking ahead and providing for the future. 



Perhaps the most prominent feature in this experience of the 

 child is that this care and forethought is essential to success in all 

 the details of the business, the farmer must toil to-day for a dis- 

 tant result, work now to supply a distant want not yet felt, present 

 self-sacrifice for some future good, the actual value of which can- 

 not be predicted until realized. 



Nearly everything we enjoy he has seen thus provided for long 

 before. The green corn at to-day's dinner, he knows where it comes 

 from; he may remember that he was kept home from school a day 

 to drop the seed in the spring, long ago to him. The butter on 

 winter's buckwheat cakes, he saw it churned and laid down in the 

 fall, he remembers when the hogs were killed and the pork 

 salted down, when the apples were put in the cellar, and so on of 

 much that is used. Operations indoors, and out, are all an educa- 

 tion in prudent forethought, work to-day to provide for the future, 



