690 ANNUAL REPORT OF THE Off. Doc. 



while that our Fanners' Institulcs. Aj;ii('iil(nral DcpartiTKnits, Col- 

 h'l^es and press should scoop out of the past as well as the present 

 and future for even so ranch, as in our reckoning, are lost and buried 

 future for even so much, as in our reckoning, are lost and buried 

 methods. 



NEIGHBORLINESS. 



Thus, esteemed editors and proprietors, how we want to read of 

 human nature under farm and rural home conditions! And again, 

 when will that beautiful but lost farm ueighborliness come back! 

 Burgess Pennypacker of West Chester is leading off in a restoration 

 of this now, lost ueighborliness among the farmers of Chester county, 

 in that he goes about doing good having one farmer and wife ac- 

 company himself and wife on a visit to another neighbor and wife, 

 or to several neighbors and their wives; and no more good-promoting 

 farm letters go to any agricultural journal than those of Friend 

 Pennypacker to our local press. In old political days my — Uncle 

 Billy S. was a Whig, Jerome M., his neighbor, a "lokie" as called. 

 Uncle Billy read the Whig Village Record and his neighbor Jerome 

 read the Democratic Jeffersonian. The two papers had two stories 

 totally differing as to public men and atfairs. Thus the heads of 

 the two old farmers were being continually knocked together and 

 they never could in the sweetest sense of the word, neighbor, or their 

 wives or children at that time. They vented their indisposition by 

 entering into a contest over the weight of pigs. Well, the Whigs 

 bet with Uncle Billy and the "Lokies" with Jerome. As a sequence 

 the pigs were all fat, and the Avives, like Mrs. Spratt, got no lean. 

 This was, however, only exceptional. Farm life in the olden days and 

 nights, too, was marked by a constant dropping in of neighbors .and 

 the husking bee, apple stirrings and quiltings were the real thing. 

 Every social turnout meant a farm or household gain. Even on their 

 way over the little dells, or hills or meadow^s, our grandmothers 

 would knit as they looked about them to see what was doing in farm 

 operations. The old folks opposed dancing because they deemed 

 that like Vesuvius there was nothing in it but Satanic fire — no dol- 

 lars or, most to them, cents. 



THE "HEARTH AND HOME." 



On a shelf in our library may be found a pack of a weekly and wel- 

 come visitor during the years 1869 and 1870 — a visitor of thirty-four 

 and thirty-five years ago and as yet readable. Few there be now 

 who may remember the ''Hearth and Home" edited b}' Donald G. 

 Mitchell, author of ''My Farm at Edgewood," still among my old 

 books and still enjoyable. Mr. Mitchell was also "Ike Marvel" of 

 "Dream Life" and "Reveries of a Bachelor." Another Editor-in- 

 Chief was Harriet Beecher Stowe, author of "Uncle Tom's Cabin," 

 and "We and Our Neighbors." Mrs. Stowe was a member of the 

 wonderful Beecher family. The assistant editors were, first, 

 M. B. Lyman, a connection of the Beechers, and the unknown 

 but great force behind the agricultural columns of the New 

 York Tribune, who, with Horace Greeley and George Geddes, sent 

 the Weekly and the Semi-Weekly Tribune afar among the farmers 

 of the Northern states. The other assistant was Mary B. Dodge, 

 long editor of the St. Nicholas and author of many delightful books. 



