396 STATE BOARD OF AGEICULTUEE. 



not wise who pay great prices for being wretched. There is no longer any 

 reason why farmers should not have intellectual and cultivated homes. They 

 possess all the sensibilities and capabilities of refinement which characterize 

 humanity. Their boys and girls are just as susceptible to wholesome home 

 influences and education as any. If while the country was new they have been 

 too busy laying the foundations of future fortunes, to study outward bearing 

 and inward culture, now, when our country has reached her majority, they 

 may begin to decorate homes and refine manners. They have the fonndation 

 for the finest manners in the world, — good sense, justice, kind hearts, quick 

 perception, and chivalry toward the weak. These qualities ought to bear fruit. 



However, well planned and well furnished houses are not the only essen- 

 tials to happy home life. There can be but imperfect enjoyment without 

 good health, kind feeling, good fellowship and cultured manners. Science 

 and art may invent splendid modes of illuminating the apartments of opu- 

 lence, but these are poor and worthless compared with the glorious sunlight 

 poured freely and impartially into all our windows ; so the common lights of 

 reason, and conscience, and love, and courtesy are of more worth and dignity 

 than the rare possessions which fortune gives the favored few. Wives and 

 children want something besides full purses and good sentiments, fine horses 

 in gilded harness, silks and jewelry ; even a flea-bitten lap-dog and a sickly 

 geranium in the window will not suflBce. They want attention, counsel, 

 sympathy, heart-succor and heart-support, intellectual and spiritual culture. 

 If they do not have these, who can wonder if home is a place of disorder 

 and distress? " He that provideth not for his own household hath denied the 

 faith, and is worse than an infidel." 



In his eagerness to acquire wealth the average American sacririces health 

 and comfort. He takes insufiicient sleep, pays too little attention to his food 

 and personal appearance, has no time for recreation, or mental and spiritual 

 growth, and he demands of his family the same sacrifice. Now in regard 

 to sleep : 



" The innocent sleep : 

 Sleep that knits up the ravelled sleave of care; 

 The death of each day's life, sore labor's bath; 

 Balm of hurt minds, great nature's second course; 

 Chief nourisher in life's feast ;" 



If Ben Franklin ever uttered the dictum, "Six hours sleep for a man, seven 

 for a woman, and eight for a fool," he ought to have taken the full eight 

 hours. Lying in bed for laziness is one thing, but defrauding the body of its 

 needed rest is quite another. There may be intemperance in early rising. 

 Take time by the forelock is well enough ; but if you take it by the fetlock it won't 

 kick ! The fine Durham steers which you are fattening for the fair, you do not 

 punch up at four o'clock in the morning with a pitchfork, and then offer 

 them frozen turnips and marsh hay! Aren't children as worthy of physical 

 culture as steers? Isn't a wife worthy of as much restful sleep? More women 

 are broken down by a lack of sleep, than in any other way. Sleep is as essen- 

 tial as food to vigorous health. Thrift on the farm, as anywhere else, depends 

 on physical vigor ; and sound sleep is the best preventive for disease as well as 

 the most effective medicine for irritability of temper, peevishness, and uneasi- 

 ness of any kind. The bed and its surroundings, then, should receive careful 

 attention. The farmer who has authority at home, who has a set time for 

 going to bed, the sooner after nine o'clock the better, when every member of 

 the household shall be ready for the main business of the night, no matter 



