FARMER'S HOME, PAST AND FUTURE. 213 



labor, always has a tendency to diminish the amount of land 

 in each farm. 



The time is coming, though perhaps a long way off, when 

 the surplus product of our land will come from a multitude 

 of small farms representing pleasant, thrifty homes, instead 

 of from great plantations representing nothing but land- 

 robbery and unsettled wandering wage-labor. And the 

 products of our soil will be more and more consumed in our 

 land, as new branches of manufacturing spring up to supply 

 the materials now purchased abroad. 



Believing this to be the inevitable result from the very 

 nature of soil itself, and from human nature, which seeks 

 diversity of employment, we ask ourselves what can be done 

 to make those homes what they ought to be, so that the life 

 in them shall reach its fulness of physical, intellectual, and 

 social enjoyment. And the few words I shall say in answer 

 to this question I shall speak to ourselves, as we certainly 

 are to begin or carry on the work, if we have not already 

 begun it. And one pleasant thing we have to say at the 

 outset is, that all that is needed is for the good work to go 

 on in general in the same line it has been going for the last 

 forty years. We call for no revolution, no change of tactics, 

 but only for that quickened sense of reform which has done 

 much, but has thus far failed to complete its work, and that 

 ready hand to labor, which, when rightly directed, can secure 

 success just as easily as failure. 



The first idea we waut to see prominent on every farm is, 

 that its chief end is hotne, and that the highest product of 

 the farm — that for which all others are simply conditions — 

 is men and women. We counsel the owners of farms to 

 see that the fruits are the best that can be raised, that the 

 animals are of the best breeds ; but we want, above all, that 

 every son shall go forth from the farmhouse with good edu- 

 cation, trained to honest labor, with a sense of his duty 

 towards his fellow-men, his country, and his God ; and every 

 daughter with equal training, certain then that she will find 

 her own sphere through that womanly instinct implanted in 

 her nature which needs only culture and a fair chance to 

 make her the blessing to the world which all good women 

 are. 



To make men and women, we need to secure for them the 



