162 Missouri Agricultural Report. 



ing. If she has a club paper or some talk to make at the mis- 

 sionary meeting, this is the time when she will formulate her best 

 ideas. Or if some knotty problem of the home presents itself, here 

 she will devise ways and means of solving it, and the result never 

 reveals its origin by the smell of soapsuds clinging to it. The try- 

 ing out of some new recipe, although it may call forth greater 

 activities, fails to cause weariness of body and mind, because of our 

 interest and success in the work in hand. Mental workers often 

 find more real rest in change of subjects rather than in cessation of 

 brain toil, and in a great measure is this true of physical efforts. 

 Upon every side we hear of the preponderance of farm women 

 in the insane asylum. A New York physician investigated the sub- 

 ject in his own state, and his report shows that only twenty per 

 cent of the women in the New York asylums were from the farm 

 and small towns, the cities producing the remaining part. If this 

 be true of his state, we have reasons to believe that it is true also 

 in Missouri. 



You who love flowers, and you must grow them to really love 

 them, can appreciate the rest that comes in caring for their wants. 

 Just what name to give this subtle power is a problem, but since 

 color plays so important a part in the beauty and harmony of na- 

 ture's scheme, can it not be that our sleeping souls respond more 

 fully to the brightness and cheer of their color rather than their 

 form or perfume? You recall the woman who preserved the 

 elasticity of body and mind by never walking when, she could ride, 

 never standing when she could sit and never sat up when she 

 could lie down. There is a far deeper meaning in this for women 

 than is apparent at first. 



We need more systematic planning of both work and play in 

 order to recover and retain the buoyancy of spirit and youth before 

 we can infuse it into our home making. 



