PA in X. 



Papers on Live Stock, Agricultural and Miscellaneous 

 Topics, Bulletins, Etc. 



THE RURAL SOCIAL CENTER. 



IJY Mas. E. E. VAN HOUTEN, HAMUCJ'j;, IOWA. 



(Iload bf;foro the Farrriors Institute, Sidney, Iowa.) 



In tlie current press, two widely diverging pictures of farm life are 

 given UH. A sen.sational writer visits a tenant home where abject 

 poverty reigns supreme, and in vivid language portrays the drudgery 

 which he claims is the common lot of farm women. At great length 

 he dwells upon the loneliness, the monotony, and the narrowness of 

 vision which these women know, forgetful of the fact that their city 

 sisters In like financial straits have much less of all (save loneliness, 

 perhaps) that goes to make life enjoyable and worth the living. 



On the other hand, a rural enthusiast is entertained at some palatial 

 farm residence, and lui tells us in glowing terms of the luxury of present 

 day country life. He pictures the mistress of broad acres as indeed 

 queen of her realm. In her strictly modern home are to be found all 

 the conveniences of the most luxurious city apartment house. A gaso- 

 line engine is her obedient servant, performing the most menial tasks 

 with matchle.ss skill and dexterity, while a magnificent touring car is 

 hers to command whenever the call of the open road shall lure her from 

 the peace and quietude of her enviable habitation. 



But you and I know that neither the one nor the other is the 

 true picture of typical country life. The typical country woman is a 

 wonrian of moderate means. She may be the wife of an enter- 

 j)rising tenant farmer, or her home may be burdened by a slowly 

 decreasing mortgage. In either case, she realizes how necessary it 

 is, indeed, that she practice the strictest economy. To be sure, she 

 dresses herself and her children neatly, and the best of reading mat- 

 ter finds its way to her table. She has plenty of all the necessities of 

 life and yet there is much in her surroundings she would change if 

 she could. Her neat little cottage is not modern, and she and the chil- 

 dren grow almost resentful sometimes because the water bucket and the 

 wood box are, as the children put it, "eternally empty." The money 

 that should have gone for a gasoline engine and fixtures, had to build 

 a new hog shed and pay the interest, and "John's" promise to pipe the 

 water into the house was tactfully forgotten by his wife because crops 

 were so poor in their locality. And there is monotony. During the 

 busy seasons of the year when even the poky old driving horse must 



