SIXTH ANNUAL YEAR BOOK — PART VIII. 833 



larger way than mere dollars and cents. It will sweeten up sour natures 

 and let the sunshine In. You are more likely to extend a kindly feeling 

 and a helping hand to the wife and children and your tellowmen, and they 

 in turn may be led to return payment to you in gratitude and care for 

 your comfort — these are the little amenities of life that lead to a reciproc- 

 ity which a minority of the Senate can never nullify. 



Look over the meadows and pastures in April for thin spots and sow 

 them liberally with grass seed. If sown early they will grow up for hay 

 the same season and at haying time you will have one solid mass of grass, 

 the kind that makes three ton per acre. Detail keeps the fences up and 

 saves the damage to crops by trespassing stock and helps to make good 

 neighbors. Good fences also add an air of thrift to a farm, w^hich of it- 

 self is a pleasant thing for the farmer and his family to see and with 

 them are no nightly visions of fifty head of cattle holding revelry of 

 destruction in the grain fields, and they will not waken from the night- 

 mare in the morning to find the dream come true. 



We ought not to come to the farm yards and buildings last and many 

 men wouldn't. If thej- had been given proper attention their owner would 

 be so proud of the result that he would want to discuss that phase of the 

 subject first because the house would look comfortable and neat, painted 

 tastefully and reveling in beautiful surroundings, shaded walks, well- 

 kept lawns — brightened up with fiowers and shrubs — and in the back- 

 ground a glimpse of well planted garden and orchard, and grouped upon 

 the flanks the ample farm buildings and tidy yards for the stock — a 

 veritable oasis of rest and thrift and comfort where a man might forgat 

 time and trouble in the joy of his surroundings. The other picture ' 

 doesn't need describing for most of us can see glimpses of it at home. 

 It is all wrong, neighbors, to keep so busy always that we neglect tho 

 home surroundings and let the hogs and cattle rob us of a beautiful and 

 comfortable place to live in. It is a fact, too, that we grow to be like our 

 surroundings to quite an extent, and it really does not pay to live liter- 

 ally with hogs unless possibly it might be for a short time to prevent too 

 long and too close companionship with too large a mortgage. You will 

 not only enjoy life better and in a better way by living in a beautiful 

 home but your children will be better satisfied with the life on the farm, — 

 willing to return to it from their school life and you will have the satis- 

 faction of seeing more of them planning a life like yours where the best of 

 town and country meet. It is the ideal life, or cah be made so, and it is 

 good to have an ideal in life even though we miss the full realization as 

 far as the young lady you have all heard of did. You remember how 

 that when Jim asked her to marry she answered him that her ideal cal- 

 led for a man with $10,000 at least, and how that when Jim came back 

 again after ten year's wrestle with the worl'd and reported for her ap- 

 proval that he had saved most $19.00, this girl with an ideal and the 

 golden hair said, "Dear Jim, you've done nobly and that's near enough." 

 They found, as we all may, that the humdrum of daily toil may be made 

 a labor of love just as this once wilderness of prairie is fast being 

 turned into gardens of Eden. 



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