516 IOWA DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



and the relations between employer and employee are not always satis- 

 factory on the farm any more than in the factory. All over the country 

 there is a constant cor.iplaint of paucity of farm labor. Without at- 

 tempj:ing to go into all ihe features of this question I would like to point 

 out that you can never get the right kind, the best kind, of labor if you 

 offer employment only for a few months, for no man worth anything will 

 permanently accept a system which leaves him in idleness for half the 

 year. 



A WORD REGARDING THE FARMER'S FAMILY. 



And most important of all, I wanr to say a special word on behalf 

 of the one who is too often the very hardest worked laborer on the 

 farm — the farmer's wife. Reform, like charity, while it should not end 

 at home, should certainly begin there; and the man, whether he lives 

 on a farm or in a town, who is anxious to see better social and economic 

 conditions prevail through the country at large, should be exceedingly care- 

 ful that they prevail first as regards his own womankind. I emphatically 

 believe that for the great majority of women the really indispensable in- 

 dustry in which they should engage is the industry of the home. There 

 are exceptions, of course; but exactly as the first duty of the normal man 

 is the duty of being the home maker, so the first duty of the normal 

 woman is to be the home keeper; and exactly as no other learning is as 

 important for the average man as the learning which will teach him how 

 to make his livelihood, so no other learning is as important for the aver- 

 age woman as the learning which will make her a good housewife and 

 mother. But this does not mean that she should be an overworked 

 drudge. I have hearty sympathy with the movement to better the con- 

 dition of the average tiller of the soil, or of the average wageworker, and I 

 have an even heartier sympathy and applause for the movement which is 

 to better the condition of their i-espective wives. There is plenty that is 

 hard and rough and disagreeable in the necessary work of actual life; 

 and under the best circumstances, and no matter how tender and con- 

 siderate the husband, the wife will have at least her full share of worlv 

 and worry and anxiety; but if the man is worth his salt he will try to 

 take as much as possible of the burden off the shoulders of his help- 

 mate. There is nothing Utopian in the movement; all that is necessary 

 is to strive toward raising the average, both of men and women, to the 

 level on which the highest type of family now stands, among American 

 farmers, among American skilled mechanics, among American citizens 

 generally; for in all the world there is no better and healthier home life. 

 no finer factory of individual character, nothing more representative of 

 wliat is best and most characteristic in American life than that which 

 exists in the higher type of American family; and this higher type of 

 family is to be found everywhere among us, and is the property of no 

 special group of citizens. 



The best crop is the crop of children; the best products of the farm 

 are the men and women raised thereon; and the most instructive and 

 practical treatise on farming, necessary though they be, are no more 

 necessary than the books which teach us our duty to our neighbor, and 

 above all to the neighbor who is of our own household. You young 



