690 IOWA DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



becoming commercialized? What of the home influences? Do they tend 

 toward piety and reverence? 



We live in Iowa, the banner agricultural and live stock state of the 

 union. Iowa, small in illiteracy, great in political prestige. Iowa, with 

 her newspapers, schools and colleges. Iowa, blest of generous heaven, 

 may the life of the Mitchell county farmer but add to her laurels. May 

 his ideals be lofty, his purposes noble. In the midst of so much complex- 

 ity of life may he still retain simplicity and purity. May charity in thought 

 and word be his. May he be upright, honest, honorable. May he build 

 character, pure, steadfast and undefined. May time show that worldly 

 prosperity shall not be undoing but rather shall be a power in his hands 

 for the hastening of the time when love is law and all men shall broth- 

 ers be. 



ENTERTAINING ON THE FARM. 



Mrs. Belle Miller-Dunn, before the Page County Farmers' institute. 



The essence of good entertainment is the spirit in which we entertain. 

 Our own happiness is so interwoven with the happiness of others that we 

 cannot seek our own highest interests without being mindful of the wel- 

 fare of others. No matter how humble a person may be, if they regard 

 us enough to enter our home they have honored us and are worthy of our 

 cordial hospitality. I know it is natural to be unresponsive and unsympa- 

 thetic towards some and there are times when we are not in the mood for 

 entertaining; but let us rise above self and we will not forget our ailments 

 and trials in becoming engrossed with the welfare of others. 



Entertaining is a grand school for studying human nature. As the 

 honey bee sips nectar from the flower, so may we absorb knowledge and 

 develop latent possibilities from social intercourse with our visitors. En- 

 tertaining does not consist in vieing with one another in the display of 

 costly tables and fine dwellings. I have been in finely furnished homes 

 where the very atmosphere seemed to freeze me because of the stiffness 

 and formality of the family. Then I have been in homes where wealth 

 and luxury had no part, yet the warmth and sunshine that seemed to 

 radiate from the hostess more than compensated for the poor surround- 

 ings. While attending college my roommate and I once took dinner with 

 one of her friends. It was in a humble cottage and the meal consisted 

 simply of bread, butter and coffee. The bread was faultless, the butter 

 gilt-edged and the coffee of the best. The hospitality of the genial hostess 

 gave us a keen appetite for the simple, home-made food, which tasted extra 

 good beside the oleo butter and baker's bread we had been used to at col- 

 lge. What need was there for apologies? 



Harriet Beecher Stowe has said, "There would be more obedience to 

 the apostolic injunction, 'Be not forgetful to entertain strangers,' if it 

 could be gotten into the heads of well meaning people what it is that 



