CHICKENS IN THE PLUM ORCHARD. 3OI 



2. Plum Orchard of Martin Penning. 



THE LIFE WORTH LIVING IN THE COUNTRY. 



MISS JIARGARET J. EVANS, NORTHFIELD. 



The object of life is the development of character, the perma- 

 nent element of life. Wherever right character is being devel- 

 oped, character fitted for immortality, there, in the midst of 

 appointed duties,, is life w^orth living. 



Country life and city life each develops right character. The 

 country-bred Washington and Lincoln and the city-bred Roose- 

 velt; the woman of the farm, Frances Willard, and the woman of 

 the city, Julia Ward Howe, give abundant evidence that, other 

 things being equal, one environment is as good as the other. 



The values of life are, however, enhanced when we know 

 that we have our full share of the pleasure and profits of living. 

 That country life offers its full share of these, who can deny? 



We find the physical pleasures of life in their fullness only in 

 the country. Pure air, the greatest blessing of physical exist- 

 ence, is unknown in the large cities. The soot-covered, dirt-filled 

 snow-drifts of a city street and the white snows of country fields 

 testify to the condition of throat and lungs in the two places. 

 Distinct diseases of the eye, the skin, the throat and lungs are 

 traceable to the flying filth of city streets. The exposure of 

 gelatine plates in Chicago showed for the best parts of the city 

 ten or twelve colonies of bacteria from the air, and for the worst 

 between sixty and seventy colonies. 



Pure air is the every day luxury of every country home with- 

 out and, when the cellar is free from decaying vegetables and the 

 housewife takes pains to let the breezes of heaven flow con- 

 stantly through her kitchen and her living rooms, within the 

 home also. 



Every city dweller and even traveler can speak feelingly of 

 the vain, never-satisfied longing in the large cities of America 



