292 Our Farming. 



every pleasant evening, after supper, with my wife, or to sit on 

 the lawn and enjoy the flowers, or walk around and see the grow- 

 ing crops. We never get tired of these pleasures and never get 

 enough. Although I am almost fifty years old, I enjoy taking 

 my girl out for a drive, in a nice, clean buggy, behind a good 

 horse, j"ust as much as I ever did. And I keep a horse on pur- 

 pose that does no other work. It is a real rest and pleasure to us 

 to sail along behind a young, fresh horse that just loves to go. 

 And I would bring up at an ice cream parlor a good deal oftener 

 than I do, if my wife was not afraid people would think us too 

 silly for old folks. And then, with our way of farming we can 

 leave home for a day, or several days, often, if we wish, during 

 the season. There are times when we must be here and push 

 things, perhaps, for half of the time during the summer, but even 

 then we can get a good deal of pleasure after the work is over 

 after 6 P. M. Now, you will remember that we could not do 

 this way, or did not, when we began farming, but we went at it 

 systematically to work it around until we could. Our farming 

 has all these years had a definite aim to live. Not merely to get 

 necessary food and shelter and clothing, but quite a little more, 

 and time and means to enjoy it. 



Many readers, doubtless, will not think they could get along 

 with only ten hours a day regular work for themselves and men. 

 But my experience is that good men, when they see that they are 

 to be well treated and given time for rest and recreation, will do 

 as much in ten hours as in more, on the average. Ten hours of 

 sharp work will accomplish as much as fourteen at a speed that 

 most men will take, or must take, in order to hold out. I am not 

 guessing about this, but know that for many years back, my men 

 have done as much cultivating, or got in as many loads of hay in 

 a ten-hour day, as any farmer gets done in a longer day by hired 

 help. And I do not blame the men. If I had to get up early to 

 milk, and work in the hay field until sundown at night, I should 

 be obliged to take a very moderate gait, in order to hold out, and 

 I do not believe I would hurry much if I could stand it. I should 

 feel that I was imposed on, and it is human nature to resent this. 

 I will employ only good men, and such will work faithfully when 

 too much is not required of them. Men work but ten hours in 

 town, and it is a shame if farming cannot be done on the same 

 basis. You wonder, perhaps, why all the best men go to town or 

 city to work now, and it is so hard to get good men. They do 

 just as you would, go where they can do best. To get good men 

 we must make the work as easy and pleasant as it is elsewhere, 

 not try to get out of them more for the money than any one else 

 does. You won't get it often if you do try. They will be as 

 sharp as you. The writer hired a man out of a mill in a large 

 city one season. He went back in the winter, but returned to my 

 farm in the spring. Hired men are very human, like ourselves. 



