Insurance. 343 



Some good fire insurance company should add this to their policy 

 against fire and lightning, charging a trifle more. For example, 

 I pay my company $76.40 for $8,400 fire and lightning insurance, 

 and pay the same company $28 for $3,500 cyclone insurance. 

 They could well afford to put them together into one policy for 

 $84, and issue no separate policies. Lightning was added into 

 fire insurance policies in this way, and sooner or later some 

 enterprising company will add loss from wind. If every reader 

 of this book should send a postal card to their company asking 

 for this, I predict we would get it. 



Next -we come to life insurance. Should farmers keep their 

 lives insured? Sometimes, yes; and sometimes, no. Suppose a 

 man with a wife and, perhaps, a baby or two, runs in debt largely 

 for a farm. Suppose again that he should be taken away suddenly 

 while this debt hangs over him. Now, under these circumstances, 

 there is no question but what this farmer should get his life 

 insured for the benefit of his almost helpless wife and babies. 

 It is a duty that he owes them, now that life insurance is so safe 

 and so reasonable in its cost. His good wife is so encumbered 

 that she cannot take care of herself as she could before she was 

 married. I can hardly see how a man can love his family and 

 not take this precaution for their welfare in' case of his death. 

 Now, remember, this is where the business of the farmer is in such 

 shape that there would be little or nothing left for the family in 

 1 case an administrator had to settle his estate. When the writer 

 was in this condition financially (babies and all) he kept an 

 insurance on his life, in favor of his wife first and children second, 

 for $3,000. This was kept up until the farm was paid for and 

 some improvements made. Then the policy was reduced about 

 half, and so carried for a time, so that in case of my death my 

 wife could have a little ready money, enough to keep her along a 

 year or two, until she could sell the farm to advantage or make 

 arrangements to continue on it. This might help her to get 

 married again ? Yes, and all right if she thought best ; but I did 

 not want her simply forced to get married for a home. Any larger 

 insurance than this did not seem to me wise, where one was in 

 debt, or needing all the money made for improving his farm, or 

 taking better care of his family. There is a proper balance in all 

 such things. For a poor man to carry a large policy of, say, 

 $10,000, and scrimp his family from day to day, to save money to 

 pay his premiums, I would consider a misuse of life insurance. 

 To practice even close economy so as to provide reasonably against 

 possible misfortune in the future, is wise and prudent. In other 

 words, I would not make a speculation of life insurance. I would 

 make proper use of it as of other good things. The great life 

 insurance companies are pretty big institutions, but they know the 

 power of the pen. One of them learning of the ground I took 

 at our institutes, and wrote about in papers, sent one of their 



