THE GENESEE FARMER. 



^^f 



The expense of supporting the poor is every yeai* becoming more and more expensive, 

 with the discouraging and moi'tifjing assurance that the very method taken to relieve 

 them is augmenting their numbers. Now, for economy's sake, if .not for the sake of 

 liumanity, let as many as possible T)e provided with homes. No sober, industrious man, 

 who owns the smallest place that could be called a home, ever need fear a poor-house. 

 In case of sickness or casualty, neighbors would render every needful assistance. If 

 every able farmer would assist hut one laborer in procuring a home, and occasionally 

 give him a little encouragement and advice, he would render him a more important 

 service than if he were to supply his family with bread ; besides, it would furnish an 

 example for others of the same class, which they would soon become ashamed not to 

 imitate. An acre of ground could be purchased and a comfortable tenement erected, in 

 ahuost any agricultural district, for two hundred dollars ; and any healthy, industrious 

 laborer could easily pay for it in four annual installments ; for an acre of ground, if 

 skillfully cultivated, would in the mean time contribute largely to the suppoit of his 

 family, and furnish those who were not old enough to get work abroad with something 

 to do towards earning their own living. Improving and embellishing a little homestead 

 would also afford the laborer both profit and pleasure during his spare time, which he 

 would otherwise be very likely to spend in the nearest bar-room. What a delightful 

 change would soon be effected in country scenery, if every laborer were provided Avith a 

 home of his own. Instead of old, dilapidated dwellings and temporary shanties, scarcely 

 affording a shelter, we should see neat little cottages and gardens, snugly ensconced in 

 their groves of fruit trees, sprinkled over the country, forming no unpleasing contrast 

 with the homes of the more opulent. 



I believe all children are by nature agriculturists ; I never knew one who was not 

 fond of cultivating fruit or flowers. And what man or woman is there, who wais so for- 

 tunate as to have been brought up on an acre of ground, who does not remember the 

 interest they have taken during childhood in some particular tree or flower, and th» 

 assiduity with which they labored early and late, in hoeing, weeding, and watering their 

 plants, till they not unfrequently killed the poor things with kindness. I once knew a 

 poor little invalid who was confined to her room, and mostly to her bed, for nearly two 

 vears before her death, who had a tin pan filled with earth, kej)t on a stand at the head 

 of her bed, which she called -her garden. This she divided into compartments of various 

 sizes with a little paling made of bits of shingle, and in these she planted seeds produ- 

 cing plants of the smallest growth. These served to employ more or less of her time 

 every day, till they began to droop, or became too large for their small enclosures ; then 

 she would have a return of spring — clear up her garden, move her fences, cultivate her 

 ground, and plant again, with as. 'much variation as possible from her former plan, and 

 watch and tend with as much interest as before. Of all other diversions invented to 

 amuse her and relieve the tediousness of her confinement, she would after a time become 

 weary ; this alone afforded her a permanent source of enjoyment. I am confident that 

 if children were provided with comfortable homes, with the privilege of cultivating fruits, 

 vegetables, and flowers, (of which they should not only be partakers, but sharers in the 

 [)rofits,) it would prove a far more efiicacious as well as a cheaper antidote for juvenile 

 delincjuences and vagrancy, than the best disciplined penitentiary that ever existed. 



l^uilding poor-houses, and giving old clothes and broken victuals, is poor charity ; it 

 debases the recipient, affords only temporary relief, and will never lessen pauperism. 

 The most effectual and only permanent method of helping the poor, consists in helping 

 them to help themselves. 



M^ ^j,X 



