ADDKESS. 



Farmers' Homes: What They Were, Are, and Ought To Be. 



A comfortable home is the end of all men's labors. The work of the world, 

 the plowing, hoeing, manufacturing, building, mining, fishing, preaching, 

 pleading, writing and fighting, are all done to secure to every man the quiet 

 enjoyment, in connection with his family, of a comfortable retreat after the 

 labors of the day are over. The advancing civilization of five thousand years 

 is shown by no one thing more than by the difference between the tent of Abra- 

 ham with its rude furniture, and an elegant modern house, with its carpets, 

 sofas, mirrors, pianos, pictures, stoves, mattresses, secretaries, closets, bow- 

 windows, libraries and newspapers. 



The outside surroundings of the ancient tent must have contrasted as strongly 

 with those of a modern house, as did the interiors. Removing as the nomadic 

 tribes did, from place to place,. as the season or the wants of their flocks and 

 herds demanded, there was no opportunity for planting trees, shrubbery and 

 flow r ers, no thoughts of orchards, or culture of fruit of any kind, no lawns with 

 serpentine walks and cooling fountains, no ice-houses, or out-buildings of any 

 sort, no gardens, scarcely anything which gives to a modern house a comfort- 

 able, home-like look. Abraham was a prince in the land of Canaan, "was very 

 rich in cattle and silver and gold,"' had such a retinue of servants that he took 

 three hundred and eighteen of them, trained for war. when he went out to fight 

 with Chedorlaomer, who had captured Sodom and Gomorrah and taken captive 

 Lot, his brother's son, who had pitched his tent tow T ards Sodom; but, notwith- 

 standing all his wealth of cattle, precious metals and servants, how comfortless 

 must have been his rooms, how desolate the surroundings of his tent, pitched on 

 the mountain east of Bethel, or in the plain of Mamre, compared with the home 

 of any well-to-do Berkshire farmer. 



Comfortless as was the tent life of the patriarchs in the land of Canaan, still 

 the tent was their home. In this were sheltered their wives and children, and 

 here were centered their warmest affections. For the support of the inmates 

 of this lowly home they labored diligently, tending their flocks by day and 

 night, in summer's sun and winter's rain. For the defence of this home, and 



