ILLINOIS STATE DAIRYMEN'S ASSOCIATION. 93 



matter for the boys and girls in your home, and keep the bad 

 books and papers away from them. 



Now, I want to talk a little about farm work. You don't 

 want to hear about that, you hear too much about it.^ I want 

 to tell you I believe that work is one of the most blessed boons 

 that God ever gave to humanity. You think you are having a 

 hard time. You don't know anything about hard times, the 

 farmers here in these United States of America haven't an idea 

 of what hard times mean. Think what it would be not to have 

 a single stroke of labor to do for weeks and weeks. You go 

 with me into your city of St. Louis or into Chicago, and there 

 are men and women just as good as you and I begging for work 

 and there is no work for them. There is nothing that will rob 

 a man of his manhood so fast as enforced idleness. Suppose 

 your work should be taken away from you and that to-morrow 

 there should be no more chores to do, no milking, no work of 

 any kind. I tell you that you would be perfectly miserable. 

 We ought to be thankful that we have this work and it is the 

 salvation of the family upon the farm that the boy and girl each 

 has work to do, something to keep them busy. I know some- 

 times we get discouraged and feel that we work pretty hard and 

 get small pay, but isn't that better than no work and no pay.^ 

 The truth is that there isn't one of you to-day but can set out a 

 meal fit for a king right from your own cellar and pantry and 

 dairy, and yet you are complaining that you are having hard 

 times living upon the farm. There is no one of your children 

 will go bare footed, nor will any of you suffer with cold unlesss 

 you are too shiftless to get wood. We have enough and to spare, 

 and let us be thankful that we are living upon the farm. 



We do not appreciate our farm homes, we do not appreciate 

 each other and we do not appreciate our little children as we 

 ought to. Keep close to your children, don't let them get away 

 from you, they will get away from you of necessity quite soon 

 enough. 



Then, pardon me, if I ask you husbands and wives to appre- 

 <:iate each other better. I have felt that we farmers' wives 

 failed to appreciate the devotion, the entire concentration of our 



