Make your homes pleasant. Have your 
houses warm and comfortable for the winter. 
Do not build a story and a half house. The half 
story is simply au oven in which, during the 
summer, you will bake every night, and feel in 
the morning as though only a rind of yourself 
was left. Decorate your rooms, even if you do 
so with cheap engravings. The cheapest are far 
better than none. Have books, have papers and 
read them. You have more leb-ure hours than 
the dwellers in the city. Beautity your grounds 
with plants and flowers and vines. Have good 
gardens. Remember that everything of beauty 
tends to the elevation of man. Every little mor¬ 
ning glory, whose purple bosom is thrilled with 
the amorous kisses of the sun, tends to put a 
blossom in your heart. Do not judge of the val¬ 
ue of everything by the market reports. Every 
flower about the house certifies to the refinement 
of somebody. Every vine, < limbing and blos¬ 
soming, tells of love and joy. 
There is no reason why farmers should not 
be the kindest and most cultivated of men. 
There is nothing in plowing the fields to make 
men cross, cruel and crabbed. To look upon the 
sunny slopes covered does not to? d to make men 
unjust Whoever labors tor the happiness of 
those he loves, elevates himself, no matter 
whether he works in the dark aud dreary shops, 
or in the perfumed A ids. To work for others is, 
in reality, the only wav in which a man can 
work f *r hiinself Selfi'hness is ignorance. 
Speculators cannot make unless s mebody loses. 
In the realm of speculation, every success has at 
least one victim. The harvest reaped by the far¬ 
mer benefits all and injures none. For him to 
succeed it is not necessary that some one should 
fail. The same is true of all producers, and of 
all laborers. I can imagine no condition that 
carries with it such a promise of joy as that of 
the farmer in the early winter. He has his cel¬ 
lar filled, he has made every preparation for the 
days of snow and storm, he looks forward to 
three months of ease and rest; to three months of 
fireside content: three months with wife and 
children; three months of long, delightful even¬ 
ings; three months of home; three months of 
solid comfort. 
If farmers will cultivate well and with¬ 
out waste; if they will so build that their houses 
will be warm in winter and cool in summer; if 
they will plant trees and beautify their homes; if 
they will occupy their leisure in reading, in 
thinking, in improving their minds and in de¬ 
vising ways and means to make their business 
profitable and pleasant; if they wilt live nearer 
together and cultivate sociability; if they will 
come together often; if they will have reading 
rooms and cultivate music; if they will have 
bath rooms, ice houses and good gardens; if their 
wives can have an easy time; if the nights can 
be taken for sleep and the evenings for enjoy¬ 
ment, everybody will be in love with the fields. 
Happiness^should be the object of life, and if 
life on the farm can be made really happy, the 
children will grow up in love with the meadows, 
the streams, the woods and the old home. 
Around the farm will cling and cluster the happy 
memories of the delightful years. 
It is not necessary in this age of the world 
for the farmer to rise in the middie of the night 
and begin his work. This getting up so early in 
the morning is a relic of barbarism. It has 
made hundreds < f thousands of young men curse 
the business. There is no ne d of getting up at 
thr*e or four o’clock in the winter morning. 
The farmer who persists in dragging his wife 
and children from their beds ought to be visited 
by a missionary. It is time euough to rise after 
the sun has set the example. For what purpose 
do you ^et up 9 To fetd the cattle? Why not 
teed them more the ni^ht before ? It is a waste 
of life. In the old times they used to get up 
about three o’clock in the morning, and go to 
work long before the sun had risen with “heal¬ 
ing upon his wings,” and as a just punishment 
they all had the ague; and they ought to have it 
now. The man who cannot get a living upon 
Illinois soil without rising before daylight ought 
to starve. Eight hours a day is enough for any 
farmer to work except in harvest time. When 
you rise at four and work till dark, what is life 
worth? Of what use is all the improved ma¬ 
chinery unless it tends to give the farmer a little 
more leisure? What is harvesting now, com¬ 
pared with what it was in the old time? Think 
of the days of reaping, of cradling, of raking and 
binding and mowing. Think of threshing with 
the flail and winnowing with the wind. And 
now think of the reapers and mowers, the bind¬ 
ers and threshing machines, the plows and culti¬ 
vators, upon which the fanner rides protected 
rom the sun. If, with all these advantages, you 
cannot get a living without rising in the middle 
of the night, go into some other business. You 
should not rob your family of sleep. Sleep is the 
best medicine in the world. There is no such 
thing as health without sleep. Sleep until you 
are thoroughly rested and restored. When you 
work, work; and when you get through take a 
good, long and refreshing sleep. 
