-WHY HE DON’T. 
T. H. HOSKINS, M. D. 
The Rural asks me, in view of the advance 
in the price of many leading farm products 
since 1850, and the decline in price of many 
things he has to buy, why the American farmer 
should not be better off than he was 38 years 
ago. In answer, I should say that the skilled 
farmer, with sufficient capital and business 
capacity, is very much better off now than 
then. Whether he is so relatively to men in 
other occupations, may be questioned, for the 
scale of profits and of living is everywhere 
greater than then, money is far more abund¬ 
ant, and the opportunities for making it won¬ 
derfully broadened. The change from being 
one of the poorest, and industrially one of the 
least independent nations, to being the first of 
nations in both respects, has worked a com¬ 
plete transformation in America. An Ameri¬ 
can farmer who knows how, and has the means 
and the business capacity needed in modern 
farming, has now a chance to make money by 
farming, never equaled before, and, indeed, 
never even approached,—except for a short 
time by the English tenant farmers in the Na¬ 
poleonic wars under the Corn Laws, 
A certain number of such farmers can be 
found in every State in the Union. No one 
disputes their prosperity, for it is conspicuous 
in all their surroundings. They have but one 
difficulty in establishing great agricultural 
families,—families which would surround 
themselves with vast landed estates, and de¬ 
velop a wealth exceeded only by that of a few 
great business men,—the enormous difficulty 
of persuading their sons to keep in the busi¬ 
ness. The greater opportunities offered to 
enterprise outside of agriculture, joined to the 
low social status as yet accorded to farmers’ 
families, tend to draw the sons and daughters 
of successful farmers away from the farm. I 
am strongly of the opinion that female influ¬ 
ence does more than all else to break down 
agriculture as a successful business. Land 
has been so plentiful and cheap in America, 
and trained farmers so scarce, that socially 
the farmer is nowhere: and just as soon as a 
good start is made, the capital is diverted in¬ 
to another line. It is almost universally the 
case that a rich farmer’s daughter—or even his 
wife—will be found ashamed of her father’s 
business, and apologizing for it at school and 
in society, as a whim of his, as much to be de. 
precated as she insists it to be unnecessary. 
So long as this continues to be true we shall 
see very few great agricultural families lead¬ 
ing in social standing and public influence in 
America. But a time is coming when all this 
will be changed. “ Uncle Sam ” is richer than 
ever, but he will not much longer be able “to 
give us all a farm.” 
When we come to those who are called 
‘‘common farmers,” we find that even these 
admit of classification. Many of them, like 
the retail merchants, small manufacturers and 
village professional men,are comfortably well 
off and socially respected in their own locali¬ 
ties. Usually they have a specialty, like 
dairying, by which they are able, through 
the transmutation of their crude farm pro¬ 
ducts into table luxuries, to reap a double 
profit. These are successful middle-class men, 
whenever they have the means and steadiness 
necessary for success in anything; but they 
still have the social ambition of their “women 
folks” to contend with, and their daughters 
(who, by the way, often make the best of 
wives) generally “emancipate themselves from 
the farm,” by marrying in the villages and 
cities. 
When we get down to the next stratum in 
the agricultural “formation”—to use a geolog¬ 
ical comparison—we begin to come among 
those farmers whose life is a hard struggle 
with fate, and among whom are the greater 
number of those who are not finding farming 
as profitable as it used to be. They have 
ceased to be, like their predecessors, self-sup¬ 
porting from the farm. Domestic manufac¬ 
tures have ceased out of the farm-house, and 
everything of that class, with many things 
once never seen or thought of on the farm, 
must be bought with money. While this 
change has been going on the productiveness 
of the farms has been declining faster than 
the prices have been changing in the farmers’ 
favor; while the knowledge how to prevent 
this has not increased in an equal degree. 
Farming is no longer a mere manual art, and 
is fast becoming a science; but scientific 
knowledge has not kept pace with the neces¬ 
sity. It is the appreciation of this momentous 
fact by our statesmen that led to the establish¬ 
ment of our boards of agriculture, our agri¬ 
cultural colleges and our experiment stations; 
but the comprehension of our need of these aids 
has too slowly followed the provision of them. 
Besides these 'difficulties, we have the de¬ 
velopment of what may be styled mechanical 
agriculture—the use of much expensive ma¬ 
chinery on the farm. It requires about as 
much science to properly use and care for 
this machinery as it does to bring up the worn 
farms; but, besides that, it calls for a con¬ 
siderable increase of capital; while to this is 
added a still greater demand for it in the cost 
of better live stock, better buildings and 
better feeding. Take a first-class dairyman, 
for instance, and compare him and his farm¬ 
ing, with the men and the farming of 40 years 
ago. You cannot help seeing that here is a 
very different business which, though done 
under the same name, requires an entirely 
different sort of man. Now, to make this 
paper short, it must suffice for me to say 
that this different sort of man, required by the 
times, is not coming forward in sufficient 
numbers, and cannot be expected to do so un¬ 
til farmers receive a professional training at 
school and on the farm adequate to the sit¬ 
uation. The change is slowly being made; 
but while the slow change is in progress, 
many farmers are having a hard time, just 
simply and only because they are “ behind the 
times.” Time and tide wait for no man, and 
he who does not take them at the flood is in¬ 
evitably stranded among the ebbs and 
shallows of fortune. 
Womans Work. 
CONDUCTED BY EMILY LOUISE TAPLIN. 
CHAT BY THE WAY. 
During mid-summer, and on through the 
autumn, come the annual farm gatherings, 
the State and county fairs. It is rather the 
fashion with city people to make fun of rural 
fairs, chiefly, no doubt, because they know so 
little about them. For the fair represents the 
intelligence and progressivenes3 of a farming 
community, in spite of some bad elements 
which should be removed. Nor is it an affair 
to be neglected by the feminine part of the 
farm. There is plenty to interest the women, 
not only in domestic work, but in what we 
consider more refining arts, apart from the 
benefit conferred by meeting other people. 
Certainly, we can all find something to interest 
us at this gathering. 
* * * 
There is one mistake a good many girls 
make in going to the fair, and that is in wear¬ 
ing their pretty white muslin gowns. Before 
the day is over, these lose all their freshness; 
they become so “slimpsy” in the heat and 
dust that they are fit for nothing but the 
wash-tub. We were at a big mountain resort 
recently, which was over-run by excursion¬ 
ists from several distant places in the country. 
Actually, nearly half the girls there had on 
white muslin gowns ! Think of traveling 40, 
60 or 90 miles in the dusty cars, and then 
tramping over rocks and glens and dusty 
mines in these dainty frocks ! The best cos¬ 
tume for such a day is a dark cotton or linen, 
which may be made in such fashion as to be 
thoroughly stylish, while it is comfortable, 
cheap and clean. A light wrap will add 
warmth if necessary. Another point; don’t 
wear a very elaborate hat. Plumes or dainty 
flowers seem bound to get some spot or soil. 
A good many of us expect our one best hat to 
do duty for some time, and it is certainly im¬ 
prudent to risk spoiling it. The nicest and 
most stylish hat for general wear, is a little 
sailor of wbite Mackinaw straw, trimmed with 
a band of white watered ribbon. It is be¬ 
coming to most young faces, and is not readily 
spoiled. This summer many felt hats are 
worn on holiday trips, especially neat little 
Alpines, such as were fashionable last winter. 
They are made in light felt, and are very ser¬ 
viceable for country wear. 
* * * 
There are some places the visitors to the 
fairs will do well to avoid, and these are the 
“ side-shows ” usually attached to them. 
Now, we don’t mind confessing that we like 
the circus—we should go there for our own 
amusement, and not, as many say, to take the 
young folks. But there is a great distance 
between a good circus and a traveling side, 
show. The latter is sure to be a humbug if 
nothing worse. How many of you have been 
in one of these places to see a real mermaid 
that is one of the stock attractions? We 
have seen that curiosity, though,not in a side¬ 
show; we happen to know the man who 
builds the mermaid, and the “sea dragon 
of the Indian Ocean,” and the alliga¬ 
tor baby and several other wonderful 
things, you meet with in museums. 
That is one reason why we don’t believe in 
side-shows. There are two other things which 
ought to be driven from the fairs, and we think 
all the women will agree with us—they are 
horse races and liquor sellers. There is no 
extenuating plea for the last; as for the first, 
people say they are actuated by a love of 
horses. We should bo more ready to believe 
in this if people did not bet, but whoever 
heard of a successful horse race without bet¬ 
ting ? That is the bad element in the sport. 
We ought to remove all suggestions of gam¬ 
bling or drinking from the fairs, and make 
them essentially places for family resort, 
void of all offense. 
FOR THE GIRLS. 
We get so much advice that it sometimes 
grows tiresome; however, I’m a girl myself, 
and I don’t know enough to give a very 
preachy talk. But I travel about a good deal 
on business matters, and I see so many girls 
whom I want to give a little preach to. First, I 
want to say something about manners. So 
many girls are so careless of themselves that 
they make other people careless of them. Per¬ 
haps walking hardly comes under the head of 
manners, but recently I have been struck by 
the number of girls who walk badly. Either 
they mince or they stride or they waddle, and 
really I don’t know which of the three is 
worst. The first thing to do is to be erect; 
hold your head up and look the whole 
world in the face. Don’t stick the chin out, 
and don’t square the elbows. Let the walk 
be a fair, heel and toe gait, the toes 
turned out, and, above all, let it be easy 
and natural. A great many girls who 
walk fairly well always turn their toes in 
when sitting down. I cannot imagine why, 
but it is most ungraceful. 
Most American girls have very pretty fig¬ 
ures, ard they certainly should set them off 
by a graceful walk. I am sorry to say that a 
great many girls who are lady like at homo 
do not display a similar manner abroad—they 
don’t mean anything by their careless speech 
and boyish manner, but these are apt to cause 
unfavorable comment. There is the question 
of slang, for example. Sometimes it seems as 
if an innocent, yet slangy expression, means 
so much, yet the use of such is a dangerous 
habit to contract, for much slang is not inno¬ 
cent, however it may sound to us, Thackeray 
said that there is gentlemanly slang, which 
one may use without offense, and ungentle- 
manly slang, which must be avoided by all 
decent people. If we are uncertain under 
which heading some pet expression belongs, 
we will do well to let it alone. 
One band of King’s Daughters in my 
vicinity has established among its members 
an anti slang society. Each slangy expression 
causes a fine of one cent, the money going to 
their charity fund. They have fines also for 
every bit of ill-natured gossip. They may 
talk about their friends, if they will, but if 
they talk ac^ ainst any one, they must pay their 
fine. I admire this plan very much, we all 
find it so hard to bridle our tongues. It is so 
natural to talk about our neighbors, but this 
evil is very much mitigated if we only say 
good things about them. 
Do you know, 1 sometimes wonder if there 
are any girls nowadays. They seem to want 
frizzled bangs and beaux at an age when their 
mothers were playing with dolls. I think 
really girls become much more natural and 
unaffected from 20 to 25 than they are from 10 
to 15. Perhaps their homes or companions 
are really responsible for many of their silly 
notions. I always feel sorry for girls who 
have never known the pleasures of boy com¬ 
panions without thinking of them in the light 
of possible sweethearts. A frank, jolly friend¬ 
ship between boy and girl is one of the best 
things in the world for the development of 
their characters. 
You generally find that girls who are 
brought up with boy companions, playing 
with them and studying with them—usually 
beating them in their lessons, too—are pretty 
free from the silly coquetries you see in girls 
educated alone. One of the delightful ele¬ 
ments in Miss Alcott’s healthy books is the 
frank, free friendship between the boys and 
girls. Of course, sweethearts will come one of 
these days, but frank, good fellowship comes 
first. 
This is quite a little “preach,” is it not? But 
it is just one girl’s thoughts for the benefit of 
the other girls, Really, I think we get a good 
deal more preaching than the boys, and we 
don’t always deserve it half so much as they 
do. COTTAGE MAID. 
SOMETHING ABOUT SOAP. 
M. B. 
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