t Siil 
For? 
Think Over Your Blessings. 
Look on the “Bright Side.” 
PLOW THE “DARK SIDE” UNDER. 
QUESTIONS ANSWERED. 
1. What special farm or (jarden opera¬ 
tion has been particularly pleasant and 
profitable during the past year ? 
2. What operation has given such results 
that you never will try it again ? 
3. Name a few things your neighbors have 
to be thankful for and yet don't realize : we 
take it for granted that you can see blessings 
that your neighbors enjoy , that you can't 
see at home 1 
THANKSGIVING. 
PROF. A. J. COOK. 
There is something beautiful and impres¬ 
sive in the thought that once in a year all over 
the country people cease from the usual 
work and worry of life, and for a day recount 
their blessings, and in worshipful mood, ex¬ 
press by act if not by word, their grateful 
recognition of blessings received. To the 
farmer this day is specially helpful, for now 
he takes an invoice of the year’s processes, 
gains, and experiences, and selects out such as 
are worthy, for further use, and throws aside 
the valueless. He gathers in the wheat of his 
farm experiences, and casts away the chaff 
and weeds. In reviewing my farm work for 
the year and noting the results, I am con¬ 
scious of advances, and mistakes. I see that 
which encourages and so calls for repetition, 
and that which is disappointing, and so is to 
be tried mildly if at all in future. My farm 
had been let on shares for some years before I 
took it. As a result, nearly all the crops were 
removed, and so the fields received but a min¬ 
imum of barn-yard manure. Indeed, some of 
the fields had received none at all for years. 
Thus, while the farm had been previously 
very productive, I found it much run down, 
and my crops of wheat were hardly up to the 
average of the State. I knew what science 
said,—that our fields were like our bank ac¬ 
count; we must put something in if we would 
have them yield generously in return. I also 
knew from a wide acquaintance with our 
wisest Western farmers, that they, reasoning 
from their wide and intelligent experiences, 
recommended thorough tillage and working 
for great quantities of barnyard manure. I 
remembered, too, that my father, who was 
one of the most thrifty farmers of our neigh¬ 
borhood, never sold any but the most concen¬ 
trated products from the farm, husbanding 
carefully all the manure he could secure, and 
giving to each field its proportion. 
Thus I at once stocked the farm with good 
cattle, sheep and horses, all that I thought it 
could possibly carry. Indeed I stocked so 
heavily that I have had to buy both grain 
and coarse feed nearly every spring. Last 
spring, however, thanks to my silo, was an 
exception. I had considerable hay and some 
grain left over. Of course, this increase of 
stock largely increased the manure, which 
was drawn out each winter as fast as made, 
and put on to the meadow, which was to be 
plowed the succeeding spring for corn. Thus 
each field gets its due proportion. 
Now for results: Each year I have increased 
perceptibly in the yield per acre of wheat, 
until, this year, I have about doubled the 
average yield of the State, which is only 
about 15 bushels per acre. Now I take it 
that this is reason for thanksgiving. And I 
am led to say, “Tally one for stock aud man¬ 
ure.” With the advance of wheat in price, 
my receipts per acre are $30, which makes me 
resolve to hold to wheat yet a little longer. 
No doubt, our people have raised too much 
wheat in the past; but a judicious rotation 
with wheat once in five years, and all the 
stock the farm will carry, which is no mean 
herd if we use the silo as we should, satisfies 
me, and so I am thankful. 
In the above I give the grain in the past 
year’s experience. Now for the tares: Last 
year I put my common field corn into the 
silo. I had heard that B. and W. corn was 
far more profitable, and so I procured enough 
seed to plant five acres. In the first place the 
seed did not come up well, so much had to be 
replanted. In the second place, it was so late 
that when I had to cut it for the silo most of 
the ears were hardly larger than one’s finger. 
Now this absence of the corn will surely re¬ 
duce the value of the silage materially. Had 
my foresight equaled my present hindsight, 
I think I would have let the big Southern corn 
entirely alone. But I am thankful that I did 
not plant any more than I did. Another 
year I shall plant this corn very sparingly if 
at all. The uncertainty of the seed, and the 
lateness of the corn in maturing, make it a 
doubtful variety, even for the silo, in my 
opinion, for this latitude. Next year I think 
I shall plant the largest dent I can find, that 
is sure to mature a crop of corn, in an aver¬ 
age Michigan season. 
1 think my neighbor farmers are thankful. 
They are grateful that an appreciative Senate 
will not remove the tariff on wool; that wheat 
has advanced in price beyond the cost of its 
production; that notwithstanding a very dry 
do enjoy it all the time. Shouldn’t we be 
thankful l Why, a short time since, during 
the hot weather, I visited a city friend in his 
business office. No ray of sunshine ever gets 
in there. It was hot and close. He has ten .| 
times the money that 1 have: but I pitied 
him, and asked him to come out and see me a 
day or two and get some pure air and a little 
of God’s blessed sunshine. I pitied him, but 
did not envy him in the least. I could not 
live, it seems to me, without a few acres of 
air aud sun-hine and a home that is open 
to these on all sides. Now, if I was rich 
enough to live in one of the grand mansions 
on Euclid Avenue, in Cleveland, with 10 acres 
of park and lawn around my home, I could 
stand the city; but what chance in this line 
has the ordinary mortal ? He has to put up 
with a seven-by-nine-foot door-yard, if he has 
any at all. He is fortunate if he cau have 
any windows on the sides of his house. As 
for any beauties of Nature around his home, 
they are simply out of the question. But any 
fanner cau have plenty of green grass about 
his home, and that is the foundation of all the 
beauty of the far-famed Euclid Avenue. His 
fields of clover and wheat and grass cau be 
kept so nicely as to look like great lawns. He 
can have a beautiful home aud surroundings, 
such as the great mass of city people long for, 
but cannot obtain. Ought we not to do all 
we can to make our homes beautiful, aud to 
be thankful that we have elbow-room enough 
to do it in ? How many business men do you 
suppose there are in the city who are not look¬ 
ing forward to the time when they will be 
able to have a home in the country ? Well, I 
know a great many are. We have got there 
ahead of them, but do not half realize our 
great good luck. 
With the pure air aud the sunshine of our 
country homes comes also better health. 
With poor health life is a constant burden. 
Do we fully appreciate this fact ? And there 
are other causes why the general health of 
Several times, my friends, before you say you 
have nothing to be thankful for. 
Summit County, Ohio. 
eason our crops have been, for the most part, 
bove the average. I doubt if anywhere in 
he country a more grateful people will 
ssemble, or refrain from their usual 
abors on the Thanksgiving of 1888 than 
,re to be found among the farmers of 
Michigan. Indeed, when we count the best 
•lessing of life—a reasonable income through 
lonest industry—I believe there are few peo- 
>le who ought to be more grateful. 
Ingham Co., Mich. 
THINGS TO BE THANKFUL FOR. 
T. B. TERRY. 
Many of my farmer friends are quite dis- < 
)uraged. Their income from the farm is 
>o small. Probably at Thanksgiving time 
ley will honestly think they haven’t very 
mch to be thankful for. Let us see if we 
mnot hunt up a few things they have not 
lought about. 
We ought to be thankful for a right-down 
ood appetite that makes everything taste 
ood. Certainly one can not half live whose 
ppetite needs to be constantly coaxed with 
ainties which do not taste half as good to 
im as the plain meat and potatoes, bread 
nd butter aud milk of the hard-working 
irmer do to him. Many a time has the 
writer sat down to the table with friends in 
ae city, when, honestly, all that was eaten 
y half a dozen persons would no more than 
itisfy the appetite of a working farmer, 
'hese friends knew nothing about the enjoy- 
lent of a hearty appetite, such as comes from 
lenty of labor out in pure air. Why, they 
ught to come and see me eat when I am plow- 
og or cultivating or harrowing. They couldn’t 
ratch long without seeing that I had one real 
njoyment that they knew but little about. 
Then, what a blessing it is to be able to live 
u pure air, free from smoke and dust. Do 
iot all city people look forward to the time 
yhen they can get out into our blessed coun- 
ry for awhile and enjoy some of this ? If 
hey do not, it is simply because they are too 
>oor to be able to afford it, and we can and 
the cities is not so good. Said a noted phy¬ 
sician to the writer : Life here is one con¬ 
stant rush and strife to get ahead : go home 
and thank God that you know almost nothing 
about this, on your quiet farm, where you 
can work and eat and sleep almost entirely 
free from this terrible nervous strain.” Ah ! 
friends, many of us dp not know the dark side 
of other ways of getting a living or we would 
never cease to be thankful ^that we are far¬ 
mers. Go into any of our large hotels and see 
the great mass of business men rush in and 
rush through a meal in teu minutes and off ; 
then go with me to the quiet farm house and 
see the family sit around the table three or 
four times as long, at least, and tell me which 
class enjoy their meal the most or are the 
least likely to get dyspepsia. 
Again, farmers can get away from th'eir 
business now aud then, better, and can have 
more leisure in the course of a year than most 
men in other callings. I speak from exper¬ 
ience: 22 years ago, when in business, I took 
my wife one Saturday afternoon and went 
away for over Sunday, to our old-time home, 
leaving a competent foreman in charge. My 
partner, an older man aud a strict business 
man, was absent. He got back before I did on 
Monday. I was called into the office on my 
arrival and told that if my wife must go, to 
hire a man and send him with her; but that 
my place was with my business every hour, 
Well, this man is at the head of one of the 
great firms of Northern Ohio. He has made 
money; but I do not want it at the price it 
cost. I can, in my present business, take my 
wife half a dozen times a year and get away 
for some days, if I desire. The farmer, of 
course, must attend to his business, but 
usually he need not be tied up as closely as 
most other business men are. I for one am 
thankful for this. 
And I am thankful that I have to work un¬ 
der no master, aud that there is never any 
lack of work, and that if the work is directed 
with reasonable skill it brings, on the average, 
I might almost say always, sufficient funds to 
make life enjoyable. More than that I do not 
want at the expense of theenjoyment, Think 
TO THE AMERICAN FARMER. 
Prof. i. p. Roberts. 
“7s it well with thee? Is it well with the 
child?"—ll Kings, *4; 30. 
You are this day surrounded by all the 
necessary comforts of life and numerous 
luxuries, which, rightly used, minister to the 
higher senses, give unalloyed happiness and a 
foretaste of the life we may attain to, where 
supremest beauty and joy are untarnished by 
ignorance and sin. As we give thanks for 
the many earthly blessings vouchsafed to us 
in this land of peace and plenty, one blessing 
above all, overshadowing all, and without 
which all others are unattainable or compara¬ 
tively useless, stands out so distinctly, so 
grandly, so beneficently that our hearts should 
go out with overflowing gratitude. That 
blessing is the means provided for acquiring 
knowledge tree or at so small a cost that the 
humblest citizen may, if he will, have all the 
benefits which it confers. Knowledge! The 
one great thing that distinguishes man from 
the brute. Understanding! That which 
gives man dominion and restores him to his 
God-given right. Training! That power 
which enables us to select, reject, arrange, 
unite, and construct. Skill! The product of 
repeated efforts, gives power to create beauty 
and to attain the most perfect economic re¬ 
sults. The means provided in this land for 
acquiring all kinds and classes of information 
are ample, varied, and accessible, and so com¬ 
mon that we do not always avail ourselves of 
them or give thanks for them. This great 
blessing is the result of long and painful 
efforts, heroic deeds, and sacrifices so grand 
that one wonders at times if we are not in¬ 
ferior to our ancestors, who bequeathed to us 
so great a heritage. 
Is it well with thee this Thanksgiving Day ? 
Yes, the early and the later rains have de¬ 
scended, seed time and harvest have come aud 
gone, and the farmer’s table is loaded with 
the abundance of the land. All efforts have 
not been alike successful; but should we 
grieve over the abortive chaff as we winnow 
the grain, or rejoice and give thanks for the 
golden wheat ? 
Is it well with thy children ? Are the labor 
and sacrifices demanded of them, required for 
their good in order that they may be vigor¬ 
ous, self-reliant, and able to cope with the 
great problems of life; or for the purpose of 
adding a little more wealth which may disap¬ 
pear in the next generation for want of self- 
control, wisdom, and training, without which 
wealth becomes a greater calamity than pov¬ 
erty ? 
As farmers should we not be doubly grate¬ 
ful for our farms ? They are Nature’s great 
laboratories and schools, which if rightly used 
give us the opportunity for laying the founda¬ 
tion of the education of our children, broad, 
deep, and enduring. On the farm, in the 
open field, the future leaders of mankind 
must acquire in youth that reverence for God 
and His works, that physical development and 
mental capacity, which make the highest and 
grandest attainments possible. 
Then on this annual festival let us give 
thanks for our homesteads, however humble 
they may be; because here it is well with the 
child; here it is well with thee. But to be 
thankful is not enough ; much more is re- 
Fig. 392. 
quired at our hands. Literally we inherit the 
earth, and one day we shall have to give an 
account of our stewardship. As much has 
been given to us; so much will be required of 
us. All the silent forces of Nature, all the 
elements of inorganic earth, all the varied 
modes of Nature, all life and activity work 
harmoniously together for the accomplish¬ 
ment of a single ultimate grand result, the 
production of God-like intelligent beings. 
Shall we not, then, from this time on place 
ourselves in harmony with the universe and 
conduct our farms and all their varied be¬ 
longings with a view to a single final purpose 
—the development and training of farmers’ 
sons and daughters i 
Tompkins Co., N, Y, 
