\L HfcC NKW-YORKER 
1493 
Better Reading for Farmers 
Part I. 
The Reading Habit. —-The author of 
this paper is a physician, who, if he lives 
three months longer, will have practiced 
medicine 50 years, largely amongst farm¬ 
ers for the entire time. I feel therefore 
that I am quite familiar with their read¬ 
ing habits. I remember well, as late as 
20 years ago, there were many well-to-do 
families in which all the books of the 
household could be counted on the fingers 
of one’s hands. In other families that 
could not properly be classed as poor, 
there were no books at all. with the prob¬ 
able exception of the family P>ible and a 
few elementary school books. Things are 
not so bad to-day, though far from being 
what they should be. Why is this? It. 
is not because farmers cannot read. T do 
not believe there is a farmer in this 
county who cannot read. Rut there are 
very many who have not the reading 
habit. Rut why have they not? My 
opinion is that the foundation of this de¬ 
fect lies at the door, or rather inside the 
school-house. The pupil who passes 
through our public schools without hav¬ 
ing acquired a genuine love for good read¬ 
ing. is truly handicapped so far as a prac¬ 
tical education is concerned, however well 
he may understand arithmetic, algebra, 
geometry and other similar branches. On 
the other hand, the pupil who has ac¬ 
quired this love for good reading, has the 
sesame, or at least the key, that can be 
made to unlock the door to all human 
knowledge. 
A Neglected Field. —It has long been 
the opinion of the writer that reading 
has been the most sadly neglected in our 
public schools, of all the branches of 
learning taught in them. While it is too 
late to remedy this for the benefits of the 
farmers of to-day, it is not for the benefit 
of their children. What then is being 
done in the public school to remedy this 
defect? Practically nothing. In fact it 
appears to me that there is less and less 
reading as a study being done in the pub¬ 
lic school every year. Most of what 5 s 
being done is incidental in the course of 
other studies. This will never remedy the 
defect with school children. Incidental 
study is no study at all. It must be a 
fact that just in proportion as a study, 
of reading for instance, is insisted upon 
in the course of some other study, the at¬ 
tention of the student is taken away from 
the other Study. I remember that a good 
many years ago a great publishing com¬ 
pany brought out a complete series of 
school readers, in which all lessons em¬ 
braced some subject of natural history. 
The subject matter was written by the 
ablest men that could be found, the books 
were beautifully printed, and amply illus¬ 
trated. This was a beautiful scheme to 
do two things at once. Rut the whole 
thing fell down. After a trial of some 
years these readers were abandoned, and 
I have not heard of them for many years. 
These books failed to accomplish what 
they were intended for, because it was 
found impracticable to teach these two 
things incidentally, and at the same time. 
To give the basic reason for this would 
require an incursion into the domain of 
psychology which would be unprofitable in 
this connection. The remedy for this, the 
greatest of all the defects in our public 
school course of study, is that more, very 
much more attention and time be given 
to reading exercises in every grade of our 
schools, from the beginning to the end of 
every pupil's school life. It is impossible 
to have too much of it. 
Farm Literature. —Rut as the farm¬ 
ers are no longer in the public school, 
what can be done to improve both the 
quantity and the quality of their reading 
matter? Of course, it should go without 
saying that all farmers should read all 
the good farm literature in reach, espe¬ 
cially the best farm papers, such, for in¬ 
stance as The R. N.-Y., which, in my 
opinion, reigns supreme in that class. 
They should get all the government bulle¬ 
tins and read them ,at least all that per¬ 
tain to each man’s line of business. These 
bulletins are printed especially for the 
farmers, and all it takes to get them is a 
postage stamp, or even a postal card. 
Rut the farmer’s mind cannot forever 
feed on farming literature alone. He 
would become as stale as his horse if fed 
exclusively on corn. Variety is the spice 
of intellectual life, quite as much as a 
variety of food is essential to good diges¬ 
tion. What then shall the farmer read in 
order to get this intellectual spice? That 
is a great question. Entirely too great 
for me to completely answer; I can only 
make a few suggestions. 
Suggested Subjects. —In the first 
place I will say there is no knowledge 
that may not be useful to the farmer. I 
believe the farmer’s life may be the most 
all-embracing so far as learning is con¬ 
cerned of any calling followed by man. It 
has much to do with astronomy, with 
geology, with geography, with history, 
with travel, with mining, and especially 
with meteorology. In fact there is little 
in the way of knowledge that does not at 
some point touch the farmer’s life and in¬ 
terests. While he is not expected to be¬ 
come learned in these various things, if he 
once acquires the reading habit, it is 
astonishing how much of each, or all of 
them he may familiarize himself with. 
The books that treat of all these 
things are so numerous that it is a 
difficult matter to pick out one or two on 
each subject better than all others. No 
man is wise enough to do that, but a few 
suggestions may be made, that if acted 
upon would be of great benefit to those 
who act upon the suggestions. 
Astronomy. —I believe astronomy is 
the most attractive of all scientific sub¬ 
jects if properly understood, as it certain¬ 
ly is the most exalted and ennobling. 
There is one book on astronomy it seems 
to me that is pre-eminently adapted to 
the general study of the science. Its title 
is “The Story of the Heavens.” It was 
written by one of the greatest of modern 
astronomers. It is written in plain 
everyday English, easy to comprehend, 
well illustrated, and beautifully printed. 
It has but one fault as a book for gen¬ 
eral reading, and that is its cost. There 
is another good book on astronomy, but it 
is not nearly so desirable for •general 
reading as its language is not so lucid nor 
so easily understood. It is called “Other 
Worlds Than Ours.” Either of these 
books if carefully read, will give the read¬ 
er a fair knowledge of the leading things 
and laws of astronomy. 
Geology. —Quite as much as astronomy 
I should say the general principles of 
geology are essential to the farmer for a 
good understanding of many things that 
concern him and his trade. However, a 
technical work on geology would be dry 
reading to the average person of any 
business, except the student of geology 
himself. Rut there is a small book that 
is most wonderfully informing, that treats 
of the soil, the minerals, coal, gas and 
oil in a way that should interest all who 
read it. It is called “Man and the 
Earth,” and was written by Professor 
Shaler, geologist of Harvard University. 
It is easy to read, easy to understand, and 
most wonderfully interesting. Not only 
farmers, but people of every calling 
would be interested in it. I should like 
to write about it, but space will not ad¬ 
mit. Read it. It is small and cannot 
cost very much. a. w. foreman, m. d. 
Illinois. __ 
Curing Dandruff 
I have a young friend who is greatly 
troubled with dandruff in his hair. Can 
you suggest a remedy? n. t. g. 
Nebraska. 
It should be remembered that a certain 
amount of white scales may be expected 
as the natural process of the scaling of 
the outer skin. These should cause no 
anxiety and that person needs only to 
keep the scalp and hair clean to keep both 
in a healthy condition. Excessive scaling, 
where the scales show in the hair, con¬ 
stitutes dandruff, and denotes either a 
lack of sufficient care, a diseased condi¬ 
tion of the scalp or a lack of tone in the 
whole system. The latter causes mean a 
case for the local physician, if there is 
to be real benefit. This trouble should 
not be neglected as it leads to thinning 
of the hair and eventually to baldness. 
Most cases are probably caused by lack 
of proper care, not because the victim is 
untidy, but because very few realize what 
an amount of work it is to care for the 
hair properly and because many women 
catch cold so easily when washing the 
hair in cold weather. Not long ago Mary 
Piekford was telling us how she cares 
for her beautiful hair. She never has her 
hair come out or has any trouble from 
dandruff but she admits that her way 
causes lots of work. Rut isn’t it worth 
the while? 
Her hair is combed gently from the 
ends down coaxing out the tangles be¬ 
fore the hair on the head is touched. It 
is brushed well at least once a day, and 
the scalp massaged for 10 minutes with 
the fingertips, starting at the base of the 
neck to bring the blood up to the scalp. 
She is careful never to bear down, but 
just to rub, in fact hair and scalp must 
be treated gently. If obliged to neglect 
this one day, she makes up for it the 
next. Her hair is washed once in two 
weeks. In this all my friends agree with 
her that hair should be washed as often 
as that. She uses five waters, three soapy 
(Continued on page 1497.) 
A Home-made Haircut—Sure Dandruff Cure 
Mail Postal for 
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BOOKS WORTH READING 
Landscape Gardening. Parsons. 2.00 
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Agriculture and Chemistry. Storer. 5.00 
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Weeds of Farm and Garden, Pammel 1.50 
Book of Wheat. Dondlinger. 2.00 
Successful Fruit Culture. Maynard.. 1.00 
Irrigation and Drainage. King.... 1.50 
Study of Corn, SUoesmlth.50 
The Soil, King. 1.50 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER 
333 W. 30th St., New York City 
