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Show THE RETIRED FARMER. There is a bushel of hard sense in the following letter of a retired farmer farm-er to Wallaces' Farmer: "The -curse of this country is that just as soon as a man gets so that he is able to farm to good advantage, keep up his farm and beautify the country .as it should be, instead of spending his money on the farm a3 he should, he brings it to town, buys a home in town and thinks he will be perfectly happy. II-c has been cherishing this idea for perhaps twenty twen-ty years. The people used to be glad to ace him. when he came to town, were glad to get his business when he was in the swim. When he has moved to town it dawns on himi that he is no longer in the swim, that he is simply a retired farmer living in town on, we will say, a thousand dollars a year, rent for a half section of land, which is good rent for a big farm. His neighbor is probably gelling a salary of twenty-five hundred; and he can not live on a thousand as his neighbor lives on twenty-five hundred. hun-dred. He is supposed to be wealthy and his neighbor poor. He has been educated to save a little money, and )ic is trying to save a little of the thousand. His neighbor, who works on a salary probably, never has saved any and docs not want to. He sits around town, broods over it, kicks at every enterprise that comes up in town because he can not afford to go into it, and is no satisfaction to him-fclf him-fclf or anyone else. "When he is not, or thinks he is not, able to do the work any more, he should ibuild him a modern home on the farm and let the renter take the old one. Then he can get an automobile au-tomobile to go to town in, if he pleases, or keep a good team and carriage. car-riage. That would cost himi only about 40 per cent of what it does to go to town and live. It would be the making of our country; and the retired re-tired farmer would live longer and be a whole lot happier. It certainly would adVl 25 per cent to the price of land in this country if the farmer would retire in this way, get a King drag tand get on the road, fix up his place and beautify it. This would give him something to keep him interested in-terested and satisfied. I left the farm at 22 years old, have always owned a farm, and until the last two years have always hired a man by the month to work it. I am free to say today that, even if I were worth a million, I would enjoy building me a good bonne on the farm. I would prefer living there, where you can read, rest and enjoy nature as a man should, to living in town." o |