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Show ' i hi . m THE HOME. I This Department is Edited by Miss Hazel Love of the Agricultural Agricul-tural College. THE SATISFACTIONS OF THE FARMER'S LIFE. By Solon O. Thatcher. . What I think we have a right to say in 'behalf of a greater exaltation and love for an agricultural life is this, that in the main it is better adapted to establish in the human heart composure, com-posure, self-reliance and a general knowledge of wisdom for the massbf wealth producers than any other. If to this we add the dignity, the sense of proprietorship, of him who owns the ground his house is built upon, the gardens that surround it, and the field whose yellow fruits he stores in bairns and granaries, we invest the primal calling among men with that "historic nobility that rests upon tz possession and use of land." The Talmud says that "He who walks daily over his estate, each time fmdls a small coin." We may well agree with' Mr. Lowell, who thought the builders of the republic great because be-cause they "gave every man the chance to be a landowner, who made the transfers of land easy, and put knowledge within the reach of all." They clearly understood what legal powers of manhood were ministered unto -when men were able to hold fcc-simplc title to their estates, and possessed the Promethean fire to guide and illumine their way. If the farmer's returns are not great, they possess a degree of certainty cer-tainty by which he is sure to keep the wolf from the -door. The fallacy in all of this bewailing the meager income in-come from the fields and orchards of the land lies in the assumption that Jiappinesc depends upon goodly possessions. pos-sessions. Diogenes, with his tub and shirt, asking Alexander to remove from hte sunlight, incited the Macedonian Mace-donian conqueror to cry out: "If I were not Alexander I would be Diogenes." Dio-genes." The seat of peace, of content, con-tent, is in a man's own bosom and not in he mine, the warehouse, the granary, or bank vault It is an old test npt yet obsolete, "Better is a little with righteousness than greaterrevcnues -without Tight."- At the (bottom of many a dazzling fortune lie .dishonor, infidelity, falsehood, false-hood, robbery, betrayal of a friend, and the wreck of the possessions of the' unwary. What the farmer gains is laden with sweet sunshine, the zephyrs of spring, and the fostering Move of all nature's gentle ministry. So that when one takes account of the compensations, mental and spiritual, that come to him whose daily bread comes from honest toil, over him who lives by his wits or is the Robin Hood of society, the balance throws high into the air the one who lives by speculation or adventure. This paper must not end without a brief recognition of the progress in knowledge already made by our farm crs, and of the urgent need of larger adK'ancc3 in the same direction Macautay tells of the state of agriculture agri-culture among our English ancestors three centuries ago. Over their rude implements and careless husbandry, I their dim perception of the value of the rotation of crops, we arc more advanced than were they beyond the primitive tillage of Egypt and Syria. And yet wc arc assured by Professoi Rogers, of Oxford, that the Planta-genct Planta-genct kings, sedulously enacted laws to stimulate and foster industrial and agricultural life. In our own age we are like the enchanted en-chanted youth, who woke from deep sleep, the result of a dusty and sun- heated journey, to find himself clothed in royal robes and lord of ai palace of wide domains. The scarccdly guarded guard-ed secrets of nature almost in a day have boon revealed, and now as in nc proceeding years arc the potent "gencics of earth, scaj air and) sui) bent to the service of man. Occult laws emerge from their dead abode', to ibecome handmaids of industrial life or of refined enjoyment. Isolate facts have fallen into scientific statements. state-ments. The very nomenclature of the new truths and teachings staggers our memory and the inventions that minister to human or desire fill ample am-ple pages in government reports. While every department of human ex- option has been stimulated to intense 1 energy, in no one docs this seem so f yastu so commanding as in the pro- ductiori of the1 fieldls and pastures. h -The prodigious jrossibililicrof "flift J il I great campaign ii the vc6tcrn part of this state, when a soil so exuberant exuber-ant with plant life is touched by fructifying fruc-tifying waters, is now brought before us in a new and urgent form. Beneath Be-neath a fervid and genial sun triers sleep millions of acres of land as ricn as the delta of the Nile, and, like that historic valley, whence the storehouses store-houses and granaries of the old world drew vast supplies, this western plain demands canals, dams, reservoirs and large machineries, to transmute the spare herbage into carpets of living green. If the watering of our great plains ever becomes a reality, the truth and teachings grouped under the word hydrology must pass into the theoretical and practical possession 01 our western farmers. Successful irrigation mcens an acquaintance ac-quaintance with hydrostatics and hydraulics, hy-draulics, with meteorology, in its most extended sense, the laws of heat, right and electricity, geological and geographical facts, and, beyond these, involves a faaniliarity with plant life nnd nutrition, and long train of related relat-ed sciences, each and all of which join hands with the patient tiller to produce pro-duce the purple alfalfa, the fragrant 'garden, ond the rustling hrrvests. Higher and wider knowledge is the imperative demand of the hour. Thir-1 Thir-1 ty-fivc years ago, when Kansas had t hardly one-sixteenth of its present population, the farmers of our con- stitution implanted within that hon ored document the duty of each suc-' suc-' cccding legislature to protect the f cause of jeducation, not alone for the t children, but for the youl! who had I passed through the routine of the common schools. This benign pro- ' vision fleeted the sentiment of our people then, and it still holds the lofty regard of those who have since that time made Kansas great and prosperous. prosper-ous. The farmer of today ought to be one whose mental prowess and discipline equal the most successful business man, the brighest lawyer, and the most sedate and erudite clergyman. cler-gyman. To his vocation science lends her wings, the laboratory opens its doors, invention beckons him forward, for-ward, and great nature, a loving father fath-er and mother, holds out to him a 1 helping hand. "Honor waits o'er all the earth, Through endlesf generations The art that calls her marvel forth wT?orfd the-expectant nations." 'i Maxwell's Talisman, |