Isaac Phillips Roberts

“ Suffice it to say that the farmer without an abundance of fruits in their season is like the lad with empty pockets outside the circus tent: lots of fruit and fun, ready to be enjoyed by those who have made thoughtful provision for the gratification of desires which always come, sooner or later. Every farmer should grow most of the fruits suited to his soil and climate,—enough to eat and to sell and to give to the worthy poor. ”

“ Farm life in its best aspect is a synonym for breadth, generosity, simplicity, cleanliness, abundance of sunlight, fresh air and good food, the beauty of nature, freedom from stiff formality—these are the things which the city dweller envies the farmer. ”

“ If plainness, durability, and natural beauty in parlor, sitting-room and chamber would only become fashionable, what a burden would be removed from the shoulders of housewives, both in country and city! The time is at hand when health and intelligence should count for more among American women than show and the possession of a miniature upholstery shop. The furnishings of the rooms should minister to the comfort of their owner, and not tend to make life burdensome.
Not infrequently farmers of energy and ability become possessed of more than a competence near the close of life. ”

“ Nothing stifles a natural love for plants more effectually than that old way.
The new way is to watch the life of every growing thing, to look upon each plant as a living creature, whose life is a story as fascinating as the story of any favorite hero. ”

“ The farmer’s family, while very economical in the expenditure of money, is often very wasteful of food. Vegetables, fruit, chickens, pork raised on the farm, seem to cost no money, but they cost much vital energy, which is quite as valuable. The value of milk, butter, and eggs is recognized, because it is customary to sell them in town; but the cost in the labor of those who raise and those who prepare food, is often overlooked. The farmer’s table is thus not only overloaded, but really extravagant. Here, again, quality is more desirable than variety; simplicity should accompany abundance. ”

“ The mother’s intelligence, therefore, if she be in command of her fair share of the income, must be used to save not only money but her own resources. The lack of nutritious, palatable [233] food and of nursing in illness, the lack of service when the mother is weakened by labor and child-bearing, is sometimes economy with most disastrous results. Health and serenity are worth more to the family than houses and a bank account. A good education given to an intelligent child is worth ten times its cost saved up for him to inherit in middle life. ”

“ As the blackberry bushes, year by year, creep down the steep hillsides and over the rock-covered fields, one rejoices at the pioneer work these modest, hardy, tap-rooted plants are accomplishing. How wisely and well they fit the soil for a higher and more noble class of plants, and how surely in time they cover the shame and nakedness of mother earth! ”

“ A farm house should have its own distinctive features, and its own personality, and while it may be similar to [174] many other houses it should not be a duplicate of any other one.
In manufacturing towns long rows of houses are built, each one the exact duplicate of all the others in shape, dimensions, and color. The effect is abominable. This illustration of exact imitation only goes to show how necessary it is to have diversity of style in the houses themselves and variation in the colors of the paints if the maximum beauty of the home and adaptation to landscape and site are secured. ”

“ In a veneered house, all the lightness and dryness of a wooden house are secured on the inside and on the outside all the durability and solidity of a brick or stone house. When the veneering is of hard-burned, cream-colored or neutrally tinted brick or brown stone, the effect is extremely pleasing. The first cost of such a house is somewhat more than an all-wood house, but its greater durability and freedom from constant repairs makes it no more expensive in the end. When one builds such a house and covers it with a steep slate roof, he feels that he has builded for many coming generations. ”

“ That young man had really learned something worth far more than the cost of his course in the college of law.
There is, perhaps, no other of the so-called learned professions which is so exacting and which requires more devotion and study for its mastery. Some of the brightest men in this country have devoted a lifetime to the study and practice of law, only to have just entered its broad field as they have been compelled to lay down their work. How futile, then, would be the attempt to make every man his own lawyer! ”

“ It seems almost incredible that a farmer, who will drive his horse for miles to have him shod by an expert, or who will summon a veterinarian to treat a sick cow, will be satisfied to consult what someone has brightly termed a necessity lawyer,—because necessity knows no law,—upon matters affecting his farm, his home, or his competence, rather than the experienced lawyer. The cow might be replaced for forty or fifty dollars if a mistake was made, but the farm, the competence, have cost a lifetime of labor. ”

“ With the exception of poor management, poor service is probably the most wasteful factor of all in the household, yet there are conditions in which poor service is certainly less wasteful of the family resources, than none at all. The end of housekeeping is the health, comfort, and serenity of the family. The two main factors in producing this result are the family income and the mother’s strength and energy. Saving, however desirable, is merely an incidental end. ”

“ In no respect does farm life differ more from city life than in the kind of food provided and the method of serving it. The farmer’s table is loaded down with a great abundance and variety of food, all placed on the table at once, and often rich and indigestible. The city table has half as much, both in variety and quantity, served daintily in courses. The city housewife provides variety from meal to meal, seldom repeating any dish, except the staple ones, more than once or twice a week; the rural housewife puts a large variety of the same things on the table at every meal. ”

“ So, is it any wonder that the farmer is deficient in appreciation of the fitness and beauty of the tree-clad, gently rolling plateau for a home site, when the “liberally” educated fail to see the innumerable beauty-spots which cover the face of nature? ”

“ What are some of the dominant laws which should govern the farmer and farm practices? The farmer should specialize along those lines for which his taste and training, in part at least, fit him. To be more specific: A farmer will show you his potato patch with pride, but not a word will be said about his work animals and their offspring, which look like Barnum’s woolly horse. Then the first principle of agriculture is, follow up successes. In this case, the man has land and skill in potato culture which should lead him directly to success. ”

“ Since the farm house as a paying investment is usually a failure, if it does not supply the wants of the household and fulfil its object, it becomes a failure indeed. The first great mistake which the prosperous farmer usually makes is to invest too much money in expensive, hastily planned buildings. The house should be built to serve its inmates; too often the inmates become the servants of the house. A farmer’s wife cannot well afford to devote one room in the overcrowded house to the storage of expensive, useless upholstery and bric-a-brac, nor time to keep them presentable and in order. ”

“ The farm house is not what is called, a “paying investment.” It is not a direct source of income; neither can the other rural buildings be said to produce a direct income. Generally speaking, the farm house can fulfil but four purposes if properly planned and well constructed: the house may serve to keep the family warm in cold weather, cool in hot weather, dry in wet weather, and to gratify a love for the beautiful. ”

“ The farmer, of necessity, goes to the city or village once each week for supplies which cannot well be produced on the farm. He should return, if possible, with more money than he had when he left home. It is not the big mortgage which was given for part of the purchase price of the farm which should make him unhappy, but the steadily increasing little charges accumulating on the tradesmen’s ledgers until this “honest” farmer dreads to meet a score of his town acquaintances. ”

“ Not one college of forestry in all this great land up to 1898, and as yet but one in its infancy! Until the last generation not a single school of agriculture, scarcely a book obtainable which might give direct help to the rural American boy and girl! Therefore, the farmer should not be blamed for the wasteful and unscientific treatment of forest and field. All this leads to the conclusion that to secure a competence, lands of high and varied agricultural capabilities, lands worthy of an intelligent American, should be selected upon which to build and maintain rural homes. ”

“ Many farms are purchased by young men just starting out in life before judgment has been developed by experience, while men of mature years take in the whole problem, or rather series of problems, easily and at once. The novice would do well to make a list of the topics enumerated above, and add to them such others as appeal to his tastes or conditions and then study them, one at a time; in fact, there is nothing left for the young man to do but to make out a score-card upon which he records his judgment in numbers as he investigates each phase of the difficult problem of selecting a farm. ”

“ Last, but not least, is the road to the farm. Every free-born American demands a public highway in front of his house; if farms are small there must then be a highway about every mile, or, at most, every two miles. This leads to cutting up the country into enlarged checkerboards, to a multiplication of highways so great that none of them can be kept passably good without overtaxing the land which adjoins them. ”

“ The houses which are to be built in the future should be planned with a view to greater economy, convenience, beauty, and durability. There is now little excuse for erecting poor, uncomfortable, inconvenient houses on the farm. True, the rural population is handicapped, for few city architects have made any study of the plain rural house, and fewer have paid any attention whatever to farm barn construction. ”

“ But what has all this to do with the opportunities which a farm life gives for education? It is to emphasize the need of more home training, more personal attention by the parents, and a more natural and rational education of those whom it has been our responsibility to bring into existence, and upon whose shoulders will rest the weal or woe of our country. In these rural homes, children should be reared and educated until they have reached the point beyond which their parents or the older children cannot carry them. ”

“ Can a competence and a comfortable home be secured by the renter? If not, why not? Shall the farmer put his little capital into a home and run in debt for supplies and necessary equipment; or had he better rent, and start even? This depends to a large extent upon the individual. A successful country life does not depend upon owning the land in fee simple. Here is a picture of what may be called “a country gentleman” (Fig. 3) . He, his father and his grandfather, all have been renters of the same farm. He has a competence and an assured income. ”

“ In rural life, however tame and lonely, the home is not merely a few square feet hedged in by brick walls, but the whole wide countryside: the barns, the fields, the woods, the orchards, the animals wild and domesticated, the outlook over hill and valley—these all constitute the farmer’s home. ”

“ Besides the ever-present beauties of nature, country life has certain other advantages over the city: it is the place to develop the strong health-physique. The luxury of rich and populous communities tends to produce puny and enervated citizens; the excessive toil, bad air, limited space and scant food of the poor tend to degrade and destroy body and soul; but the comfortable simplicity, space, air, sunlight and [3] abundant food of the open country give opportunity for the finest development of the human animal. It is true that even on the farm there are sometimes overwork and privation ”

“ The farm garden should be ample and contain not only enough vegetable and small fruits for the use of the family, but a surplus to sell [342] or to give away. The farmer used to large areas is reluctant to undertake anything so small as he imagines the garden to be; hence, too often he plows it and leaves the planting and cultivation of it to the “women folks.” If he knew how to manage a garden he would find that the half-acre of land devoted to small fruits and vegetables could be made the most profitable and pleasurable part of the farm. ”