.

There is no reason why farmers should not have fresh meat all the year
round. There is certainly no sense in stuffing yourself full of salt
meat every morning, and making a well or a cistern of your stomach for
the rest of the day. Every farmer should have an ice house. Upon or near
every farm is some stream from which plenty of ice can be obtained, and
the long summer days made delightful. Dr. Draper, one of the world's
greatest scientists, says that ice water is healthy, and that it has
done away with many of the low forms of fever in the great cities. Ice
has become one of the necessaries of civilized life, and without it
there is very little comfort.

Make your homes pleasant. Have your houses warm and comfortable for the
winter. Do not build a story-and-a-half house. The half story is simply
an oven in which, during the summer, you will bake every night, and feel
in the morning as though only the rind of yourself was left.

Decorate your rooms, even if you do so with cheap engravings. The
cheapest are far better than none. Have books--have papers, and read
them. You have more leisure than the dwellers in cities. Beautify your
grounds with plants and flowers and vines. Have good gardens. Remember
that everything of beauty tends to the elevation of man. Every little
morning-glory whose purple bosom is thrilled with the amorous kisses of
the sun, tends to put a blossom in your heart. Do not judge of the
value of everything by the market reports. Every flower about a house
certifies to the refinement of somebody. Every vine climbing and
blossoming, tells of love and joy.

Make your houses comfortable. Do not huddle together in a little room
around a red-hot stove, with every window fastened down. Do not live in
this poisoned atmosphere, and then, when one of your children dies; put
a piece in the papers commencing with, "Whereas, it has pleased divine
Providence to remove from our midst--." Have plenty of air, and plenty
of warmth. Comfort is health. Do not imagine anything is unhealthy
simply because it is pleasant. That is an old and foolish idea.

Let your children sleep. Do not drag them from their beds in the
darkness of night. Do not compel them to associate all that is tiresome,
irksome and dreadful with cultivating the soil. In this way you bring
farming into hatred and disrepute. Treat your children with infinite
kindness--treat them as equals. There is no happiness in a home not
filled with love. Wher