As this is the season to make up our list of papers and magazines for the ensuing year, I will take a glance around my own cosy room set apart for a library.
It is here that I do the most of my reading, writing, and planning; and although I pretend to be deeply engaged while ensconced in the large willow rocker, strictly forbidding entrance to my farmer office, yet the children and “Spot,” my Gordon setter, will intrude, making things lively for awhile, driving my thoughts wool-gathering and breaking many a thread of thought that I had fondly hoped would place my name high on the roll of scribblers. It is a good thing to have the little innocent children and the dog to blame for these shortcomings, as they can not take issue with us on the question.
But I started to talk about a farmer’s library; and taking my own for a small sample, let us see how it looks….
On glancing up from the stand on which I am writing, the first objects that attract my notice are my breach loader, cartridge belt, and game-bag hanging on the wall; then by the side of the stove hangs the file of The Prairie Farmer, within easy reach of my left hand; next it swings the Country Gentleman, then comes the Forest and Stream, then Colman’s Rural World, then the Drainage Journal; next Harper’s Weekly, then Harper’s Bazar. This is my wife’s paper and she persists in hanging it among mine. Then comes Harper’s Monthly and the Century, not forgetting the Sanitary Journal. On the other side of the room we find the Inter Ocean, Democrat, and several other political papers fairly representing both sides, also some standard books of valuable information; and last but not least, the Prairie Farmer Map which you sent for my club.
Now, this may be considered a pretty large outlay for a common farmer to make, but outside of life insurance, I consider it my best investment.
In this selection I get the cream of all matters of practical importance to the farmer….
Alex Ross.
Cape Girardeau, Mo.
Reading is fundamental.
1 comment so far ↓
One of the most interesting things here is that magazines are mainly ignored when we think of what people were reading, of what was forming their culture. There were hundreds of popular magazines back then, yet we focus on the novels and the treatises. I bet more people read the magazine reviews of Wurthering Heights than read the book, when it was new.