Life on the Family‐sized Farm

• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1536-7150.1946.tb01853.x
• Published date: 01 October 1946
• Author: Anthony Lachowsky
• Date: 01 October 1946

Life on the Family-sized Farm

THE MEMBERS OF FAMILIES

on family-sized farms come closer to living

the ideal life perhaps than any other persons. Big farms, and in particu-

lar those which have become known as corporation farms, turn out to

be

no more than factories in the field. The toil and sweat and effort expended

on them are expended entirely for commercial purposes. Whereas the

family farmer can enjoy a balanced and a fuller life than do the majority

of persons in other walks of life. His skills are varied. He is an artisan and

a craftsman. He is a capitalist, at least in a small way; a

financier;

man-

ager; producer and seller. He knows the soil, cultivates the

field,

harvests

the crops. He studies the market and decides when to buy and when to

sell. Few occupations require such a combination of knowledge, skill and

experience as does that of the farmer.

No person better than the farmer understands life. Every day he deals

with it in the attention which he gives to plants and animals. He watches

the plants grow, blossom and bear fruit. Nature teems with life all about

him. He is not compelled to labor with lifeless, soul-deadening machines

as does the factory worker. He deals not only with plant life but

he

like-

wise studies the actions of the insects, the birds and numerous other ani-

mals.

As he performs his daily work he becomes appreciative of organic

power and senses the sacredness of all forms of life. He becomes the

cus-

todian of nature's riches which a gracious Lord has entrusted to men

on

earth.

He soon realizes that there is more to living than the acquisition

of

wealth. Once the farmer is convinced of this he labors to enrich his own

life and that of his family as well as the lives of his fellowmen with those

precious things which are to be found in the vast and inexhaustible store-

house of nature and which God has created for man's use and enjoyment.

Disappointment, dissatisfaction and discontent can be greatly mini-

mized for those who learn to appreciate a real mode of life and who labor

to fulfill the real purpose of their existence. Those who fail to value the

real purpose of life will seek nothing other than financial gain. The finer

things will be lost to them.

There are values which come to the farmer in his life on the land, values

which money cannot purchase, which cannot be measured by dollars and

ANTHONY

LACHOWSKY,-C.S.S|I.

National Catholic Rural Life Conference,

Des Moines, Iowa