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.  From the prairie farmer I get the latest and most reliable information of the great central ruling markets of the West Chicago, which has saved me sundry times from three to five cents per bushel on wheat, sometimes paying the price of the paper twenty times over in one transaction.  From the C.G.  I get the Eastern markets, while Colman gives the St. Louis; and by a close study of the three a farmer can always make enough to pay for twenty or thirty dollars worth of good current literature for the use of his family.  Then the F. and S. is always full of delightful reading for the boys, refining their cruel propensities, and teaching them to be kind to the feathered tribe which are the farmer’s friends.  By reading it they soon lay aside their traps, nets, and snares, with which they capture whole covies of the dear little Bob-whites, and disdain to touch a feather, only when on the wing, and then with their light, hammerless breach loader.  Such reading as that ties the farmer’s boys to country life, and makes them contented under the parental roof-tree until they are ready to build up homes of their own.  The Journal tells them all about tile making and drainage, a very necessary accomplishment when they get their own homestead.

The pictures in H.W. furnish a fountain of amusement for the little folks, and teach them—­with a little help—­many things that will be useful to them in life.  As a matter of course the “Bezar” is for mother and the girls, and [***] consultations [***] before the fair, a [***] daughters, your [***] good when she insisted [***] be put on the list.

A boy or a girl with [***] the Century in their hands, [***] room, with a bright clear lamp [***] has no thought of city life, or [***] In those bright pages the [***] outer world painted in all its various [***] so interesting and so fascinating [***] have no desire to see it in reality; in [***] they bring the brightest and best thought, [***] historic, and romantic to our hearth and home; furnishing food for the youthful minds, leaving no room for evil or discontented thoughts to enter.  Then I say to every farmer who has children, get the magazines for them, they will save you a mountain of trouble.