One woman in giving reasons why she preferred the city said she would "rather have folks than stumps!" Truly. Very few farms, however, consist solely of what is represented by the expressive word "stumps"; and as for "folks," it is possible to have in city life a plethora of social contact so that leisure for thought, reading and study, or for any form of self-development, is unknown. Besides there are "folks" and "folks"; and a neighborhood full of cousins and friends is an unsurpassed shelter for the favorable growth of the young human being. But ah! there is the very point. A neighborhood! If every Country Girl had a neighborhood to grow up in, a group of homes about her to afford her companionship, she could ask nothing better. But there are many girls living on remote and lonely farms far away from any neighborly environment; to such as these the isolation is a very real sorrow. It falls as heavily upon the farmer's daughter as it does upon the farmer's wife--even more heavily if possible, for she is generally led to realize her need at a time when her social instincts are most insistent. To make for the young woman in the farm home a life so interesting, so fascinating, so full of purpose and of the possibilities of self-expression, that the loss of "folks" will to some extent be made up to her, and to give to her as much companionship as possible and the effects of companionship through all known means that can be devised, should be the object of an earnest and widespread effort. A visit made to a country girl who lived at a farm that was on a steep hillside in a lonely part of the world far from any town or village, left a very deep impression. I was riding through that region with a cousin on my way to the railroad twenty miles off. "In that house," she said, pointing to a dilapidated farmhouse nearly smothered in greenery and totally unkempt in appearance, "lives a relative of ours, a second cousin. We must stop and see her." "Oh, no," I cried out, for I was then young and selfish; "don't let me have to see any more relatives to-day." "Yes, we must stop," said my firm cousin. "She is a good girl and will remember it always if you stop, and will be bitterly disappointed if you do not." We drew up; a figure promptly appeared on the rickety porch and came down between the tall grasses that almost obliterated the path to the torn gate. "How old is she?" I whispered. "About twenty-eight; yes, twenty-nine next December." "She looks forty," I said. "You must remember she has had a hard time on this farm--it's no good, the farm, and she and her father live here alone now."