In these various ways the fruits of modern inventive skill and enterprise have enriched country life and have banished forever the extreme isolation which used to vex the farm household of the past. The farm now is conveniently near the market. The town churches and stores and schools are near enough to the farms. The world's daily messages are brought to the farmer's fireside. And the voice of the nearest neighbor may be heard in the room, though she may live a mile away. _The Social Value of the Telephone_ Among these modern blessings in the country home, one of the most significant is the telephone. A business necessity in the city, it is a great social asset in the rural home, like an additional member of the family circle. It used to be said, though often questioned, that farmers' wives on western farms furnished the largest quota of insane asylum inmates, because of the monotony and loneliness of their life. The tendency was especially noticeable in the case of Scandinavian immigrant women, accustomed in the old home to the farm hamlet with its community life. To-day the farmer's wife suffers no such isolation. To be sure the wizards of invention have not yet given us the _teleblepone_, by which the faces of distant friends can be made visible; but the telephone brings to us that wonderfully personal element, the human voice, the best possible substitute for the personal presence. Socially, the telephone is a priceless boon to the country home, especially for the women, who have been most affected by isolation in the past. They can now lighten the lonely hours by a chat with neighbors over household matters, or even have a neighborhood council, with five on the line, to settle some question of village scandal! All sorts of community doings are speedily passed from ear to ear. Details of social plans for church or grange are conveniently arranged by wire. Symptoms are described by an anxious mother to a resourceful grandmother and a remedy prescribed which will cure the baby before the horse could even be harnessed. Or at any hour of the day or night the doctor in the village can be quickly summoned and a critical hour saved, which means the saving of precious life. On some country lines a general ring at six o'clock calls all who care to hear the daily market quotations; and at noon the weather report for the day is issued. If the weather is not right, the gang of men coming from the village can be intercepted by phone. Or if the quotations are not satisfactory, a distant city can be called on the wire and the day's shipment sent to the highest bidder--saving money, time, and miles of travel.