SOCIAL LIFE OF THE FARMER. 119 



have not been equally oblivious of the marvels of beauty in 

 the bills and valleys about them. It would certainly seem 

 so : for in some of the finest locations in the county I see the 

 barn, with its unsightly surroundings, placed, as of set pur- 

 pose, to cut off the prospect from the house ; and tlic in- 

 stances are quite exceptional of any marked attempt in the 

 direction of beauty, even on farms that have been in pos- 

 session of prosperous families for successive generations. It 

 is not what we should expect, judging in advance. We 

 should say that every farmer, living in such closeness of con- 

 tact with the natural world, would be something of a poet in 

 his appreciation of its beauties. But the general fact is 

 evidently the reverse. The typical farmer realizes in this 

 respect too exactly Wordsworth's picture of Peter Bell : — 



"A primrose by a river's brim 

 A yellow primrose ^Yas to him, 

 And it was nothing more." 



The grim spirit of utilitarianism has in great measure 

 crushed his sense of beauty ; and, whether it be his misfortune 

 or his fault, the result is the same in giving to farm life an 

 unattractive aspect. It makes the farm distasteful to the 

 young, and gives a strong impulse to the current of emigra- 

 tion that is constantly setting from the country to the city. 

 It has disastrous results on the farmer himself, drying up 

 the fountains of his enjoyment, and generating a spirit of 

 melancholy and absolute insanity. It is a significant fact 

 A\ith regard to our insane asylums, that, among the occupa- 

 tions furnishing the patients, farming stands at the head of 

 the list. The proportion of suicides among farmers is also 

 large. I trust they have got over the tendency now ; but I 

 remember that in my boyhood they had a disagreeable habit 

 of hanging themselves for fear of coming to want. And, 

 strange to say, it was always well-to-do farmers who Avere 

 disposed thus to shuffle off the coil of life by the use of a 

 coil of rope. What can be the cause of such strange facts as 

 these but the unsatisfactory nature of the farmer's intellect- 

 ual and social life? for mental monotony and barrenness 

 tend quite as strongly as mental excitement to unbalance 

 the mind. 



