FARMING AS AN OCCUPATION. 103 



why any one should fail to be well informed in regard to the 

 progress of events throughout the world. 



If want of time to read is urged, I say that there are spare 

 minutes enough in every week, if we will only save them, to 

 give a large amount of reading when taken in the aggregate. 



We will now consider some of the more common objections 

 to farming as an employment. They are : 



1. The hard toil required. 



2. The small amount of money obtained for the labor. 



3. The deprivation of social advantages enjoyed by the resi- 

 dents of cities. 



4. The small opportunity afforded for acquiring distinction 

 in any public capacity. 



The first objection is the hard labor required. We think this 

 is obviated in a great degree by it being nearly ail performed 

 in the open air, as it is generally admitted that one can perform 

 a greater amount of work without injury, whether it be mental 

 or manual, if he lives mostly out-doors. 



The facts sustain this idea, for while we continually hear of 

 men in all other pursuits having to give up business on ac- 

 count of failing health, it is almost never that we hear of a 

 farmer suffering from such a cause. Then, what other business 

 is there where, taking six days in the week, and fifty-two weeks 

 in the year, the labor is not more arduous and less satisfactory 

 than in farming ? 



I know that young farmers, as they work in the field, some- 

 times look with envy on the shoemakers, who finish their day's 

 work in the middle of the afternoon, and spend the remainder 

 of the day in base-ball or other sport. But if they watch these 

 same shoemakers through the year, they will see that there is 

 commonly a period of enforced idleness in the winter, that 

 must do much to absorb the abundant and easily-earned wages 

 of the summer ; then, if it were not for the name of sport, the 

 ball-playing would be harder than haying. 



The second point is, the small amount of money obtained for 

 the labor. To this the reply is, that money is valuable only 

 for what it will procure, and as I have stated that it is gen- 

 erally admitted that enough can be procured to secure a good 

 living, I shall now show some things for which the residents of 



