72 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



est in the newspapers that he can surely cure us ! But when 

 the case is before us whether we can maintain our health 

 equilibrium, whether we can keep ourselves well now, as we 

 always have done ; when we are told of some new idea about 

 our own health or that of our neighbors, — an idea that is at 

 variance with our own experience, and that, possibly, of our 

 fathers and mothers also ; then it is often the case that we 

 think we know well enough ourselves, and are not to be led 

 astray by ideas because they are new, or by any visionary 

 scientists who make ever so nice theories, but who have not 

 had the experience of ourselves. For example, when any- 

 body tells a Massachusetts farmer that his well-water is not 

 pure, is unhealthy, will he not quote the history of that farm 

 and its possessors perhaps back to 1776, and tell how healthy 

 its occupants have always been ? Or when the good wife is 

 urged to put more flannels upon youth, children, and even 

 adults, does she not sometimes say that our grandmother and 

 grandfather lived to be ninety years old perhaps, and yet 

 never wore undervests or drawers ? And perhaps she quotes 

 the Indians too. And will not many men (though these are 

 not generally farmers) when reasoned with about the use 

 of alcohol and tobacco (especially when they love the stuff) 

 at once quote the octogenarians who have "taken some- 

 thing " for forty or more years, and smoked or chewed long- 

 er, as an unanswerable argument why they may drink and 

 smoke? 



Oh the force of habit is so strong ! and the force of those 

 habits which give us transient ease and present comfort and 

 pleasure ! 'Tis so much easier to snug down in the warm 

 lap of luxury, ease, sensuous present pleasure than to brace 

 up to strong and vigorous work, to resist the power that 

 lulls us to sleep, or which says, Don't work so hard, or, Enjoy 

 life as you go along ! 



The population of Massachusetts is 1,651,910 souls, as de- 

 termined by the census of 1875. Of these, 70,945, or about 

 one in twenty-three (1: 23), are engaged in the occupation of 

 agriculture. And the consideration of our subject requires 

 us to ask what is the health of this portion of the commu- 

 nity.* 



It is not possible, however, to make as accurate returns of 

 the health of a community as it is to know, for instance, the 



