480 State Board of Agricultdbe, &c. 



VARIETY IN THE FARMER'S CULTURE. 



BY HP:V. JAMES K. BABBITT, OF WAITSFIELD. 



Dr. Edward Hitchcock, in an address before the 

 Hampshire Agricultural Society, last fall, said : " "While 

 13.12 per cent, of the whole population of the State 

 (Massachusetts) are farmers, 10.39 per cent, of the 

 inmates of our insane hospitals are from the same 

 class of people ; and, almost always, under the head 

 of occupation, in the insane hospitals in this country 

 and Europe, we find the farmer and laborer (always) rank 

 among the first in numbers. " 



He then starts the natural inquiry : " Why is this occu- 

 pation, by eight per cent, the healthiest of all occupations 

 and trades, the one to furnish so large a proportion of the 

 insane ? " 



It is not because the work is so much harder than other 

 work, or the light, air and food poorer. Many factory 

 hands are worse conditioned in these respects. Nor is it 

 because of excessive poverty, as is evinced by the fact 

 that paupers do not come chiefly from the farming commu- 

 nity- The Doctor accounts for the evil thus : 



" The amount of insanity among farmers nftiy be directly 



