THE TEACHINGS OF TRAVEL 191 



improved farmers is just as foolish as the talk 

 about the small-town girl going wrong in the big 

 city. Nine times out of ten the "going wrong" 

 took place in the small town before she ever saw 

 the bright lights. If I had a young daughter, I 

 would much rather see her grow up in the big city 

 than in a small burg. If you are a city fellow 

 with a growing daughter and want her to lose her 

 virtue quickly, let her visit some small burg a 

 few months with no more chaperoning than a 

 country girl gets in a big city ; if she succeeds in 

 going straight for more than two weeks after 

 she gets there, it will be because she has been 

 quarantined for small-pox or something of that 

 sort. I am merely stating a bold truth. Although 

 I was raised in the city I have lived off the 

 farmer, in small towns, for the last fifteen years 

 and I am anything but prejudiced against the 

 farmer. 



Among the lessons we learned of a purely vet- 

 erinary nature, one sticks out most prominently, 

 and that is that most practitioners work too 

 cheaply; they don't get enough money for what 

 they do. 



Another lesson we learned is that a large, 

 unopposed field for practice usually means a 

 poor field. For this reason so many locations 

 seem to be vacant in the west ; they will not sup- 

 port a veterinarian. In this we are reminded of 

 a remark an old practitioner was in the habit of 

 quoting: "Where you see the greatest number 

 of bees, you will find the most honey" — an argu- 

 ment he used against such locations. 



There are in the west numberless towns of 

 from two thousand to four thousand population 



