Selecting the Farm 51 



barefoot through the dewy grass in chase of 

 health is more likely to find it than by going bare- 

 foot down Wall Street. The air of the fruit-farm 

 has more ozone than the air of the office or the 

 factory. So the conceit follows that health may 

 be had simply by standing in the open on the farm, 

 gazing at the scenery, and retaining your breath 

 while you count seventeen. All this is a delicate 

 compliment, possibly a tribute, to Nature, though 

 rendered by a dress-suit. Were earth and air the 

 sole elements of longevity, country people should 

 die young as centenarians and many who knew 

 Washington should still be among us. Indeed, 

 some wide-eyed peasant should yet linger who 

 could tell us whether Caesar fell in the Capitol or 

 at the base of Pompey's pillar, and some domestic 

 of Elsinore could give us back-stair information 

 whether Hamlet was really mad. 



The fountain of perpetual age does not bubble 

 up even on the best fruit-farm in the Valley, and 

 I have seen but two and known but one cente- 

 narian there. My neighbor, at seventy-five, is 

 renewing his youth by returning, after fifty years' 

 absence, to the old homestead, and is converting 

 it into a fruit-farm. Yesterday, said he to me: 

 *'If I had only known what I was to miss in life, 

 I would never have left the Valley; there is more 

 pleasure and satisfaction in raising fruit than in 

 any other occupation in the world. The trouble 

 is, we do not find it out until we are old." He had 

 spent his life in electrical engineering in many 



