258 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Jan. 



proveraent, go to those where your wife can accompany you. 

 The places which do not need her can well spare you, or 

 you can well spare them. 



There is a disease that sometimes breaks out in country 

 towns. It is known as " Western fever." Why go West? 

 Isn't an Eastern cottage miles ahead of a Western dugout? 

 What will you do when you get there, — raise crops for no 

 market ? Will you wait for that rise in the value of your 

 land, which may never come? Is it to wrestle with malaria? 

 Is it to count your neighbors and friends by ones instead of 

 by hundreds? Is it to get along without those priceless 

 privileges, thought all too lightly of here in New England, 

 because everybody enjoys them? Would you miss scenery, 

 good roads, society, churches, schools? It is to be hoped 

 so. Oh, wife, when you are called upon to decide between 

 New England comforts and Western possibilities, ask the 

 dear man whether he proposes to go West for his own bene- 

 fit, that of the neighborhood he leaves, or that of the country 

 to which he is going. 



Perhaps this may reach some who are so fortunate, or un- 

 fortunate, — for there are two ways of looking at it, — as to 

 live in a house where help is not hired. They may have 

 two handmaids, — Cheerfulness and Content. Cheerfulness 

 has been called the daughter of Employment. Given a farm 

 well stocked, well managed, plus a cheerful spirit on the part 

 of some one member of the family, — sometimes wife, some- 

 times daughter, — and it will far distance another not so 

 blessed. Everybody, from man to the animals, about the 

 place, will catch the glad contagion. We love a dog, Ney, 

 that, if he hears a merry laugh, if he be outside the room, 

 immediately demands admittance. He thinks he must have 

 his share of the fun, and he gets it. Charles Lamb used to 

 say that a laugh is worth a thousand groans, in any state of 

 the market. 



Sometimes the girl or woman on the farm sees nothing to 

 love in the life. She is dull to the beauty of her surround- 

 ings, and thinks she would gladly exchange her lot for a 

 place in village or city. Such a farmer's daughter, while 

 living on the farm, did not appreciate or enjoy her special 

 privileges and advantages. Since leaving the farm she has 



