THE FARMER'S WAR AGAINST MONOPOLIES. 451 



Visiting is rare, and as a rule is not encouraged. 

 Strange to say, the farmer does not value social inter- 

 course, and yet no one needs it more. He lives a lonely 

 and secluded life, rarely caring to go beyond the limits 

 of his farm, except to visit the village or the country 

 store on business. Occasionally a circus, or some 

 travelling show, or some political meeting would draw 

 the farmers out of their seclusion, but with this excep- 

 tion, the monotony was unbroken. No wonder, then, 

 that with constant toil and unbroken solitude as his 

 only companions, the farmer should be a careworn, pre- 

 maturely old man. No human being can exist without 

 a certain amount of recreation and change. If these 

 be denied, the whole mental and moral nature must 

 suffer. The indifference of the farmer to social pleas- 

 ures and relaxations was, perhaps, the worst feature 

 of the case. 



Now, if this was the condition of the farmers, what 

 shall we say of their wives and daughters ? Women 

 are much more dependent upon society than men. 

 Monotony affects them quicker and more powerfully, 

 and they need relaxation and amusement to a greater 

 degree than men. Yet how inexpressibly dreary is the 

 lot of the farmer's wife and daughter. Theirs is a life 

 of constant toil the same routine day after day, week 

 after week with scarcely a break in it. A funeral or 

 a wedding, or a county fair, are great events in their 

 existence, as they bring them together with their 

 neighbors and afford them some little society. But as 

 i rule the loneliness of their lives is unbroken. They 

 are confined to the limits of the farm, and there they 

 must remain. 



"Who that has attended a country fair has failed to 



