1859. 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



127 



temperance and cheerfulness, than to strengthen 

 the muscles by labor or gymnastics. 



A certain amount of physical delicacy in a wo- 

 man is pleasing to the other sex, especially to 

 those who are educated and refined. Hence, in 

 proportion as farmers are intellectually informed, 

 will ihey demand in their wives an amount of 

 delicacy of person, which may be incompatible 

 ■with their abilty to perform the laborious tasks 

 which have usually devolved upon the mistress 

 of a working-man's family. This is a matter for 

 serious consideration. If our farmers' wives 

 were to become, on the average, as feeble as those 

 individuals of the sex who have never been ac- 

 customed to any kind of labor, we should be ex- 

 posed to national degeneracy. Yet it cannot be 

 denied that the direct tendency of improving the 

 social condit'on of any class is to diminish their 

 physical power, though they may be improved 

 in health and symmetrical development. It is 

 important, therefore, to determine whether the 

 amount of general health may not be increased, 

 by certain improvements in our social habits, so 

 as to compensate for this infirmity in animal 

 strength. I 



We are disposed to look upon the subject with 

 favorable hopes, when we consider that as society 

 relinquishes the laborious habits which were ne- 

 cessary at an earlier period, it adopts the more 

 prudent and healthful customs of a better civili- j 

 zation. For centuries past the grand causes of 

 disease have been excessive hardship and imper- 

 fect sustenance among the lower classes, causing 

 the destruction of the individual ; and indolence 

 and luxury among the higher classes, causing a 

 degeneracy of the race. Intemperate drinking, 

 at the same time, has prevailed among all class- 

 es, and produced more disease than all other 

 causes. As civilization advances, these sources 

 of disease are diminished, because the most of 

 our vices, especially that of drunkenness, origi- 1 

 nated in the customs of a barbarous age, and are 

 lessened as we improve in knowledge. At the 

 present time, intemperance is most prevalent 

 among the rude and ignorant, notwithstanding 

 the fact that the higher classes are not entirely 

 free from it. The tendency of a higher civiliza- \ 

 tion, therefore, is to ameliorate disease, no less| 

 than to improve the muscular strength. As the 

 refinements of life are multiplied, the injurious 

 vices are diminished, and man improves in health, 

 in symmetry of development, in intellectual pow- 

 er, and as the best statistical tables show, in Ion-; 

 gevity, while he degenerates from the hardy vigor 

 of his ancestors. 



We speak of these matters in this connection, 

 because women are more liable than men, to suf-J 

 fer from the want of those exercises that strength- i 

 en and invigorate the frame. If the sex, how-' 

 ever, are led to the adoption of habits, by which 

 they avoid the causes of disease; if they strength- j 

 en the vital organs by exercises which are yet in- 

 sufficient to produce great muscular power, we 

 need not be fearful of the general consequences. 

 The farmer, with the aid of improved agricultu- 

 ral machinery, is not obliged to toil so severely 

 as his more hardy predecessors, to obtain an 

 equal amount of profit. The female members of 

 the farmer's house enjoy similar advantages, com- 

 pared with those of earlier times ; and with less 

 animal power, are able to accomplish superior re- 



sults. While we would carefully guard every 

 class of the community, especially the rural class, 

 from all eff'eminating habits, we are willing to 

 admit that there is no danger of real degeneracy, 

 while the general health of a class is improving ; 

 especially, if there be a gradual gain of intellec- 

 tual power and longevity. 



Volumes of cant have been written and spoken 

 on almost every suliject, and cant has been freely 

 used in discussing up in female education. Too 

 much praise has been bestowed upon mere "smart 

 women," as if women were horses, and were to 

 be esteemed in proportion as they are able to 

 perform an extraordinary amount of brute labor. 

 A young farmer who marries one of these smart 

 women, is regarded as peculiarly fortunate, be- 

 cause he is thereby saved the expense of some 

 hired help. Her intellect is not taken into the 

 account. We might, with equal reason, congrat- 

 ulate the wife of a man who can perform the la- 

 bor of an ox, because the family is thereby saved 

 the expense of an additional farm-laborer, though 

 all his neighbors, by expending more intellect on 

 their farms, are more thrifty than he. We can- 

 not set too high a value on capacity for labor, 

 when it is united with intellect ; but we do not 

 always consider that unintelligent labor cannot 

 avail much, except in a menial or subordinate 

 situation. 



In reviewing the housekeeping qualifications 

 of our female acquaintances, several instances 

 will probably occur to almost every one's recol- 

 lection, of women of feeble frame, who have per- 

 formed the duties of a farmer's household with 

 admirable success. She who perfectly under- 

 stands the way in which every thing ought to be 

 done, can always find hands for the work. There 

 is light work enough in the house to keep one's 

 feeble hands always diligently employed, while 

 the head is directing the tasks of others. 



Our aim in making these remarks is not to 

 discourage any rational attempts to preserve that 

 hardy vigor, which, if not absolutely essential to 

 health, is still a great blessing to either sex. But 

 we would discourage that vulgar contempt for 

 the refinements of life, which we observe in many 

 places, and the notion that if a young woman is 

 well-educated and refined in her taste, she can- 

 not be fit for a farmer's wife. It is true, that 

 such a woman would demand more intellect than 

 one with less culture would require in a husband; 

 and this very circumstance is calculated to ele- 

 vate the farmer's occupation, by imposing upon 

 those who follow it the necessity of more intel- 

 lectual culture, to be acceptable to the fair sex. 

 Such a woman would also demand more educa- 

 tion for her children, and thus in a great variety 

 of ways would her influence tend to advance the 

 respectability of farming and of farmers. The 

 refinements of life are too commonly classed in 

 the same category with the vanities of fashion ; 

 but there is this remarkable difference between 

 them, that while fashion is idolized by all the vul- 

 gar, the refinements of life are found only in fam- 

 ilies of superior cultivation. 



Let our farmers' daughters, therefore, be well- 

 educated, to save them from the love of vulgar 

 amusements and extravagance, from bigotry and 

 frivolity, and to make them effectual aids in ad- 

 vancing the interests of agriculture, by their in- 

 fluence over the other sex. Let us endeavor to 



