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Another circumstance conducive to the health and long life of the 

 farmer is the fact that, generally speaking, his food supply is more 

 liberal and more varied than that of persons following other occu- 

 pations, since he is the producer of the sustenance of the people, and 

 therefore of his own. A good and sufficient food supply is essential to 

 the well-being of every one. It is not only necessary that the supply 

 of food should be abundant but also that it should be well selected, 

 sufficiently variable in character and of good quality. And these con- 

 ditions are usually found to exist to a greater degree in the house of the 

 farmer than elsewhei-e. 



Again, the inherent character of the occupation makes it a promotor 

 of health and longevity. The succession of crops, depending as they do 

 upon the regularly recurring seasons of the year, occurs with harmo- 

 nious regularity. If there is anything poetic, anything uplifting, any- 

 thing tranquillizing in nature, who is the first and the most likely to 

 receive these inspiring impressions if not the agriculturist? The rush, 

 the hurry, the anxiety, the worry of the business man, the financier, the 

 politician, the soul and body destroying conditions which surround the 

 devotee of fashion, do not affect him. Undoubtedly he has his trials 

 and perplexities, but, all combined, they cannot counterbalance or offset 

 the o-eneral good influence of his occupation. 



The average life of the lawyer, the physician, the mechanic, the 

 soldier, the laborer, is in either case shorter than that of the farmer. 

 So far as the medical profession is concerned there is the constant and 

 wearing influence of the sight of human beings suffering with pain and 

 sickness, of witnessing death-bed scenes, of broken rest at night and of 

 direct exposure to infectious diseases. I have often been asked the 

 question " Why do not doctors take or contract contagious diseases P " I 

 answer that the assumption is entirely wrong at the outset. Physicians 

 do take infectious diseases, and die with them in a greater ratio than 

 the general population, and the same is true of nurses, hospital attend- 

 ants and all others whose duty it is to wait upon the sick. 



Country life in general is more healthful than city life. The death- 

 rate of the country is almost always less than that of the city. It is the 

 constant stream of humanity that is always flowing from the country 

 toward the city that keeps the city alive. The vigorous health of those 

 who dwell upon the farms is in strong contrast to the weaklings who 

 are produced by thousands amidst the densely crowded quarters of our 

 large cities. 



It was the Germans, the Goths and the Vandals, fresh from the fields 

 and farms of northern and middle Europe, that finally prevailed over 

 the Roman people, who had become enervated by the licentiousness, the 

 excesses and debasing habits of city life. John Burroughs says, in con- 

 trasting the farmer and the dweller in cities, " A nation always begins 

 to rot first in its great cities, is, indeed, always rotting there, and is 

 saved only by the antiseptic virtues of fresh supplies of country blood," 

 and again he says, " The farmer has the most sane and natural occupa- 

 tion, and ought to find life sweeter, if less highly seasoned, than any 

 other. He alone, strictly speaking, has a home. How can a man take 



